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Mr Speaker
Just to let Members know, it is the birthday of the Clerk of the House, who is 50 today. Happy birthday, Tom.
Oral Answers to Questions
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Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)
Jo Platt (Leigh and Atherton) (Lab/Co-op)
Dan Norris (North East Somerset and Hanham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lisa Nandy)
This Government are prioritising the growth of our creative industries, which are vital to our economy and showcase the best of creativity and culture. In the last few days alone, I have been pleased to announce £13.5 million of funding for two new clusters in Liverpool and the west midlands.
Samantha Niblett
I thank the Secretary of State for her answer, and I just want to expand on it. In South Derbyshire, we have the Melbourne festival of art and architecture, which turns 20 next September, and the brilliant CircularityHUB, where people of all abilities can go to use the media studio. However, when it comes to young people wanting careers in the creative industries, what more can this Government do so that we can thrive in these industries at home, not have to get out to get on.
Lisa Nandy
I am aware of the huge ambition that my hon. Friend has for South Derbyshire, and the contribution that its people can make to our arts and culture and creative industries. This Government are supporting those aspirations with a £3 million expansion of the creative careers programme, so that young people can find those jobs and get access to those opportunities. With the Education Secretary, we are reviewing the curriculum to put arts and music back at the heart of the national curriculum, where it belongs.
Jo Platt
Many individual artists in places such as Leigh and Atherton have great difficulty in accessing funding streams. In many cases, the trickle-down from larger institutions does not work and holds back creative growth. Can the Secretary of State outline how funding will reach grassroots artists, empowering them to thrive and play a central role in growing our local economy?
Lisa Nandy
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. She has done amazing work over the years with the Leigh Film Society and other thriving organisations that are leading the way. From the conversations she and I have had, I am well aware of the importance of grassroots societies and venues in places such as Leigh and Wigan, and we are determined to put rocket boosters under them. We are already working on supporting grassroots music venues and supporting voluntary action around a levy. In addition, we are helping to channel funding to those smaller organisations so that they can create the pipeline of talent that enables people from places such as Leigh to go on and make a national impact.
Dan Norris
“Vengeance Most Fowl” is not just what the public inflicted on the Conservative party at the general election. It is also the name of the Aardman Animations Wallace and Gromit film coming out soon, which will be shown on the BBC on Christmas day and on Netflix around the world. What are the Secretary of State and her wonderful team doing to promote animation not just across the west of England and in my constituency, but across the UK, so that it can get to even better and greater heights in the future?
Lisa Nandy
I thank my hon. Friend for his question, and I am very happy to be the Gromit to his Wallace. This Government have already announced new tax reliefs for British films and special effects, but we are determined to do more. I know that, as the Mayor, he has championed this issue across his region. We are working closely with Mayors and local councils to put rocket boosters under their local growth plans, so that whether it is animation, music, arts, sport or creativity, we ensure that every part of the country benefits from its success.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
Will the Culture Secretary welcome the news that, thanks to levelling-up funding, Malvern theatres in the west midlands will be expanding? Planning permission was granted last week, which will give lots of young people an opportunity to get jobs in the creative industries. When the new theatre has been built, will she come to open it and meet some of those young people?
Lisa Nandy
I would be delighted to do so. I thank the hon. Member for her support for theatres, arts and culture, and for always being a strong voice for them in this place. One reason that we have prioritised expanding the creative careers programme is that we are determined that as many parts of the country as possible play their full part in the growth success story that is our creative industries, and that young people in such communities get access to those opportunities and go on to have flourishing careers. I would be delighted to come and open the theatre when the work is finally done.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Bath is a city of music, but so many of the musicians in the city and across the UK face enormous bureaucratic barriers when they want to perform in the EU. Can the Secretary of State update me on what progress has been made on this issue?
Lisa Nandy
I thank the hon. Lady for raising that incredibly important issue. We have heard the message loud and clear from the music industry that the deal that was struck on touring is having a difficult effect on many artists from the UK. We are also aware that that works both ways, and we need a much improved agreement with our friends in the European Union to ensure that their artists can come and perform here and our artists can freely go and perform there. My right hon. Friend the Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office is currently undertaking those negotiations, and we are determined to resolve the issue.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State for her enthusiastic response to the questions. In my constituency, and for Ards and North Down borough council, the creative industries are really important, whether that be arts, metal sculptures or music, and Ulster Scots runs through the veins of all that. May I invite the Secretary of State to come to Northern Ireland and my constituency of Strangford to observe and enjoy all that we have? She will never see anything else like it.
Lisa Nandy
I thank the hon. Gentleman and I am very aware of the enormous contribution that the whole of Northern Ireland makes to our creative industries. I confess that my favourite TV show in the world is “Derry Girls”, so if he can arrange for the Derry Girls to be present, I would be delighted to visit.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
Small music venues such as the Frog & Fiddle in Cheltenham are part of the lifeblood of the creative industries, but the Music Venue Trust has warned that after years of economic pressures and the recent Budget, more than 350 venues are on the brink of closure. How are the Government supporting small music venues, and what steps will they take if the voluntary levy on arena and stadium tickets is not agreed by the large venues whose participation is vital?
Lisa Nandy
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question. My constituency of Wigan is home to The Verve, and it is difficult to know where such a band would now cut their teeth in the industry, because many of the live music venues that they played in as an up-and-coming band have disappeared. I very much recognise the problem that he raises. He will know that this Government have supported the voluntary levy that the industry has backed, but if that levy is not implemented we will be forced to take action. My hon. Friend the Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism will be writing to the industry in those terms this week.
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)
Tourism is vital to our coastal towns, and if we are to reach our target of 50 million international visitors to the UK by 2030, we will need to do far better at improving tourism numbers in our coastal towns.
Luke Myer
The coastal village of Skinningrove is home to a fantastic tourist asset, Land of Iron, which is the leading ironstone mining museum in the country. I am campaigning for it to receive national status as the national ironstone mining museum. Will Ministers consider meeting me to discuss that request, and would they like to visit?
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend challenges me a bit. The Rhondda has the best mining museum in the UK, but I am prepared to concede that in England he might be right. But there is an important point: our mining heritage is part of understanding the country that we have been, and the country that we can be in future. I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend. Arts Council England has a specific way of giving a national name to museums, and that is one thing that he might want to apply to it for.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Tourism and hospitality contributes more than £500 million and a fifth of all jobs in North West Norfolk. Why are the Government hitting those businesses with higher business rates and a jobs tax?
Chris Bryant
It would be good, would it not, to have an NHS that works in this country. It would be good to have an economy that works, trains that run on time, and a country that functions so that when tourists come here they have a good experience, rather than sitting on a platform waiting for a train that never turns up on time. I am determined to ensure that we get to 50 million visitors to the United Kingdom. Last year, we had just 38 million visitors. If we are to secure that increase we must have a country that welcomes tourists to every part of the country, not just London and the south-east.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)
The Budget has created a perfect storm for hospitality and tourism businesses across the country. UKHospitality is sounding the alarm, saying that the Budget is a “blow” for the tourism and hospitality sectors. According to the Minister’s impact assessment, how many jobs will be created as a result of lowering the national insurance threshold, and how many businesses will close, as we suspect they will? What does his impact assessment tell him will be the impact on ethnic minority communities, women, and those with disabilities for whom the tourism and hospitality sector is a huge employer? Will he tell the House whether he even has an impact assessment for one of the most damaging and regressive taxes that we will ever see?
Mr Speaker
With that list of questions, I think the shadow Minister needs a debate.
Chris Bryant
The irony is, we have already had two debates on these issues in the last fortnight—thanks to you, Mr Speaker.
First, I welcome the hon. Member to his place and his new responsibilities. I look forward to working with him.
The truth of the matter is that the tourism industry has really struggled over the last few years, partly because of Brexit and partly because of covid. Under the last few years of the Conservative Government, it did not get back to its pre-covid level of 41 million visitors to the UK—it is now at 38 million. As I said, I want us to get to 50 million by 2030. The only way we are going to do that is if we significantly improve the offer at every stage of the experience of visitors coming to the United Kingdom.
Yes, there are undoubtedly challenges for the hospitality industry—I said this in a speech yesterday afternoon—but the thing that really worries me is that historically we in this country have seen a job in the industry as something that someone has to do when they have not got another job. I want to change that so that it is a career to be proud of; something respectable that someone might do for their whole life.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)
As set out in a written ministerial statement yesterday, the Government will introduce a statutory levy on gambling operators, which was a commitment made as part of the gambling White Paper in 2023. Society lotteries will be charged the levy at the lowest rate of 0.1%. I know that they are a vital fundraising tool for many charities, community groups and sports clubs up and down the country.
Wendy Morton
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. The Minister clearly recognises, as we all do, the contribution that society lotteries make to our constituencies through various organisations. Does she recognise that not-for-profit society lotteries will have to fund any levy due from their charitable return, which the sector, and I think many of us, feel amounts to a charity tax?
Stephanie Peacock
My understanding was that the levy came after the money had gone to good causes, but I am not the Gambling Minister, who sits in the other place. I will happily arrange a meeting for the right hon. Member with the Gambling Minister.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)
The Government are committing to ensure that the community wealth fund delivers meaningful benefits across England. That is why we have allocated £87.5 million of dormant assets funding towards it. We will set out our position on the key design principles of the community wealth fund shortly.
Sonia Kumar
Given that Russells Hall in Dudley ranks on the local index in the top 2% of areas with the greatest need and that nearly half of working-age residents rely on benefits, will the Minister confirm what steps the Government will be taking to target places like mine that are doubly disadvantaged?
Stephanie Peacock
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I know Dudley well, and I know that she is a strong advocate for the area she represents. I reassure her that the Government are committed to supporting those places in need through the community wealth fund. We are working at pace on the details and delivery of the fund and will set out the next steps in due course.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lisa Nandy)
I know that the hon. Gentleman is a huge champion for horseracing, and the Government are well aware of the value of horseracing to the UK, which supports 85,000 jobs, has an annual economic contribution to the economy of £4.1 billion and is the second-best attended sport in Britain.
Nick Timothy
Mr Speaker, I am not sure if it is in order to raise the travesty of the refereeing decision last night in the Aston Villa-Juventus match, but I thought I would give it a try.
The Secretary of State has been warm about the horseracing industry, and I am grateful for that; it is a vital part of the economy in West Suffolk and nationwide. I have previously raised with her and her ministerial team the need to reform the betting levy and affordability checks. I would be grateful for an update on the timeline for any action on that.
Lisa Nandy
We believe that the horseracing betting levy is vital for the financial sustainability of the sport and its thousands of fans. I can update him that the Minister for Gambling recently met representatives from horseracing and betting to encourage a voluntary deal that fairly reflects the relationship between racing and betting. We expect an update from the British Horseracing Authority and the Betting and Gaming Council on progress by the end of the year.
Mr Speaker
Let’s hope that the shadow Minister will not fall at the first hurdle.
Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker.
The horseracing industry has been left in the dark by this Government, following the Chancellor’s disastrous Budget. The Office for Budget Responsibility warned that the national insurance rise would cost, on average, £800 per employee. With 20,000 employed across the country, the Government’s jobs tax could cost the horseracing industry £16 million and the gambling sector up to £100 million, even before the new levies. Will the Secretary of State tell the House whether her Department has made any assessment of the impact of the increase in national insurance contributions on the industry? How many jobs will be lost? How many training yards and courses will close? How many of the 500 independent bookies will shut?
Lisa Nandy
Let me gently say to the hon. Gentleman—who I welcome to his place—that he is well aware that in the decisions that we took in the recent Budget we protected the smallest businesses. More than half of businesses will pay either less or the same as they currently do. We will take no lectures from the Opposition about how to run the economy, after 14 years, given the mess that they left this country in. It really does take some brass neck to stand at that Dispatch Box and attack the Government.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Ind)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)
Grassroots sports make a huge contribution to communities up and down the country, providing sport and physical activity opportunities, and a chance to socialise and learn new skills while supporting people’s health and wellbeing. The Government are supporting people to get active through our £123 million multi-sport grassroots facilities programme.
Imran Hussain
Grassroots boxing gyms, like many grassroots sports, offer their local communities unparalleled benefits. They are community hubs, they build skills and confidence and become safe spaces for young people to grow their talent. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on boxing, I was delighted to launch two reports earlier this year that highlighted its huge social benefits. Unfortunately, these gyms remain very unfunded and rely almost entirely on the goodwill of volunteers. Will the Minister meet me and the all-party parliamentary group to discuss including dedicated grassroots funding in the sports strategy?
Stephanie Peacock
I know the hon. Gentleman is a huge advocate for boxing, and I was pleased to speak with him about it a few weeks ago. I have seen at first hand the impact that boxing can have. England Boxing was given £6.8 million by Sport England in 2022. I would be delighted to meet him to discuss the issue further.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
The Minister knows that grassroots sports provide enormous health, economic, welfare and community benefits. That is why today, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee is launching an inquiry that we are calling “Game On” into community, grassroots and school sports, and the interventions needed to improve them. What conversations is the Minister having with her counterpart in the Department for Education about how to work collaboratively to build a lifelong love and passion for sport, given the benefits for young people’s health and wellbeing?
Stephanie Peacock
I am incredibly grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for that important question. We work closely with the Department for Education; I chaired a roundtable with the Schools Minister on grass- roots sport and how to get sport into schools. I also convened a meeting on women’s sport, where representatives from the Department for Education were present. I would be delighted to discuss it further, and I know the Secretary of State would, too.
Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lisa Nandy)
The Government are co-producing a new national youth strategy with young people to grip the challenges of the generation. When I entered the Department I was shocked to find no single youth strategy. The last Government funded a lot of good youth work, but I think we can all agree that the challenges facing this generation are immense, and we need to do far more to support them.
Natasha Irons
On Tuesday, I chaired the all-party parliamentary group on youth affairs, where we discussed this Government’s plans for a national youth strategy with more than 80 young people and organisations from across the sector, including grassroots organisations such as Reaching Higher from my constituency, which supports young people and families across Croydon. The national plan for young people is urgent, but the 73% cut to funding for youth services under the previous Government has resulted in 4,500 youth workers leaving the sector over the past decade, according to the National Youth Agency. Can the Secretary of State outline how her national youth strategy will support youth workers and attract more people back to that vital work?
Lisa Nandy
The youth strategy is an opportunity to look afresh at the training, recruitment and retention of youth workers. My hon. Friend will know that my first job before I came to this place was at the youth homelessness charity Centrepoint. I am aware of the vital work of youth workers—they are a lifeline for young people, and those relationships matter disproportionately to whether a young person succeeds or fails. My Department works with the National Youth Agency to fund training bursaries for individuals who may otherwise be excluded due to cost. We are aware that some of the people who make the best youth workers have had those experiences. We are very committed to working with her and her all-party parliamentary group to ensure that we get this right.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
Young Devon provides essential services for young people across Devon, including supported accommodation and mental health provision. When I met Young Devon staff on Friday, they told me the increased employers’ national insurance contributions will cost the charity at least £90,000 just to stand still—that means 100 fewer young people counselled and eight fewer beds offered. What conversations has the right hon. Lady had with the Chancellor to ensure that charities such as Young Devon do not have to reduce their valuable services as a result of the Budget?
Lisa Nandy
It is lovely to hear about the work that Young Devon is doing, which the hon. Lady is supporting in her constituency. The Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), who has responsibility for civil society, has held a number of roundtables with the sector on this issue to ensure that we are providing the right help and support. The hon. Lady will know that in the Budget, the Government announced plans to raise the threshold at which businesses and charities pay contributions, so that half of charities—the smaller charities—will pay either less or the same as they currently do. Charities can also benefit from relief on employer contributions; that is worth around £6 billion a year. This Government are taking action to protect the sector, and when we launched the civil society covenant a few weeks ago, we made it clear that we want a genuine partnership with charities. They are welcome at the heart of Downing Street. That is why my hon. Friend the Minister for civil society will continue that work.
Jodie Gosling (Nuneaton) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)
As set out following the Euro 2024 final, the Government are committed to supporting grassroots football clubs and facilities. The Government are investing £123 million this year to deliver pitches for grassroots football across the UK. Alongside that, the Government are supporting the Football Association’s ambition to double the number of three-star community clubs across the country.
Jodie Gosling
I thank the Minister for her detailed answer, and for all the work the Government are doing to support grassroots football. We have many grassroots football clubs in my constituency, including Nuneaton Town and Nuneaton Griff, and we understand their importance and contribution to the town. Both clubs have struggled recently, especially in securing a ground; they have to share one with their competitors in Bedworth. While we appreciate their hospitality, we would like to meet Ministers to talk about how to bring football home to Nuneaton.
Stephanie Peacock
I recognise the huge contribution to communities made by grassroots clubs such as the ones my hon. Friend has mentioned; I have seen that at first hand in my constituency in Barnsley. I appreciate the number of challenges those clubs face, and I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the options available.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
Grassroots football is supported by medium and large community-based football clubs, such as AFC Fylde in my constituency, Chorley FC in your constituency, Mr Speaker, and Wigan Athletic in the Secretary of State’s constituency. Wigan sadly posted a £13 million loss for the last financial year. How does the Secretary of State think the club can make itself more financially resilient, given the significant impact that the need to pay national insurance contributions will have on their finances?
Stephanie Peacock
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. That is why we are continuing the work of the previous Government by introducing our own Football Governance Bill to hopefully put football on a sustainable footing.
Rosie Wrighting (Kettering) (Lab)
Kettering Town FC are currently the leading FA cup goal scorers, and are in the second round of the men’s FA cup on Sunday. Will the Minister join me in wishing the Poppies the very best of luck in that game? What steps is she taking to improve the financial resilience of local clubs such as Kettering Town FC?
Stephanie Peacock
I will of course put on record that I wish the team good luck and send them my huge thanks and congratulations. The work that we are doing to support grassroots football, through our multi-sport grassroots facilities programme, will hopefully grow the grassroots game.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
The Minister will be aware that there is a sub-regional stadia strategy in Northern Ireland. Will she have discussions with my colleague, the Minister for Communities in Northern Ireland, to see what assistance, information and additional resources can be deployed to ensure there is widespread development of grassroots football in Northern Ireland?
Stephanie Peacock
I have previously had discussions with my counterpart in Northern Ireland and I will be delighted to do so again. I am hoping to visit Northern Ireland in the coming months.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)
Historic England assesses applications for listing. I want that process to be as simple as possible for community groups up and down the land, so they can steer a balance between preserving what is truly valuable and leaving communities with decaying, listed eyesores.
Ben Goldsborough
In Long Stratton, there is a beloved former local authority building called South Norfolk House. It has won numerous awards for its innovative architecture and its ahead-of-its-time design focus on energy efficiency, but it has been refused listed status. This could be a fantastic community asset for the town; it could be an arts hub. Will the Minister meet me to discuss its future?
Chris Bryant
I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend. I always have to be a little bit careful about decisions that might end up coming to me, in case I have queered the pitch. I pay tribute to Councillor Race, who has spent a great deal of time on this matter. Many community groups up and down the land have tried to do precisely the same thing: bring a historical building back into community use. Obviously, we want to support that wherever possible, where it is sustainable in the long term.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Lisa Nandy)
My Department is firing on all cylinders. In the last few weeks, we have launched the national youth strategy; introduced the Football Governance Bill; appointed Baroness Shriti Videra to chair the Creative Industries Council; and launched two new creative clusters, in Birmingham and Liverpool. Also, yesterday I announced a levy to tackle harmful gambling.
Manuela Perteghella
Sports clubs in my constituency such as Shipston rugby club and Stratford sports club are doing fantastic work with young people, but for rural constituencies like Stratford-on-Avon, where sports play a vital role in youth engagement, the impact of extreme weather events means that many sports clubs consistently lose access to their facilities due to flooding throughout the year. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether the new youth strategy will consider the challenges posed by the climate on youth sports activities?
Lisa Nandy
The hon. Lady will know that for young people in particular, the climate crisis is an enormous priority. As she knows, we have announced that we are co-producing and creating the national youth strategy with young people. I would be amazed if the impact of climate change on the things that matter most to them is not an essential part of that strategy.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)
Copyright and the protection of artists’ moral and economic rights is an absolutely essential part of ensuring that they are properly remunerated for their creativity. We will do everything in our power to make sure that the copyright regime remains, is strong, and is strongly enforced.
Stuart Andrew (Daventry) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and a very happy birthday to the Clerk of the House.
As we have heard time and again today, and in the past few weeks, the Government’s jobs tax could cost £2.8 billion to the Department’s sectors—to the arts, sport, music, hospitality and tourism. Was the Secretary of State blindsided by the Budget, as the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs claims, or was she aware of that? Has she, as we have asked several times, done a sector-by-sector impact assessment? If not, why not? If so, will she publish it?
Lisa Nandy
I gently say to the right hon. Gentleman that unlike the previous Government, we do actually like one another and work together across Government, so I had a number of discussions about the Budget with my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in advance. She is very aware of the importance of creative industries, and of all our sectors, to the UK economy. That is why we have put them at the heart of our industrial strategy and our economic plan. We are working closely with the industries to make sure that they continue to thrive.
Stuart Andrew
So it sounds like the right hon. Lady did know, which is interesting, given that she cares about charities as much as I do. They face a £1.4 billion bill. When they needed help the most, we gave them £100 million. Her Government are now going to take 14 times that amount back from them. We heard yesterday that the Teenage Cancer Trust will have to find an extra £300,000, and Marie Curie reports having to find nearly £3 million. Where does the Secretary of State suggest that such organisations find the money to pay this charity tax, and who will fill the gaps if charities have to scale back on their work as a result of this Government’s decisions?
Lisa Nandy
Under the last Government, charities faced a perfect storm. Not only did they receive very little support from the Government—in fact, they were silenced and gagged, and were told by one charities Minister that they should be “sticking to their knitting”, which, in my view, was deeply offensive—but they had to deal with the rising pressures of the cost of living crisis, and the mess that the right hon. Gentleman’s party was making of running the country. Our Government are determined to take action on this, and we were elected on a pledge to do so. As I have told the right hon. Gentleman’s colleagues previously, we are protecting our charities, as was announced in the Budget, and I will take no lectures from the Conservatives on how to run this country.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
Lisa Nandy
You can see how eager we are, Mr Speaker. We are champing at the bit to support the creative industries. As my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) will know, we have announced a series of measures over the last few months to support these industries, including tax credits for independent film and special effects. We are broadening the curriculum to ensure that there is a pathway enabling young people to work in the creative industries, and we have held an international investment summit, to which the industries were central. We will be announcing more in due course.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Lisa Nandy
I thank my hon. Friend for raising an issue that is so important to fans throughout the country. The Government, including my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary, have acted decisively in announcing a consultation in order to consider how best to put fans back at the heart of ticketing, not whether to do it. We will say more about this imminently.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
Lisa Nandy
I know that this matter is of huge concern not just to the right hon. Gentleman but to the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), and to many other Members. As he knows, the Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism has responsibilities in both this Department and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and has taken a keen interest in the issue. We have read the report and are considering its recommendations, and I will shortly be in a position to update the right hon. Gentleman on the action that the Government intend to take.
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)
Lisa Nandy
Our Government are acutely aware that there are not enough facilities in communities in the UK to keep pace with demand. We know that these facilities are a visible symbol of whether we value our children and young people, whether we value those communities, and whether we stand with them. We are working with the Football Association and the Premier League to create new state-of-the-art facilities across the country to inspire the stars of the future, and I would be glad to discuss that further with my hon. Friend to ensure that it is of benefit to her.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
In Brighton Pavilion, we love our grassroots music venues, and we often need to make robust use of the “agent of change” principle to protect them when it comes to licensing and planning, but it is hard work to enforce that and ensure that it happens. Is the Minister having any discussions with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government about putting the “agent of change” principle on a statutory footing?
Chris Bryant
Those meetings have already taken place and will continue to take place. The hon. Lady makes a very good point. I have visited Brighton Pavilion many times, so I know that other music venues there can, I hope, come online in the near future. I know that the Secretary of State met Ed Sheeran last week—she has told me about it about 25 times—to discuss precisely that issue.
Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)
Lisa Nandy
I was very pleased to visit Blackpool recently to see the incredible work that Blackpool pleasure beach is doing. Coastal communities have an enormous role to play in our creative industries, and we are absolutely determined to do everything we can to support them. They have a very special place in the life of the nation; I think most people holidayed there as children. We hope that they continue to thrive, and I will be in a position to update the House soon.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
Mountbatten hospice, which serves my constituency and Hampshire more widely, receives 70% of its income through charitable donations. It has told me and my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) that its viability is under risk because of the national insurance contributions policy that this Government have brought forward. Can the Secretary of State outline what pressure she will put on the Treasury to make sure that the policy changes? The charitable sector is in real danger because of this Government’s decisions.
Lisa Nandy
My right hon. Friend the Health Secretary and I have already had a discussion about the situation facing hospices. He is acutely aware of it, and is working with the hospice movement in order to provide the best possible support.
Alan Strickland (Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating Newton Aycliffe youth football club on being runner-up in FA club of the year in Durham, and will she join me in congratulating all the parents, volunteers and young people involved in grassroots sports?
Lisa Nandy
I thank my hon. Friend for being such an outstanding champion of his community, and I extend my warmest congratulations to Newton Aycliffe. He is right to highlight the invaluable contribution that families make to the success of young people. They often pitch in as volunteers and coaches, and take children and young people to matches come rain or shine—I imagine that in his neck of the woods, like mine, it is more often rain than shine. I am really glad that they have such a good champion.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
The Minister with responsibility for sport graciously met me to discuss the future of London Irish in my Spelthorne constituency, and she undertook to ensure that the club would get the meeting with Sport England that it so desperately desired. Can the Minister give us an update?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)
I was grateful to the hon. Gentleman for coming to speak to me about this issue. I will speak to my officials and make sure that we approach Sport England very speedily.
Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)
I would like to highlight the richly deserved King’s award for voluntary service that has been given to the 60 volunteers at Newby and Scalby library in Scarborough. The library’s services are innovative, including a summer reading challenge for children, an IT buddy service and a garden growing produce. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating Newby and Scalby library on its award, and on the enormous contribution that it makes to our community in Scarborough?
Lisa Nandy
I am very happy to congratulate Newby and Scalby library. I thank my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the enormous work that libraries do in helping to promote children’s literacy in this country, which could not be more important.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Paulette Hamilton (Birmingham Erdington) (Lab)
The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Marsha De Cordova)
Churches nationwide provide chaplaincy and grief counselling services to hospices, patients and their families. Many modern hospices started off as Church-affiliated institutions thanks to the pioneering work of Dame Cicely Saunders. They are largely now affiliated to Hospice UK, which supports over 200 hospices across the UK, including the Royal Trinity hospice, near my constituency of Battersea. Only a third of adult hospices in the UK receive funding from the state. The rest rely on charitable support, and there is considerable concern that the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill may divert much-needed funds from frontline care.
Rachael Maskell
Hospices have charitable aims to provide palliative care at the end of life, but these could be compromised by the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which comes before the House tomorrow. What consultation and impact assessment of this measure has there been with hospices that have a faith foundation? I am hearing that some hospices need an exemption, or they might close.
Marsha De Cordova
I do not believe there has been consultation with any faith-connected organisations, and I do not believe that an impact assessment has been carried out. However, Hospice UK, the body to which most Church-associated hospices are affiliated, has surveyed providers, staff and practitioners, who have expressed concerns about the Bill’s implementation. They are concerned about the following: who will qualify; the impact on those working in hospices, palliative care and end of life care; the ability of providers and staff to opt out; the practical operation of a conscience clause; the financial impact on the future funding of hospices; and the lack of public awareness of end of life care and the available choices.
Paulette Hamilton
Can my hon. Friend confirm whether Church-owned hospices will work with independent hospices and other organisations to mitigate the potential impact of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, and to issue a statement from across the sector?
Marsha De Cordova
I thank my hon. Friend for her question on this incredibly important issue. I refer her to my previous answers, but it is also worth highlighting that, in recent years, the General Synod of the Church of England has twice voted by large majorities against changing the law on assisted suicide. The Association for Palliative Medicine and Hospice UK, to which most chaplains and Church-owned hospices are affiliated, remain opposed to any change in the law. The sector is particularly concerned about the funding challenges such a change would bring, as was highlighted in a Select Committee report. The report showed that funding for palliative care services fell by almost 5% in countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, where legalised assisted dying is in place, compared with a 25% increase in countries where it has not been legalised.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
Does the Church Commissioner agree that hospices are about comforting the dying and surrounding them with care? Is that not the very antithesis of the state involving itself in sanctioning and assisting suicide?
Marsha De Cordova
If we think back to the founder of hospice care, it was founded on the principles of faith and Jesus Christ. It is only right that those principles of care and compassion ring true in ensuring that hospice care is there for those who need it.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The very ethos of Church-owned hospices is the sanctity of life, on which the Bible is very clear. Church-owned hospices will reflect that in what they do. Does the Church Commissioner share my concern about the potential conflict that could arise between Church-owned hospices and this House following the outcome of tomorrow’s debate on the assisted dying Bill? Does she share my concern about the sanctity of life and agree with me about the importance of making sure that we keep people alive?
Marsha De Cordova
Hospices and palliative care play an important role in end of life care. I believe that we need to fund those services properly before we consider moving towards legislating for assisted dying.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Rosie Wrighting (Kettering) (Lab)
Marsha De Cordova
The national Church institutions have invested £11 million in the Buildings for Mission fund, which provides money for repairs, specialist advice and grants to parishes of up to £12,000 for small-scale urgent work. Buildings for Mission can also be used to pay for essential improvements to church missions and ministries, such disability access, toilets or even a community kitchen.
Bradley Thomas
My constituency is home to many historic churches that continue to be much loved by their communities. They include St John’s church in Bromsgrove, which dates from 12th century but was predominantly constructed in the 14th and 15th centuries. The church has had to raise many hundreds of thousands of pounds for the upkeep and maintenance of its spire. Key to that is the listed places of worship grant scheme. What conversations have taken place between the Government and the Church regarding the preservation of that scheme?
Marsha De Cordova
St John’s church in Bromsgrove is a perfect example because, having raised the funds, it is preparing to undertake urgent work to its spire, with an anticipated project cost of roughly £452,000, but it could reclaim around £90,000 through the listed places of worship grant. As the hon. Gentleman probably knows, the scheme has paid out £317 million since it was introduced in 2001 by the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and has assisted over 13,000 places. The scheme currently receives around 7,000 applications per annum and has a budget of £42 million. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has assessed the scheme on numerous occasions. It delivers the fairest possible system of making grants.
Rosie Wrighting
St Andrew’s parish church and Holy Trinity church in my constituency are both listed buildings that provide vital community services. The former is saving for a heat pump and the latter for a new roof. They were hoping to use the listed places of worship grant scheme to undertake the work, but because the scheme is due to expire next year, their future is uncertain. Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking the many churches across the UK and Kettering for the work that they do to serve our communities? What plans are there for the future of the scheme?
Marsha De Cordova
My hon. Friend is a strong advocate for the churches in her constituency. I am pleased to hear her mention that St Andrew’s church is upgrading its heating system; hopefully, it will benefit from some funding from the listed places of worship grant scheme. As I am sure will be said again in this question session, the scheme makes a huge difference to churches. Many have to do a lot of fundraising in their communities, but being able to rely on the scheme helps to cover some of the costs.
Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)
Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
Marsha De Cordova
The listed places of worship grant scheme, which is clearly dominating questions today, enables VAT to be refunded for repairs to our oldest and most precious churches and religious buildings. Without access to the scheme, parishes will find it harder to fund essential repairs, and they will have to spend more time on fundraising and less time on the needs of their local communities. I understand that the Bishop of Bristol and the National Churches Trust have written to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to ask for a meeting. I hope that my right hon. Friend will meet them in the near future, as time is of the essence.
Katie Lam
In rural areas like the Weald of Kent, our churches are vital public buildings, providing somewhere not just for the spiritual life of our villages and towns, but for their civic life. Given the impending withdrawal of the listed places of worship grant scheme, what is being done to support churches like St Mildred’s in Tenterden? It plays a vital role in the town, especially now that the town hall is closed for refurbishment, and it relies on the scheme to make essential repairs. The hon. Lady has spoken about the importance of the scheme, but will it be extended?
Marsha De Cordova
As the hon. Lady will agree, I am not the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, so I cannot give her a decision on that. However, she rightly highlights the vital role that churches play as a cornerstone of all our communities, up and down the country, alongside their role of providing community and spiritual leadership. Like her, I hope that the scheme will continue. I congratulate her and her colleagues on writing to the Secretary of State, and I hope they will get a response in the near future.
Blake Stephenson
On Bedfordshire Day, I want to put on record my appreciation for everyone who works so hard in our county to make it such a wonderful place. That includes constituents who are passionate about preserving St Botolph’s church in Aspley Guise. They are working hard to raise tens of thousands of pounds for their tower restoration project and expect work to start early next year. However, they are concerned that without the listed places of worship grant scheme, works will become much more expensive and may not be able to proceed. Will the Church Commissioner meet me to discuss how we can continue to support historic churches such as St Botolph’s?
Marsha De Cordova
I join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating all those who work in our communities and churches. I will be delighted to meet him to see what assistance can be provided for the parish. I understand that St Botolph’s has a target of £175,000 for extensive repairs to the tower. It has already secured £141,000 in donations from the local community and is awaiting decisions on a number of grants. I congratulate the whole congregation and the community on their fundraising efforts to reach that huge figure. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point and shares a good example of why the scheme is so important.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
Marsha De Cordova
I welcome the timely questions from my hon. Friends as we are in the middle of Disability History Month. The Church has started a project to support local parishes to adapt their buildings to make our churches more accessible. It includes standardising signage to make accessibility obvious, training for church leaders and staff, and a grant scheme for adaptations. The Church also continues to develop worship and educational resources, which are available nationally to people who are housebound and their carers.
Anna Dixon
In the report of the archbishops’ commission on reimagining care, which I chaired, we recognise the important role of churches and faith communities in supporting older and disabled people. The report asked the Church of England to consider developing resources and capacity in local churches
“to adopt an asset-based approach to engaging with disabled people and older people in their communities.”
Can my hon. Friend update the House on what action the Church is taking to fulfil that recommendation?
Marsha De Cordova
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for chairing the archbishops’ commission. Along with the pastoral visits made by clergy, resources are made available nationally for disabled people or those who are housebound. They include Sunday services broadcast online on YouTube, each week from a different parish, which have thousands of unique viewers each week and for which British Sign Language interpretation is available. There is the DailyHope telephone line and the Everyday Faith app, with readings and reflections, which is used by 3 million individuals and has been downloaded over 14 million times. There is also the Daily Prayer app, with morning and evening prayer, which has reached over 2.75 million unique listeners since 2021.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
Churches Together South Tyneside does amazing work through its Happy at Home hub, providing a range of services to the lonely and the isolated. Will my hon. Friend expand a little more on the Church’s wider pastoral duties towards those in the greatest need?
Marsha De Cordova
Again, I congratulate my hon. Friend on all the wonderful work taking place in her constituency. Churches together groups do a fantastic job in tackling the scourge of isolation and loneliness. There are other projects that started recently to support parishes with the physical accessibility of their buildings, including church halls and other facilities. Without the LPW grant scheme, the adaptation of some of our most historic churches would be harder to deliver at pace.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
Marsha De Cordova
The historic churches of Northumberland are among the oldest and most architecturally significant in our country. Any church can apply for support from the £11 million Buildings for Mission fund. The diocese of Newcastle is very grateful for the support of the Northumbria Historic Churches Trust and other local grant-making bodies. My hon. Friend may also want to encourage his parishes to approach some of these excellent charities.
Ian Lavery
St Mary’s Church in Woodhorn in my constituency has not been in operation for worship since 1973. It is one of the oldest, most historic churches in Northumberland, if not the country. It is under the care of Northumberland county council now, but it is in a dilapidated state. Can my hon. Friend give me some advice on who I can contact within the Church to see whether it can support the church to ensure that it is part not just of the history of our wonderful county, but of its future?
Marsha De Cordova
My hon. Friend rightly highlights that St Mary’s church in his constituency is one of the oldest, and it is a charming example of wonderful architecture. I understand some of the challenges that he mentions, as the church has been closed for a long period of time. It would be wonderful to see churches such as that reopen—we would all like to see churches open as opposed to closed, as many of them are. As a grade I listed building on the National Heritage List for England, it is eligible for grants for repairs and renovations. I am happy to write to my hon. Friend with a list of grant-making bodies. I will ask Church House for further advice on who he can speak to, as well as working together to see whether we can get his church reopened.
Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)
It is not just in Northumberland where there are many historic churches. The village of Ashby cum Fenby in my constituency has recently shown that the local community will come together to support their local church, but vital to that is leadership. With priests spread throughout so many different parishes, it becomes more and more difficult to provide that leadership. Can the hon. Lady give an assurance that the Church will do all it can to ensure that our smaller villages are not neglected, and that there are regular services and leadership by the ordained priest?
Marsha De Cordova
I agree with you, Mr Speaker, but I congratulate the hon. Member on trying so diligently on that question. What I will say is that I will happily write to him with a response to that, if that is okay.
James Asser (West Ham and Beckton) (Lab)
Marsha De Cordova
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for turning our attention to Gaza. Only 12 of Gaza’s 36 hospital are still in operation, offering mainly basic care. The Anglican-run Al-Ahli hospital has remained operational despite facing huge difficulties, thanks to the dedication of its hard-working staff and the leadership of its director, Suhaila Tarazi. Last week, it was announced that the hospital is to receive £3.4 million of support from the UN Development Programme as well as the Palestinian American Medical Association, but this vital work cannot begin without an immediate ceasefire and a pathway to peace.
James Asser
I thank my hon. Friend for her answer. Hon. Members will have noted the progress that has been made on a ceasefire in Lebanon, but, as she has just mentioned, without a ceasefire in Gaza the £3.4 million that has been allocated to the Al-Ahli hospital by the UN Development Programme will not be spent. Given the scale of the humanitarian crisis, the desperate need for medical aid and the onset of winter, that is likely to lead to further suffering and a greater number of deaths.
Marsha De Cordova
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We all welcome the ceasefire arrangements between Israel and Lebanon, but we need a ceasefire in Gaza. The community in northern Gaza is reliant on the Anglican Al-Ahli hospital for much of its healthcare. The hospital is seeing more than 1,000 emergency patients a day, and has to use the library and historic church as wards, given that the rest of the hospital has been largely destroyed by the Israeli forces. A ceasefire is essential, but we also need humanitarian aid to get in, as well as vital medical supplies, fuel and other resources, so that the rebuilding of infrastructure can begin. We know that there are huge challenges in relation to access being given at checkpoints in Gaza.
Business of the House
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)
The business for the week commencing 2 December includes:
Monday 2 December—General debate on the Grenfell Tower inquiry phase 2 report.
Tuesday 3 December—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill.
Wednesday 4 December—Opposition day (4th allotted day). Debate on a motion in the name of the official Opposition, subject to be announced.
Thursday 5 December—Debate on a motion on detained British nationals abroad, followed by a general debate on improving public transport. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 6 December—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 9 December will include:
Monday 9 December—Remaining stages of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill.
Tuesday 10 December—Committee of the whole House on the Finance Bill (day 1).
Wednesday 11 December—Committee of the whole House on the Finance Bill (day 2).
Thursday 12 December—General debate on Lord Etherton’s independent review into the treatment of LGBT veterans, followed by a debate on a motion on the performance of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 13 December—The House will not be sitting.
Jesse Norman
I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in wishing a very happy Thanksgiving day to all our American friends and family, and a happy big birthday today to the Clerk: the Joe Root of the parliamentary estate. Huge thanks to him for his stylish and expert first century—half-century, I should say!
Mr Speaker, a man of your wide culture and extensive learning will doubtless be familiar with the film “Mad Max”. I am no expert, but the image that it conjures up of a desolate, chaotic landscape with wreckage strewn everywhere is the perfect metaphor for the Government’s recent Budget.
Let us take hospices, for example. In Herefordshire, we are blessed to have the extraordinary St Michael’s hospice. St Michael’s supports hundreds of in-patients a year with end of life care, and thousands more as out-patients and with visits in the community. It has a dedicated staff, assisted by some 800 volunteers. This is extraordinary. I shudder to think what it would cost the state to provide that kind and quality of care—certainly more than £20 million a year. What has this Labour Budget done to St Michael’s hospice? The changes to national insurance alone will cost the hospice an extra £250,000 next year, but that is only part of it. At the same time, the Budget has directly and indirectly pushed up the wage bill by a further £450,000. That is £700,000 annually in extra costs—a vast amount for an organisation that offers incredible care, and actually saves the NHS £20 million a year. Hospices in almost every constituency will be affected, and so are the interests of almost every colleague in this House.
This disastrous outcome was clearly never intended by the Treasury. It is another completely unnecessary blunder with potentially tragic consequences. As with GPs, pharmacies and mental health and social care charities, no compensation whatsoever has been offered for this tax raid. When will the Government publish a proper impact assessment and explain why none has been offered?
There is a direct link here to the issue of assisted dying. In the words of the Health Secretary, no less,
“I do not think that palliative care, end-of-life care in this country is in a condition yet where we are giving people the freedom to choose, without being coerced by the lack of support available.”
That care is now being deliberately worsened by his own Chancellor. Personally, I feel strongly pulled in both directions by both sides, but one thing no one can be in any doubt about is that the Government have no business trying to rush this legislation through the House by proxy. The text of the Bill was published barely two weeks prior to our vote tomorrow. No impact assessment or legal issues analysis have been published. Far from public debate preceding legislation, legislation has preceded debate. That is completely the wrong way around.
We can be perfectly clear about this. All Members of Parliament were recently sent a dossier by the promoter of the Bill entitled, “Your questions answered”. Unfortunately, far from answering key questions, the dossier fails even to touch on a whole series of important issues. Those include the Bill’s impact on the medical profession and the relationship between medical staff and patients, its impact on the provision and regulation of the different drugs and drug cocktails required, the record to date and protocols to be used in case an initial attempt at assisted dying fails, and what the inevitable for-profit industry exploiting the new law will look like and how we should feel about it.
As the senior judge Sir James Munby highlighted, there are a host of questions about involving the judiciary in the process and the balance of probabilities test for coercion. Most profoundly of all, there is the question of what choice and dignity actually mean in different contexts. None of those matters is even mentioned in the dossier purporting to give the answers. Whatever one feels about the issue of assisted dying itself—as I say, I feel very pulled in both directions—this absence of debate, especially with so many new Members in the House, is a matter of the gravest public concern. As the House well knows, the Government themselves are all over the place on the issue.
In asking for an assessment of the Bill’s likely impact on the NHS, the Health Secretary was doing exactly the right thing: preparing civil servants and clinicians for what could be a huge change and asking them to look at a crucial question that has not even been addressed, let alone properly answered. As for the Justice Secretary, she was attacked by none other than her own Labour predecessor Lord Falconer of Thoroton for imposing her views, but his lordship somehow missed that she was also making the argument that it was inappropriate in principle for the state to get involved in what many term “assisted suicide”. That too is yet another issue that has barely been discussed. I ask the right hon. Lady whether she shares my view that it is a tragedy that colleagues are being asked to vote without full and proper consideration of the vital issues I have mentioned.
Lucy Powell
I join the right hon. Gentleman in congratulating the Clerk of the House on his very special birthday. As someone recently on the other side of that same special birthday—obviously, I know I do not look it—I welcome him to the half-century club, and I hope his party is as good as mine was. We will leave that conversation for another day.
This week, we marked White Ribbon Day. I am proud that this Government have pledged to halve violence against women and girls. I am also proud to have announced the debate on Lord Etherton’s review of the treatment of LGBT veterans today. I am particularly pleased for my friend and Manchester resident Carl Austin-Behan, who, after years of decorated service in the RAF, was dismissed the day the RAF found out he was gay. He deserves recognition and much more, as do many others.
I know that the shadow Leader of the House is fairly new to opposition, like most of his colleagues, but I gently say to him that the idea of opposition is to oppose the Government, not his own record in government. Last week he attacked our plans to meet climate goals, yet when he was the Minister with responsibility for decarbonisation, he seemed to take a very different view, touring the studios to champion net zero. Here we are yet again: he is attacking our plans on national insurance contributions, but I checked the record and noticed that when his Government raised national insurance contributions—and not just on businesses but on workers —he was the Financial Secretary to the Treasury at the time, and said in defence of the measure, from this very Dispatch Box:
“It is a profoundly Conservative thing to do”—[Official Report, 8 September 2021; Vol. 700, c. 326.]
He seems to have been for it then but is against it now. I am not sure what his position is—I am quite confused about it.
May I say to the hospice that he mentioned, and to the many hospices like it, that we have made a record investment in the NHS? The hospice sector was left on its knees by the right hon. Gentleman’s Government. As he knows, the Health Secretary will soon come to the House to explain how the record allocation of resources that he has received will be distributed, including to the hospice sector.
The right hon. Gentleman raises the assisted dying issues that we will discuss tomorrow. I must say, I think it is regrettable that he has chosen this opportunity to raise those matters in such an unnecessarily political fashion. This issue generates very emotive responses on both sides, and I hope that tomorrow’s debate will be conducted in a respectful, considerate, non-partisan and non-political manner. He asks about time and scrutiny, which I have mentioned before. As Leader of the House, I am very confident that the Bill will undergo sufficient scrutiny and will have sufficient time for consideration.
As I have said before from the Dispatch Box, the Government will of course implement the will of the House, whatever it may be. And, as I have also said before, should the House choose to give the Bill its Second Reading, the Government will of course work with the Bill’s promoter to ensure that the Bill and the policy are workable, operable and implemented. That will mean working with the promoter on tidying up any measures where necessary. The Department of Health and Social Care is getting to work straightaway on what the Bill will mean in terms of implementation, assessment and the documentation that the right hon. Gentleman highlights. Should the House decline to give the Bill its Second Reading, then of course that work would not happen. As I have said before, after several weeks in Committee, the first opportunity for the Bill to return to the House will not be until the end of April—that is a considerable amount of time for the Government to do that work and consider the Bill further.
Sarah Hall (Warrington South) (Lab/Co-op)
This year marked the 51st anniversary of the Summerland disaster on the Isle of Man, in which 50 people, including 11 children, lost their lives after a fire engulfed the Summerland leisure complex. My constituent Valerie Daniels and her younger sister were both impacted by that horrifying tragedy. Two young men from Warrington died in the fire. A report into the disaster was released in the following year and catalogued a series of failures—from the design of the building to the fire safety regulations—but to date no individuals or groups have been singled out for blame for what happened. Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the issue, so that survivors and the families of those who lost their lives can finally get justice?
Lucy Powell
I am really sorry to hear about that tragedy that affected my hon. Friend’s constituents. These are incredibly pertinent issues, ones that we should be debating in this House. She might want to raise them as part of the Grenfell inquiry debate that will take place next week; if not, I am sure there will be other opportunities for her to raise them.
Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)
Yesterday marked Fuel Poverty Awareness Day, and just last week Ofgem unveiled another increase to the energy price cap for this winter—an increase of 1.2% in January 2025. This follows a 10% rise in October and multiple occasions on which the Government have failed to prioritise energy support for this winter. For example, the warm home discount scheme will not benefit households until 2025, and financial energy support for 1.2 million pensioners was removed under changes to the winter fuel payment. Recent polling from the Warm This Winter campaign has found that almost half of those polled—47%—are worried about how they will stay warm this winter. When can the House expect a statement from the Government on tackling fuel poverty this winter?
Lucy Powell
I thank the hon. Lady for that question. I also noticed that her leader is out on the airwaves today with a separate campaign. I wish him well with that and hope that he is not another one-hit wonder when it comes to those issues.
We have inherited a really difficult situation when it comes to energy supplies and energy prices. As the hon. Lady knows, the energy price cap is set by Ofgem, and reflects its consideration of how energy was bought a few months ago. We are taking this issue incredibly seriously, which is why we have a plan to get to net zero by 2030. It is only by switching our energy supplies to renewables that we will be able to bring prices down for longer and have the energy security we so desperately need.
The hon. Lady asked about the situation this winter, particularly for pensioners and others. She will know that there is the £150 warm home discount, as well as cold weather payments that will get triggered. We have extended the £1 billion household support fund into this winter; that payment of either £150 or £200 is now being made in places such as Manchester to those on council tax support, so just above the pension credit threshold. We have also seen the biggest ever increase in the number of people applying for pension credit, so we are taking action. We will support people this winter, but more importantly, we will take the long-term action that we need to get our energy bills lower.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
Liverpool women’s hospital in my constituency offers the only specialist gynaecology and maternity services in the country, yet those services are under threat due to the NHS case for change. Will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time to consider the necessity of retaining those specialist services at the current Crown Street site?
Lucy Powell
I am very familiar with the important services in my hon. Friend’s Liverpool constituency that she describes. The hospital programme we inherited from the previous Government was a work of fiction, and we are determined to make sure that any commitments around local hospital services are both deliverable and fundable. That is what we are setting out to do, but I will certainly make sure that the Health Secretary has heard my hon. Friend’s plea today, and that she gets a full reply about her local hospital.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to the Leader of the House’s native city on Saturday night, and I thank her club for the hospitality of allowing us to score four goals with none in return. By the way, that makes a net aggregate of seven to nil across our visits to Manchester.
On behalf of the Backbench Business Committee, I thank the Leader of the House for announcing the business for the Chamber. In addition, if we are granted Thursday 19 December, that will be a full day’s debate on the Christmas recess Adjournment. In Westminster Hall next Tuesday we will debate the domestic production of critical minerals, and on Thursday we will debate pelvic mesh and the Cumberlege review, and then there will be a further debate on the financial sustainability of higher education. In addition, Mr Speaker, with your agreement, on Tuesday 10 December there will be a debate on rare autoimmune rheumatic disease.
Right now, the spiritual leader of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness—it runs Bhaktivedanta Manor in Elstree, the largest Hindu temple in this country—is under arrest in Bangladesh, and Hindus across Bangladesh are being subjected to death, with their houses and temples being burnt. There was today an attempt in Bangladesh’s High Court to rule that ISKCON should be banned from the country, which is a direct attack on Hindus. There is now a threat from India to take action, and we have a responsibility because we enabled Bangladesh to be free and independent. Whatever the change of Government has been in Bangladesh, it cannot be acceptable that religious minorities are persecuted in this way. So far we have had only a written statement from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Could the Leader of the House arrange an oral statement on the Floor of the House so that we can bring to the world’s attention what is going on in Bangladesh?
Lucy Powell
I thank the hon. Member for that, and I hope he had a good time in Manchester. I do not know whether he was there for the football, but I was at the Man City game on Saturday—the less said about that, the better. If he is looking for the allocation of time for future business, he should please not mention the Tottenham game to me ever again, thank you very much.
The hon. Member raises an important matter, which was also raised with me on a previous occasion by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). We have such a debate today, albeit about Pakistan, and he is absolutely right to highlight these issues. We support freedom of religion or belief everywhere, and that includes in Bangladesh. I will certainly ask Foreign Office Ministers to look at coming forward with a statement about what is happening to Hindus in Bangladesh.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituent Amir Khan’s beloved daughter Sanna was in her first year at university when she died in her sleep from sudden unexpected death in epilepsy, also known as SUDEP. Ten people every week die of SUDEP, many of them young people, yet with the right research and more public awareness, this number could be reduced. Will the Leader of the House allocate time for a debate on this under-reported issue, to give some comfort to families such as Mr Khan’s?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend raises an important issue that has been brought to him by his constituents, and may I send my condolences to Sanna’s family and friends? I did not realise quite how many people were affected by SUDEP, and I think this would make a really good Adjournment debate. The Government are committed to supporting people with epilepsy and their families, but I think he should consider a further debate to highlight these issues.
Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
Members may recall that large parts of Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire were flooded after heavy rainfall in September, including Grendon in my constituency. Will the Leader of the House ask the Environment Secretary to make a statement to the House on when local authorities can expect to receive the extra funding to aid recovery that he promised when he visited my area, given that in the meantime, with Storm Bert, areas such as Bugbrooke in my constituency have been flooded severely again?
Lucy Powell
I know that the hon. Member has raised the issue of flooding in her constituency before. I was really pleased that the Environment Secretary came to the House on Monday to give a flooding update to the whole House. If she was in attendance at that statement, she would have heard about the very challenging circumstances of our flood defences that we inherited from the previous Government. We are taking quick action to establish the flood resilience taskforce and to put in extra resources for additional flooding support, but I will ensure that he has heard what she has asked.
Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam) (Lab)
My constituents John and Susan recently got in touch with me about their son Tom. Tom is an autistic man who lives in an assisted living facility and receives one-to-one support seven days a week. John and Susan told me that he will never be able to work. Tom’s benefit is being moved from employment and support allowance to universal credit as part of the managed migration process. Despite his needs not changing, Tom will be £1,300 a year worse off. Will the Leader of the House allow time to discuss what assessment the Government have made to ensure that disabled people’s quality of life is considered throughout the managed migration process?
Lucy Powell
That sounds like an important constituency case, and I will ensure that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions gets my hon. Friend a full response on why her constituent is finding himself worse off under the managed migration process. If my hon. Friend were to apply for an Adjournment debate on that, I am sure she would get it.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
I have constituents who live on the Somerset levels who are 90 years young. They have limited mobility and do not have mobile phones. Three months ago BT cut them off in the process of changing their landline to digital—something they did not request. They do not even have broadband, and they lost access to their emergency alarms. It took a month of pleading by their son and neighbours, and masses of calls. BT said that they were a priority as vulnerable people, but nearly a fortnight ago the landline went off again. Openreach says there is nothing wrong with their copper line, and everyone is trying to get them sorted out. All they want is a decent service on their landline and their old number back. May we have a debate about what BT’s priority register actually means, and how it might improve its service for more vulnerable residents?
Lucy Powell
For the hon. Lady’s 90-years-young constituents such issues are incredibly vital and important. We must ensure that the transition to digital is completely inclusive, and that those who rely on landline and analogue systems are also supported, especially when they live in a rural community such as the one she describes. I am sure BT will have heard her question, and if not I will ensure that it has and that it gets a proper service back to those constituents who need it.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
My original question was answered in the clear reply from the Leader of the House to the right hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), but do not worry—I brought a back-up.
Thanks to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, we have £50 million of investment for Eden Project Morecambe, and yesterday I spoke to Ministers about the importance of renewing our high streets. May we have a debate on how we ensure that local businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises thrive in the context of large new attractions such as Eden Project Morecambe?
Lucy Powell
I thank my hon. Friend for that refreshing question—normally as politicians we like to repeat questions that have come from others, so she has definitely got a gold star for that. As someone who spent many childhood holidays in Morecambe, I am very familiar with it, and I am delighted that the Eden Project, other programmes, and the money that the Government have brought in will revitalise that gorgeous seaside town. I am sure she will be able to raise such issues in forthcoming questions on many occasions.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House join me in celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Annandale Distillery in my constituency? Built in the 1830s, it was abandoned in 1919, but brought back to life with much love and passion by Professor David Thomson and Teresa Church in 2014. It now not only produces excellent whisky, but has brought a huge economic benefit for the Annan area and the wider south of Scotland.
Lucy Powell
I join the right hon. Gentleman in celebrating the 10th anniversary of Annandale Distillery. I was not actually invited, but I do get invited to many places—I am a bit of a lightweight and whisky is not my tipple, but I am sure that if I am in the area I will pay it a visit. This Government are pleased to support the Scotch whisky industry, which is why we are providing up to £5 million to reduce fees for Scotch whisky, along with other measures. I hope the distillery welcomes that.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
My constituent Jo Pyke is a counsellor at a local cancer charity. She has stage 4 mucosal melanoma. Tumour-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy, which is only available in the USA, could save her life. Our community is fundraising to get Jo to America, but Jo and many others need that therapy here in the UK. Will the Leader of the House use her good offices to help Jo fight this awful disease?
Lucy Powell
I am really sorry to hear of Jo’s plight. It is awful to have such a terminal and difficult disease, knowing that although therapies are available, they are not yet available for my hon. Friend’s constituent. I will ensure that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has heard her question, and I am sure the whole House will support Jo in her fundraising efforts to get to America.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
Following my question in the Chamber last week, I received confirmation from the Transport Secretary that funding ringfenced for a new train station in Aldridge had been moved and put towards funding the Labour Mayor’s pet bus nationalisation project. With that in mind, will the right hon. Lady set aside time for a debate on the restoring your railways programme and city region sustainable transport settlements to enable us to have greater insight and scrutiny of the Government’s vision on transport? At the moment, they are clearly bypassing Aldridge.
Lucy Powell
I thank the right hon. Lady, but I do not accept the premise of the question. The Government are doing more than ever to ensure that our railways are reliable and accessible. The Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Bill is, I think, to become an Act today. We are also bringing forward additional funding for buses, on which the Transport Secretary made a statement to the House, as well as bus reform. Part of our agenda for transport is about ensuring that local communities design those programmes for the needs of their local areas, and it is right that Mayors do that.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
Last week, I attended the citizenship network launch at Parliament organised by Citizens UK and met people from my constituency who came to this country years ago to build a better life. They have lived and worked here, raised their families here and contributed to society and the economy, and having spent a considerable amount of money they still find themselves unable to become British citizens. Will the Leader of the House please make time for a debate in the House to discuss better routes to citizenship so that those who are legally entitled to be in this country can become British citizens like the rest of us?
Lucy Powell
Becoming a British citizen and routes to citizenship would make for an excellent Backbench Business debate. As I did not say it earlier, I will now encourage colleagues from across the House to really make use of the Backbench Business Committee and put in applications. That would be an excellent application.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I have already mentioned this morning that Bath is a city of music. Today marks the release of “Love is Enough”, a Christmas song written by six young carers and performed by Bath Philharmonia’s young carers choir and our Liberal Democrat leader—yes, he is branching out into music. More than anything, the release highlights the plight of young carers and the challenges they face, particularly when it comes to disruption to their education and social isolation. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Bath Philharmonia’s young carers choir and wish “Love is Enough” every success?
Lucy Powell
I wish the song “Love is Enough” from the young carers choir every success in its attempts to get in the charts. I have to say that I am not quite sure what is worse, or better: the leader of the Liberal Democrats in a wetsuit or in a Christmas jumper. I will leave that for the House to decide.
Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)
I very much welcome the Government’s recent introduction of respect orders, which are much needed. Indeed, in my constituency of Rossendale and Darwen, we have recently seen a big increase in antisocial behaviour, with a spike in places such as Rawtenstall bus station and Bacup town centre. Does my right hon. Friend agree that co-operation is key in such situations? On the one hand, it is vital that all incidents are properly reported to police, but, on the other hand, police should be proactively communicating with town centre businesses and residents, responding visibly to what they are experiencing and not just relying on arm’s length data. With that in mind, will she agree to a debate on effective town centre policing?
Lucy Powell
Yet again, my hon. Friend raises a matter that is really important to the constituents of Rossendale and Darwen. He is a regular attender at these sessions, for which I give him great credit. He will know that just this week we announced new measures to bring in respect orders, which will see repeat perpetrators of antisocial behaviour subject to tough restrictions. That, together with our plans for an extra 13,000 neighbourhood police officers, will help tackle the scourge of antisocial behaviour in many of our town centres.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I echo my support for the issue raised hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh)—my sister had epilepsy and required lifesaving brain surgery when she was young, so I know the impact it has on families and individuals.
The Leader of the House will know that I previously asked her about the Typhoon assembly line at the Wharton site. Since then, I have asked questions of Defence Ministers in Ukraine statements; I have requested a meeting with the Secretary of State for Defence; I have met the unions; and I have submitted a written question to see whether the order for 24 Typhoon jets for the RAF is included in the Budget. It is not, and we have since heard rumours that the RAF may wish to have American-produced F-35s instead of British-produced Typhoon fighters.
I then submitted a further written question to ask what the plans are to support businesses such as BAE Systems to maintain the workforce that they need for the global combat air programme, and I have received an absolute word salad of an answer talking about partnership working and future procurement strategies. Can we have a statement from the Ministry of Defence on its plans for this important area for sovereign defence capabilities and for jobs in Fylde and across Lancashire?
Lucy Powell
It sounds like the hon. Gentleman has been incredibly diligent and innovative in all the different ways that he has tried to get a straight answer. I will look into the examples that he has given that have not been quite what he expected. He is in my region, and he is right that the Typhoon is an important part of the north-west defence industry. I will ensure that the Secretary of State has heard his full question and I will ask that, at the very least, he gets a full reply, if not a statement to the House.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
Tuesday was a proud day for Aylesbury, as Dylan Bachelet reached the final of the “Great British Bake Off”. A former student of Sir Henry Floyd grammar school, aged just 20, he rose to the occasion again and again throughout the series with his dough-lightful creations. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Dylan and thanking him for inspiring so many young people to achieve their dreams?
Lucy Powell
I love these questions. I congratulate Dylan, who I understand Paul Hollywood nicknamed the “flavour king”. In my office here in the House we have a weekly bake-off, so if Dylan wants to participate in or judge it he is welcome any time, but he must bring the cake.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Would the Leader of the House grant a general debate in Government time on attitudes to ceasefires? Following the welcome ceasefire in the middle east, Hezbollah supporters there tried to claim a victory yesterday, reminiscent of IRA supporters in west Belfast doing likewise. Could we have a debate to ensure that the general public know that peace is welcome, but not people trying to turn peace into a victory parade?
Lucy Powell
I think we can all welcome the ceasefire in Lebanon and hope that efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza are successful soon. At the end of the day, we all want a peaceful solution, and we need a political route to a two-state solution, so a ceasefire is only the beginning of a process. It is really important that trust is maintained and that we can work towards that long-term sustainable peace.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
If anyone wants evidence of what a Labour Government can do, they need look no further than the mineworkers’ pension scheme. Within weeks of coming into office, the scheme got £1.5 billion returned, which has made a huge difference to nearly 1,000 of my constituents. Yet the British coal staff superannuation scheme, which is subject to similar arrangements, has not seen such a return of funds. Could we have a debate in Government time to get to the bottom of this crucial issue?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the Government’s proudest achievements since the election is following through on their commitment to transfer the mineworkers’ pension scheme and all the benefits that it has brought to constituents such as hers. I will raise the issue of the British coal staff superannuation scheme, and I will ensure that she gets a full reply.
Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)
Earlier this week, along with Members across the House, I attended the drop-in session organised by the Royal National Institute of Blind People. One of the stands at the session outlined the difficulties that blind and partially sighted people have in exercising their vote on election day. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on how blind, partially sighted and other disabled people are able to exercise their vote? Much work has been done in recent years, but there is still more to do.
Lucy Powell
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the accessibility of elections, especially for those with visual impairment or who are blind. It is a really important matter. I know that many of those in this House with disabilities find it difficult to vote here, as well—it gets raised with me often. We have Housing, Communities and Local Government questions coming up next week, and I would encourage the hon. Gentleman to raise this matter then.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
For many new Members, tomorrow is the first time we will debate a private Member’s Bill. Together with other MPs, I have tabled a reasoned amendment that calls for an independent review and public consultation before the Bill should return to this House for further debate. Will my right hon. Friend explain to the House when a reasoned amendment, if selected, will be considered, and reassure the House that this would not impact the time available for tomorrow’s important debate?
Lucy Powell
I thank my hon. Friend for that question, which she and I have discussed in private as well. As we discussed, amendments on Second Reading, while called reasoned amendments, do open with, “We decline to give this Bill a Second Reading”; should the amendment be selected, that would mean that the Second Reading debate and vote would not proceed. As I said to the shadow Leader of the House, I say gently to my hon. Friend that, as I have said a number of times now at this Dispatch Box, should the Bill pass Second Reading, the Government will work with the sponsoring Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), to ensure that the Bill is operable and implementable, and that it will be implemented should the House wish it. That work will begin in earnest after Second Reading. Should the Bill not pass Second Reading, that work would not happen at all. I think hon. Members should consider that when considering the principles of the Bill, and not get too bogged down in some of the process.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
First, I thank the hon. Member for Rochdale (Paul Waugh) for raising the issue of epilepsy. It is particularly important to me, as many years ago, I woke up in hospital, having had a seizure in my sleep. I know how life-changing it can be.
In October, as the Leader of the House may remember, I raised the issue of half a million British pensioners overseas whose pensions have been frozen. Many of those pensioners are originally from my constituency, and I have heard from further former residents since that occasion. The Leader of the House kindly offered to raise it with the relevant Government Departments. On behalf of the campaign, Anne Puckridge—a former war veteran who has been affected—is coming over next week for her 100th birthday, and had hoped to meet with leading politicians, including my own party leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), who will be meeting her next week. Unfortunately, I have heard this morning that the Prime Minister has declined to meet Anne, and is referring her to the Pensions Minister. I appreciate that, but Anne is very disappointed, as she feels that this issue really needs to be tackled by the Prime Minister, and she wanted him to hear what she had to say. I wonder if the Leader of the House could perhaps make further representations to the Prime Minister to see whether he will meet Anne.
Lucy Powell
I am sure the hon. Lady can appreciate that the Prime Minister’s diary is not under my control, and is also incredibly busy. However, I will make sure that the Pensions Minister is able to meet her constituent when she comes over next week, and I will certainly ensure that the Prime Minister is aware of this matter, and that the Pensions Minister looks into it properly.
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
The campaign for justice for the WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality—women has been truly commendable. I want to pay tribute to the tireless efforts of campaigners, including Angela Madden, as well as around 6,000 women in my constituency who have been affected. Following the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s findings of maladministration earlier this year, those women are still waiting for clarity on the Government’s response, particularly regarding timely and fair compensation. Will the Leader of the House join me in praising the WASPI campaigners for their dedicated work, which has been amazing, and support my request to the Department for Work and Pension for an update on the progress being made to address the ombudsman’s findings?
Lucy Powell
I certainly will share my hon. Friend’s congratulations to the WASPI women, who have shown themselves to be some of the most formidable campaigners this country has seen for a very long time, and to Angela Madden, his constituent. As he knows, the ombudsman’s report was published in March. It is a very serious, thorough and considered report that requires proper consideration from the Government. That work is being undertaken as we speak. I will ensure that Parliament is the first to know of the Government’s response.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, you may know that I have long campaigned for the interests of the British nuclear test veterans, young men who, long before our lives, devoted part of their young life to witnessing the first nuclear test, following which their blood and urine was tested, presumably to see the effects that radiation had on them. Those records have been declassified, yet are not clearly available to remaining veterans and not available at all to their loved ones. May we have a statement on the matter from the Secretary of State for Defence, who, I understand, is not unsympathetic? The Prime Minister, when he was Leader of the Opposition, promised those veterans accountability and justice. They deserve nothing less.
Lucy Powell
The plight of the nuclear test veterans is one that gathers wide support across the House. In fact, it was raised just last week with the Prime Minister, in his statement on the G20, by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey). He reiterated his personal commitment, and that of the Secretary of State for Defence, to working with the families and the veterans themselves to look at issues around records and other matters, such as medals. I will ensure that the House is informed of any progress in this area.
Katrina Murray (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch) (Lab)
Cumbernauld airport in my constituency has been in the application process for vital instrument approach procedure for over 10 years. It has been subject to many delays by the Civil Aviation Authority and has been delayed yet again. This ongoing delay to the approval of the global navigation satellite system is putting future commercial operations at the airport at risk. May we have a debate in Government time on the importance of local airfields to the delivery of public services?
Lucy Powell
Local aviation and local airfields are very important to local economies and the infrastructure of this country. I am sorry to hear of the long delay over many years, as my hon. Friend describes, to her local airfield. I will ensure that the Transport Secretary has heard her question today and that she gets a full reply about Cumbernauld airport.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Leader of the House again for this opportunity to raise an issue of urgent concern. Earlier this week, on Tuesday past, I had the privilege of meeting Pastor Youssef Ourahmane, who shared troubling cases in Algeria. Pastor Youssef has been convicted of so-called “illegal worship” for leading his church. He faces a prison sentence and heavy fines, despite a lack of evidence of any wrongdoing. His case is one of approximately 50 spurious cases against Christians in Algeria in recent years, amid a systematic campaign of forced church closures. Will the Leader of the House urge her Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office colleagues to make a statement on what steps the UK Government can take, in collaboration with international partners, to advocate for the reopening of all evangelical churches in Algeria and to support religious freedom globally, including raising this issue with Algerian authorities at the very earliest opportunity?
Lucy Powell
Yet again, the hon. Gentleman has raised a serious issue relating to religious freedom. We regularly monitor the situation in Algeria, and we are aware that some groups have found it difficult to obtain the permissions that they need in order to operate. We will continue to raise these matters with the Algerian authorities. I note that the hon. Gentleman has been successful in obtaining a Backbench Business debate this afternoon on freedom of religion in Pakistan; I am sure he will continue to proffer considerable numbers of applications to the Backbench Business Committee, and this too might be a good topic for a debate.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
Huge congratulations are due to the volunteers and voluntary groups who received the prestigious King’s Award earlier this month, including six in Northumberland and one in my constituency: the Empire school of boxing, led by the phenomenal Les Welsh. May we have a debate in Government time to allow other Members to express their gratitude to the volunteers and voluntary groups in their areas? After all, they are the cornerstone of all our constituencies.
Lucy Powell
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating the winners of the King’s Award. I know from recipients in my own constituency how much it means to people to receive such a prestigious award from the King, and the boxing school in my hon. Friend’s constituency sounds like a worthy winner.
The contribution of volunteers to our communities is often raised in business questions, so I think that if Members came together for a debate—and I see that the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), is present—it would be very well attended.
Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)
I am sure the Leader of the House will agree that patients, public and staff should be properly consulted when significant changes are being made to local NHS services, and that the NHS makes better decisions when it listens properly to the views of patients and the public, but unfortunately that has not been the case in my constituency recently. Significant changes are being proposed at Furness general hospital with no consultation at all. May we please have a debate to consider the NHS’s duty to consult and the importance of listening to the views of local people when it is making decisions?
Lucy Powell
This matter is important to my hon. Friend’s constituents and to many others. As she says, NHS England should be paying careful attention to the needs of local communities and listening to local community voices when considering reorganisations or changes in services in any area. My hon. Friend’s is the second question of this kind that I have been asked today, and I am sure that were she to apply for a debate, it would be very well attended.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
Three women a week commit suicide because of male violence against women, two women a week are killed by their current or former partners, and nearly four in 10 girls attending mixed schools have experienced some form of sexual harassment. In the year to March, there were 11,000 complaints about violence against women and girls on public transport. White Ribbon Day, which we marked earlier in the week, sends the clear message that dealing with this starts with men and the education of men. Given that it is clearly a cross-Government issue, may we have a debate in Government time on cross-Government solutions?
Lucy Powell
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue in the week of White Ribbon Day. This Government are absolutely committed to the challenging and ambitious target of halving violence against women and girls over the coming years, with a cross-Government taskforce already looking into how we can deliver on that mission. It includes education, as my hon. Friend mentioned, because, as he rightly pointed out, the campaign starts with men. We will shortly introduce, in the Policing and Crime Bill, some of the measures that we have specified, such as a new criminal offence of spiking. I look forward to debating them with my hon. Friend.
Mary Glindon (Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend) (Lab)
Members from across the House value and appreciate the vital work done by everyone working for the Ministry of Defence—not only our brave armed forces, but the Ministry’s many dedicated civilian staff. However, the Ministry’s permanent secretary indicated, without having consulted trade unions, that there is a plan to shed 10% of the workforce—that is 5,000 jobs—by the end of the Parliament. Will the Leader of the House please grant a debate in Government time on the importance of civilian staff in the MOD, and ask the Defence Secretary to meet the Public and Commercial Services Union on this important matter?
Lucy Powell
I will ensure that the Secretary of State for Defence has heard my hon. Friend’s question. He made a statement to the House last week, or the week before—it was certainly very recently—about changes that we are making as part of our ongoing work on the strategic defence review. To be clear, the defence budget has been increased in this Labour Government’s Budget, but we need to make sure that the resources are deployed on meeting the needs of modern warfare. That is why the strategic defence review is so important.
Satvir Kaur (Southampton Test) (Lab)
Local newspapers such as the Southern Daily Echo play a crucial role in informing and championing our local communities. They also play an important role in holding to account businesses, public bodies and, of course, politicians. In places such as Southampton, however, journalists are increasingly being subject to legal threats and intimidation, particularly through strategic lawsuits against public participation, which are often used by big business. Does the Leader of the House agree that a free press is a fundamental pillar of our democracy, and does she support my calls for more to be done to support our local media against intimidation and techniques such as SLAPPs?
Lucy Powell
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that journalism and a free press are a fundamental pillar of our democracy, and that local journalism is an absolutely vital and trusted source of fact and truth in an age of misinformation and disinformation. Indeed, we saw the local press play a very important role over the summer during the riots, given the misinformation that was spreading at the time. She is absolutely right to raise the issue of SLAPPs and the consequences that they can have for local newspapers, such as those in her constituency. I think we had a Backbench Business debate on this issue recently, but I am sure that it will crop up time and again.
Paul Davies (Colne Valley) (Lab)
Visiting Hepworth junior and infant school, and Salendine Nook high school, during Parliament Week was inspiring. The students’ enthusiasm for learning about democracy was evident in their thoughtful questions and active participation. It is clear that early engagement is crucial for fostering informed future citizens. Can we have a debate in Government time about children’s involvement in the democratic process?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend is right to raise Parliament Week and the vital role that it plays in educating our young people about the important institutions of our democracy, including Parliament. I do not know how many events he had in his constituency, but I had 37 in mine. I believe that, yet again, Mr Speaker was top of the list for number of events in his constituency. My hon. Friend will know that this Government have instigated an independent curriculum and assessment review. Citizenship education, and ensuring an education for life, are absolutely vital if we are to uphold our democratic institutions in the future.
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke- Smith) for mentioning “Bake Off”. We need to give a shout-out to the excellent Georgie from Wales, who won the competition and whose star is surely on the rise.
Across my constituency of Monmouthshire, there are homes and villages without any broadband connection, including Whitebrook, which literally has no connection whatsoever. In some communities, such as the village of Llangwm, the providers are totally inadequate. I know how frustrating it can be to have no internet. I have been on a Zoom call when my children were playing on their Xbox, and we had a bit of a row because I had to ask them to get off. In an emergency or life-threatening situation, it is extremely difficult if people cannot make a phone call or get online. I recognise the excellent work that the Government are undertaking to expand access to broadband across Britain through Project Gigabit, but I worry for small rural communities that have yet to be reached. Will the Leader of the House find Government time for a debate on rural broadband?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend is right to say that broadband is now a vital utility, as important as electricity, water and all the other things on which people rely, especially in rural communities like hers. I empathise with her on the battle for broadband bandwidth at home. I am afraid that this Government inherited quite a slow roll-out of full-fibre gigabit broadband. We need to accelerate the programme to make sure that rural communities like hers have the broadband access that they need, so that they can download a few more recipes, and maybe win the bake-off competition that the House is looking forward to.
Mr Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
My constituent Nicola Holdsworth sadly lost her mum a few years ago and struggled with grief. She was told that it would take eight months to see a grief counsellor, so she set up the Morley Grief Group. The organisation has gone from strength to strength in helping people in our community, and it now has more than 800 members. Local GPs refer people to it, and it recently won the community award at the BBC Radio Leeds “Make a Difference” awards. Will the Leader of the House join me in paying tribute to Nicola and the Morley Grief Group, and will she allow Government time for a debate on the need for more grief counsellors—and, of course, the need to support volunteer organisations like Nicola’s?
Lucy Powell
I thank Nicola for setting up the Morley Grief Group at what must have been a very difficult time. She turned her grief into an award-winning voluntary group that supports others. My hon. Friend is right to raise the importance of grief counselling. Provision of these services is too slow, which is why many people rely on voluntary and charity organisations. I am sure that this would make a very good topic for a debate.
Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)
In some parts of my constituency, particularly Cowdenbeath, there has been a reported rise in violent and antisocial behaviour. Such behaviour is unacceptable and causes fear, injury and damage to property. I have written to the Scottish Government urging action. They must use some of the additional £3.4 billion from the Budget for next year to properly fund our local police. Does the Leader of the House agree that the SNP should also learn from Labour’s new respect orders, which will clamp down on antisocial behaviour and the menace of off-road bikes in England? Will she grant a debate in Government time to discuss these issues?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend is right to say that the Scottish Government have huge additional funds as a result of last month’s Budget. They have the powers, so they have no excuse not to tackle issues faced by her constituents in Cowdenbeath. The Scottish Government can certainly learn lessons from this Government, particularly on respect orders and from the work that we are doing to tackle antisocial behaviour.
Blair McDougall (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)
Having sent birthday wishes to the Clerk of the House, will the Leader of the House extend her congratulations to the 1st Neilston boys brigade on its 70th birthday? It is a vibrant boys brigade at the heart of village life, giving great experiences to young people in my constituency. Will she make Government time available to discuss the role that uniformed youth organisations play in our constituencies? She will know that many of these groups are struggling with heating bills, and have difficulty meeting the demand from parents, who want their children to have the experiences that these organisations offer. Finally, if the Leader of the House has any birthday wishes left in her reserves, will she extend them to the 121st Glasgow scout group in Clarkston and the 3rd Barrhead scout group on their centenaries?
Lucy Powell
If the House will indulge me, I congratulate the 1st Neilston boys brigade on its 70th birthday, and the 121st Glasgow scout group and the 3rd Barrhead scout group on their 100th birthdays.
My hon. Friend highlights the vital role that uniformed youth organisations play in giving our young people purpose, experience, teamwork and volunteering opportunities; we all see that in our constituencies. We see their contribution every year on Remembrance Sunday, as I did recently in my constituency. I pay tribute to these groups for bringing our communities together.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I agree with the comments about uniformed associations, which are absolutely true. One of the defining features of recent years has been the cost of living crisis, which has had soaring energy bills at its heart. While the energy price cap has offered people some protection, a loophole means that many heat network users still face significant price hikes. This issue was featured on the BBC’s “Rip Off Britain” last week. Hannah and Lucie in my Edinburgh South West office have done excellent work supporting residents who have this problem in Harvesters Way, Wester Hailes and the Green in Longstone. The Government are committed to addressing the inequality those residents face in January 2026. That is a positive step, but many residents feel that progress is still too slow. If we have to wait a year, I am keen that we make best use of that time. Will the Leader of the House commit to a debate in Government time to help inform the development of the planned changes ahead of 2026?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend is right that Ofgem will be appointed the heat network regulator. Ofgem’s powers will include an ability to investigate unfair pricing and ensure that a consumer’s heat supply is maintained if their supplier goes out of business. I am sure that he will want to take the opportunity to raise this important issue at the next energy questions, in a couple of weeks’ time.
Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)
I join my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) in congratulating all the voluntary groups receiving the King’s award for voluntary service during the King’s birthday celebrations this year. I want to pick out Halesowen in Bloom, a fantastic community organisation in my constituency that has been making the town beautiful for a number of years. It has planted roses in the town centre and made places from canal boats to churchyards look really amazing. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate in Government time that allows us to recognise the importance of horticulture to the wellbeing of our communities, and to congratulate organisations like Halesowen in Bloom, which do such a brilliant job?
Lucy Powell
Halesowen in Bloom sounds like another great community group that plays a vital role in my hon. Friend’s area by bringing together people with green fingers, giving people purpose—not just the volunteers—and creating a lovely, floral community. I am sure that if he banded together with colleagues, he could get a Backbench Business debate, in which he could put on record our thanks to all volunteers like those in Halesowen in Bloom.
Alan Strickland (Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor) (Lab)
I have been working tirelessly with industry leaders and transport Ministers to secure the future of the fantastic Hitachi train factory in Newton Aycliffe, which is home to hundreds of high-tech manufacturing jobs, but was left in the lurch by the dither and delay of the previous Tory Government. Can I secure a debate in Government time on how we build a sustainable future for our proud rail manufacturing industry, and rescue it from the mess it was left in by the Conservatives?
Lucy Powell
I could not have said that better myself. The Hitachi train factory and others were left in the lurch by the previous Government. This Government are committed to supporting rail manufacturing in the UK. We are developing a long-term strategy, and working on our industry strategy, to ensure that this manufacturing can continue.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
A number of my constituents living on St John’s Road in Chew Moor have contacted me recently about flooding, potentially caused by ongoing work by Network Rail and its contractor on the nearby railway line. I welcome spades in the ground to improve infrastructure across the north—infrastructure that has been neglected for far too long—but will the Leader of the House find Government time for a debate on how we ensure that developers have to work with local communities to minimise disruption to local people’s lives?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am pleased that the rail route between Wigan and Bolton, which I know well, is being upgraded and electrified. He is right to say that where works are taking place, contractors have to work with local communities, and resolutions should be reached swiftly. I will ensure that the Transport Secretary has heard his question and gives him a swift reply.
Madam Deputy Speaker, may I clarify something I said earlier in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon)? She asked me about a reasoned amendment in tomorrow’s debate; I said that it would have the effect that I described “if selected”, but I meant to say “if passed”.
UK Leadership on Sudan
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Development (Anneliese Dodds)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall make a statement about the UK’s focus on Sudan during the UK’s presidency of the UN Security Council this month and about the humanitarian emergency in Sudan.
Eighteen months into this devastating conflict, the war that began as a power struggle between the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces has become one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes. Nearly 25 million people—half of Sudan’s population—are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Sudan’s neighbours are also struggling under the strain of hundreds of thousands of refugees. The UK is using every lever, including through our role on the UN Security Council, to convene the international community to alleviate suffering, pursue peace and hold those responsible for atrocities to account.
On 12 November, Lord Collins chaired an open meeting of the Security Council, calling for urgent measures to protect civilians. On Monday last week, the Foreign Secretary brought together partners in New York to agree on collective action to pressure the warring parties, remove barriers to humanitarian operations and ensure aid reaches those in desperate need. In partnership with Sierra Leone, the UK introduced a Security Council resolution that called for protection of civilians and full, unimpeded aid access. I am appalled that one country chose to block that vital resolution.
Russia’s veto is a disgrace, but let me be clear: Russia’s actions will not deter us. We will continue to use our role as UN Security Council penholder on Sudan to drive forward action to safeguard civilians and deliver lifesaving aid. The decision to keep the Adre border crossing open for three more months is welcome, but that must become permanent and it must be free of deliberate bureaucratic obstacles imposed by the SAF that are costing lives. The RSF must also heed international humanitarian law; indeed, all warring parties have no excuse but to do so.
Without urgent support, even more Sudanese people will die, not only from bombs and bullets, but from starvation, preventable illness and exposure. I met some of those who had fled from Sudan to South Sudan. What they told me about wading through floodwater for hours, children dying from diarrhoea in the rain and their desperation to find food will never leave me. That is why the UK is doubling its aid this year, providing an additional £113 million to support people in Sudan and those who have fled to neighbouring countries that are so generously hosting large numbers of displaced people. The funding will allow our partners to deliver food, water, shelter and healthcare where it is needed most. As part of that uplift, we are also providing £10 million to Education Cannot Wait, giving 200,000 vulnerable children in refugee and host communities a safe space to learn and support for their mental health as they endure this traumatic crisis.
The people of Sudan face a humanitarian emergency of horrifying proportions. Under our presidency of the Security Council, the UK is rallying international action. We are steadfast in our commitment to the Sudanese people to secure humanitarian access, pursue peace and deliver hope for a more stable and prosperous future. This Government will continue to do everything in our power, with our partners, to bring this devastating conflict to an end. I commend this statement to the House.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of her statement.
I welcome this statement not least because it provides an opportunity to highlight what is a humanitarian catastrophe. Yesterday, I was fortunate to meet representatives of the World Food Programme. From speaking to them and to others in the sector, I know how crucial it is that we continue to raise the importance of this issue and to keep the situation in our minds.
This war, which is driven by a man-made power struggle, has already resulted in the world’s worst hunger and displacement crisis. It is, as I said earlier, a humanitarian catastrophe. Any further deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Sudan will have dire consequences. There are already 25 million people—half the entire population of Sudan—in urgent need of assistance. Eleven million people have had to flee from their homes, and 7 million need urgent food assistance. There are reports of systematic human rights abuses, including sexual violence, torture and mass civilian casualties. What has been happening in Darfur is also incredibly disturbing.
The situation in Sudan is unconscionable. Red lines are being crossed in the prosecution of this conflict that countries such as the UK—the penholder on Sudan at the UN Security Council—cannot allow to stand. It is also firmly in the region’s interest for the conflict to come to an end and the humanitarian crisis to be addressed. Further destabilisation in the region caused by this conflict must be avoided. Sadly, we are all well aware of the knock-on effect in the surrounding countries. The UK has already invested a great deal of diplomatic energy into trying to bring about a cessation of hostilities and to press for unhindered, safe humanitarian access to Sudan.
The previous Government also invested heavily in aid to Sudan to alleviate the suffering. I would like to take a second to pay tribute to my constituency neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who is not in his place today, for the leadership that he has shown in response to this crisis and for his commitment in government to the people of Sudan.
We understand that the new Government have announced further aid measures, which of course is welcome, but I would be grateful if the Minister could provide further details to the House on which trusted organisations she has partnered with for her emergency aid package. We note that she has said that the package will provide food, water, shelter and healthcare where it is most needed, but can she provide specific examples of the aid items she hopes it will deliver and at which areas of Sudan she envisages it being targeted?
The Minister will no doubt be fully seized of the problem of getting aid into Sudan in the first place, let alone the challenges of distribution. Can she assure the House that everything possible is being done to ensure that this aid can be genuinely effectively distributed? What recent conversations has she had with partners to encourage other countries to provide support to the humanitarian response?
Turning to the warring parties, our position remains that there must be an immediate cessation of hostilities. We understand that the resolution the Government introduced at the UN Security Council with Sierra Leone was thwarted by Russia. However, we would welcome a further update on other avenues the Government are actively pursuing, including backing the Jeddah process. The Government and our allies need to be working around the clock to press the warring parties into a ceasefire and to exert whatever pressure they can to see the lifting of arbitrary obstacles to humanitarian aid delivery.
In conclusion, I am sure the Minister will agree that the status quo in Sudan is not sustainable and that it must change. The UK has a leadership role here. We must use it to its fullest extent.
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her remarks and her clear concern about the situation. I hope that a loud and clear message has been sent that there is cross-party concern about what is going on. I was very encouraged by how she described the situation and the need for the UK leadership that we are determined to deliver.
I was very encouraged to hear that the right hon. Lady has met representatives of the World Food Programme to discuss these matters. I, too, met a number of its operatives when I was in South Sudan. They are working incredibly hard to get in the support that is needed. In fact, there was some coverage of this on the BBC this morning—very welcome coverage, given that there has not been a huge amount of media coverage of the situation—including interviews with some of the operatives.
The right hon. Lady talked about the growing body of evidence of serious atrocities and violations of human rights. The UK Government are extremely concerned about that. We were determined to ensure that we had a renewal of the mandate for the fact-finding mission. We were pleased that it was renewed, this time with increased support from African nations. It is important to get a picture of what is really happening, so that there is no impunity.
The right hon. Lady rightly referred to the regional impact. We have seen the impact on South Sudan, Chad and a number of other countries, including countries that were already in difficult situations in terms of food security. She talked about the work of the previous Government, for which I am grateful. As I said, this is a cross-party issue. We are determined to intensify that work, given the deteriorating situation, and to work with other partners to push this forward. We have seen leadership right across the UK on this issue, including from Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Edinburgh on her visit to Chad, which followed that of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell).
The right hon. Lady asked about the package for delivery of aid. We are working with UN agencies and Education Cannot Wait on targeted support for vulnerable children. She mentioned the need for specific forms of support. We have ensured that our aid, including water and sanitation support, is being delivered in a way that recognises the prevalence of violence against women and girls. Disturbingly, many people in internally displaced persons camps, and in refugee situations, have been subject to that violence, so we have ensured that our support is tailored and effective.
The right hon. Lady asked about other countries we are seeking to work with. We have taken the matter up repeatedly with the African Union and worked to ensure that there is that engagement. The African Union is keen to work with us on this issue, and I have raised it in a number of bilateral engagements, as have many other UK Ministers.
The right hon. Lady talked about the Jeddah process. It has been extremely frustrating that we have not seen all parties to the conflict engaging in those attempts to broker peace. We have been clear that they must participate. Their failure to engage with a number of processes is effectively leading to a humanitarian emergency in Sudan. There has been forum shopping, and that must end.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Chair of the International Development Committee.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Yesterday, in the Committee’s session on Sudan, Dr Eva Khair, director of the Sudan Transnational Consortium, made it clear that we should regard this not as a civil war but as a war on civilians, and she is right. Since April 2023, when the war started, 61,000 people have been killed, with 11 million people internally displaced—nearly a quarter of the population. Fourteen regions are at risk of famine, and the UN’s fund is only 57% funded. I welcome the personal involvement of both the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for Development, but I seek assurances that that commitment will continue, because we are the penholder and a former colonial administrator, which means that we have special duties when it comes to Sudan. Will the Minister give assurances about how she is convening the international community to stop the war and, importantly, to involve civil society in the debates?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those important issues and for the work of the Select Committee on these matters, including its recent hearing. She is right that the conflict has had a dreadful impact on civilians. We are determined to use every multilateral and bilateral mechanism and relationship that we have to seek the end to the conflict that is so desperately needed, an end to the restrictions on humanitarian aid, and an end to the atrocities being perpetrated against civilians. She talked about the UN mechanisms. We are determined to keep exercising leadership. As I said, Russia’s veto will not hold us back from continuing to push hard to advance these issues. We are determined to make a change on them.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement and for the UK’s work at the UN Security Council this past month. The Liberal Democrats welcome efforts to secure a ceasefire in Sudan and join Members from all sides of the House in condemning Russia’s attempts to stop one. The UK should not accept that the consequences of the Russia veto are that we cannot act to protect civilians, so what actions are the Government taking? Given that we can act and we do not have to wait, will they consider a UK Sudan-wide no-fly zone, building on the one in place in Darfur? Does the Minister agree that we should not bestow legitimacy on warring groups? I understand that the RSF is days away from claiming that it is forming a Government. If it does, does she agree that it will be civilians who lose out?
We will shortly pass the rotating presidency on to the US. Will the Minister update the House on what conversations she and her colleagues have had with UN counterparts to ensure that this brutal conflict, which sadly has been ignored, is brought to an end so that civilians are protected? With the inauguration of President Trump just weeks away, what representations have we made against the division of Sudan? Will the Minister commit to doing all she can to raise the profile in the UK of that conflict?
When my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), raised the conflict at Prime Minister’s questions, the Prime Minister agreed that
“it is an important issue”
and that he did
“not think we discuss it enough in this House”—[Official Report, 30 October 2024; Vol. 755, c. 806.]
Will the Minister join the Liberal Democrats in calling on the Disasters Emergency Committee to start an appeal, just as it did recently for the middle east? The committee previously communicated to our spokesperson in the other place, Lord Purvis of Tweed, that this conflict is not deemed high-profile enough to start one.
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the issues he raised. He will no doubt be aware that there is a UK arms embargo for all of Sudan, and there is also a UN arms embargo on Darfur. I hope that that helps fill out some of the multilateral and bilateral work that the UK has been engaged in on embargoes.
On the engagement of the armed groups—the warring parties—particularly in peace talks, I have discussed that matter at length with a number of members of civil society. Relating that to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), many of those civilian groups are very concerned that they need to be involved in the peace talks. I met a number of their representatives in Addis Ababa, particularly of the civil society grouping Tagadum, which we are supporting because that civilian voice is incredibly important. More generally, as I mentioned before, we also believe that all warring parties must prioritise taking part in the talks that are so necessary to end this conflict.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether we have had discussions around the US’s role. I discussed that directly with the US lead on humanitarian issues. In fact, we were involved in joint sessions at the UN General Assembly on the matter. Finally, he mentioned the key issue of the profile of the emergency in Sudan—the largest number of displaced people anywhere in the world. Sudan was one of the first issues I wanted to be briefed on and active on when I came into my role. It was the reason I visited South Sudan over the summer. I know many Members and, indeed, many of our constituents are deeply concerned about the situation. I am pleased that we are seeing more media coverage. Of course, when it comes to a Disasters Emergency Committee appeal, that is a decision for the broadcasters to take, but I hope the renewed interest we are seeing in the media will lead to its gaining a higher profile.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Africa, I have raised the terrible conflict in Sudan on a number of occasions. Too often, it has felt like a forgotten conflict, despite the scale of suffering there, so I welcome the Minister’s leadership on that issue. She talked about the regional impact. What steps has she taken to support South Sudan, Chad and Egypt? How is she engaging with grassroots groups in South Sudan so that their voices are heard as we try to move towards a solution to that terrible conflict?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those issues, and I thank her and many other Members gathered here for their leadership on them. She mentioned the situation in neighbouring countries. I am aware that in Chad, South Sudan and Egypt there are large numbers of refugees from Sudan. We have discussed those matters with representatives from each of those countries. We are seeing quite different profiles in the relative economic circumstances of refugees in those countries and in how they are being supported. I know that in Egypt there is a determination to support people, as indeed there is in South Sudan and in Chad.
On conversations with civil society organisations in South Sudan, I have had a number of discussions—particularly with women’s rights organisations there—about the conflict, and I have spoken directly with some of those who have fled Sudan. I have spoken with representatives from Chad about it as well. We must be conscious that, as I mentioned, many of those countries already face significant challenges in food insecurity, economic development and the impact of the climate crisis, and now they are dealing with this major influx of refugees. We must pay tribute to them for enabling those refugees to seek safety and security within their borders.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
We come now to a member of the International Development Committee.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
I very much welcome the statement and the increased focus on Sudan. Evidence given to the International Development Committee is clear that those in Sudan feel that the conflict has been forgotten and ignored, partly because it has received so little international media attention. Anything that can change that is welcome. I commend to the Minister the evidence that the Committee took this week, which sets out that the most effective way of delivering aid is through local groups on the ground. More widely, what engagement has the UK had with the United Arab Emirates in particular, given their huge influence in that conflict?
Anneliese Dodds
I thank the right hon. Member for raising those incredibly important issues. I was pleased that an FCDO official engaged in that meeting, which I know was a helpful exchange of information. The right hon. Member talks about the local groups engaged in delivering humanitarian support. When I have met representatives of such groups—particularly the so-called emergency response rooms—I have been incredibly moved by their bravery, courage and absolute selflessness in getting support to those who need it. They are resolutely non-partisan in supporting their communities, and are a real sign of co-operation in action, in the hardest possible circumstances. I pay tribute to them.
The right hon. Member talks about the influence of other countries in this situation, and mentioned the UAE. As he will be aware, a number of countries are concerned about this situation, and we have had bilateral conversations, including my own discussions, with representatives from the UAE and other countries elsewhere in the Gulf.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call another member of the International Development Committee.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her updates. Part of the reason that Sudan is becoming not just a devastating conflict but a protracted one is the involvement of state and non-state actors from elsewhere in Africa, the middle east and further afield. Does she consider Sudan to be a foreign policy priority as well as a humanitarian priority, and what diplomatic actions is the Department taking with the warring parties and their backers to urge de-escalation?
Anneliese Dodds
Yes, to use the words of my hon. Friend—who of course has considerable experience in the area of humanitarian emergencies—this is a foreign policy priority for the UK Government. That is demonstrated by the recent leadership of the Foreign Secretary at the Security Council. It will continue to be a foreign policy priority, as has been made very clear by the Foreign Secretary and, indeed, by the Prime Minister. We will continue to use every lever available to us to ensure that we are speaking up for the people of Sudan and doing all we can to secure an end to this dreadful conflict.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The current war in Ukraine and the battles between Israel and the terrorists from Lebanon and Gaza are regularly reported to this House, yet more civilians are being killed in Sudan than in all these other conflicts. This conflict has been largely ignored across this House and in our media, so I warmly welcome the Minister’s statement today and support it completely. Now, of course, an end to hostilities has to be secured, but equally, those responsible for human rights abuses need to be brought to justice at the International Criminal Court or the International Court of Justice. What action is the Minister going to take to make sure that happens?
Anneliese Dodds
I thank the hon. Member for his kind words. As we can see, there is considerable concern about this situation right across the House; we need to be working together on this emergency, and I have certainly found the Opposition to be keen to do so.
The hon. Member talks about the need to ensure there is not impunity for the atrocities that we are currently seeing. That is absolutely a priority of the UK Government. As I have mentioned, we were really determined to ensure the renewal of the fact-finding mission, and I pay tribute to the previous Government for having managed to secure the initial mission. There was some suggestion that it might be difficult to get it renewed, but we actually saw an increase in support for it—two African countries backed it, which was really encouraging. We are determined to work right across the board to ensure that there is no impunity, but above all, that the voices of people on the ground are heard. That also involves backing civil society, which again, the new Government are doing.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I commend my right hon. Friend’s statement, as well as the work done by the Foreign Secretary at the United Nations, despite the failure of the resolution. Eleven million displaced people is a staggering number; some 2 million have gone to neighbouring countries and, specifically, 1 million have been displaced to Egypt. The regional and global consequences of that displacement are huge, so how can the UK assist those countries, particularly Egypt, which may also face the prospect of refugees from Gaza?
Anneliese Dodds
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this matter. The word that he used is absolutely correct: we have seen a staggering movement of people, both internally within Sudan and, as he mentioned, to neighbouring countries. We have had a number of discussions with those countries about the challenges that this displacement has posed. They have, of course, kept their borders open to enable those fleeing such an appalling conflict to seek sanctuary, but we need to make sure their voices are heard. That is why we have ensured that we have listened to those countries’ concerns about these matters, particularly in our delivery of support. The Education Cannot Wait support that I have talked about is also supporting children in host communities.
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
I thank the Minister for coming to the Chamber today to make this important statement. Unspeakable atrocities have taken place and are taking place in Sudan, and the humanitarian disaster that has followed is horrific, both in its nature and its scale. In that light, my SNP colleagues and I welcome the additional £113 million in aid that the Minister has promised. However, I must press her on three specific points.
First, can the Minister tell us whether the overall aid budget will increase accordingly, or is this simply moving money from one budget heading to another? That is an important point. Secondly, although this aid is welcome, it is insufficient. The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew), called for a no-fly zone; can the Minister say what specific measures and actions she is taking to prevent these atrocities in Sudan, beyond the provision of aid? Finally, only moments ago, the Minister said that she was appalled by Russia’s veto of a Security Council resolution, and that that veto is a disgrace. On that, she is absolutely right, but will she commit to consistent UK leadership in condemning UN Security Council members who veto humanitarian resolutions going forward?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his questions. On the overall aid budget, I can assure him that this is not just shifting funds around. If he looks at the programme budget for the FCDO for this year, 2024-25, compared with next year, 2025-26, he will see that there is an increase of £450 million. Of course, we are inheriting a situation where there has been huge turbulence within the aid budget, particularly because of the increase in in-donor refugee costs under previous Governments, but we are determined to get a grip of that turbulence and have a much more planned approach for the future.
The hon. Member asked about the measures being taken beyond aid. I have talked about the arms embargo, and we are engaged in many diplomatic efforts. Because he specifically highlighted atrocity prevention, I will also mention that the Minister for Africa, Lord Collins, hosted an event with his Dutch counterpart at the UN General Assembly that was specifically about conflict-related sexual violence. We are determined to ensure that the voices of those women and girls who have been impacted are heard, and that we are taking action against it. Of course, the UK is determined to be absolutely consistent when it comes to the prevention of access to aid during conflicts, and the hon. Member has seen that from this Government.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call another member of the Select Committee.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Many members of the Select Committee, myself included, have heard of the role that online disinformation and hatred have played in some of the atrocities in Sudan. What leadership can the UK demonstrate in helping to quell some of this digital fuel on the fire in the war against Sudanese civilians?
Anneliese Dodds
My hon. Friend raises a really important point. We are indeed seeing a huge amount of misinformation circulating, and a lot of it is digital. That is why we have been determined to support the Centre for Information Resilience, a research body that is gathering open-source evidence about the ongoing fighting. Where the facts about what is going on are being manipulated, that is linked to fuelling violence, so it is important that we see continued support for reliable information and evidence in this context and also that we combat that disinformation, which has been so damaging.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
The war in Sudan is plainly appalling. I heard that 14 million people had been displaced, but 11 million is also an appalling figure. As I understand it, this started out as a war between the general in charge of the armed forces and the general in charge of the Rapid Support Forces militia. That makes me think that we need to get upstream of such situations, to try to prevent them happening again. The UK used to be involved in defence engagement: we were delivering courses such as managing defence in a wider security context at the Kofi Annan international peacekeeping training centre, teaching things like democratic oversight and democratic control of the armed forces. Will the Government look again at that training, and see whether we might deliver more such training for military officers and officials in those developing countries that are receptive to it?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his interesting and important question. The issue of conflict prevention is absolutely fundamental, not just for me as a Minister but for the Foreign Secretary and, indeed, the Prime Minister. We have been seeking to ensure that the UK does all it can to exercise leadership in relation to what are often described as fragile and conflict-affected states. That includes states that are not yet in conflict but where there are the ingredients for conflict to increase. Unfortunately, of course, the climate crisis is now often linked to some of those conflicts. We have made sure that there is a stronger focus on economic development, for example. We had some good results a few weeks ago from the World Bank, which is focusing on this in its International Development Association replenishment. I will ensure that the specific issue of defence training is raised with the Defence Secretary, and I will definitely be thinking about it myself.
Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)
I welcome the statement and the leadership that the UK has shown, particularly in the UN Security Council. When we look at Sudan, the complexities can make us feel as though we cannot act, but it is really important that we do. Having spoken to NGOs on the ground, I know that they continue to push for access. As a number of hon. Members have mentioned, the NGOs are particularly concerned about the UN’s role in this and keen that we continue to push the UN. I welcome the continuation of access on the border in Chad, but can we ensure that the UK is pushing the UN on sustainable access on that border, and that it is not time-bound or unnecessarily conditioned?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising these really important issues. The UK Government have discussed these matters in detail with the UN, and I have myself done so with a number of its agencies engaged in the crisis. I know that they have been deeply concerned about the restrictions on aid that we have seen. Some restrictions are very clear, such as the closures of crossings, but there are also those that are de facto because of bureaucratic or administrative obstacles placed in the way of those trying simply to keep people alive through humanitarian aid. She talked about the crossing in Darfur. We had welcome news that it would be open for three more months, but ultimately it must be open permanently. This is an absolutely critical lifeline for millions of people, and we will continue to advocate for that, as I am sure will the NGOs she mentioned. I pay tribute to their work, and it has been a pleasure to meet them and discuss these matters.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
I, too, welcome the Minister’s statement on the dire situation in Sudan. As has been mentioned, Sudan has been described as the “forgotten war”, which is incredible when we think that, according to the United Nations, 14 million people have been displaced and over half its population is on the verge of starvation. Why does the Minister think it has taken us so long to give this conflict due consideration? I would like to push her on what negotiations we are having with our proxy nations that are playing a role in this conflict, with some of which we have excellent relations. Finally, what tangible actions are we taking to get aid into the country and to distribute it to those who most need it?
Anneliese Dodds
Perhaps I can reassure the hon. Member that this crisis has been an absolute priority for me. As I stated before—I will not rehearse what I said previously—as soon as I came into my role, I was determined that I should be briefed on this situation. I was determined to get as close to Sudan as I could, which I did when I went to South Sudan over the summer. I was really determined to make sure that the UK was exercising its leadership role. We have also been absolutely clear—I have said this in the House a number of times—that there is no reason for any country to be engaged in Sudan unless it is providing humanitarian support. I have said that on the record a number of times, and we will continue to make that case.
Mr Mark Sewards (Leeds South West and Morley) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement on this harrowing humanitarian catastrophe. I especially welcome the fact that the UK is committed to giving an additional £113 million in aid to the people in Sudan. I have two questions. First, how realistic is it that this aid will actually get to the people still in Sudan? Secondly, given the large number of countries hosting huge numbers of refugees, have they in any way indicated how long they are willing to continue hosting refugees?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those important questions. We are confident that the UK support is reaching those in such desperate need. That is requiring creativity, diligence and repeated work from those on the ground, particularly to ensure that they are able to get aid to where it is needed. There is often a complex process of negotiation, and that is in the context that there should be no impediment on aid, but we are determined that it will get to those who need it.
My hon. Friend talked about the response of neighbouring countries to the large influx of refugees. The last conversation I had with one of those countries was with some Ministers and representatives from Chad. They are determined to fulfil their responsibilities, and they are extremely concerned about their Sudanese brothers and sisters, as they described them to me, who have come over the border. However, that country is already under a huge amount of stress, so we pay tribute to it, but we need to see the international community stepping up.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much for her positivity when she comes to answer questions in this Chamber; we are all encouraged by her true and honest enthusiasm, so I put my thanks on the record. With an estimated 25 million people looking for food and 14 million people displaced, Sudan is fast becoming the crisis point of the world. Although I am loath to suggest engagement in any theatre of war, my question to the Minister is this: can we do more? Can we do more to offer safe and secure camps for women and children, with the chance of education and clean water? Can we do more to assist those who are seeking to do better and to battle with tyranny? If we can do more, my question is: will this enhancement start today?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to the hon. Member for his kind words. I know that he is engaged significantly on these issues, and he has been at all the discussions of them in the House. I know that many of his constituents are concerned about this situation as well.
It really is important that we see far greater safety for those who have fled this conflict. The hon. Member talks in particular about women and girls. I mentioned before the extremely disturbing fact that, while of course women and girls must be safe everywhere, we have, for example, had rape reported in camps for internally displaced people and at checkpoints. The fact that we have seen this taking place in those contexts is extremely disturbing. We are absolutely determined, as the UK Government, that we will be working with partners and the UN agencies to ensure that we do all we can to provide such safety and security, which of course includes the food security that he has also championed.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call another member of the Select Committee.
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Minister’s statement. This week the Select Committee heard compelling evidence, including about the important role of the Sudanese diaspora, and not only in the UK but in other countries. The Minister has rightly recognised the importance of listening to civil society organisations and working with them in Sudan. Will she speak specifically about how the Department is engaging with the Sudanese diaspora here, and what practical steps are being taken to tackle the cost of remittances, given that many people are sending money back to their loved ones?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this—of course, she has considerable expertise in this area. The role of the Sudanese diaspora is incredibly important. I am sure that many of us will have had discussions with members of the diaspora in our constituencies and heard their concerns about the humanitarian situation, but also about what they are doing to support friends, family and the wider community. I have certainly done that myself, and I know that Lord Collins is determined to ensure that we have a strong relationship with the Sudanese diaspora. Indeed, we should consolidate it for the future because we all want the same thing: peace, security and humanitarian support for people living in Sudan.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her statement. This week the UN called the crisis in Sudan an “invisible crisis”, so it is really powerful that we have had so much agreement here today, which I hope will shed some light on the crisis. Others have spoken about the gender-based violence, which the UN has described as an “epidemic”. I am pleased that the Minister is taking the issue really seriously, and I know that this is more than just a job for her. However, Sudan is also a place where minority faiths are persecuted, so when we are thinking about distributing aid, will we take account of all human rights as well as the need to save lives?
Anneliese Dodds
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that important question; he is of course right about the need to act against conflict-related sexual violence, which many Members have referenced. On religious freedom in particular, which has previously been raised in the House, we remain concerned by the wider human rights situation across Sudan since the 2021 military coup. We continue to promote freedom of religion or belief as a means of enhancing tolerance and inclusion in Sudan, but we are not aware of any significant increase in the specific targeting of, or discrimination against, any religious minorities because of their beliefs, including Christians, in the country since April 2023. We will, however, keep this under review.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her statement and for her leadership on the growing humanitarian crisis in Sudan. It all too often feels like a forgotten conflict, given the systemic human rights abuses we have heard about. With that in mind, does she agree that Russia’s veto of the joint UK-Sierra Leone UN Security Council resolution on protecting civilians is indefensible and will only extend the human suffering in Sudan?
Anneliese Dodds
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That resolution was asking for what anyone can see is desperately needed in Sudan: an end to impediments to aid; above all, an end to the conflict; and international action to support the people of Sudan. We were deeply disappointed and frustrated that Russia vetoed that resolution, but that will not dim our resolve to work with other partners on this issue.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Last but by no means least, I call Steve Race.
Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank the Minister for coming to the House to give this statement and for all the work the Government are doing to support the Sudanese people in the face of severe malnutrition and starvation. Keeping the Adre crossing open is extremely important. The Sudanese armed forces have committed to three months, but what diplomatic pressure are the Government bringing to bear to ensure that that crossing remains open for longer than three months? The ability to bring in ready-to-use therapeutic food is so important, and there are global shortages in the production of RUTF at the moment. Ahead of the nutrition for growth summit next year, will the Government commit to investing in scaling up production of RUTF?
Anneliese Dodds
My hon. Friend raises an important point, and he is absolutely correct. The nutrition for growth conference is coming up next year in Paris, and I was discussing that yesterday with some civil society experts. We must ensure that we are doing all we can so that there is provision of those much needed resources, especially for those already suffering from malnutrition. My hon. Friend also mentioned the additional challenge of those impediments to access to aid, which must be lifted. I am pleased that the House is united in its condemnation of those impediments, and I hope we can continue to work together on this appalling crisis.
ROYAL ASSENT
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the King has signified his Royal Assent to the following Act:
Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act 2024.
Backbench Business
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Taiwan: International Status
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Blair McDougall (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House, recalling that United Nations Resolution 2758 of 25 October 1971, which established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations (UN), does not mention Taiwan, notes that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the political status of Taiwan or establish PRC sovereignty over Taiwan and is silent both on the status of Taiwan in the UN and on Taiwanese participation in UN agencies; and calls on the Government to clarify its position that UN Resolution 2758 does not establish the One China Principle as a matter of international law, to state clearly that nothing in law prevents the participation of Taiwan in international organisations and to condemn efforts made by representatives of the PRC to distort the meaning of UN Resolution 2758 in support of Beijing’s One China Principle and the alteration of historic documents by representatives of the PRC, changing the name of the country from Taiwan to Taiwan, province of China.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate. This is the first time I have stood in the Chamber to back the democratic rights of the people of Taiwan, and I want to acknowledge those who have worked on this issue over many years, in particular the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and my former neighbouring MP Stewart McDonald. I also recognise the Minister’s long-standing commitment to the human rights of people in the region, and indeed your commitment, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome to Parliament the deputy representative, director and assistant director of the political division from the Taiwanese Representative Office. They are in the Gallery to observe this debate, which carries an important bearing on our strong and vibrant relationship with Taiwan.
The detail in the motion may seem esoteric, but diplomatic technicalities on an issue as fraught as the status of Taiwan could have far-reaching consequences for the entire world, and we must have this debate now rather than later. I think back to the frenetic last-minute activity ahead of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with emergency flights full of anti-tank weapons, hastily drafted sanctions regimes and fruitless shuttle diplomacy. Ukraine stands as a reminder that it is best to form policy on a crisis before the crisis emerges. Incremental changes to the status quo made by authoritarian regimes are likely a prelude to more overt measures, and the best time to deter an aggressor is before their confidence grows.
It is not possible to overstate the risks of a conflict over Taiwan. Leaving aside the humanitarian costs and geopolitical consequences of another democracy being attacked by a larger authoritarian neighbour, the economic pain would be felt in every household in this country. Around 90% of the world’s large container ships pass through the Taiwan strait once a year. Taiwan produces two thirds of all semiconductors, and well over 90% of all advanced microchips. It is estimated that a conflict would cost the global economy not less than $2.5 trillion, but that estimate is calculated by the Rhodium Group using only shipping data. Bloomberg puts the figure at a massive $10 trillion—about 10% of global GDP—and it regards that to be a conservative estimate.
The scale of the risk is why this debate is taking place not only in this Chamber but in Parliaments around the world, and I put on record my thanks to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China for its assistance. Through its work, Parliaments in Australia, the Netherlands and Canada and the European Parliament have all expressed their opposition to the distortion of UN resolution 2758.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate and for giving way. The comparison point is important. The figures he has given for what would happen should Taiwan be blockaded or even invaded are worth relating back to the Ukraine effect from when Russia invaded Ukraine. We had a hit of about $1 trillion to the global economy. The hon. Gentleman is talking about nine or 10 times that effect on the global economy—this is our neighbour, rather than a far and distant land.
Blair McDougall
Absolutely. Although first and foremost in our minds should be the impact on people in Taiwan of any crisis, it would also be felt by our constituents in their cost of living and everything that happens in this country.
It is right that this is a worldwide debate, given the military incursions into Taiwanese territory, cyber-attacks, disinformation, interference with shipping and aircraft—all the things that make the headlines—and I welcome the new Government’s expressions of concern about aggressive moves in the strait. However, this needs to be a global conversation, because the People’s Republic of China is involved in an aggressive worldwide diplomatic strategy, especially across the global south. The strategy aims to secure international acceptance for its expansionist One China principle, which is to say that Taiwan is part of a single China and the PRC is the only legitimate Government of Taiwan, denying Taiwan’s democracy any distinctive international status.
Of course, resolution 2758 does not mention Taiwan at all, and it does not address in any way the political status of Taiwan. It does not establish the PRC’s sovereignty over Taiwan, and it is silent on the participation of Taiwan in the United Nations and its agencies. Importantly, it has no force of impact on us as sovereign nations and the relationships we choose to have with Taiwan. The current strategy by Beijing is a distortion of international law, but it is also at odds with the long-standing policy of the United Kingdom. It is essential that that is contested, and this debate offers the Minister and the new Government the opportunity to make it clear that the UK opposes that effort by the communist Government to rewrite history, or to unilaterally decide the future of Taiwan.
Debates about Taiwan are famously full of symbolism: which flag is flown, what nomenclature is used, and which seemingly synonymic words cause offence. It would be easy to write off discussions about the interpretation of resolution 2758 as yet another finer detail that distracts from a bigger picture, but that would be a mistake. This is not pedantry from Beijing; this is predation. Chairman Xi watched the near-unanimous diplomatic disapproval of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, and he is seeking to reduce the chances of a similar chorus of condemnation towards any move against Taiwan.
If the PRC’s position that the UN resolution endorses its sovereignty over Taiwan were accepted, it would later use that consensus to argue that any future coercion of Taiwan through arms or other means—whether blockade or annexation—would be legal. Similarly, any acceptance of Beijing’s interpretation would be used to argue that moves to prevent such coercion by Taiwan’s democratic supporters were unlawful. This is not a technical issue but another source of increased risk for conflict across the Taiwan strait.
Will the Minister confirm today whether, as has been reported, any assurances have been given to the PRC that the UK will not seek to counter internationally its efforts on the One China principle, and whether promises have been made privately that we will not make the case with third-party nations for UK policy, namely our position that Taiwan’s status is undetermined? Does she recognise that any UK Government acquiescence with the idea that the status of Taiwan is an internal matter for the PRC alone risks giving legal cover to any future aggressive acts? Does she recognise that distorting resolution 2758 to pursue the exclusion from international organisations of Taiwan—a democratic, self-governing people—undermines the legitimacy of the international rules-based order, not least as it appears to be inconsistent with the treatment of other disputed territories? Will the UK advocate for meaningful Taiwanese participation in all international organisations for which statehood is not a prerequisite?
Past moments of crisis in the strait of Taiwan have flared up and subsided—in particular in 1996 and 2000 after presidential elections—but three things that have changed since then should make us more concerned. First, China is far more heavily armed. Already possessed of the largest naval fleet in the world, Beijing has been adding to it the equivalent of the entire Royal Navy every two years. It will soon have the largest air force in the world.
Secondly, people on both sides of the strait have grown apart. The Taiwanese now have more of a sense of their own identity, and their democracy is deeply embedded, while China’s populist nationalism has grown, and the PRC, which was hardly ever a free and open society, has moved even further in an authoritarian direction, from Xinjiang to Tibet and Hong Kong. Chairman Xi previously proposed to apply the “one country, two systems” approach to Taiwan. However, the systematic removal of Hongkongers’ civil liberties means that any promise from the mainland to maintain the freedoms that Taiwan enjoys could not be trusted. We know that Beijing does not keep its promises.
Thirdly, if we are honest, the west has been found wanting. We have been less than united and less than determined in our defence of democratic allies and democracy around the world. Xi has learned from Putin’s years of slowly boiling the frog, dividing western opponents from each other, manipulating our populations and operating in the grey zone where a gradual increase in aggressive acts avoids a strong strategic response from the west.
That mixture of Chinese armament, growing nationalism, increasing authoritarianism and western weakness is a potentially deadly combination. Indeed, the military exercises and provocations around Taiwan are a recipe for unintentional disaster. Last year, there were more than 1,700 occasions when PRC military aircraft deliberately entered the air defence identification zone of Taiwan. PRC jets turn away when they are just minutes from Taipei. During exercises, we see Taiwanese and PRC vessels in stand-offs on the edge of Taiwan’s nautical buffer zone. Meanwhile, we do not have agreed red lines around Taiwan with other like-minded countries, and worrying ambiguities remain. For example, a maritime and air blockade is normally classed as an act of war, but that is not clear in this case because of Taiwan’s ambiguous state.
Will the Minister assure the House that the legal status of a blockade around Taiwan is being looked at? I worry that we could have a situation where Governments use that ambiguity as an excuse for inertia in the event of a crisis. Will she take the opportunity to say that a maritime and air blockade around Taiwan would be a red line for the Government?
On so many occasions during the cold war, catastrophe was avoided due to essential de-escalation protocols that prevented the misinterpretation of either side’s intentions. I would be interested in the Minister’s assessment of whether there are sufficient procedures of the kind between the military commands of Taipei and Beijing, as in such a febrile and nationalistic atmosphere, a mistake could easily be misunderstood as deliberate escalation, and control of volatile public opinion could easily be lost.
As was said earlier, let us not forget who paid the price for the collective failure of the international community to deter Putin’s aggression. It was first and foremost the Ukrainian people, but ordinary working people around the world also found themselves with unaffordable bills. If Bloomberg is correct, escalation across the strait would be, as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said, five times worse than the economic contraction post Ukraine. We simply cannot allow that to happen.
When we discuss Taiwan, we talk a lot about protecting the status quo, but we must recognise that the PRC is already actively working to change that status quo. Beijing has not paid any price for that. Xi’s diplomatic offensive has not been met with a commensurate effort from western democracies. As the PRC isolates Taiwan within international institutions, we have not increased our engagement in response. Above all, there has been no sanction for the constant military intimidation or grey zone attacks.
I recognise, of course, that careful diplomatic language is needed on this issue, but we live in a world where free and open societies are retreating in the face of authoritarian regimes who no longer recognise the old order or even international boundaries, and who are seeking to recreate the world in their image. I do not expect the Minister to depart from the delicate, long-established language that has defined the UK’s position towards Taiwan since diplomatic relations were established with the PRC, and the motion does not ask for such a departure. I ask the Minister to put on record the Government’s concern about Beijing’s distortion of the international law around Taiwan, and about the editing of historic UN documents by Chinese officials. I hope that is seen not as an outlandish or hawkish request, but merely as the least we can do when confronted with such troubling behaviour.
Finally, putting all diplomatic language aside, the debate is an opportunity to acknowledge the truth: Taiwan is not China in one important way that no amount of economic, military or diplomatic bullying by Beijing can obscure. It is this: the people of Taiwan are free and the people of China are not. Now more than ever, we must stand with democracies and against dictatorships. We must stand up for freedoms that we claim are universal, regardless of where people live in the world, and we should stand with the democracy of Taiwan.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) mentioned sanctions; it gives me huge pleasure to call my co-sanctionee, Sir Iain Duncan Smith.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Madam Deputy Speaker, I will see what I can do to speak on your behalf—even though you have no opinion on this matter.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
We will see if we can ascertain one in passing. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) on securing the debate. That is not easy, as he knows, and it is really good to see so many hon. Members in attendance. As you pointed out, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am one of nine political sanctionees, and it is always worth reminding ourselves that there are two others outside Parliament who are also sanctioned. They spoke to me the other day and said, “We’re often forgotten in this matter, but we can’t do business. It’s very difficult.” I wish to remember them, while we are at it; they were unnecessarily sanctioned.
Everything that the hon. Gentleman said is absolutely correct. The problem is that we are dealing with a power that is growing in potency and totalitarianism while it also grows in other ways. Let me add something on the size of the growth in its military capability. He mentioned China’s naval capacity; right now, China has 230 times the capacity for naval shipbuilding of the United States. Any one shipyard in China outbuilds the whole of the United States in naval shipbuilding. Someone please tell me that that is for a peaceful purpose. I have no conception of why it would need that many naval ships if its purpose was peaceful. The answer is that it is not.
This whole business of Taiwan has been obscured constantly by refusals from Administrations from both sides of the House. I say to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West), who will respond to this debate, that I am not having a go at this Government; I have been having a go at every Government for a long time. It seems that whoever is elected, I am in opposition. She should not take personally the point I am about to make gently to her. Politicians are elected to take decisions based on the principles that we govern by. Our principles are simple: we believe in free speech, base freedom, the rule of law and human rights. We may debate the elements and range of that, but we believe in the fundamental right to decent treatment.
I was sanctioned, along with you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and others, for raising the then undiscovered genocide that was going on in Xinjiang, which has now become public knowledge. This Parliament—Members on both sides—voted to agree that the genocide was taking place, although the Government said that they could not vote to agree with that, or do anything about it, because that action would need to be taken at the UN, through the International Court of Justice. That is never going to happen, because it gets vetoed, straight off. The Labour party, in opposition, agreed that genocide was taking place, and agreed on many occasions with those of us who had real problems with China’s treatment of people and of human rights; the Labour party was constantly in support of our position. I simply say that as a base reminder, because this is really about what we believe.
From one Government to the next, we have genuinely, deliberately obscured the question of Taiwan’s status. People have argued with me that the question was settled by resolution 2758, which is often misquoted. They say that it somehow settled the status of Taiwan. They have argued that it was clear from that resolution, now that the PRC was responsible for China at the UN, that Taiwan was a part of China. It said no such thing, as the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire said. In fact, it was deliberately obscure about that idea; it was not settled.
Under the whole reign of the Communist party in China, Taiwan has never been a part of a Chinese Administration or a Chinese Government. Taiwan right now is a democracy and an upholder of human rights. It has an agreement, as we do, that the freedom of individuals to speak out without let or hindrance, and without fear of arrest—we see such arrests in Hong Kong—remains important. The Government should speak out in Taiwan’s defence and argue that China has no right to extinguish that, unless there is a deliberate indication that Taiwan wishes to be part of China. Taiwan has never wished that, and the last election demonstrates that is still not the case. Taiwan does not wish to join China, as it has never been part of China.
This military build-up is not for a general purpose. It is ultimately to try to displace the US’s position in the Pacific, so that it will be unable to act, should China decide at some point to blockade or invade. The incursions that are taking place would not be tolerated anywhere else in the world. There are huge numbers of planes overflying Taiwan. Ships are threatening it by coming right up close, past the border of Taiwan. They are deliberately provoking, in the hope that action will take place that allows the Chinese to take action themselves.
If we move our gaze slightly further south, we come to the South China sea. China has occupied it and declared it to be a historical part of China. The UN has said that that is not the case, and has told China categorically that it has no right to occupy or build military fortifications in the South China sea. What has China’s reaction been to that? Nothing. It said that the UN has no right to interfere, and now it is trying to blockade. In fact, US navy ships still sail through there, but every other ship, including recently the Philippines coastguard, has been hounded out of the area. Ships have been rammed and threatened, and military naval vessels from China now occupy that space.
We know what China thinks of these things. We know what it plans to do, because it has already done it. We wonder: if we do not say very much, will that obscurity allow China to back away? The Chinese have no intention whatsoever of backing off. That is part of their absolute creed now. In fact, it is clear even from China’s constitution that it sees Taiwan as part of China. I do not know how many more indications the Foreign Office needs of China’s direction of travel.
What do the Government plan to do about this? To what degree will the Government challenge the misinterpretation of resolution 2758 publicly, and recognise that Taiwan has a right to self-determination, as we and all other democratic nations do? Will the Minister take the opportunity to state Government policy clearly from the Dispatch Box? Will she agree to make a public statement to the House about what is going on in Taiwan? The hon. Member for East Renfrewshire asked for that, and I back him up. We would love clarity from the Government on the fact that what is taking place in and around Taiwan is utterly unacceptable; we should even think about moving to a sanction at the Security Council. China will veto that, we know, but it is important for the world to understand China’s position.
To return to covid, we remember when all that happened as a result of a failure in China, but we were unable to get any figures about what Taiwan was doing—and that was rather important, because it had advanced methods of dealing with covid that we could have learned a lot from. We were not allowed to get those figures; they all had to come through China. China refused to let us know what was going on as it embarrassed China, because it had taken very little action early on, and the result was millions dying around the world. My point is that when we acquiesce and give way, as we did at the World Health Organisation, where we no longer insist on these things, that weakness is seen as a success for China. The Chinese take that and move on. How do we know that? Because back in the 1930s, every time we acquiesced to a new demand by Hitler’s Germany, it took that and moved on.
We do not appease communist or fascist dictators by saying, “Well, if we are reasonable, in due course they will be reasonable.” By definition, a dictatorship is not reasonable. Fascist Germany told us what it was going to do, and China tells us categorically all the time what it will do. We in the west do not want to believe that. We think that if we are reasonable, the Chinese will be reasonable. They are not reasonable. They intend to take Taiwan back one way or the other.
Today and going forward, the question for us and for the Foreign Office, the unelected body that sits across the road, is: why do not we get serious about this, understand it, and say all this? If we do not tell the Chinese that there are limits, they assume that we do not believe that there are any, and they go ahead. The financial chaos that would ensue from merely a blockade—not even an invasion of Taiwan—would be devastating to our economies.
I had an argument the other day with one of my colleagues, who shall remain nameless—[Interruption.] There we go; he is not in the Chamber. That individual said to me that Taiwan has nothing to do with us; it is a long way from us, and we have no arrangements with it. When I made the point to him that the whack to our economy would be enormous, I added one other figure, which is that 72% of everything made in the world is made in the area around the South China sea, including China. I said to my colleague that it is not far away; it is our neighbour. Without Taiwan—if anything happens to Taiwan—we go down, too.
The real point of this important debate is to try to persuade the Government to be much bolder about this matter and to recognise the threat, to recognise the need for a British Government to say enough is enough, and to recognise that what happens to Taiwan is not just a matter of interest to us, but a matter of vital importance. Many Members were at the conference in Taipei recently, where we heard about all the terrible problems that Taiwan now faces as a result of China’s actions. One only has to be there to realise just how devastating this situation is to many Taiwanese people, whose lives are genuinely threatened by it.
With this huge build-up, the clear threat that China poses, the brutality it has already demonstrated in the South China sea and the illegality of its actions, and its complete failure to take any actions other than those it wishes to take, it is important for us to demonstrate stage by stage, at every moment and at every opportunity, that we regard China’s behaviour as unacceptable and that we will oppose it. One way this Government could start doing that would be to go back and look again at the risk register that we started under the previous Government. We should now move China on to the higher tier of that risk register. That would send a very strong signal to the Chinese Government that we are serious about our behaviour.
I will end simply by saying the following to the Minister. I know the Government want to increase and improve trade with China, and I understand why they want to do that. My concern, at the end of it all, is that we cannot detach our desire for commercial engagement from the real engagement, which is about the way a state treats the people who live there and the way it behaves to its neighbours. We did so in the past, and look what happened: 60 million people died because we ignored what was going to happen. They told us what was going to happen, but we wanted to do business with them. This time we have to learn that appeasement does not work. There is no chance it will work this time. We need to be clear to China, as America is and as others are, and say that this shall not stand, that we in the UK will stand for the freedom of those people whose self-determination is always a matter of high concern to us, and that we will defend it at whatever cost.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for his contribution; it is always a pleasure to follow in his wake. The work you have done to make this House aware of the very real threat that China poses to us is astounding—you have been very dogged in making that happen, and I am grateful for that. I also thank my new hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) for his contribution. In your short time in Parliament, the work you have done to show how China is exploiting the most vulnerable and committing egregious human rights violations has been deeply appreciated.
I turn to you, Madam Deputy Speaker—now I can actually use “you” appropriately, for once. What you have done in your time as a parliamentarian to campaign for and champion the rights of the Uyghur people, who are being so egregiously exploited in the Xinjiang autonomous region by China, is admirable. We regard the sanctions China has put on you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as a badge of honour for defending human rights, and we are very proud of what you have done.
Can I say, quite simply, that I love Taiwan? I love the people, I love the food, I love the culture. Most of all, I love its vibrant democracy, which is one of the strongest in the world. In this speech, I will share how its democracy actively tries to help others around the world, and how it is something we all need to stand with. It will therefore come as no surprise that I must draw Members’ attention to the fact that I co-chair the British-Taiwanese all-party parliamentary group and to my financial declarations in relation to that.
Over the years, I have witnessed at first hand how Taiwan actively contributes its expertise to support global partners, which we should celebrate. Taiwan is a leader in the fields of public health, technology, clean energy, net zero and so much more. However, despite all that Taiwan has to offer, it finds itself barred from international organisations. Since 1971, China has repeatedly used UN General Assembly resolution 2758 to justify its efforts to exclude Taiwan from the UN system, which it has done hugely effectively.
With a population of 23.5 million, Taiwan is the most populous self-governing state not represented at the UN. Its exclusion undermines critical global co-operation efforts, in particular around public health, climate change and the realisation of the sustainable development goals. Take SDG 3, on promoting good health and wellbeing. Taiwan maintained some of the lowest case rates in the world throughout the covid-19 pandemic. However, while it had notable success in suppressing the spread of the virus, its exclusion from the World Health Organisation meant that it was unable to share this expertise with the world.
The official record shows that when the resolution was passed 53 years ago, its intent was merely to make a judgment on who should take up China’s seat at the UN—that was it. The resolution bears no mention at all of Taiwan; it does not state that Taiwan is part of the PRC, nor ascribe any right for China to represent Taiwan in the UN system. Most importantly, there is no evidence that the resolution establishes, as a matter of international law, the One China principle. For all those reasons, the resolution cannot be used as a reasonable justification to preclude Taiwan from participating in international organisations. As parliamentarians, we must do all we can to contest the narrative that China’s territorial claim over Taiwan is a settled issue. It is not. It is not an issue at all. China has no sovereign right over Taiwan. Resolution 2758 is one of the many grey zones used by China to encroach on Taiwan’s sovereignty, and we must not collude with it in that.
We have recently seen increased incursions into Taiwan’s airspace, as well as large-scale military drills and advances close to Taiwan’s contingency zone. Operations by the Chinese coastguard have challenged Taiwan’s right to control the waters around its own territory. As China continues to challenge the boundaries and disrupts the rules-based international order, I am deeply concerned by the silence of the international community, and that that silence will be interpreted by China as tacit consent. We must call out any attempts by China to establish a legal basis for a future armed invasion of Taiwan.
We all hold a shared interest in the freedom of navigation through the Taiwan strait and the South China sea, which is one of the world’s most important trade routes. As others have said, Bloomberg economists have estimated that a potential invasion of Taiwan would cost the global economy around $10 trillion—that would come out of our pockets. That is equal to around 10% of global GDP, which would dwarf the costs of the war in Ukraine. Safeguarding the Taiwan strait and protecting the rules-based order is in both our national and our international interests.
I understand but do not appreciate diplomats and UK civil servants dancing on the linguistic head of a pin on this topic, and I therefore urge the Minister and the House to solemnly refute China’s arguments on UN resolution 2758, and to curb the PRC’s ambition to unilaterally change the status quo across the Taiwan strait and across Taiwan itself.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank all Members who have spoken. Their contributions are always exceptional and I am very pleased to hear them. I commend the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) for securing the debate. He also secured a debate in Westminster Hall on the Uyghurs, so I thank him for giving us an opportunity to participate. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) always brings his personal touch to these issues. He has a deep passion for this subject matter and I thank him for that.
In speaking about the future of global democracy and the protection of human rights, the situation of Taiwan, the actions of the Chinese Communist party and the increasingly concerning violations of religious freedom and human rights in China, let me begin by expressing my firm support for the sovereign status of Taiwan, a beacon of democracy in a region where its survival is threatened by the growing authoritarianism of China. Taiwan stands as a stalwart defender of liberty, democracy and human rights—values that we in this House hold dear. We all say that and when we say it, others will follow.
It is essential that we as a nation stand with Taiwan as it faces increasing aggression from the Chinese Government. The relationship between Taiwan and the United Kingdom has always been one of mutual respect and shared values. It is vital that we strengthen those ties in the face of growing threats from Beijing. Taiwan is not just an ally in the fight for democracy; it is a living testament to the success of democratic governance in the face of adversity. Since the 1980s, Taiwan has undergone significant political and social reforms, transforming from a one-party state under martial law to a flourishing democracy with free and fair elections. In fact, Taiwan rose 20 places in the Economist Democracy Index, ranking as Asia’s No. 1 democracy and 11th globally, marking its commitment to the principles of liberty, freedom and human rights.
In contrast, just across the Taiwan strait, the Chinese Communist party seeks to erode the very foundations of liberty. China’s increasing aggression towards Taiwan through military provocations, cyber-attacks and political pressure must be met with a strong response. The United Kingdom, along with other liberal democracies, has a responsibility to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty and to advocate for its rightful place in the international community. That is why today’s debate in this House is so important. It is so important that Members from all parties, on all sides of the Chamber, put that on the record.
In 2021 alone, we saw a staggering 950 intrusions by Chinese military aircraft into Taiwan’s airspace—a sharp increase of 150% on the previous year. It is very clear what China is doing. As the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said, why is China building all these ships? There has to be a purpose. Where is it going? It shows the increasing military threat posed by China, and we must not ignore these acts of intimidation.
On the Chinese Communist party’s gross violations of human rights within its own borders, the Chinese Government have been responsible for some of the most horrendous human rights abuses in recent memory, particularly against religious minorities. Religious freedom is a fundamental human right. You and I know that, Madam Deputy Speaker. We all know that in this House and we all know how important it is to say it. China continues to systematically violate this right, both within its own borders and beyond.
One of the most concerning examples of those abuses is the ongoing persecution of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang. Reports from credible international organisations indicate that over 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are detained in so-called re-education camps. They are torture camps. They are intimidation camps. They take away liberty and freedom, and subject families to forced labour, torture and indoctrination. The camps are part of China’s broader campaign to erase Uyghur culture, religion and identity. This brutal repression is compounded by horrendous reports of forced sterilisation, sexual violence and organ harvesting.
China’s treatment of Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong practitioners and Christians is equally alarming. Tibetan Buddhists continue to face severe restrictions on their religious practices, with reports of monks and nuns being detained, tortured and even killed for peacefully protesting or for their religious beliefs. The ongoing efforts to erode Tibetan culture and religion include the imposition of Chinese Communist party-approved religious leaders. My goodness! Just pluck that man out there and he can be a religious leader. He doesn’t know anything about the religion, but he’ll do it! That is the China that we speak out against today. It is a direct assault on the freedom of conscience. For Falun Gong practitioners, the situation is equally dire. Thousands have been detained and subjected to forced labour, torture and execution for their beliefs. The crackdown on Christians in China is every bit as severe. Church closures, the destruction of crosses and the imprisonment of pastors have become all too common. Religious worship, whether in a mosque, temple, church or private home, is increasingly subject to government interference and repression.
China’s efforts to silence opposition extend far beyond its borders. We are looking at Taiwan today, but there are other parts of the world where the focus is equally clear. Through its belt and road initiative, China has sought to extend its economic and political influence across the globe, often using debt-trap diplomacy to entangle countries in its sphere of influence. That has included pressuring countries to withdraw their diplomatic recognition of Taiwan and to instead align themselves with Beijing because, “You owe us so much money and this is part of the deal.” It is a gross violation of the principles of sovereignty and self-determination, and it is essential that we, as a nation, continue to support Taiwan in the face of those pressures. Moreover, as others have said, China’s technological influence is a growing concern. The CCP has made significant investments in surveillance technology, which it uses both domestically to monitor and control its population, and abroad to further its strategic objectives.
As a leading global power, the United Kingdom has a unique responsibility to defend the principles of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. It is essential that we not only stand with Taiwan, but take concrete steps to ensure its security and sovereignty. The UK must work closely with allies, particularly the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, to build a co-ordinated response to China’s growing aggression and evil attitude to everyone in the Indo-Pacific region.
In addition to our military and diplomatic support for Taiwan, the Government must also continue to raise the issue of China’s human rights abuses at every available forum. The UK must lead the charge in holding China accountable for its actions and ensure that the international community does not turn a blind eye to the suffering of millions of people under the CCP’s control. We must also ensure that our economic relations with China do not come at the expense of human rights. It is unacceptable that economic interests should override our moral obligation to stand up for the oppressed.
In conclusion, Taiwan is a shining example of the power of democracy and freedom in the face of authoritarianism. We must stand by Taiwan, not just because it is in our national interest, but because it is the right thing to do. We must also continue to speak out against the CCP’s brutality and human rights abuses, and work tirelessly to hold China accountable for its actions. The United Kingdom must remain a champion of freedom, democracy and human rights, and we must be so in the firm belief that these values will ultimately triumph over the forces of oppression. I believe they will. I believe we will do the right thing.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
We have a maiden speech. I call Alison Taylor.
Alison Taylor (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make my maiden speech during this important debate. I only hope that I can acquit myself as well as the hon. Members who have preceded me. It is an honour, as the new MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, to deliver my maiden speech during the debate on the international status of Taiwan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) on bringing this debate to the House.
I represent a seat that takes in part of the former mill town of Paisley and part of the economic powerhouse of Glasgow, with the welcome recent addition of the communities of Hillington, Cardonald and Penilee. In my constituency, the towns and villages are brought together by the River Clyde and its tributaries. The Clyde, which stretches 170 km in length, is well known for its shipbuilding and engineering heritage. It has for centuries been an inspiration for lyricists, music and art.
During this decade, a new innovation zone has been developed around Glasgow airport, stretching out across the flatlands of the river basin and taking in the town of Paisley, the former burgh of Renfrew and the village of Inchinnan. A new high-tech district, the silicon valley of Glasgow, links academia, research and industry. This project showcases the power of Government intervention and central funding. With strategic assets such as a tidal river, an international airport, the Erskine bridge, Braehead retail park and the M8 motorway, my constituency offers so much to allow businesses to thrive. However, our connectivity, while good, requires improvement. It needs a better bus network and a long-overdue rail link to the international airport.
With the Scottish constitutional question having been determined in 2014, there is now a real opportunity to foster political stability, create economic growth and reset international trading relations. My constituents badly need the economic growth that this Government have made their priority. Already in my surgeries I have spoken to many people who are living in unsuitable housing or temporary accommodation or, worse, are homeless. As Nye Bevan said,
“A house, a modern house, is a most complex economic production. Every single industry is a contributor.”
What better way is there of stimulating the economy, across many sectors, than to build modern homes?
My connections with this seat go back to the aftermath of world war two, when my family first settled in Bishopton. My Uncle Jack was a security guard at the munitions factory, now the site of Dargavel Village. In the neighbouring village of Langbank, my husband was raised on Middlepenny Road, and his mother was the local playgroup leader. Studying at what is now the University of the West of Scotland in Paisley, I graduated in land economics, and then, following in my father’s footsteps, became a chartered surveyor. My mother stayed at home to look after her three daughters, while my father grew his business in Glasgow. I myself am proud to be the mother of two daughters; the youngest was born in 2017 in the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley, where we both received excellent care. Representing a constituency so integral to my family’s history is a privilege that I hold dear. The seat is home to the former Member of Parliament for Monklands East, Helen Liddell, who now sits in the other place alongside my friend Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale, who has played such a vital role in our country’s security.
As a chartered surveyor, I have been fortunate to work with inspirational clients and colleagues who were both innovators and entrepreneurs, and who taught me the long-term value of positivity, collaboration and strategic thinking. It is that sense of opportunity that I want to bring to the House. I will work diligently to bring my entire life experience to bear on the very real needs of my constituency. I have established my constituency office in Inchinnan, in the former India Tyres factory—a stunning art deco building which would have been there when my roots in the area were forged.
I would like to say a few words about my predecessor Gavin Newlands, who was a Member of Parliament for nine years. In spite of my contesting the seat three times, Gavin was always courteous and polite to me. He railed against exploitative working practices, he promoted the importance of the airport to this constituency, and he spoke up for vulnerable women who had no voice. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in wishing him the very best for the future.
My constituency is a fine mix of history and modernity. Like me, it has pride in its past and optimism about its future. I was elected to deliver on the change that my constituents and my country need, and it is an honour to do just that.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) for initiating this important and timely debate. I particularly welcomed his comments about the long-standing work of other Members in support of Taiwan, and his remarks about this being a global conversation. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor) on her maiden speech and her focus on driving economic growth across her constituency.
China’s increasingly aggressive behaviour towards Taiwan is yet another alarming example of its consistent and blatant disregard for the international rules-based order. As one who is proud to represent a significant Hong Kong community in Bolton West, I have heard at first hand about the devastating effects of Beijing’s authoritarian rule. Indeed, many of my constituents were effectively forced from their old homes in Hong Kong by the destruction of its democratic freedoms. Let us be clear: Beijing’s actions towards Taiwan do not exist in isolation. They are part of a broader pattern of behaviour, as I have described.
We need only look at Tibet, where Beijing has systematically suppressed cultural and religious freedoms; at Xinjiang, where atrocities have been committed repeatedly against the Uyghurs; at Hong Kong, where the Sino-British joint declaration has been torn asunder; and, now, at Taiwan. Beijing has escalated its military posturing, imposed economic coercion and engaged in cyber warfare, all aimed at undermining Taiwan’s vibrant democracy and intimidating its people. China’s deliberate distortion of United Nations resolution 2758 is a prime example of the way in which Beijing disregards the international rules-based system to push its own narrative. Let me emphasise that, crucially, the resolution did not address the sovereignty of the island of Taiwan, or preclude it from having representation at the United Nations or other international organisations. Yet Beijing has sought to change historic documents and records, including at the UN, to allege that the resolution claims that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China’s territory.
The blatant misrepresentation of resolution 2758 is not just an attack on Taiwan, but an assault on the integrity of the international system that we champion. This behaviour also stands in direct opposition to the UK’s long-standing position on Taiwan. For decades, the UK has maintained a policy that not only is in favour of Taiwan's participation in international organisations, but reiterates our clear interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan strait, considering the Taiwan issue one to be settled through constructive dialogue, not force or coercion. However, China’s actions continue flagrantly to contradict that principle and threaten the stability of the wider Indo-Pacific region. Tensions are increasing, with recent estimates suggesting that there has been a 300% increase in grey zone activity across the Taiwan strait, as well as incursions into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone. Beijing’s grey zone activity in the strait is making it very difficult to establish red lines around its behaviour. Normally, a maritime and air blockade would be considered an act of war in international law. Can the Minister confirm that a maritime and air blockade by Beijing around Taiwan would be a red line for the UK Government?
I want to underline the clear public interest in de-escalation in the Taiwan strait. We depend on Taiwan for microchips, especially for the advanced semiconductors on which we all depend for our critical infrastructure. Two thirds of chips, and almost all advanced chips, are currently produced in Taiwan.
As my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire outlined, Bloomberg has estimated that the conflict would cost the global economy $10 trillion—more than five times more than the Ukraine crisis. As we learned from Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the failure to deter a conflict in the South China sea will have a high cost for all of us in this place and for our constituents. In 2023, the then Defence Minister Baroness Goldie confirmed that the UK Government were analysing the prospective economic impact on the UK of escalation in the Taiwan strait. Will the Government publish that assessment, given the clear public interest?
Beijing’s pattern of behaviour is clear. Each time we fail to respond decisively to China’s disregard for democracy and the international rules-based order, it emboldens Beijing to continue to act with impunity. Taiwan is now at the frontline. We must stand with Taiwan—not only to protect its people and democracy, but to send a clear message to Beijing that the systematic erosion of freedoms and violation of international law that has taken place in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and now Taiwan will not go unchecked. By pushing back, the UK will defend our shared values, strengthen our global alliances and uphold the international laws that ensure peace and stability across the world.
Ms Marie Rimmer (St Helens South and Whiston) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) on securing the debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor) on making her maiden speech. It is wonderful to have two MPs from Scotland bringing so much knowledge and understanding of international issues to the House. It really is enriching, and I have been in this place for 10 years.
All the contributions today have been full of different aspects—economic, public health, dictatorship, the Communist party and filthy politics—but I will stick to some basics. I have been to Taiwan a number of times, and I think I am still getting over my last trip, which was to the conference that has been mentioned. I do not know how many hours of travelling we did, but it really knocked me out for six and we did not have many hours between the business over there. If anyone thinks that Members going on trips to Taiwan are on holiday, they are wrong.
Taiwan is a wonderful place. I will not go on too much about it, but it must be way up there in the rankings for demonstrating actual democracy. Believe me, this Parliament has much to learn from Taiwan about how to conduct its business. On my first visit to Taiwan, I thought I was going to the third world, but I came back to somewhere that resembled the third world by comparison with Taiwan.
Only last month, the People’s Republic of China conducted one of its largest ever military drills off the coast of Taiwan, in an attempt to intimidate it. The drill involved 34 naval vessels and at least 125 aircraft. The tactic of intimidation is part of today’s debate, and it shows what China is about. China is attempting to intimidate Taiwan and isolate it by insisting that the One China principle means that Taiwan can play no role in international bodies. Nothing in UN resolution 2758 states that Taiwan cannot be part of international organisations, and the exclusion of Taiwan comes with dangerous consequences for the world. A number of Members have explicitly stated that today, so I do not need to repeat what they have said. The opening speech of my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) was magnificent; he covered every aspect of this matter, and I congratulate him on doing so.
During the covid-19 pandemic, Taiwan deployed one of the world’s most effective strategies against the disease, despite its close proximity to China. However, Taiwan was excluded from the World Health Organisation, and it remains excluded today. It is worth mentioning the forced organ harvesting system. Who determined that China has an ethical organ transplant system? China itself did, yet the WHO still admitted it. According to the WHO, China operates an ethical organ harvesting system.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
The hon. Lady raises a really important point. Practitioners of Falun Gong talk about arrests, incarceration and illegal organ harvesting from people who are still alive, and about the high levels of state-based attacks and murders. It is quite staggering that China exports more organs than any other country in the world, and I wonder where it gets them from.
Ms Rimmer
I do not want to go on too much about organ harvesting, because it gives me sleepless nights. China takes organs from 28-year-olds because it gets more for them, as there are better chances of succeeding if the organs are taken fresh from people who are still alive. People can order a kidney and so on, because there is a database of the people going to “re-education schools”. China says to the world, “Don’t worry; we can get what you need. You can have it in days.” How many people have been prosecuted? We know there has been one prosecution in the UK, but how many people have come back from China having received an organ? Is the law being enforced?
The exclusion of Taiwan from international bodies meant that it could not share with the world its successful methods of dealing with covid when we needed them the most. The World Health Organisation is only one example of an international body from which Taiwan has been excluded. China has consistently blocked attempts by Taiwan to join the UN, including in 2009, which means that over 23 million people in one of the finest democracies in the world have been blocked from being heard at the United Nations. In the event of a conflict breaking out across the Taiwan strait, only one side would be able to put forward their case at the United Nations. That is not how the United Nations was intended to operate. Why is it like that? I shivered when Putin’s Russia was allowed to use its veto at the United Nations. People thought I was mad, but we are seeing the consequences now.
There are troubling reports that former Taiwanese President Tsai was blocked from visiting this place to address MPs and peers last month. President Tsai has had successful visits to Canada, Brussels and Czechia, yet apparently she was not allowed here. That is despite Taiwan being an important strategic partner for the United Kingdom in the Indo-Pacific. Sadly, it seems as though China’s intimidation campaign continues to work.
One of the best ways to push back against the People’s Republic of China’s intimidation campaign is to elevate the status of the Taiwanese Representative Office here in London, in a similar way to the action taken in the United States and Lithuania. Right now, the Taiwanese Representative Office is not afforded the protection it clearly needs. It cannot even get a bank account. Elevating Taiwan’s diplomatic status would send a clear message that the British Government do not accept an enforced One China principle, and instead consider both Taiwan and China to be individual partners.
The People’s Republic of China was founded 75 years ago, and Taiwan has never been part of it. Taiwan is a thriving and successful democracy that shares our values. As the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) said, what is happening in Taiwan is just part of China’s plan. Look at what is happening in Hong Kong. Instead of waiting 50 years to review everything, China smashed it and moved on to the next one: Taiwan. The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point today.
It is time to show our strength by throwing off the shackles of intimidation and giving Taiwan diplomatic status. If the British Government lead with our allies, other nations will follow suit. Taiwan is a self-governing democracy that has succeeded despite not being allowed into the UN and other international organisations. It is a shining light of democracy in an uncertain region, and this world is desperately short of such shining lights of true democracy in operation. The world is in desperate need.
I urge Members to vote for the motion today, to send a clear message that this House believes Taiwan has every right to be part of international organisations in its own right. That is what resolution 2758 was about.
Some people would have me be ashamed of my religion, but I am not. I am a Roman Catholic, but not holier than thou. A shudder went through me when, last year or the year before—time seems to go very quickly now—Roman Catholics in China were required to register as Roman Catholics, and our Pope accepted it. What did Hitler do? This is how he started. I thought, “Dear Lord, this sleeping tiger has not half woken up, and it is going to cause harm.” It is about time that other nations, not just ours, got their act together. It is about time that so-called democratic countries sorted this out.
China is to be feared more than Russia. It is part of the evil axis that would take over this world if we do not all stand up for democracy and for people.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
It is always a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Madam Deputy Speaker, particularly given your considerable contribution on this issue throughout your parliamentary career, as other Members have said.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor), whose passionate love for her community and her family reflects well on her and gives her constituents faith that she will act on their best behalf in this House. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), whose contribution to this debate has already been warmly noted.
Experts often talk about the pressure points of geopolitics, the places where the strategic aims of different countries coincide, clash and create tension. What is far too often left out of these conversations is the reality for the millions of people who live in those pressure points. The Taiwanese people are living in real fear at one of these pressure points.
It should be telling for all of us that, despite being an advanced economy and a thriving democracy with high living standards and strong manufacturing, and with cultural links to the rest of the world, Taiwan feels increasingly isolated and vulnerable in the face of the Chinese Government. That is testament to the fact that, no matter how hard people have worked to build a robust democracy on that island, that does not, in and of itself, protect the liberty and security that we all deserve. Taiwan deserves our support as we enter the second half of this decade, and this motion can help us to continue doing that.
The Liberal Democrats stand with the people of Taiwan. Any Chinese aggression or threat to their free speech and human rights is unacceptable. The Liberal Democrats will continue to support our friends in the Democratic Progressive party, which is the governing party of Taiwan, a long-standing member of Liberal International, and a founding member of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats.
In our manifesto, the Liberal Democrats called for the building of new diplomatic, economic and security partnerships with democracies threatened by China, including Taiwan, and it is something that we will gladly work with the Government to deliver because an issue of this importance should transcend party politics. I am reassured by the voices and the statements we have heard from Members on both sides of the House in this debate.
Fundamentally, what is at stake in Taiwan is a question of moral obligation, one that we have always had to confront and that liberals have always been clear in answering: can we stand up for people living outside recognised sovereign states, who cherish the same freedoms we do and have the same inviolable right to self-determination that we do, against neighbours with increasingly imperial objectives? Or are we forced to live in a world where, as was said in antiquity, the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must? Put simply, does might make right?
The people of Taiwan deserve us to answer that question with our clear and resounding support as they go about trying to integrate into the system of international governance. The Government should therefore listen to the story being told in this House today and make it clear that, in their dealings with the Chinese Government, they will establish clear red lines that call out violations of Taiwan’s territory at land and sea as unacceptable.
The Government should work with their international partners to remove the obstacles to Taiwan joining various international bodies. As other Members have said, Taiwan’s exclusion from the World Health Organisation serves to prove this point. Despite a successful approach to the covid-19 pandemic, Taiwan was again rebuffed in its attempts to join the WHO, with China vetoing its accession until such time as Taiwan gives in to China’s territorial claim on the island. This compromised our ability, and the ability of countries around the world, to learn from the lessons of Taiwan’s successful response to covid-19, and it will have cost many, many lives.
Taiwan finds itself unable to properly access and work alongside Interpol, leaving it excluded from the international crime-fighting network that it needs, not least because international criminals are known to operate in the South China sea. This should concern all of us.
Taiwan’s exclusion from these bodies makes international co-operation harder. It weakens a strategic ally in the region, and it emboldens states such as China and Russia to feel that their attempts to undermine the liberal world order will succeed. Indeed, how can we justify the liberal and democratic world order without ensuring that it offers protection to those who subscribe to it and who wish to join and collaborate with the institutions that are so key to maintaining that very world order?
We have already left so many countries around the world vulnerable to the influence of states such as China. The last Government made short-sighted and naive decisions to continually cut the UK’s foreign aid budget, to slash our international development credentials, to shrink our world-renowned diplomatic service, to force cuts to our BBC World Service output and to undermine our standing as a major power on the world stage. Those steps have left a vacuum in Africa, in Asia, and in parts of Europe, too. We should not be remotely surprised that China has increasingly sought to fill that gap with debt traps and political influence through its belt and road initiative. It is up to this Government to do something about it, to show that the One China policy is not the policy of this Government and that Taiwan will be supported in acceding to various international bodies. That would be a key step in the right direction. They must be willing to discuss Taiwan with the Chinese Government as they embark on a new era of bilateralism with President Xi.
I note that in its manifesto earlier this year, the Labour party committed to a new approach to China, as part of a wider audit of its China strategy. The manifesto said:
“We will co-operate where we can, compete where we need to, and challenge where we must.”
Those were welcome words, so it is disappointing to read coverage this week of the leaked news that the Foreign Office intervened to cancel a visit last month that Taiwan’s former President Tsai Ing-wen had been due to make to the UK, when he would have spoken to MPs. Will the Government respond to that claim and explain to the House exactly why former President Tsai, as it seems, was denied a visit?
We all recognise that diplomacy is difficult, and I sincerely hope the Government will put my mind and those of other hon. Members at rest by confirming that this was an oversight. However, if it was not an oversight and that decision was taken out of deference to the Chinese Government ahead of the Prime Minister’s recent meeting with President Xi, the Government will not be surprised to hear me say that that is unacceptable.
The Government’s new approach to China should be characterised by a defence of our values and the robust support of Taiwan. That is why the Liberal Democrats have called for the Government to issue a comprehensive China strategy that places human rights, effective rules-based multilateralism and working with our European partners centre stage. Without that, we risk further backsliding into a world where China feels able to act with impunity and Taiwan will continue to suffer. Will the Minister provide an update on when the Government will provide the House with an update on its China strategy audit, so that we can scrutinise it and ensure it lives up to those values?
Just last month, China simulated a full-scale invasion of the island through war games in the South China sea. As the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) said, in late 2021 and early 2022, we watched Russian forces massing on the Ukrainian border and attempted to convince ourselves that the inevitable was not about to occur. I will quote a great man, who hangs heavy over many of us in this place:
“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Imagine living with the threat of such a war on the doorstep. We have all been paying close attention to the terrible scenes unfolding in Ukraine and the middle east in recent years. We all know that the horrors of war have not been eased, but rather compounded by modern technology. Imagine people witnessing those scenes on their TV screens, while knowing the very same could happen to their homes and families in the very near future.
The journey to recognition and accession to international bodies for Taiwan is long and will not be solved overnight, but the Government can play a key role in making the journey easier by showing its support for Taiwan as clearly as they can. They can do the right thing on human rights in China more widely too. They can choose to recognise the genocide happening to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang autonomous region. They can stand with Hongkongers who are already living with the experience of creeping authoritarianism from Beijing. And the Government can champion the cause of international laws and norms, in the face of growing disorder and violence around the world. I invite them to do so and to regularly report back to the House on how such a China strategy is developing, because Britain is at its best when it stands with those facing oppression and says clearly, with one voice, that the days of “might makes right” are well and truly consigned to history.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, not least my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), who always brings such knowledge and expertise to the House. I welcome the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor). I congratulate her on making her making speech and thank her for sharing her passion for her constituency with us. It is apt that you are in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, because of your great knowledge of this policy area.
Although we do not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, there is nonetheless a valuable and dynamic relationship between London and Taipei, underpinned by strong commercial, educational and cultural links. We also have a solid partnership in other important areas, including health, as we saw particularly during the pandemic. The work of the British Office Taipei and the Taipei Representative Office in London is highly commendable and benefits both of our peoples, for example with a wide range of exchanges and visits, including on environmental, educational and judicial themes.
We also have a significant trading relationship, which we call on the Government to continue to promote. Trade in goods and services rose from £5.5 billion in 2014 to £8.3 billion in 2023, which is a substantial increase. We want more British businesses to benefit from Taiwan’s impressive economy and prominent trade and investment links with the wider region. Within the current structure of our unofficial relationship, there is more we can do to maximise the benefits to both of our peoples, and we will push the Government to do so.
It is right that the UK continues to lobby in favour of Taiwan’s participation in international organisations where statehood is not a prerequisite. In her response, will the Minister update the House on the Government’s current plans on that front, including on the World Health Assembly and the World Health Organisation technical meetings?
The Government must not overlook the risks Taiwan has to contend with. There have been some worrying early signs, which we want to see put right. Members on the Conservative Benches harbour concerns that the relationship Labour is carving out with Beijing is all give and no take. Today provides the Minister with an opportunity to dispel the widespread impression that this Government are making concessions with nothing in return. Labour has called in the application for a new super-embassy in London and is desperately performing verbal contortions on issues that should be very straight- forward, including the national security law in Hong Kong. We firmly believe that law should be repealed and we are not afraid to say so publicly.
Will the Minister name a single area where measurable, tangible progress has been made in advancing critical British interests with China, whether on national security, economic practices or human rights? As far as I can see, we are yet to receive a convincing answer. We are very clear that what Labour must not do is sacrifice the UK’s voice on the threats facing Taiwan on the altar of closer relations with Beijing.
We have already seen signs of naiveté. Within a day of the Prime Minister’s meeting with President Xi Jinping, which the Prime Minister hailed as an opportunity to bring about a “strong” and “consistent” relationship where “surprises” would be avoided, 45 pro-democracy campaigners were jailed in Hong Kong, following a very harsh application of the draconian national security law. It makes the Prime Minister’s boast that the UK would be a partner
“committed to the rule of law”
look rather hollow. The Prime Minister’s response to these entirely unjustified jailings and his inability to sufficiently publicly condemn them has raised eyebrows too. It has not gone unnoticed and we will not let that point go.
The Government need to be much more clear eyed about the threats and challenges posed by China, whether in relation to Hong Kong or Taiwan. We are concerned by reports that the Foreign Office tried to exert pressure to postpone an inward visit by the former President of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen. The FCDO has said it “does not recognise” the description of events set out in the reports, which in Westminster language means that it does not deny that this happened. Will the Minister give the House the explanation it expects? What actually happened? Will the Minister also confirm that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have explicitly raised serious concerns in their respective meetings with President Xi and Wang Yi about any activity that risks destabilising the cross-strait status quo? Did they say, in no uncertain terms, that we stand firmly against any unilateral attempts to change the status quo?
For reasons that are well understood, we have a clear interest in peace and stability in the Taiwan strait. It is our deep conviction that the tensions, which have understandably received a great deal of attention in this afternoon’s debate, should be resolved peacefully. That is what will best serve people on both sides of the Taiwan strait, as well as the Indo-Pacific region and the wider world. That peace and stability matters for the rules-based order, for trade and for the health of the global economy, and we should not shy away from saying that. We hope that people on the two sides of the Taiwan strait will renew efforts to resolve differences peacefully through constructive dialogue and not under a cloud of coercion or threats.
Much of the debate on this subject revolves around the constitutional status of Taiwan and its relationship with China. Yet we should never lose sight of Taiwan’s domestic achievements in its own right, because they are deeply impressive: a flourishing and vibrant democracy, a strong judiciary and one of Asia’s most dynamic economies. Taiwan is also a vital manufacturer of semi- conductors, which is one of the most important pieces of tech in the world. For all those reasons and many more, we will press the Government to deepen and grow our relationship.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Catherine West)
May I say how apt it is that you are in the Chair this afternoon, Madam Deputy Speaker? I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall) for securing this important debate and for his first-class speech. I thank hon. Members for their insightful contributions. I will try to respond to all the questions in the course of my speech.
As two thriving democracies, the UK and Taiwan share a unique relationship which is rooted in our shared democratic values, cultural links and deep ties. Despite not having formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan, we have strong unofficial links across a range of issues such as trade, education, science and cultural exchange. In that regard, I must commend my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for her adept chairing of the British-Taiwanese all-party parliamentary group, which continues to play a fundamental role in fostering those ties and encouraging greater parliamentary links and friendship—and, indeed, visits—between the peoples of the UK and Taiwan. On that point, we had questions on visits from the two Opposition spokespersons, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) and the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), and I will say that the best visits are the ones that are organised by the friendship groups, without too much interference from Governments.
Those links are driven by common interests such as security and prosperity, trade, innovation, climate action and global health, and in the first three quarters of this year, there were more British visitors to Taiwan than from any other European country. Taiwan-UK trade was worth £8.3 billion in the four quarters to the end of the second quarter of 2024, and Taiwan remains a key destination for UK enterprises in clean energy and professional services. The British Office Taipei and the Taipei Representative Offices in London and Edinburgh support the partnership, in the absence of diplomatic relations.
Members of this House are familiar with recent tensions in the Taiwan strait. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) laid them out in his introductory speech and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) was very clear on that point. Our long-standing position is clear: the issue should be resolved peacefully by people on both sides of the strait, without the threat or use of force or coercion. Peace and stability in the strait matters, not just for the UK but for the wider world. As the FCDO statement in October outlined, recent Chinese military exercises around Taiwan increased tensions and risked dangerous escalation.
The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green is correct to carefully monitor the increased spending on the People’s Liberation Army, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) is right to warn of the damaging elements of cyber-warfare. A conflict across the strait would, of course, be a human tragedy, or as my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer) said, would have “dangerous consequences”. It would also be devastating to the global economy, with the study by Bloomberg Economics from January 2024, which I think we have all read, estimating that it would cost the global economy $10 trillion, or 10% of global GDP. No country with a high, middle or low income would be shielded from the repercussions of such a crisis. That is why the UK does not support any unilateral attempt to change the status quo across the Taiwan strait.
Taiwan is not just facing pressure in the strait; it is being prevented from participating meaningfully in large sections of the international system. We believe that the people of Taiwan make an invaluable contribution to areas of global concern and that the exclusion of Taiwanese expertise is a loss both to the people of Taiwan and to the people of the UK. I therefore reply to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire in his excellent speech about the importance of Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organisations, as a member where statehood is not a prerequisite and as an observer or guest where it is.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
The Minister has mentioned the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire and his excellent opening speech. He posed a question that I hope she can answer at some point. Do His Majesty’s Government now believe that a blockade of Taiwan would be considered an act of war?
Catherine West
I can confirm that we have ongoing conversations with allies about all the risks associated with the Taiwan strait, the South China sea, which has also been brought up in this debate, and other borders. Those include borders with India and any other borders where we have serious concerns, because there are a number of threats to global security.
We continue to make the case for Taiwan’s reinstatement to the World Health Assembly as an observer. The UK has restated that several times, including alongside partners in recent G7 Foreign Ministers’ statements. Its inclusion would benefit global health, including through participation in technical meetings and information exchange by the experts. The fact that a growing number of countries joined us in making statements on Taiwan’s inclusion at this year’s World Health Assembly meeting demonstrates that the issue resonates not just in the UK and Taiwan, but with many in the wider international community, and we are pleased to play that leadership role. We would all benefit from learning from Taiwan’s experience in dealing with pandemics, which, as we know, do not respect different geographies.
On that point, we believe that, as Members have said today, there is a misconception in many quarters about what UN General Assembly resolution 2758 from 1971 determined. The UK’s view is that the resolution decided that only the People’s Republic of China should represent China at the United Nations. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire said, it made no separate or additional determination on the status of Taiwan and should not therefore be used to preclude Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the UN or the wider international system on the basis that I have already set out. That is why the UK opposes any attempt to broaden the interpretation of resolution 2758 to rewrite history. I do not believe that that would be in the interests of the people of Taiwan, and neither would it be in UK or global interests.
On wider UK-Taiwan collaboration, we will continue to strengthen the UK’s unofficial relationship with Taiwan because both sides derive enormous benefits from it, because the UK is a believer in the importance of free and open trade and, as the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said, because the UK and Taiwan have strong cultural ties. Our thriving £8 billion trade and investment relationship encompasses a wide range of goods and services, not least the UK’s export of over £340 million-worth of Scotch whisky. I think that is quite appropriate, given that we had the wonderful maiden speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor)—I am sure she is a strong supporter of that wonderful export from her beloved Scotland—and that it took place just two days before St Andrew’s Day. What could be better?
Our enhanced trade partnership that was announced last year, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham mentioned, will further strengthen co-operation in investment, digital trade, renewable energy and net zero. Taiwan produces the vast majority of the world’s most advanced semiconductors that drive our digital economy, and it has a critical place in the technology supply chains that underpin global markets. That is why we want our flourishing science and technology co-operation to continue.
Just recently, the national technology adviser led a delegation of 24 businesses to Taipei for the SEMICON Taiwan 2024 conference, where the UK had its largest country pavilion to date. The two sides also held the annual Dialog Semiconductor and discussed the potential to expand co-operation on semiconductor skills, research and development, and supply chain resilience.
I am pleased to say that we hold regular expert-level talks with Taiwan on a range of other important issues. Hon. Members may have seen that our latest energy dialogue concluded just last week. We are also partners on climate action. Taiwan is a key market for the UK offshore wind sector. Our enhanced trade partnership will strengthen our co-operation on net zero technologies, which are essential for the transition to a clean energy system and for bolstering energy security.
To conclude, this Government are maintaining the UK’s long-standing policy towards Taiwan and relations across the Taiwan strait. I am sure that parliamentary visits by MPs will continue, given the feeling in the House today. Our collaboration with Taiwan is mutually beneficial, which is why we continue to engage with Taiwan within the bounds of our unofficial relationship.
We continue to be a staunch advocate for Taiwan’s meaningful international participation, because Taiwan’s valuable expertise on a wide range of issues can only benefit the international community as we work to tackle shared global challenges. We continue to work closely with our international partners to advocate for peace and stability, and to discourage any activity that undermines the status quo.
Before I finish, I am aware that I did not answer the question about the China audit, which was raised by colleagues today. We expect it to be ready for public discussion in spring 2025, but there is plenty of consultation —official and ministerial—happening in the meantime. The Foreign Affairs Committee will also be approached for comment.
The UK has a critical role to play in supporting continued peace and stability in the strait through these channels. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Blair McDougall
I thank the Minister for restating the Government’s position on the interpretation of UN resolutions, and for celebrating Taiwan’s society, economy and democracy, which I know will be well taken by our visitors. It is encouraging that so many Members spoke in the House with one voice on this issue, regardless of party, and that so many Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), made it clear that the situation in Taiwan cannot be separated out from wider questions of human rights in the People’s Republic of China.
I did not realise that my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Alison Taylor) was going to give her maiden speech in this debate, but it was wonderful none the less and I congratulate her on it. We can all see why she is such a valued friend and colleague to so many of us. She mentioned the former munitions works in her constituency, which is now this beautiful, peaceful, new build community. That made me think that it is almost a metaphor for our attitude in the world’s democracies.
President Macron spoke recently about how western democracies are herbivores in a world of carnivores. I think that we have forgotten the sacrifices and the strength that it took for us to enjoy the freedoms we have today. Hon. Members reached back into different parts of history to make that point. I was particularly pleased with the contribution of the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor). I am currently trying to get my son interested in ancient Greek history, so to hear someone quoting from the Melian dialogue in Parliament was music to my ears.
The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) reached back slightly less far into the 20th century, but there is a pattern whereby dictators will take a little bit, a little bit more and little bit more, and if they are not met with strength early on, they will eventually ask for something that we cannot give. That is when it becomes a crisis, and when we have to make greater sacrifices.
What I was most encouraged by today was that, as important as it was for this House to condemn with one voice any attempt to change the status quo through force, there was also a celebration of Taiwan. Even if Taiwan were not a democracy, it would deserve protection from the international community, but it is a democracy, and we should protect its people. Even if it did not have a vibrant, open society and free speech, we should be seeking to show solidarity with its people, but it does have that open, vibrant society, so we must show that solidarity. Even if it were not the dynamic economy that is so important and so integrated in everything that we do in the world economy, we should be recognising the cost of any conflict there, but it is integrated in the world economy. And even if we were not in a global context where authoritarians are on the march, we should stand up and say that we would not tolerate another democracy being bullied by its nearby authoritarian neighbour and another society having to be forced into defending its own freedoms through force when, as an international community, we can prevent that from happening.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House, recalling that United Nations Resolution 2758 of 25 October 1971, which established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations (UN), does not mention Taiwan, notes that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the political status of Taiwan or establish PRC sovereignty over Taiwan and is silent both on the status of Taiwan in the UN and on Taiwanese participation in UN agencies; and calls on the Government to clarify its position that UN Resolution 2758 does not establish the One China Principle as a matter of international law, to state clearly that nothing in law prevents the participation of Taiwan in international organisations and to condemn efforts made by representatives of the PRC to distort the meaning of UN Resolution 2758 in support of Beijing’s One China Principle and the alteration of historic documents by representatives of the PRC, changing the name of the country from Taiwan to Taiwan, province of China.
Pakistan: Freedom of Religion
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I beg to move,
That this House notes reports of deteriorating religious freedom in Pakistan; expresses its concern over the alleged widespread forced conversions and human rights abuses of minority religious groups; deplores the lack of action by the Pakistani government, which represents a serious violation of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and further notes that the arrest of opposition religious leaders by the local authorities has led to condemnation both in Pakistan and further afield.
May I first thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to this debate and for granting time in the main Chamber for it? I thank all hon. Members who will make contributions to the debate. It is a pleasure to secure, I believe, the first debate on religious persecution in this Government’s first Session. I think that it is the first time in about four or five years that we have had a debate on this subject in the main Chamber. In essence, we have scored two in one today.
I rise today with an urgent message about the plight of religious minorities in Pakistan. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, and also as chair of the all-party group for Pakistani minorities, I have had the privilege of hearing first-hand accounts of bravery, resilience and heartbreak from those who continue to face unimaginable persecution for their faith. I have always had a deep interest in Pakistan—even long before I came to this place—and for my brothers and sisters who are Christians in a country where persecution is rife, human rights abuses are rampant and the right to express oneself is denied them.
I visited Pakistan on two occasions in 2018 and 2023. I would love to say that things have changed in Pakistan in those intervening five years, but they have not. Indeed, they have got worse, and I will go into more detail on that as we move forward.
Our APPG for international freedom of religion or belief remains steadfast in its mission to uphold and defend the fundamental human right of freedom of religion or belief for all people regardless of faith or creed. As chair of that group, I speak up for those of Christian faith, those of other faiths and those of no faith. I believe in my heart that that is my duty to do that as a Christian. I always explain that when I deliberate on all the many religious groups that are persecuted today. I urge my esteemed colleagues across the Chamber to join us in amplifying the voices of the oppressed and taking decisive action to address the systematic injustices that they endure.
Let me put this in plain language that we can all understand: the reality of the situation in Pakistan is dire. It is critical. It is at crisis point. In fact, I can understand why some people feel utterly hopeless. Pakistan is a lovely nation, with a rich and diverse history, but it remains fraught with challenges for its religious minorities. Christians, Hindus, Ahmadis and Shi’a Muslims face widespread discrimination, persecution and violence on a regular basis. The legislative and societal frameworks in Pakistan have created an environment where intolerance thrives. If we let something happen once, twice, three times, then 10 times, it becomes the norm. That is what has happened to religious minorities in Pakistan.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
We are familiar with interventions from bodies such as Amnesty International and the United Nations even in our own country. Obviously there is a far more acute need for their attention in places such as Pakistan. Does that seem to be articulated and driven home adequately, and is it having an impact, especially on such appalling matters as forced marriages and honour killings?
Jim Shannon
I would love to say that such interventions are having an impact, but unfortunately I do not see much evidence of it. Our responses have to be evidentially based. Amnesty International is involved, and present, in Pakistan. Is it highlighting these things in Pakistan? Only Amnesty can answer that. We do not see much evidence of it.
My concern is that the legislative and societal frameworks in Pakistan have created an environment where intolerance thrives. The blasphemy laws, which I ask the Minister to respond to directly, were introduced during General Zia ul-Haq’s regime. They are among the harshest in the world, and have been frequently weaponised against religious minorities. I will give some examples of that in the debate.
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
Does the hon. Member agree that the issue goes beyond religious freedom into other equality matters such as women’s rights and LGBT rights, which go hand in hand?
Jim Shannon
I will mention that later; it is a salient point, because whenever there is persecution based on people’s religious beliefs, there are human rights issues alongside it. The two things are not separate; they are married. If human rights are taken away, so are religious rights. The hon. Gentleman is right to put that on the record.
Since the 1980s, many thousands of cases have been reported, disproportionately affecting Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis. The blasphemy laws are used not only to silence dissent but as tools for personal vendettas and mob incitement. When I was in Pakistan in 2023, I met some of those who had been charged under the blasphemy laws. It was found that the allegations were vindictive and malicious: there was no evidential basis for them whatever. Such accusations have led to extrajudicial killings, violent attacks and mass displacements.
The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) referred to the plight of young Christian and Hindu girls who are abducted, forcibly converted to Islam and married to their captors. That is not merely a violation of their religious freedom but an affront to their dignity and human rights. In Sindh province alone, the practice has become alarmingly common, with inadequate legal protections allowing perpetrators to evade justice. There is something wrong with a society that can let a 14 or 12-year-old, or anyone who is still under the care of their parents, be taken away, abducted and married against their will. These are people of such innocence. It really disturbs me, and unfortunately we have reports that it is happening regularly in Pakistan.
Dignity First’s 2024 report highlighted more than 70 violent incidents targeting Christians, ranging from mob violence to forced conversions and abductions. In Jaranwala in Punjab, Christian homes and businesses were attacked in what appeared to be a premeditated assault on their religious identity. They were attacked and brutalised because they were Christians. Tragically, the authorities have often failed to bring perpetrators to justice. Christians have been subjected to accusations of blasphemy that can result in torture or death at the hands of violent mobs. The international community must demand that Pakistan take concrete steps to end the violence against Christians and provide legal protection for all religious minorities. This House believes in freedom for religious minorities, wherever they are in the world. We therefore ask Pakistan to conform to that, and protect religious minorities. I commend the organisation Alliance Defending Freedom International, which recently facilitated the rescue of Saima Bibi and Reeha Saleem, two brave young women forced into such marriages. Their release was a triumph, but countless others remain trapped in similar situations. Their cries for help go unanswered. We ask the Minister to do something about that.
I want to take up the plight of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Pakistan. We were fortunate that the last time we were with them we were able to meet some of the imams and people at high levels of the Muslim faith. According to the society in Pakistan, the Ahmadiyyas are a sect of Muslimism, but they do not conform to everyone else. Therefore, according to Pakistan law, they are heretics, if that is the right word to use, and outside the mainstream. There is something wrong with religious liberty if we cannot accept that people have the right to choose the god they wish to worship. That right should be protected. Declared non-Muslims by the state in 1974, Ahmadis face systematic discrimination, enshrined in law. There is no freedom there. Under ordinance XX, their religious practices, such as calling their places of worship “mosques” or referring to their faith as “Islam”, are criminalised.
The desecration of Ahmadi mosques and graves has become almost routine. The last time we were there, we saw pictures of churches, mosques and gravestones that had been destroyed, with the graves desecrated. Since 2021, more than 40 mosques and 421 graves have been destroyed or defaced. Violent hate speech against Ahmadis is openly promoted, with preachers inciting mobs to commit acts of violence. It is not just a matter of verbally objecting; they take it further. Mob violence ensues and many people are hurt.
Just two and half months ago, the September 2024 commemoration of anti-Ahmadi laws was particularly chilling, as it emboldened extremists and led to further attacks on that very vulnerable community. In the Parachinar Kurram district, Shi’a Muslims—another sect—face relentless attacks from extremist groups, including the Taliban and ISIS-affiliated organisations. Just this year, Parachinar was cut off from the rest of Pakistan due to a blockade, resulting in severe shortages of medical supplies, food and fuel. Eleven lives were lost because critically ill patients could not access essential care.
To pivot slightly, we also have an obligation to address the role of the Jamaat-e-Islami group in Pakistan. Not only did it play a significant role in the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war, but it continues to shape religious and political landscapes across the region. Its student wing is called Islami Chhatra Shibir. The organisation has been involved in violent protests, including recent clashes in Bangladesh over Government policies. Founded by Syed Abul Ala Maududi, Jamaat-e-Islami promotes the idea of establishing an Islamic state, and has been linked to extremist activities through connections with groups such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
The legacy of Jamaat-e-Islami’s involvement in atrocities during the liberation of Bangladesh still casts a shadow over its actions today, both in Pakistan and Bangladesh. We want to see peace, stability and the democratic process working well, but there are those who work against that. In addition to the suffering of religious minorities in Pakistan, we cannot ignore the ongoing targeted violence against Shi’a Muslims in regions such as Parachinar. Located in Pakistan’s volatile tribal belt, it has been the site of relentless sectarian violence, including a recent attack that left 44 Shi’a Muslims dead at the hands of extremist Sunni militias and the Taliban. Those acts of violence are not isolated, but part of a broader pattern of persecution against the Shi’a community.
In August 2024, a conflict over land disputes escalated into deadly sectarian violence, leaving 46 people dead and 200 injured. Such violence is not isolated, but part of a broader pattern of targeted attacks on Shi’a Muslims, perpetuating cycles of hatred and division. The situation is urgent. These attacks are an affront not only to basic human rights but to the principles of religious tolerance and co-existence.
Let me give an example. Whenever I was in Pakistan, we went to the Church of Pakistan—equivalent to the Church of England—and the hon. Member for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), who is no longer here, went to the Roman Catholic cathedral. Both places were surrounded by guards, inside and out, and there were metal gates on the entrance. We had a police guard, along with members of the army, the whole time we were there. Simply being a Christian, or having any different religious persuasion, requires extra security in that area. I remember seeing the parishioners as they left the church to make their way home. When they walked out of the gates, nobody was there to guard them, while obviously we were being guarded, and I was very conscious of that.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend not only for securing the debate, but for his continuing efforts in this regard. He outlined a litany of attacks, which hopefully will be deplored by all, so will he join me in commending groups such as Open Doors, which will publish its annual watch list in January? That list itemises in good detail the types of attacks, criticisms and human rights violations that exist across the globe, particularly for those persecuted for their religious belief.
Jim Shannon
My hon. Friend is right to put that on the record. Pakistan will feature highly in the top 20 countries where persecution is rife. It is one of those leagues that countries do not want to be at the top of. It is not like the premier league; countries do not want to be No. 1, or indeed anywhere in the top 20.
Pakistan’s legal framework ostensibly guarantees religious freedom, under its constitution, yet the reality is far different. It has a single national curriculum, and as recently as 2021 that was criticised for marginalising religious minorities. Textbooks continue to perpetrate stereotypes, fostering intolerance among the next generation. We have to be careful about what Pakistan does on education. We had hoped that during our visit we would see some changes and opportunities. Pakistan says it sets many jobs aside for people from religious minority groups, but the fact is we do not see that. There are many talented people who are Christian, Hindu, Shi’a Muslim, Ahmadiyya, Baha’i, or of a faith that does not conform with Pakistan’s state faith, and they could do the same job every bit as well.
Minority students are forced to study Islamic content, isolating them further in a society already fraught with prejudice. Economic discrimination compounds those challenges. Non-Muslims are often relegated to low-status jobs with limited opportunity for social or professional mobility. That systematic marginalisation keeps them in a cycle of poverty and vulnerability.
I give the example of those people—mostly Christians—who work in the brick kilns. We did a report on Pakistan’s religious minorities in the last Session and presented it to the Pakistan Government, but we have not had any response just yet. My Christian brothers and sisters are persecuted, beaten and abused in every way imaginable— I do not want to have to imagine it. Their contracts of employment are changed in such a way that they are contracted to the brick kilns for not just a couple of years, or perhaps 10 years; they are there forever. That report also highlighted that.
The United Kingdom has a proud history of championing human rights on the global stage. As we deepen our relationship with Pakistan, we must use all our influence to advocate for meaningful change, and I urge colleagues to join me in calling on the Minister to do so. I am pleased to see him and the new elected shadow Minister in their places, and I wish the shadow Minister well. I look forward to a consensus of opinion across the Chamber on this issue.
I have a couple of asks for the Minister—more than a couple; it always is with me, but I do so respectfully and in a positive fashion. Can we advocate for blasphemy law reform by working with international allies to pressure Pakistan to reform those laws, ensuring that they cannot be misused against religious minorities? Can we support victims of forced conversion and forced marriage by providing resources to non-governmental organisations working on the ground to rescue and rehabilitate victims? Can we press the Pakistan Government to implement stronger legal safeguards to protect vulnerable girls and women? The hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) referred to how women and girls are considered as second-class in many cases. If they are Christians, they are doubly second-class in that country.
Will we demand equal rights for the Ahmadi people by advocating for the repeal of discriminatory laws targeting the Ahmadiyya community and ensure that they are granted full rights as citizens of Pakistan? Will we provide humanitarian aid to Parachinar and urge the Pakistan Government to lift the blockade, restore essential services and mediate sectarian conflicts in order to prevent further bloodshed? There is a mediation role for our Government in this country. In Pakistan it is more important, but it does not seem to happen. Will we promote education reform by collaborating with the Pakistan authorities to develop curricula that promote inclusivity and tolerance and that foster a culture of co-existence?
My final request to the Minister relates to my private Member’s Bill—it will not be debated tomorrow because the focus will be on the assisted dying Bill. My Bill asks for a special envoy for freedom of religion or belief to strengthen accountability and to set the precedent on the international stage that we are not for turning on human rights or anybody’s freedom of religion or belief. I know the Bill will be put off tomorrow, probably until March, because that is how the system works. I have asked for meetings with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary, and hopefully those meetings will take place. I suspect that, had it not been for the wash-up after the sudden calling of the election, my previous Bill would probably have become law, because I had positive responses to questions I have asked in the Chamber on it. We hope that will be the case but, again, perhaps the Minister could explain the way forward.
I want to cast my mind back to when we were in Pakistan in 2018 and mention the blasphemy law. Most people here will know the case of Asia Bibi. She was accused of blasphemy. It was a vexatious, malicious, vindicative and untrue allegation, but none the less she was subjected to the law that pervades in Pakistan. She fought her case and was sentenced. When we were in Pakistan, we met two of the three judges who would make the decision. I am not saying that we did any better than anybody else—that is not why I am saying it—but we spoke about how and why the blasphemy law is used against people of a different faith. The Minister at the time— I think it was Mark Field—said, “Don’t say anything about Asia Bibi, because the two judges we met told us that they were of a mind to set her free.” We understood the process: do not say too much about it at home and let the process run. It did and she is free. She now lives in Canada, but there are so many other Asia Bibis who live in Pakistan and also deserve to be protected.
We must be clear that we stand on the side of the people of Pakistan and that hate and intolerance divide and hurt people. It is within our power to support stability and freedom through our influence and by being resolute in our commitment to the region. We cannot be idle. Long before I came to this place, a former Prime Minister said:
“The lady’s not for turning.”
We all know who that was. I suggest that we use that same spirit and that we must not step back from our commitments.
The challenges facing religious minorities in Pakistan are immense but not insurmountable. We have the tools, the influence and the moral responsibility to act. By joining forces with international partners, civil society organisations and the Pakistani diaspora, we can help to create a Pakistan where no one is persecuted for their faith. That is the objective of this debate; that is the goal that I hope we might be able to achieve. Let us not be silent witnesses to such atrocities. Let us stand together and be a voice for the voiceless, a shield for the defenceless and a beacon of hope for those who have known only darkness.
I always conclude my remarks in such debates with a scripture text. Proverbs 31:8-9 says:
“Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
Let us do just that today.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing the debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee, through which he secured it. I also congratulate him on this upgrade from Westminster Hall to the main Chamber—some argue that Westminster Hall should be renamed the “Shannon debating forum.”
I will take up the hon. Gentleman’s point, as I am sure others will, about the Ahmadiyya community. Like other Members in the Chamber, I have an Ahmadiyya community in my constituency. They operate under the slogan of “Love for all, hatred for none.” We saw that campaign on our London buses at one point a few years ago. They relate to me exactly what the hon. Gentleman described: distressing tales of what is happening to their community in Pakistan. As he says, just describing oneself as a member of the Ahmadiyya community is an offence under the penal law in Pakistan. Doing so can result in a three-year term of imprisonment, a fine, or even death. In addition, if people call their place of worship a mosque, or their call to prayer—the adhan—goes out, they can be prosecuted under that penal code, which is appalling.
The briefing that the all-party parliamentary group received recently highlighted that the situation has got significantly worse this year. In the briefing, we were told that at least four people had been murdered because of their religion. We also had a list with a number of people who had been arrested and imprisoned for their religion. In prison, their situation is extremely precarious; there are also worries about torture. Publications are banned, and to be able to vote, Ahmadis are placed on a separate list—in fact, many of them are disenfranchised as a result.
In the past, when we have raised those matters in debates, in this Chamber and in Westminster Hall, Governments of all political complexions have made representations. At times there has been some alleviation because the world has focused its attention on Pakistan’s behaviour, but the reports that we get show that recently things have been getting dramatically worse. That is why we need some action from our Government.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the need to work through international agencies to shine a light on what is happening and make representations. It is key now that we mobilise pressure as much as we can to influence the Pakistani Government to scrap the blasphemy laws being used so ferociously against the Ahmadiyya community and others.
Let me say something that might prove contentious for some. I think we now need to think about going beyond that. There are individuals in Pakistan, within the Administration and the security forces, who we can now identify as leading on some of these human rights abuses, and I wonder whether we should treat them as human rights abusers, as we would others from other countries. That would mean naming and shaming, of course, but also instigating some form of sanctions against them. Most of those individuals have a relationship with this country in one form or another. In fact, many of them will be using their resources via investment vehicles in this country. I feel that we need to take a stronger view and stronger action than we have in the past, because the situation has deteriorated.
Another issue, which we have raised before, is that although we provide a fair amount of aid and assistance to Pakistan—that is fine; I completely understand that—it is important that that aid is not abused. For example, the Pakistani Government nationalised Ahmadiyya schools and have never returned them to the community. We fund education in Pakistan, so we need to be conditional about how that investment in education is made.
A second point that might be provocative is that we must consider the funding of the organisations campaigning for human rights in Pakistan and internationally, so that we can strengthen their arm in advocating on behalf of the Ahmadiyya community. That is my position on the Ahmadiyya community.
I will slightly abuse the scope of the debate if I may, Madam Deputy Speaker. Human rights abuses in Pakistan have worsened in this recent period, not just for Ahmadiyyas but for others. At the moment, severe repression is taking place in Balochistan. There is a history in the last year, and in the recent months in particular, of repression among the Baloch. The Pakistani authorities have introduced a strategy of disappearances. Large numbers of people have simply disappeared. A crudity about that is that it involves “find and dump”—the only way in which people who disappear are found is when their bodies are dumped on the streets in that region.
The forms of repression taking place in Balochistan are producing a resistance movement. Unfortunately, some of that is armed resistance, and we have seen what are being classified as terrorist actions, so there is a deterioration. However, there is also a peace movement, which is largely led by women. They have been instigating marches over the past 12 months. Unfortunately, they are now being arrested and the peace and human rights movement in Balochistan is being savagely repressed. If we are taking up these issues of religious freedom, we should extend consideration to the whole range of human rights abuses taking place in Pakistan. I would not want to see a destabilisation of the country as a result of a reactionary Government taking these measures. From my understanding, people are on the edge—they have had enough—and unfortunately the response from the Pakistani Government does not suggest that they will reconsider their strategy of repressive measures.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing the debate, and am grateful to him and other Members for their excellent contributions.
Pakistan’s constitution enshrines the right of every citizen to
“profess, practice and propagate his religion”,
and in January, the Minister of Foreign Affairs went as far as to claim:
“Pakistan has undertaken wide ranging measures to promote religious freedom and protect minority rights.”
That is sadly and simply untrue. In the face of forced conversions and mob violence, the Pakistani Government are far too often failing to fulfil their basic duty of protecting their citizens.
Even more seriously, there is widespread evidence of the state actively supporting the discrimination of certain religious minorities, including Shi’a Muslims, Christians and Hindus, with laws against blasphemy in particular being used to undermine their human rights and freedoms. Today, however, I will focus on the Ahmadi Muslim community, who are subject to some of the most serious discrimination.
I am proud that many in the Ahmadi Muslim community live and/or worship in my constituency, which is home to Morden’s magnificent Baitul Futuh mosque, the largest mosque in the UK and the worldwide headquarters of the faith. It is from there that the caliph’s regular Friday sermon is televised live throughout the world, but while Ahmadi Muslims can practise in freedom in this country, that is sadly not the case for those watching and listening to him in Pakistan. I have heard from the mosque and from many of my constituents about the persecution that their community faces on a daily basis in Pakistan. In their mosques, their homes and their businesses, Ahmadi Muslims are facing persecution merely for observing their faith.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
I also have a number of Ahmadiyya Muslims in Epsom and Ewell, and it was really shameful that this faith group had to move its home to the UK to avoid exactly this persecution. Does my hon. Friend agree that all religious groups in Pakistan should have the freedom to practise their faith, and that we in this House should be a voice for the persecuted?
Mr Kohler
I completely agree. We have an absolute duty to enforce that and make sure that happens.
The Pakistani Government are doing more than just turning a blind eye to this discrimination, with the state actively seeking to marginalise the Ahmadi Muslim community. Unless Ahmadi Muslims declare themselves to be non-Muslims, they are not permitted to stand for office or vote—they are denied a voice in the system that is meant to uphold their rights. It is important to note that this was not always the case: for example, the first Foreign Minister of Pakistan, Sir Chaudhry Zafarullah Khan, was an Ahmadi Muslim. Sadly, however, Ahmadi Muslim freedoms have been undermined by the Pakistani Government over time, but that does not mean that those rights cannot be restored.
For that reason, our Government should be speaking more loudly on this issue. The UK is Pakistan’s third largest trading partner and its largest in Europe. We are consequently not without influence. Disenfranchised and marginalised Pakistani Ahmadi Muslims have very few options at their disposal. It is therefore our duty to raise our voices, and for the Government to do what they can to help protect their rights and those of other religious minorities. I consequently echo my party leader’s calls last year to reconsider Pakistan’s trade preferences. I also hope the Government will work with Ahmadi Muslim refugees across the world and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to preserve those refugees’ safety. As Gladstone said in 1877:
“Nonconformity supplies the backbone of English Liberalism.”
The Government must do what they can to continue this country’s proud liberal tradition, protecting the rights of the Ahmadi Muslims and other religious minorities in Pakistan.
Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for organising this important debate. From the many examples he has given from his long time spent fighting for religious freedom in Pakistan and for Christians around the world, I can see that this is something he cares deeply about, and it is important that we are discussing it today.
Like the Minister, I spent some time working in Pakistan with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I spent three years working in Islamabad and Lahore from 2019 to 2021. I spent a lot of that time traveling around Punjab—I had responsibility for that province within the FCDO—and a lot of the examples that the hon. Member for Strangford gave are really familiar. I will talk about some of those examples in a moment, but before I do so, I want to highlight some of the other aspects of Pakistan that I saw there, including some of the more positive ones, which may be examples of how religious minorities should be treated that we can give when we are talking to Pakistan in the future.
In my time travelling throughout Punjab, I got to see many religious sites. Travelling through the old city of Lahore, there is the very impressive Badshahi Masjid. You can travel down to Derawar in Bahawalpur and see a fantastic fort there; there is the Rukn-e-Alam shrine in Multan, as well as the gurdwara at Nankana Sahib, and of course there is Lahore cathedral. I mention all those sites not because I want to give people a tour of Pakistan, or indeed to promote its tourism industry—although that definitely should be encouraged—but to highlight that all those magnificent buildings are from different religions. Pakistan has a proud history of various minorities throughout the ages, from the Buddhists of the Gandhara civilisation to Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims of various sects, Ahmadis and Christians. There are parts of the country that recognise that history. Spending time with each of those groups was a real privilege.
Of course, this is a debate on freedom of religion and belief, and while there are huge concerns about the treatment of minorities in Pakistan, I wanted to give one positive example of something that has happened in recent years. Towards the end of my time in Pakistan, I had the opportunity to visit the Kartarpur corridor, on the border between Pakistan and India. It is a site built on the location that was used by Guru Nanak when he first established the Sikh community in the 16th century. For a long time, it was divided between India and Pakistan, but in 2019 Narendra Modi and Imran Khan allowed access for the community to cross between their two countries. When I visited in 2020, I met pilgrims from India who had come to Pakistan to meet relatives in the Sikh community whom they had not seen since partition nearly 80 years before. The joy on the faces of those people, who were enabled to do that by the promises made by the Pakistani Government, showed that it is possible for the Government to be more positive toward some religious minorities.
In the three years I was based in Punjab, there were numerous cases of brutal attacks on religious minorities, some of which the hon. Member for Strangford mentioned. I will give three more examples from the time I was there. In April 2021, there was a mob attack in Faisalabad on Mariam Lal and Newsh Arooj, two Christian nurses who had been asked to clean up lockers in the hospital in which they were working. They were set on by a mob after accusations of blasphemy, and they were later arrested by the police and held in prison for some time. They have now been released, fortunately. In December 2021, there was the lynching of Priyantha Kumara in Sialkot. Priyantha was a Buddhist from Sri Lanka who was running a factory as the general manager. He was lynched by an angry mob after accusations of blasphemy while the police stood by and were unable to intervene. In August 2022, there was the stabbing of Naseer Ahmed, a 62-year-old Ahmadi grandfather, who refused to chant slogans in support of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan. For that crime, he was murdered in the streets by an angry Pakistani man.
I raise those three incidents not because they are extraordinary, but because they felt routine. On a weekly basis when I was there, I would hear of bad examples from the Christian community, the Ahmadi community and others about the brutal violence and humiliations to which they were subjected. Sumera Shafique, a friend of mine who works for the Christian Lawyers Association of Pakistan, would call me regularly to update me about the false conversions she was working on, particularly in the south of Punjab.
Many people from the Ahmadiyya community, who would obviously prefer to be anonymous at the moment, regularly raise with me the victimisation they are facing, with their mosques being destroyed and their schools being closed down. As we heard from other Members, schools have also been nationalised by the Government. There has even been the introduction of a new marriage law meaning that an Ahmadiyya Muslim in Pakistan must renounce their faith to get married. The level of discrimination is quite outrageous.
I am lucky to have a significant Ahmadiyya community in my own constituency, with the Baitul Ghafoor mosque on Long Lane in Halesowen. It holds a number of inter- faith events, and I have been to many of them. I have been pleased to see the welcome that members provide to many people from different religious backgrounds. The contrast with the way the Ahmadiyya community is treated in Pakistan is striking.
When I was in Lahore, I had many discussions with the Human Rights Ministers of Punjab, Khalil Tahir Sandhu and Ramesh Singh, whom I still count as friends. I know they face a very difficult situation, and it is very challenging to work within the system to improve the conditions of religious minorities. Many people in Pakistan and in the Government are trying to do that, but I would of course encourage them to do more.
Finally, I thank the hon. Member for Strangford again for organising this debate on a subject that I think we should be talking about more. I know it is an extremely difficult subject for the FCDO to work on, and I understand the limitations we are working under, but I ask the Minister to continue to raise the deteriorating situation that religious minorities have faced in recent years with our counterparts in Pakistan. I also ask him to commit to include freedom of religion or belief in the discussions about the future co-operation and trade agreements that we are having with Pakistan, and to use every opportunity across Government to hold discussions to push that forward.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on bringing forward this debate and allowing us to discuss this incredibly important issue in this House.
On 25 November 1981, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed resolution 36/55, which said:
“Discrimination between human beings on the grounds of religion or belief constitutes an affront to human dignity and a disavowal of the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and shall be condemned as a violation of the human rights and fundamental freedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
Nearly half a century has passed since those words were written, and they came just seven years after the passage of the second amendment to the constitution of Pakistan, which declared that Ahmadi Muslims were
“not a Muslim for the purposes of the Constitution or the law.”
My speech will concentrate on the Ahmadi community, but that should not diminish the persecution and discrimination suffered by other communities, which has been mentioned by many hon. Members.
Many decades on, we still find ourselves grappling with the critical injustice, prejudice and persecution that that amendment enshrined in law and enabled. That is what the current legal framework in Pakistan has done. It has enabled not just legal exclusion and prosecution, but ongoing hate speech and violent persecution. Extremist clerics in Pakistan have called for Ahmadi Muslims to be hung or beheaded, for their women to be murdered to prevent more Ahmadi Muslims from being born, and even for the Government of Pakistan to understand that if they do not act, the people will take matters into their own hands and kill Ahmadi Muslims themselves. If anyone has any lingering doubt about whether that awful rhetoric extends only to calls for violence within Pakistan’s borders, I refer them to one rally this year where the following was said:
“We have to strangle each and every Ahmadi…You have no idea how powerful this slogan is! You will raise it here, an Ahmadi will die in Great Britain.”
That abhorrent rhetoric has no place in a democratic republic such as Pakistan, and I know from conversations with many of my constituents, as well as Ahmadi Muslims across London, that it absolutely terrifies Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan and here in the UK.
We too often forget that rhetoric has consequences, and violent rhetoric becomes violence as surely as night becomes day. Sure enough, violent hate crimes across Pakistan and around the world against Ahmadi Muslims are at shocking levels. This year, four Ahmadi Muslims were killed in a targeted manner. Tahir Iqbal, president of a local Ahmadi Muslim community, was shot dead by two motorcyclists. Zaka ur Rehman, a dentist, was killed in his own clinic by two gunmen. In both cases, no perpetrators have been identified and brought to justice. In Sadullahpur, two Ahmadi Muslims, Ghulam Sarwar and Rahat Ahmad Bajwa, were murdered in separate incidents on the same day. The alleged perpetrator, a 16-year-old student of a madrassah, confessed to the killings, citing religious reasons—16 years old. I invite hon. Members to recall the poisonous rhetoric that I have just outlined, and to which that young man must have been exposed in order to carry out such a heinous act.
It seems that violence against Ahmadi Muslims is rarely investigated, and in many cases is seemingly encouraged or enabled by local officials and policemen in Pakistan. In June, 30 Ahmadi Muslims were arrested for the crime of celebrating Eid. Ahmadi homes were attacked, an Ahmadi mosque was ransacked, and the police stood by and did nothing. Earlier this year in January, it is alleged that local police in the Punjab region, acting under instructions from a local official, took part themselves in another disconcertingly common and awful act of hatred: the desecration of tombs in an Ahmadi Muslim graveyard. Desecration is a particularly cowardly and heinous act, and serves only to underscore the severity of the situation facing Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan.
Freedom of worship is inextricably linked with freedom of expression and speech, and as a Liberal I will always place the greatest currency on that most cherished of virtues.
But as all liberal societies have found, freedom of speech cannot extend to freedom of hate speech or the freedom to incite violence and hatred, and the Pakistani Government ought to be reminded of that fact in our bilateral engagements. Nobody should have to live like that, and to face hatred, threats, violence and death just for worshipping their own religion in a peaceful manner in a democratic country. It goes against every principle we hold dear in the community of international law, and against our every principle as an open, democratic, tolerant nation ourselves, not least as a nation that is bound to Pakistan by a common history, a common language and a track record of collaboration on tackling extremism in the region. We must be a critical partner of Pakistan. I call on the Government to respond to the concerns raised in the House today and to please come forward with reassurances that, at every single opportunity, the plight of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan will be raised with the Government of that country. Our conscience calls on us not to turn a blind eye.
Ahmadi Muslims, like members of all faiths, deserve to worship free from intimidation and discrimination. The Liberal Democrats have long been in favour of a rigorous, values-based foreign policy that puts our money where our mouth is. We cannot just talk a good game on protecting minorities around the world and standing up for the fundamental freedoms outlined in the declaration of human rights; we must use our leverage with Governments such as that in Pakistan to encourage them to take serious and concrete steps towards making it a reality. This should be an issue that unites us across the House—I am encouraged to hear that it does—and one that reminds us not just of our obligations under international law but our moral duty to those facing oppression everywhere.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
I congratulate my friend the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing this vital debate in the Chamber and on continuing the noble work of his predecessor, our former colleague Fiona Bruce, as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate. It is a privilege to respond on behalf of His Majesty’s most loyal Opposition.
Pakistan is a Commonwealth partner, and our paths have been intertwined for an important part of our shared history. The UK and Pakistan have a close and long-standing relationship underpinned by strong links between our peoples, especially through the Commonwealth of Nations.
I have been intrigued—and pleased, to be honest—to hear the passion with which Members from both sides of the House have spoken. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) spoke passionately about the persecution of the Ahmadi people. While the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and I rarely agree on things, he spoke passionately about his own community and quoted what the Ahmadi community says: “Love for all, hate for none.” Could a single Member of the House ever disagree with that?
The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) represents a large community with the mosque in Morden— I know the mosque he referred to—which I think is part of his constituency. I have learned a lot about the Ahmadi community this afternoon. It is deeply distressing to hear about some of the incidents that have occurred. The hon. Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) spoke from experience, having represented the Government— I assume Her Majesty’s Government—in Islamabad as a diplomat; I thank him for his service. He relayed his experience and gave examples of some of the horrendous persecution that has taken place. I went to Pakistan as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee some years ago. I think that we are united in the House in standing up for freedom of religion and wanting to see a change. Some of the incidents and persecutions in Pakistan that we have heard about are completely wrong.
The 1956 constitution of Pakistan included liberties for people to profess their religion “freely”. However, today, freedom of self-expression is subject to article 19 of the constitution. According to this year’s Open Doors world watch list, Pakistan is the seventh most dangerous nation in the world to reside in as a Christian. Churches have endured regular attacks, and those with strong community outreach have faced severe rights violations. There is also concern about career prospects being more limited for Christians than for others.
The Minister will be aware that the previous Government established the Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development, a British Government-funded multi-country programme that has implemented a project in Pakistan to protect minorities who work as sewage and sanitation workers. Can this House have the Minister’s assurance that the work of that organisation will continue under the new Government?
Since the 1980s, Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have become more and more severe and oppressive. Ahmadis have been subject to blasphemy laws that carry the punishment of three years imprisonment and severe fines, the most notable of which is ordinance XX, which prohibits Ahmadis from publicly practising their Islamic faith and forbids them from using sacred texts for prayer. That simply cannot be right. Ahmadis have been denied identity cards and are coerced into signing faith-related documents.
Ministers in previous Governments have raised the issue of the Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan and with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and high commissioner. Given that there have been several cases of brutal extrajudicial killings of Ahmadi Muslims in recent months, some being high profile members of their community, I hope that we will receive the Minister’s reassurance that that will remain the case, and that Ministers continue to press our counterparts in Islamabad and the high commissioner here in London about the issues raised in today’s debate.
Despite making up only 2% of the Pakistani population, Christians are subject to roughly a quarter of all accusations of blasphemy. Anyone openly calling for reform of blasphemy laws is openly threatened by radicals. According to Associated Press News on 5 September 2023, in August last year at least 17 churches were set on fire in Jaranwala. Hundreds of houses were attacked and hundreds of Christians fled from their homes, subsequent to inaccurate accusations of blasphemy. I was pleased that the Foreign Secretary at that time raised these attacks against Christians in Jaranwala with Pakistan’s Prime Minister last September. Additionally, that August, Lord Ahmad, the then Foreign Office Minister, wrote to Pakistan’s caretaker Foreign Minister urging the Government to ensure the safety of the Christian community following these atrocious attacks.
Such reprisals are not restricted to Christians and Ahmadi Muslims. Unfortunately, Hindus too have been subjected to increasing violence. In July 2023, a Hindu temple in the Sindh province of Pakistan was attacked, and in June 2022, a Hindu temple in Karachi was destroyed. According to the National Council of Churches in Pakistan, not just since the adoption of the 1973 constitution nor since the turn of this century but annually, as many as 1,000 Christian and Hindu girls are kidnapped. There are also reports of Christian children being obligated to attend Islamic lessons at their local madrassahs, while Christian teaching is restricted to the home. I hope that the Government are once again raising these concerns with our counterparts in the Pakistani Government.
Article 4 of the Commonwealth charter, which I am sure the Minister will know, states the need to promote religious freedom. Whether it is women who have been snatched from their homes and forced to profess a religion that they do not follow, or men who are targeted through blasphemy charges, there are clearly issues that need to be addressed most urgently. Religion has provided a bedrock for the Pakistani people and serves as a source of motivation for the betterment of society, and all must be free to pursue their beliefs without fear.
While I have the opportunity, I will commend the work of my friend—a friend to many in this House—Fiona Bruce, the former Member for Congleton, whom I mentioned earlier. She dedicated many years of her time in this place to fighting for freedom of religion or belief and against the persecution of minorities who wish to worship freely. One of the towering achievements of the previous Government was to appoint the United Kingdom’s first ever special envoy for freedom of religion or belief. I therefore ask the Minister to assure the House that His Majesty’s Government will be doing the same, and that an appointment to this position will be announced very soon.
Two years ago, the Conservative Government brought together 800 faith and belief leaders and human rights activists and 100 Government delegations for the international ministerial conference on freedom of religion to agree a plan to encourage and defend those fundamental inalienable rights. The outcome of the conference bore witness to the pledges of 47 Governments, international organisations and other entities to take action in support of freedom of religion or belief. Through the soft power of our diplomatic network, the previous Government were able to solidify coalitions of support to protect freedom of religion or belief for all within international bodies and through the multilateral framework, hardening obligations for states to uphold their human rights obligations. Once again, I sincerely hope that the Government will continue the work of the Conservative Government in the previous Parliament.
On a separate note, earlier this year, the Conservative Government put on record their serious concerns about the fairness and lack of inclusivity of Pakistan’s recent election. We were clear we regretted that not all parties were allowed to contest the elections, and that legal processes were used to prevent some political leaders from participation and the use of recognisable party symbols. I am sure the House is also aware that restrictions were imposed on internet access on polling day and that there were significant delays to the reporting of results and claims of irregularities in the counting process. The new Labour Government need to urge the authorities in Pakistan to uphold fundamental human rights, including those I and many other Members have touched on, as well as other important freedoms including free access to information.
The rule of law must be unflinchingly upheld. To be crystal clear, that includes the right to a fair trial, which, for the avoidance of doubt, means adherence to due process within an independent, transparent judicial system, free from interference. To that end, will the Minister say what discussions on those issues the new Government have had with the Government of Pakistan? Will he say what Labour’s position is on the imprisonment and general treatment of former Prime Minister Imran Khan? As he will know, that has caused huge divisions within the Pakistani community.
To conclude, I believe the United Kingdom has been at the vanguard of defending freedom of religion and belief, civil liberties and human rights. We urge His Majesty’s Government to continue this important work to protect all those who choose to practise their faith, and who have the right—and must continue to have the right—to do so without fear and in freedom. As the hon. Member for Strangford said, there can be no turning back in our defence of freedom of liberties, the rule of law and the right of peoples throughout our world to share and practise a religion without fear. I hope His Majesty’s Government will follow that tradition.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Hamish Falconer)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this important debate. I pay tribute to his work as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. I know he has been engaged on these issues for some time. I note that the group visited Pakistan last year and published important recommendations for improving the state of freedom of religion. Its commitment to defending the rights of vulnerable communities across the globe does not go unnoticed. I am grateful, too, for the contributions of other hon. Members. I join the shadow Minister in paying tribute to the service of my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) in Pakistan. I will respond to the points raised and highlight what the UK is doing to help protect the rights of minorities in Pakistan.
I would like to reassure the House that I was in Pakistan last week. I was the first British Government Minister to visit for some years—more than two, I believe— and, as I understand it, I am the only G7 Minister to have visited Pakistan this year. As the House knows, and has been clear from the debate, Pakistan is an important country, a strategic country, and it is important that we stay engaged in the full range of issues going on in that country. On that note, Madam Deputy Speaker, I hope you will allow me to provide some brief comments on current events in Pakistan.
I am deeply concerned by the reports of loss of life arising from this week’s protests in Islamabad, which I know have been followed very closely in the House. The UK Government support individuals’ rights to protest, and urge the Pakistani authorities to respect those fundamental freedoms. We are closely monitoring the situation, including the potential impact on British nationals. We are concerned by reports that a number of journalists have gone missing following the protests, including Matiullah Jan, a respected Pakistani journalist and a Chevening scholar. The UK remains committed to media freedom and the protection of journalists. We will urge the authorities to ensure the safe return of all journalists.
I also want to express my sincere condolences to all those affected by the abhorrent violence in Kurram over the past week. My thoughts are with the families of those killed and injured. We hope that a peaceful resolution can be reached. We remain in contact with the relevant individuals.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) asked about the situation in relation to the Baloch, in particular the protests led by women in Balochistan. I am aware of reports of enforced disappearances. The UK strongly condemns any instances of extrajudicial killings or enforced disappearances. We urge states to investigate any allegations fully, to prosecute those responsible and to provide justice to victims and their families. We continue to encourage progress towards the criminalisation of enforced disappearances in Pakistan.
Britain has a long relationship with Pakistan founded on our shared history and warm ties between our people. We have heard some of that today. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen, I served in Pakistan in 2010 when some of the incidents referred to this afternoon occurred, including the concerning incident with Asia Bibi. As I said, last week I had the pleasure of visiting this beautiful country. I met Ministers, businesses and religious leaders. I can reassure the House that in all my engagements I raised some of these important issues.
We know that many minorities in Pakistan face injustices, including structural discrimination, economic exclusion and wider social intolerance. I share Members’ concerns about the increasing misuse of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. Too often these laws are used to settle personal vendettas, with insufficient evidence or safeguards for those accused. Once an accusation is made, there is a high risk of vigilante violence. For example, in May an elderly Christian man died of his injuries following an assault by a large mob in Punjab. These abhorrent attacks form part of a wider pattern of discrimination and violence towards marginalised religious communities.
Jim Shannon
Frequently, when accusations are made—accusations that are often vexatious and malicious, with no evidential basis whatsoever—the police stand by and do nothing to control the mob violence. Could the Minister perhaps take that on board when he next has discussions with the Pakistani Government? We want a Pakistan police force that is independent and applies the same rule of law to everyone, but it is clear that that is not currently the case.
Hamish Falconer
I raised the specific question of how policing operates in relation to religious minorities with the Pakistani Minister for Law and Human Rights, the Minister for Interior, and personnel from Pakistan’s security establishment just last week.
Let me now turn to the subject of Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan, who, as many have pointed out this afternoon, continue to receive threats from extremist groups. Regrettably, a number have been murdered. The practices of forced marriage and conversion are devastating the lives of women and girls from minority religious communities. We in the House should welcome small positive steps, such as an amendment to the Christian Marriage Act 1872 to equalise the age of marriage between Christian boys and girls in Punjab, but more clearly needs to be done to protect the rights of both Muslim and religious minority girls across Pakistan.
Let me now say a little about what the UK is doing to help. This Government recognise the central importance of promoting a more open society in Pakistan. We regularly engage with its Government, with like-minded partners and with other stakeholders to raise concerns and discuss ways of protecting marginalised communities. Generally, our assessment is that private engagement with Pakistan’s authorities is the most effective way to get our messages across. My recent visit was an excellent opportunity to convey those messages to an array of senior Ministers. I met the Human Rights Minister to discuss the importance of promoting religious tolerance and harmony. I highlighted concerns about recent incidents of blasphemy-related violence and the misuse of blasphemy laws. I also raised the issues of forced marriage and conversion, and the Minister assured me that efforts were under way to pass new legislation to help address it. I met the Minister of Interior as well, alongside with the British high commissioner. We underlined concerns about threats of violence towards Ahmadi Muslims, and stressed the need for police protection. Again, we received assurances that the authorities would work harder to protect minority communities.
The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Luke Taylor) expressed concern about his constituents in the UK. While policing is clearly a matter independent from the Government, this Government will do everything—as one would expect—to ensure the freedom of religious belief and ensure that religious minorities feel protected here.
Since my visit, the high commissioner has spoken to the Punjab Minister for Minority Affairs about some of the incidents that have been described this afternoon. She raised concerns regarding extremist threats made against minority groups, including Ahmadi Muslims, and pushed for more action on forced marriage and conversion.
To maximise the impact of our engagements, we co-ordinate closely with the wider international community and work alongside international organisations such as the International Labour Organisation in relation to the forced labour of children in brick kilns, which I even witnessed many years ago when I served in Pakistan.
Jim Shannon
Many people whose young female children have been abducted and kidnapped for the purpose of marriage are probably illiterate—I am just being observational here—and do not understand the paperwork in front of them. When our deputation was in Pakistan back in 2023, we suggested that a legal representative should be made available to each of those people to take their cases forward. It is a simple measure, but it would be incredibly effective.
Hamish Falconer
I thank the hon. Member for his consideration of these issues. I am happy to write to him in more detail about what we are doing in Pakistan to try to ensure that women and girls, both from minority communities and across the whole of Pakistan, are able to prosecute their rights. Questions about illiteracy are clearly relevant, but I am afraid that a far wider range of issues make it hard for women and girls across Pakistan to assert their full rights.
During my trip, I was pleased to visit Pakistan’s national mosque, the Faisal mosque. I met the Grand Imam, Dr Muhammad Ilyas, and we discussed the importance of promoting interfaith harmony and tolerance. Such engagements are a vital part of the UK’s approach to freedom of religion or belief, a principle that must be supported across all communities in Pakistan.
Members have posed questions about our aid programme, so I will briefly comment on that. Alongside our diplomatic engagement, I am glad that the UK’s targeted aid programmes are helping to protect human rights and boost inclusion. For example, our £47 million accountability and inclusion programme helps to change social behaviour and promote interfaith harmony by encouraging dialogue between influential community leaders. Following the Sargodha attacks in May, the programme prevented further violence by helping to engage with the police to identify tensions and resolve community disputes at the local level. We also raise awareness about the harms of early enforced marriages, and have reached over 35 million people with our messaging to date.
I note the comments from my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington about aid conditionality. We try to ensure that our aid is closely targeted. Where there are concerns, we raise them diplomatically, and our aid programme is an important component of our contribution towards trying to address these issues in Pakistan.
Members also raised the issue of modern slavery. I commend representatives of both Houses for raising awareness of this issue in Pakistan. I saw it with my own eyes during my service, and I know that many Members of the House have seen it too.
We are supporting Pakistan’s Government to improve laws and strengthen related systems in order to protect marginalised and vulnerable groups. We have supported the Pakistani authorities to undertake the first child labour surveys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Balochistan. The data is being used to shape policies on child bonded labour, including forming systems to protect children. We have also helped set up eight child courts across Pakistan to provide justice for victims of child abuse, child trafficking and child marriage. As these examples show, we are determined to ensure that aid reaches those who need it most.
Let me turn to the points made about the special envoy. I understand that Ministers are considering the role, and we should be in a position to update the House soon. I pay tribute to the previous envoys. As I hope the House can see, this Government will remain focused on these issues, in Pakistan and elsewhere, with or without an envoy.
This Government place freedom of religion or belief at the heart of our work in Pakistan, and it was a major part of my visit last week. Pakistan must be open and tolerant, and we will continue to work with its Government and all key stakeholders, including this House, towards that end.
Jim Shannon
I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their speeches and interventions, which are much appreciated. We have heard about the barbaric attacks on Christians in Jaranwala province, the relentless persecution of the Ahmadis, the genocidal violence against Shi’a Muslims in Parachinar and the oppression of the Baloch people, to which the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) referred. All those things focused our attention, and I am conscious that the actions we take today will speak louder than any words. I believe we have the power to influence change, to hold the Pakistani Government accountable and to stand in solidarity with the oppressed.
Let us remember that the fight for religious freedom, justice and peace is not optional; it is a duty. With that in mind, I thank the shadow Minister for his contribution, and I particularly thank the Minister. I know that he has a deep interest in these issues, as I have had discussions with him on a number of occasions. We have been in a number of debates together, and I have noticed his passion.
I thank every right hon. and hon. Member who has taken the time to contribute to the debate. The commitment to human rights, and to a world where all people can live without fear, is commendable. Finally, I echo the sentiment that we must never be silent in the face of such grave injustice. Our duty is clear and the time to act is now. I look forward to working with every Member of this House to try to make things better, and I wish the Minister well in his job.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House notes reports of deteriorating religious freedom in Pakistan; expresses its concern over the alleged widespread forced conversions and human rights abuses of minority religious groups; deplores the lack of action by the Pakistani government, which represents a serious violation of Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and further notes that the arrest of opposition religious leaders by the local authorities has led to condemnation both in Pakistan and further afield.
Petitions
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)
This cross-boundary service enabled people in Wotton-under-Edge who do not have a vehicle to travel south to Yate and on to Bristol. The service also allowed people in south Gloucestershire to attend their doctors and schools, so it is really missed. I commend the efforts of Barbara Lawrence, a local resident of Wotton-under-Edge, who has been instrumental in trying to secure the return of this bus service.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of Gloucestershire,
Declares that the No. 84 and 85 Yate & Wotton-under-Edge Circular bus service should be re-instated.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to consider the needs of rural areas when allocating funding for bus services, and to take steps to encourage the re-instatement of the No. 84 and 85 Yate & Wotton-under-Edge Circular bus service in South Gloucestershire.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003022]
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)
On the third day of the UN’s 16 days of activism against gender-based violence, I rise to present a petition on behalf of my Washington and Gateshead South constituents on commercial sexual exploitation. The trafficking and exploitation of women is actively facilitated by pimping websites that advertise these women, free for anyone to view. The sex trade has never been more accessible or more centralised than it is now.
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the constituency of Washington and Gateshead South,
Declares that demand from the minority of men who pay for sex is driving the prostitution and sex trafficking trade, and this sexual exploitation is being facilitated by pimping websites that operate with impunity.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to outlaw pimping websites and paying for sex, and provide support, not sanctions, to victims of sexual exploitation.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003023]
Cross-Boundary Housing Developments
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as I am a serving councillor in Leicestershire.
I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the challenges posed by cross-boundary planning applications, and I thank Barrie Gannon, a Markfield parish councillor who has campaigned for changes in this area.
My constituency is unique in many ways, but most pertinently to this debate, it is unique because it straddles three council boundaries: Blaby district council, Charnwood borough council, and Hinckley and Bosworth borough council. Generally, these councils work constructively alongside each other and with Leicestershire county council. However, one area of tension surrounds development, collaboration on local plans, and housing allocations within each council area.
It is clear to me, and to many of my constituents, that some of the councils are purposefully granting applications on the edge of their boundaries, which has a disproportionate impact on the neighbouring council. In essence, they are taking all of the benefits but none of the negatives.
I have secured the debate not because I am a nimby, but because I want to see a more collaborative approach from local planning authorities. As a Conservative MP, I fully support the notion of a property-owning democracy, particularly for those from the next generation, who find it increasingly difficult to get on the property ladder. However, the free-for-all approach offered by the current system is harming many of the beautiful villages in my Mid Leicestershire constituency. How can it be fair that borough, district and parish councils are able to democratically pass local plans, but adjacent boroughs can undermine them by allowing development on the edge of their boundaries?
I have seen many such examples in Mid Leicestershire. In Markfield, the challenges posed by cross-boundary planning applications have been raised with me many times by Councillors Claire Harris and Deborah Taylor, and local activist Dave Hyde, who lobby me regularly on the frustrations of cross-boundary anomalies.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Gentleman for securing the debate. One of the issues that clearly arises from what he refers to is the impact of development on GPs, education, roads and leisure infra- structure in adjoining constituencies or council areas. Houses may be built in one area but people in other areas will be affected. Does he agree with many hon. Members that there needs to be a co-ordinated plan, perhaps at a higher level, that brings future proposals together, so that when houses are built in one area, associated infrastructure is spread across all affected areas?
Mr Bedford
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I will go on to address some of those points, particularly in relation to the use of infrastructure.
Markfield village sits in the local planning area of Hinckley and Bosworth borough council, but under the current framework, Markfield parish council and Hinckley and Bosworth borough council have very little say or influence over such decisions, as they are made in the adjacent Charnwood borough. It is obvious that the new Markfield residents will use services in Hinckley and Bosworth, Markfield and the surrounding areas, but those areas will see very little benefit, because those benefits will go to other villages. Worst of all, such developments are going ahead without constructive or binding input from the local parish council or the adjacent borough council.
Another example is in Glenfield village, in my constituency, which sits in Blaby district council, adjacent to Leicester city council. Steve Walters, who heads a local action group, has raised the issue that the city council plans to build several hundred homes on the edge of Glenfield village, but because the village does not sit within the city council boundary, it will see all the detriment of that development but have very little input in the decision-making process. Indeed, Steve has campaigned many times against the urban sprawl of the city affecting villages such as Glenfield. He is working constructively with me and local councillors to try to get progress on the issue.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
In my constituency of Horsham, we are almost entirely surrounded by other areas that, for one reason or another, have constrained housing targets—they have areas of outstanding natural beauty, are in national parks or are already built up. As a result, under the duty to co-operate, Horsham has to take a very unfair proportion of housing to serve the whole area. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the duty to co-operate system needs to be revised to stop freak results happening in constituencies such as mine?
Mr Bedford
I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. He gives an example in his constituency, but I have seen the same in Leicestershire and, from speaking to other hon. Members, I know there are similar examples in other constituencies.
So where are we heading? We have a Government that are steadfast in their plan to concrete over our green and pleasant land, especially in rural constituencies such as mine. In July, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government said that she believed the national planning policy framework
“offers extra stability to local authorities.”
Is that really the case?
The Government’s approach is to alleviate the pressure on housing in UK cities and force additional housing on rural areas, without providing sufficient support to the communities that will impact. That was seen by the Government’s plans to reduce housing targets for cities by an incredible 35% in the NPPF. In the village of Ratby in my constituency, predatory developers such as Lagan Homes are taking advantage of the current situation, forging ahead with proposals to bulldoze over The Burroughs, despite a staggering 900 households in that village writing to the borough council to oppose that ecological vandalism. I am sure Leicester city council was jumping for joy at the news that it would have to build 31% fewer homes by 2030, but that meant rural areas such as mine and my residents’ would have to see additional housing, as it is pushed further and further out.
In truth, the reduction is why the decision to build houses on the edge of Glenfield leaves such a sour taste in the mouths of local residents, particularly in Glenfield and Blaby district. What does it look like in context? The city council has been asked to produce fewer houses, whereas rural areas, such as Blaby and Hinckley and Bosworth, have been asked to dramatically increase their target, by 69% and 59%, respectively. Unfortunately, the planning reforms do not really take into account the cross-boundary implications, so what should we do instead?
The Government should foster a co-operative relationship from the top down. Our local authorities should be encouraged to work alongside one another to prevent situations such as those I have described. That can be done by allowing adjacent borough and district councils to have a say in housing development policies through their various local plans, particularly where that will have an impact on the neighbouring authority. There should also be an ability for residents in adjacent boroughs to view and comment on plans in other local planning authority areas. Furthermore, the increased arbitrary housing targets for each borough council area simply do not take into consideration the impact of the adjacent targets. There is surely a better method for developing sustainable housing county-wide, rather than local authorities parking houses next to their own front lawn.
Finally, and probably most importantly, under the current regime there is no requirement for financial compensation for local authorities that are adversely impacted. No thought is given to that. Section 106 agreements and community infrastructure levy contributions are paid by developers to local authorities to mitigate the impact of specific developments. They are well-intended negotiated agreements that force developers to give something back to the community, whether that be funding for infrastructure, improvements or green spaces. However, they fall short in cross-boundary considerations, as we have seen in the examples I have given from Markfield and Glenfield.
Charnwood borough council has made it explicitly clear that the section 106 moneys for the developments along the boundary of Hinckley and Bosworth would go to its own borough. How can spending all those allocations for a development on the edge of Markfield, to the benefit of Loughborough and Barrow, be in the interest of Markfield residents, who sit in a different borough? That undermines local buy-in to the planning process. Instead, there should be a more practical approach whereby section 106 agreements go to the authority where the services are actually being used. Another anomaly of cross-boundary development is the distribution of council tax precepts, with the new residents in Markfield, for example, paying into Charnwood borough council rather than their own.
I am not a nimby. I called this debate to raise the issue posed by cross-boundary planning applications. I believe there should be a collaborative, holistic approach, as mentioned by other hon. Members. I encourage the Government to listen to the debate and consider bringing about the changes and proposals that I have outlined.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
I start by congratulating the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) on securing this debate on an important but often overlooked issue. Having known him for many years before we took up our new roles, I can say with authority that his constituents will be well served in this House, particularly because they, like mine, are represented here by one of their local councillors. I too want to draw attention to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, which includes my ongoing unpaid role as a district councillor for my home village of Norton Canes.
As councillors, we know that cross-border developments can cause various complications, which I am sure are seldom considered when developments are brought forward. We all know that council boundaries do not always reflect local communities, and that is inevitable to some extent, with boundaries going down the middle of main roads, for example. It is not particularly logical or necessary, however, to have housing estates or even individual homes divided between different council areas.
I am a bit of a local government nerd, so I could give many examples from close to where I live and across my region, but I will spare the House that and focus on my constituency. On the north-east edge of Cannock Chase, we have a small estate nonsensically split between Brereton and Ravenhill, in my constituency, and Armitage with Handsacre in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson). This is reflected in council boundaries as well, so there is clearly an impact on our local services. However, a far bigger cross-border development is fast approaching in the form of the redevelopment of the huge former Rugeley power station site. When it was a 1,000 MW power station, nobody particularly knew or minded where the boundary was. My predecessor and the former Member for Lichfield would often joke about which of the cooling towers were in each of their patches. But once 2,300 homes, around 900 of which will be in Cannock Chase, have been built, this could become a major issue.
Rugeley already has several developments on its fringes, which are outside our boundary, including the Hawkesyard estate and Hathorn Grove. The vast majority of those new residents feel that they live in Rugeley and go into Rugeley for various services, yet their lower-tier local authority council tax goes to Lichfield district council. This means that any service that draws on district council resources is strained by an inconsistent council tax base. The same is true of parish and town council services.
This is not just about services that residents go out to use, but about the services that come to them at home—bin collections, for example. We also know that NHS commissioning decisions, for example on special educational needs and disabilities provision, are sometimes done on a district by district basis. The chronic lack of general practice capacity in Rugeley and Brereton will be a major issue for the new power station development unless our integrated care board acts quickly.
There can sometimes be a democratic deficit, as residents in those cross-border developments are split between different council areas and different parliamentary constituencies. Knowing who to contact about various local issues can be challenging enough as it is, without estates being bisected by boundaries that make no sense. Sometimes, those boundaries are tidied up through ward or constituency boundary reviews, but we know that the process of changing council boundaries can happen only at the request of both councils. Clearly there is no incentive for the council that benefits from council tax payers who do not tend to use its services to consent to a principal area boundary review. As the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire said, those councils have all the benefits and none of the drawbacks. That process can also be cumbersome, so it rarely happens, even when a small move in a boundary would be the logical thing to do. Given that our constituency boundaries are often based on council boundaries, such discrepancies are often not corrected for Westminster elections either.
I do not come here with any oven-ready solutions, although it does strike me that in other countries—Canada for example—local authorities can, with appropriate oversight, annex territory from others to prevent these cross-border challenges and inefficiencies from arising. I hope that the Government will consider how we can better address these challenges. Any solutions that we can come to will certainly greatly benefit community identity and local services.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
Having not had the chance to do so personally, may I begin by welcoming the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford) to his place?
I think it is fair to say that the important issue of cross-boundary planning co-operation has received far too little attention in this place over recent years, and I therefore very much welcome the hon. Gentleman giving the House an opportunity to consider it in some detail. I also appreciate the clarity with which he set out his position on the matter. He will know that the eight Leicestershire authorities are at different stages of plan preparation, having delayed due to further work addressing Leicester city’s unmet need.
Owing to the Secretary of State’s quasi-judicial role in the planning system, I am unable to comment on the details of specific local plans or specific local applications, but the points that the hon. Gentleman has made are on the record and I would expect him to make written representations to the Department in the appropriate way on some of the specific concerns that he has raised.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the nine local authorities in Leicester and Leicestershire voluntarily came together to collaborate on the publication of a non-statutory strategic growth plan in 2018. That plan provides a high-level vision for the sub-region up to 2050, setting out its housing and economic development needs, and focusing growth on key strategic areas.
Key to securing cross-party political support for voluntary collaboration along those lines has been the commendable desire to address the negative impacts of ad hoc, speculative development and to stimulate infrastructure investment to support growth. But equally vital has been a shared understanding of the obvious functional geography of a sub-region with a city at its heart, strong pre-existing relationships at member and officer level, and clear governance structures that are independent of any one authority.
While the partnership arrangements in Leicestershire took a not insignificant amount of time to establish, and to the best of my understanding nearly collapsed several times, they aptly demonstrate that local planning authorities can, and already do, work together informally to deal with cross-boundary and cumulative matters. Notwithstanding the concerns that the hon. Gentleman raised, Leicestershire is a rare example of relatively successful cross-boundary co-operation in a planning system whose incentive structure is not geared towards facilitating it. The Government have inherited a planning system in which, outside London, some metro mayors have spatial planning powers while others have only the power to prepare non-statutory plans. A lack of effective levers, whether that be governance arrangements that require unanimity or an inability to set the strategic direction for where new affordable housing should be delivered, prevents mayors who do have spatial planning powers from realising the full potential of those powers.
In the rest of the country there is a duty to co-operate, as the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne) mentioned. The requirement provides a minimum standard for cross-border strategic planning, but by common consensus has not proved to an effective mechanism for fostering the kind of deep strategic co-operation that enables areas to meet their cross-border challenges and unmet local need to be shared with adjacent authorities. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 includes provisions that enable local authorities to come together to produce joint spatial development strategies, but as that is entirely discretionary and the current incentives are weak, there is no evidence that scores of areas eagerly await the opportunity to take that particular approach.
The result is a planning system that currently lacks any effective mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning. That has not always been the case. Indeed, planning for housing growth and infrastructure at a larger than local scale has been integral to the functioning of England’s planning system for most of the past half-century, whether through county structure plans, regional planning guidance or the comprehensive system of regional strategic planning introduced by the last Labour Government, including regional spatial strategies. The period since that architecture was abolished by the coalition Government in 2011 has been something of an aberration, with the duty to co-operate ostensibly facilitating necessary strategic cross-boundary planning, but in practice failing to do so in any meaningful way.
The result has been large parts of England where no strategic planning activity takes place, a number of notable local plan failures, increased delays in local plan production, growing public antagonism towards the planning system, and a yawning gap between the amount of development that the country needs and what is actually being built. The Government are committed to bringing that sub-optimal situation to an end by first, in the short term, strengthening the existing national planning policy framework requirements on effective co-operation, and then introducing effective new mechanisms for cross-boundary strategic planning through legislation, with a view to implementing a universal system of strategic planning in this Parliament.
Let me make it clear that we do not intend to return to the pre-2011 regional planning regime; rather, we will look at how we can ensure that effective cross-boundary co-operation—the kind that I take it the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire wants to see in his constituency—is taking place at a sub-regional level. While it is still too early to be definitive about the precise model, the Government are attracted to the spatial development strategy, which is well established in London, with the London plan having been produced and continually reviewed over a 20-year period by successive London Mayors. Whatever model is ultimately selected, it is important to note that strategic plans are not big local plans. Nor should the forthcoming introduction of statutory strategic planning arrangements be taken by local planning authorities as a reason not to progress the development of their local plans.
Local plans are the best way for communities to shape future development in their areas. The Government are determined to progress toward our ambition of universal local plan coverage, and we intend to drive local plans to adoption as quickly as possible. In all areas, strategic sub-regional plans will guide development for the local planning authorities in the area, and local plans will need to be in general conformity with them. We will expect local plans to be updated or developed alongside the strategic planning process, and we envisage that that process is where those larger than local level questions and negotiations about large-scale housing growth will be determined.
Given that the hon. Gentleman’s constituency spans three local authorities, I know he will take an active interest in the Government’s plans. Local authorities in Leicester and Leicestershire have shown what can be achieved through the voluntary production of a non-statutory strategic growth plan. I note that they have been working effectively on their local plans, including various local authorities meeting unmet needs from Leicester city.
However, the experience of the partnership arrangements being in place in the county also highlights the risks and limitations of voluntarism. I hope the intention to require statutory strategic planning arrangements to be put in place across England will be welcomed by the authorities that lie within the boundaries of Mid Leicestershire as a means of more quickly and effectively resolving cross-boundary and cumulative issues of the kind the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to. On that note, I look forward to further discussions with him and other hon. Members as the Government take forward their plans in this area.
Question put and agreed to.
Employment Rights Bill (Third sitting)
Thursday 28th November 2024
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Employment Rights Bill 2024-26 View all Employment Rights Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 28 November 2024 - (28 Nov 2024)
The Chair
We are now sitting in public and the proceedings are being broadcast. In line with the sittings on Tuesday, for each panel of witnesses I propose to call the shadow Minister to ask the first question, followed by the Minister and the Liberal Democrat spokesman. I will attempt to alternate between Opposition and Government Members. That will not always be possible, because sometimes three people from one side want to speak and nobody from the other, but I will aim to balance it up. We have to stick to the cut-off time specified in the programme order, and I will interrupt questioning if necessary.
Can I remind Members that they must declare any relevant interests when asking questions? Before we start hearing from witnesses, do any Members wish to make a declaration of interest that they have not already declared in connection with the Bill? Members should ensure that interests are declared before speaking or tabling amendments. If there are no questions or declarations, I will move to the first set of witnesses.
Examination of Witnesses
Claire Costello, Helen Dickinson OBE and James Lowman gave evidence.
The Chair
We will hear oral evidence from Claire Costello, chief people officer at the Co-op, Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, and James Lowman, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores. We have until 12.10 pm for this panel. Would the witnesses be good enough to introduce themselves for the record—very briefly, as we are pressed for time?
Claire Costello: I am Claire Costello, chief people and inclusion officer for the Co-op. For those who do not know the Co-op, we are a retailer, funeral care provider, insurance provider and legal services provider. We employ 55,000 people. I am very happy to be part of this process.
Helen Dickinson: I am Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the BRC. The BRC is the lead trade body for the retail industry. Our members cover larger businesses like the Co-op and many others, down to smaller businesses. We also have in our membership some trade associations that represent independent retailers.
James Lowman: I am James Lowman, chief executive of the Association of Convenience Stores. Our members are the people who operate local shops in villages, estates and high streets up and down the country. There are about 50,000 of them in the UK.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
Q
Claire Costello: We are very supportive of the opportunity provided by the Bill. As a co-operative, and a very old co-operative at that, the health and wellbeing of our colleagues is incredibly important to us. We are very supportive of the principles of what we are looking to drive for here, but the challenge around the detail needs to be looked at.
For example, what does it mean to have a probationary period that enables a colleague to join you and ensures, first, that you give them the right opportunities to develop and grow and, secondly, that, if they are not suitable, you have the opportunity to enable them to leave the business? I will give you a couple of stats. Of our leavers last year, 75% had been with us for less than two years, and 36% of the people we asked to leave the business had been with us for less than three months. That is a really good example that shows that it just does not work out sometimes.
Could the probationary period be a barrier with unintended consequences? Yes. Are there things you can do around that to minimise it? I would say so, but again, we need to make sure the detail of the Bill does not drive unintended consequences. It must leave enough flexibility for employers within the broader groups represented on the panel and for us. We want to support people from disadvantaged backgrounds and bring ex-offenders into the organisation. We are working very hard to support them across a number of areas, so we do not want that to be an issue. We would work really hard to make sure that it is not an issue at the Co-op, but ultimately, on a broader footprint, it is something to be mindful of.
Greg Smith
Q
Claire Costello: I think it is more about the fact that the Bill will drive more tribunals if people feel that they have a route to do that, so that might make people a bit reticent. There is also the timescale. We have a three-month probationary period, so nine months is fine, but there is a point about day one rights to leave. That does not stop you supporting a new starter into the business and, if it does not work out, being able to manage that exit, but it is about doing it without incurring significant costs at every single level. That does not mean just the formalised cost of going through an employment tribunal, but the time it takes to hear a case within the business. Good organisations make sure it is heard at different levels, and then a grievance is raised and you have an appeal. It is very time consuming to do it in the right way, but that is what we want to do. Again, it sucks up time, resource and cost within an organisation, when what you want is to spend the time enabling people to be successful, and driving productivity and driving the benefit for the business you work in.
Greg Smith
Q
Claire Costello: Not yet, because there is not enough detail for us to do that. We are really keen to see what the more detailed asks look like.
Greg Smith
Q
Claire Costello: Yes, there will be on-costs from the Bill. Do I think it is the right thing overall? Again, we are broadly supportive of where it is heading, but there will be on-costs in there.
Greg Smith
Q
Helen Dickinson: Thank you very much for this opportunity. We are probably going to end up violently agreeing with each other, but let us see how we go.
There is real alignment on the objectives of the Bill: to improve working practices, have the right culture between employees and businesses, and weed unscrupulous employers out of the system by targeting them. It is great to have the opportunity to talk to you. I am sure that, from a Co-op and a wider retail industry point of view, many responsible businesses are already undertaking some of the processes in lots of parts of the Bill—things like the right to flexible working—and I think everybody is supportive of and aligned on proposals like a single enforcement body.
Building on Claire’s comments, the challenge comes in certain areas where the devil is in the detail. Claire mentioned probation periods; what does the guidance and the framework for a fair dismissal process look like? I have a list: guaranteed hours, union recognition and collective consultation. In all those areas, there is some detail that we can delve into to see where the challenges might sit. It is about making sure that the implementation does not end up in the scenario where too much cost is added, or too much process is put in place that disincentivises employing people from a disadvantaged background or in the entry-level jobs that the industry is so good at providing. Part of that is in the Bill, but a lot relating to how some of these things will get implemented will be done through the consultation process that comes after. Shall I dip into guaranteed hours, as an example?
Greg Smith
Please do.
Helen Dickinson: A reference period is conceptually a good idea—the question is whether it is too short. I know that some people who appeared in front of the Committee earlier this week suggested that it should be slightly longer. I think requiring a business to offer the hours of that reference period in every single circumstance does not really take into account the peaks and troughs, the flexibility that retail businesses need or that lots of people who work in retail already have, and how the actual implementation could be framed to give people the opportunity to opt out or to have the right to request, as opposed to the right to have.
That is an example of where the implementation could be very onerous, very expensive and disincentivising, or, if it is implemented in a way that actually works for businesses and employees—because a lot of people value that flexibility—can create the win-win that the framework and the objectives of the Bill are seeking.
James Lowman: I agree with much of what Claire and Helen said, so in the interests of time, I will not repeat that. To give a bit more flavour on convenience stores, we see ourselves as an exemplar of flexible, local, secure working—98% of colleagues have a contract, and zero-hours contracts are used very little. More than a third of our colleagues walk to work. We are the ultimate local, flexible employer. Most requests for flexible working, whether in the formal, legislative framework or not, are agreed to, because if you have good people, you want to keep them in the business and you want to accommodate what are usually other responsibilities, which are often about care for children or older relatives.
Specifically on probationary periods and early rights, 84% of people who work in our sector have been there for more than one year. Most people who have been there for that period of time stay on. Half of people working in our sector have been there for more than five years, so we have a longevity of employment, but there is a spike of people who move on quite quickly because it is not right for them. Seasonality, of course, could cause that. There is a particular challenge when we are talking about encouraging our members, as we do, to look at bringing in people from typically underutilised backgrounds, whether that is care-experienced people, ex-forces or ex-offenders. We produced a document with the Retail Sector Council last year looking at opportunities for those people.
For everyone starting a business, there is always a chance that it just does not work out. It just does not transpire that it is the job for them. Sensible probationary periods—they do not have to be too long—will allow that to play out without undue risk to the employer.
The final point I would make is that in an independent business—we represent some large businesses, but 71% of convenience stores are independently operated—the person running the business is the finance director, the buying director, the marketing director, the operations director and the HR director. No specialist resource is being called on, so additional processes to manage someone leaving the business are particularly burdensome for smaller organisations who do not always have people like Claire and her colleagues to help them through that.
Greg Smith
Q
James Lowman: There are probably three things. First, those issues are becoming a challenge in the recruitment and retention of people. I understand that from the point of view of colleagues, who go back to their family and find that their family is not comfortable with them going to work in an environment where they can be subjected to violence, with inadequate support from the police and others. That is probably a generous assessment from me.
There are particular provisions in the Bill related to employers taking all reasonable steps around preventing harassment. That concerns our members, because, as they see it, they and their colleagues together are the victims of crime, so they then need to have responsibilities for how the 15 million customers a day who use convenience stores might behave. That needs to be very carefully brought out in guidance and regulations, in terms of what those reasonable steps are, because it would be unfair to put further burdens on businesses that are already the victims of crime.
I do not believe that the provisions in the Bill would make it harder to recruit on that basis, other than what we talked about in some cases, particularly where there is a higher-risk appointment and retailers are less comfortable making it due to the difficulties of moving that person on, if it was the right thing to do. Harassment is an angle on that, but the Bill’s provisions would not make markedly worse what is quite a challenging situation with recruitment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
Q
Claire Costello: As an employer, we are really pleased to see that it will level up. There are a lot of things in the Bill that we already do. We are delighted to have really good relationships with our trade unions, and we have had access to rights on day one, from a flexibility point of view, for a lot of years. It would be good to see that levelling up across businesses, but I will hand over to my peers here, because they speak on the industry’s behalf, whereas I speak on behalf of an organisation.
Helen Dickinson: I think the answer to the question is, “As long as we do not end up with unintended consequences for responsible businesses.” There are examples that we have already highlighted, and I am sure that we can find some more. The goal surely has to be to ensure that the detail of the measures is firmly targeted at the unscrupulous. That is good for everybody, because it levels the playing field and gets rid of poor practices. I think everybody here would be 110% aligned behind that.
At the moment, the risk is in certain parts of the Bill. There is obviously a very open and sequenced consultation process, so the most critical thing is the adequacy, the collaboration and the ability of unions, employers and Government to work together to ensure that we do not end up with those unintended consequences. I am sorry to say, “It depends,” but the answer is that it depends.
James Lowman: I agree: it does depend. Just to give you a flavour of how flexibility works in our sector, a lot of changes to shift patterns are from colleague to colleague, often through apps or WhatsApp groups. That is the reality of how shifts change. One of the people working shifts is often the owner of the store, so it is very much something that they are doing with those colleagues.
It is really important that the Bill, in wanting to codify and formalise some of those rights, which is good and fine, does not remove some of the flexibility and the informality, which is part of what gives flexibility on both sides. One of the reasons why we have great staff retention in our sector is that people want those local jobs where they have that flexibility; it fits in with their lives. It is really important that in framing regulations and guidance, we deal with things such as how businesses can respond to late changes in availability. There are often circumstances completely beyond our control—for example, there could be a massive delivery disruption or extreme weather changes. These are the realities of running a store.
Helen Dickinson: So does sickness.
James Lowman: And sickness, which we may come on to. Those factors are particularly challenging in a small store. If you have 16, 17 or 18 people working in a large store and you are one person down, that is a problem. If you have two or three people working in a shop and you are one person down, that is catastrophic in the context of that shift. That shift is important to customers, the other colleagues and the business. In enshrining greater flexibility it is important that we actually deliver greater flexibility, rather than inhibiting the flexibility that is already baked into the way we operate day to day.
Justin Madders
Q
Claire Costello: All of the above. We pride ourselves on being as forward thinking as we can be. There is always an affordability in there, but we tend to listen very clearly to our colleagues. We work closely with our unions as well. We have focused on areas that our colleagues have told us are important to them. If I look at the bereavement policy in the Bill, for example, we built that in. We worked with Cruse, a charity that is significant in that sector, and have done something pretty unique in terms of support.
The Bill is a great development for industry. There are things that we have done, which were already quite different, in there. We do not insist that it is within the first 50 days; we ask for them to use it flexibly, because it could be a significant birthday or date. We also do not limit it to direct family members because, in today’s modern family and society, it is not always your parents who are the closest to you. We have made it based on the relationship that you have with the person that has passed, and therefore what bereavement means to you may be different.
You might want to take a week off at the beginning. It may be that you want a couple of days, and then four or five weeks later you need a couple of days, or even a year later you need to take time off because it is an anniversary and you need to support people. Things like that are where we have written policies and worked with our colleagues to do something that works for them. It is to drive retention. It is to drive engagement. It does mean that we have, hopefully, a happy group of people who want to work with us. As a member-based organisation, that is important to us.
Another good example on the bereavement policy is that I noticed that it did not cover pregnancy loss. Again, that is a policy that we have worked really hard on and I think that is an opportunity to put something slightly different into the Bill, because bereavement is bereavement. How do we make sure that it covers all aspects of it in the right way?
Justin Madders
Q
Helen Dickinson: No, the overarching point is exactly as has been said. The most successful retail businesses are ones that have highly engaged workforces that are aligned to the objectives of the business and feel part of the success of a company. People who feel like that are going to work harder and the business is going to be more successful. It is all part of a reinforcing system. If it is done well, from an individual company point of view, the exemplars are the more successful businesses. It comes back to ensuring that the Bill targets those at the bottom of the pile, those that are not engaging in the right way in having forums for employee engagement or having a two-way dialogue on flexible working or whatever it might be. It should be a win-win, but I think the risk is big in terms of making sure that we do not end up with those unintended consequences.
James Lowman: Retail is based on respect for colleagues and customers. That is how businesses work, and I think that the Bill and the principles here are very much in line with that.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
Q
Helen Dickinson: That would help. I am jumping straight in, because I feel quite strongly about this one. I do not want to rerun some of the challenges of the Budget, but the pace of additional costs that have come in for every business—particularly for retail, because of the nature of flexible work, with a lot of part-time contracts and the changing of the threshold—means that every single retailer in the country needs to look very hard at their investment plans and workforce plans, and everything that sits around that.
I think that everybody sort of breathed a sigh of relief with the clarity that the timetable was for 2026, but even now, looking at the scale of the proposals, it would be great to have more visibility over the sequencing of the different consultations, so that the industry can gear up in the right way to be able to respond effectively to them, and to make sure that we have longer than six-week periods to respond, with four consultations all going on at the same time, because that all makes it quite a challenge.
Coming back to the direct point of your question, in terms of implementation, if there are changes that need to be made in companies, I think that a run-in, or an implementation period that is workable and that gives those companies the chance to make any changes to processes, is a necessity for ensuring that the Bill lands in the right way and that we do not again end up with some of those unintended consequences. I think the Budget has unfortunately made the backdrop that much more challenging, just because of the things that people already need to deal with now and over the next six months.
Claire Costello: I will add to the piece around implementation timing: it is really easy to think of this as, “Oh, it’s straightforward; it’s about writing a policy, then, once you are in a business, sharing that with your colleagues, making sure that your line managers know what is expected of them, and landing it.” Much of what we are talking about here will require businesses, certainly larger businesses, to think about how their systems are set up as well. It changes your payroll system; it changes your workforce management system. All that is doable, but it is at the same time as other changes that organisations will be working on in the background as well. That is what we need to factor in.
On top of that, where we then have colleagues who are themselves impacted by the changes, it is about making sure that you have time to make sure that they understand that and what it means to them. It is about that run-in. It is about more than the cost; it is quite significant from the point of view of process, understanding and implementation. That is the ask, really—it is the detail and the time.
Helen Dickinson: I am sure that James will have points from a sort of one-establishment type business, but, for multi-site businesses, you could be talking about 10, 100 or 1,000 stores and distribution centres up and down the country, so we should not underestimate the significance of the need for up-front visibility of the changes.
James Lowman: The other change that has happened with the Budget and those additional significant costs on businesses is about how retail businesses respond to them. In maybe a medium-sized business—among our medium-sized members—they might have had to take out layers of management. That might include, for example, HR functions and things like that, and losing that support. In an individual store, with an independent retailer, that retailer is probably working more shifts behind the counter and in the store themselves, rather than working on the business and managing the business. That will be a consequence.
Decisions are being made to cut back shifts to compensate for those significant additional costs, so the ability and the time available for businesses of all sizes—particularly some of the smaller and medium-sized ones —to implement these changes is less than it was before the Budget, or before April. That is the reality of it.
Again, yes, it is partly about timing—that is very important and I align myself with what Helen and Claire have said about that—but that also makes it even more important that the guidance and regulations are absolutely right, so that those already increasingly and additionally stretched businesses are not spending more time in employment tribunals and having to deal with complex interpretations with their colleagues, or struggling to fill shifts and therefore having to work more hours themselves.
Steve Darling
Q
James Lowman: We need absolute clarity on what “reasonable steps” means. Those reasonable steps should not be onerous, given the reality of 15 million people coming to the store every day, whose behaviour we unfortunately cannot control—believe me, if we could, we would. Having clarity and reasonableness in all reasonable steps is the thing to do, and there is an opportunity to build on that; the ShopKind campaign, for example, has been very successful. That is one way we could channel those steps to promote good behaviour among customers.
Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)
Q
You also mention an increase in employment tribunal claims. We would hope that most employers would follow the new legislation and therefore avoid those claims, but we both know that there are a small number of bad-faith actors who will always try to find a claim. There are already claims that individuals can bring from day one, but do you think you will see a big increase in bad-faith claims, or do you think they are already there in the system?
Claire Costello: I will take the point about unions first. The strong relationship we have with the union means that we can work in a very collaboratively challenging way together—do not get me wrong; it is not without having difficult conversations, but that is the point. A healthy relationship is like a healthy marriage. You do not just give up on each other. You have those difficult conversations with each other and face into issues and look for solutions. The key for me is looking for solutions. Having very progressive relationships means that you can talk about the direction of the business and what you need to do, and work together on finding solutions. That is what we have found with our relationships. It is not always easy, but it is absolutely the better way of going forward.
In terms of employment tribunals, I think you are right. The reason we think it would go up is that, as with all things, when something becomes more available, by virtue of that fact there will be more people who want to use it. We do not have the absolute evidence to say it, because it is not there today, but the reality will be that if you can take their employer to court, why would you not? There will be more individuals who would wish to do so. We have said before that it is about having clarity and making sure that we understand what reasonable looks like and what the steps are that would be expected. It is more about the onus of extra work that this will bring to each of the areas. As I said, we follow all of the processes very strictly, and we try to make sure that we have a very fair and open conversation with all of our colleagues. The challenge will always be that you cannot make everybody happy all the time.
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
Q
Claire Costello: Gosh, that is a good question. I do not see why it would make a difference to productivity itself, because at the end of the day you are still bringing someone new into the organisation. I think it would be a longer-term impact. If we did start to see more people raising a grievance because they want to leave or because we have said, “Actually, this is not the right role for you.”, it would be the time perspective that would be drawn on. That is more your line managers, store managers and leaders around the organisation that would draw on to that resource. I kind of see it as more of a longer play in terms of productivity.
Mr Bedford
Q
Claire Costello: Absolutely, and I think that was what James was referring to as well, when you think about the smaller stores within the convenience sector. But for us, it absolutely is about the time that it takes for line managers and regional managers. Do not forget that we are not just a retail provider, so it would be within our funeral homes, when we should be out looking after clients at the most difficult times in their lives, and our insurance organisations, as well as legal services. It is across the whole organisation for us.
But yes, it is the line management time that goes into following these processes, doing them well and making sure that everybody is having the right hearings that they should be having. It is a time-consuming process. It is right because, absolutely, we want to make sure that everybody has a fair hearing and that the right decisions are being made for the right reasons. However, it is time-consuming and that is the concern.
Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)
Q
James Lowman: By and large, we set out shifts; we have clear shifts that are worked to. It would be rare that a shift got cancelled at short notice. With convenience stores, fundamentally we are open for those hours; we need to fill those hours. It would have to be something pretty extraordinary that would lead to a cancellation, for example a massive disruption to delivery. We would be bringing in extra colleagues to deal with a delivery, which then gets cancelled, so that work is not there for them to do. However, even that is relatively rare, so we provide consistency of hours.
It is more common that the challenge is dealing with sick leave and then having to fill shifts, and additional shifts coming in. That is when you might get some later changes and later notice, because someone has phoned in sick that morning, so you need to fill the shift that morning; you need to have a person in the store, or—worst case—the store could not open. Again, however, a lot of that is done colleague to colleague, in terms of filling those shifts.
Regarding the impact, there are a whole range of people working in our stores, for some of whom it is a second income in their household. But for many, it is the first income in their household, so it is very important that we provide that local, flexible and secure work to people. In many ways, this Bill is enshrining and codifying things that are already common practice in our sector.
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
Q
James Lowman: We probably do not support the idea of exemptions. We think the rights should apply whoever you work for, and we do not want small businesses to be cast as being less good employers, with fewer protections for their colleagues.
However, the guidance needs to be applicable to and usable by businesses of all sizes. The guidance and regulations cannot be drafted from the perspective of, “What is your HR director going to do? What is the machine of the business going to do?”, when that is not the reality. For the vast majority of businesses in this country, the process will be much more driven by individuals having conversations, in order to encourage not only that flexibility and clarity, but practicality.
With good guidance and regulations, there should not be a need for exemptions. As I say, we do not want small businesses to be viewed in any way as being worse employers; in many ways, they often have advantages that allow them to be better employers.
The Chair
I call Michael Wheeler to ask a very brief question, which should receive a brief answer.
Michael Wheeler (Worsley and Eccles) (Lab)
Q
I will just circle back to guaranteed hours. Although I appreciate that flexibility is of value in the sector, if the hours are there in the business and regularly being worked, would you not agree that that demonstrates there is a need for those hours in the business to be worked, and therefore, in the interests of fairness and financial security for workers, should those hours not be guaranteed for them?
Helen Dickinson: Again, it comes back to how. A lot of people who work flexibly want to vary their hours because they have other commitments, either family commitments or caring commitments. From an employee perspective, they should absolutely have the right to request flexibility, or to be able to have future hours that reflect something that they have over whatever reference period it is, whether it is 12 weeks or longer. If the regulations end up requiring that reference period—and, by definition, requiring employer to offer whatever that period is to the employee, just by process—peaks and troughs around peak trading periods and employees’ other commitments will cause the company to end up in a continual process of changing people’s hourly patterns, all the time and for a lot of people. When a company has multiple locations, and tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of employees, it could be quite difficult.
I think we are absolutely agreed on the principle. The question is how you implement it, and whether there is a way to implement it that gives the employee the right to request, rather than putting the onus on the company to put in a whole load of process that actually, at the end of the day, might not be what the employee wants.
The Chair
Order. I have to bring this session to an end. We have run out of the allotted time, and sadly, there are some Members of the Committee who did not get the opportunity to ask the questions that they wanted to ask. However, I thank the witnesses for the time they have spent with the Committee.
Examination of Witnesses
Joanne Cairns and Liron Velleman gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Joanne Cairns, head of research and policy at the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, and Liron Velleman, head of politics at Community. This session can continue until 12.40 pm.
Greg Smith
Q
The Chair
I should have asked you to very briefly—in a sentence—introduce yourselves. Will you do so at the start of your answers? Thank you.
Joanne Cairns: I am Joanne Cairns. I am the head of research and policy at USDAW, which represents over 360,000 members, mainly in the retail sector, but we also have members in distribution, food manufacturing, pharmaceuticals and a number of other sectors.
We do not share the concerns about the impact assessments. We think that the impact assessments demonstrate the impact of the Bill. There are obviously areas that need further clarification, which will be looked at through consultation. In terms of the impact on our members, we believe that it will be extremely positive, particularly for low-paid workers and women workers. The TUC analysis estimates that the reforms in the Bill will benefit the wider economy by over £13 billion a year, which it considers to be a conservative estimate.
Greg Smith
Sorry, £30 million?
Joanne Cairns: No, £13 billion. That was one of the more conservative estimates in the range that it looked at. That would be through reducing workplace stress, improving staff wellbeing, resolving disputes, reducing workplace conflict and increasing labour market participation.
Liron Velleman: My name is Liron Velleman. I work at Community union as the head of politics. We represent about 45,000 members across the economy, from steels, metals and manufacturing to the justice sector, education and early years, and the self-employed. Of course, we would always welcome any more evidence to show why the Bill would impact our members positively. Our members have been crying out for this change for the last 14 years, and even longer than that. It is important that we continue to make sure that the Bill does what it says on the tin, which is to make work pay but also to make our members’ and their families’ lives better.
Greg Smith
Q
Liron Velleman: At Community, we are confident that the Bill would represent a positive step for our existing members and would allow for greater coverage of trade union membership across the sectors we work in. For example, in the third sector or in education and early years—especially in early years, where, in some of the private provision of nurseries and early years settings, there is not currently as much trade union coverage—the Bill would make it easier for people to join a trade union and see the benefits of membership. On whether it would bring full unionisation of the economy, I am not sure it would necessarily go that far, but some of the onus is on trade unions to make sure that we are delivering, in a modern way, the best way for working people in this country to understand the benefits that they could receive by joining one of our unions.
Joanne Cairns: I agree with Liron. We have good relationships with a number of major employers where we are recognised. You heard earlier from the Co-op. We are recognised there and by a number of other major employers. However, across the retail sector, trade union membership is currently at around only 12%, which is a similar level to the rest of the private sector. Very often, the reason people have not joined a union is simply that they have not had the opportunity to find out about what a union does—nobody has ever asked them to join a trade union. We think that the rights that the Bill will bring in around access to workplaces will be particularly important. The Bill will also simplify the statutory framework around recognition, which is currently extremely burdensome and makes it very difficult for trade unions to gain statutory recognition, particularly with larger employers.
Justin Madders
Q
Joanne Cairns: Across the whole economy, precarious employment is a major issue. There is clearly a need for policy intervention in the labour market. The TUC estimates that one in eight people are in precarious employment, and that has risen by 1 million people since 2011. It has risen nearly three times faster than secure employment. That is certainly backed up by what we see with our members. Living standards have fallen quite significantly, and the impact of insecure work on our members is significant.
Of our members, 40% tell us that they have missed meals to pay their bills, 73% cannot afford to take time off work when they are ill, 15% struggle to pay their bills every month, and more than half have told us that financial worries are having an impact on their mental health. The level of statutory sick pay and the three waiting days for it is an issue of major concern for our members, as is having contracts that do not reflect the hours that they normally work. We welcome the Government taking action in those areas.
Steve Darling
Q
Liron Velleman: The Bill should have a positive impact on productivity. Following on from Joanne’s previous answer, when people are in insecure work, they are worried about whether they are going to lose their job tomorrow, whether they will lose some of their benefits or pay, and whether they will have the security of knowing what shifts they will be working. Tightening up lots of parts of employment legislation currently on the statute book should give workers extra confidence, so that they will be able to be happy at work and work more flexibly, representing the current state of the economy rather than keeping to how things were. That should, in totality, result in greater productivity for businesses as well as for individual workers.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
Q
The Bill covers part of the “Make Work Pay” agenda. Are there other measures in the “Make Work Pay” document published earlier this year that should be included in the Bill?
Liron Velleman: The Bill clearly represents a great step forward in improving workers’ rights. For some of our members, it is in some ways a Bill for employees’ rights, rather than an employment rights Bill. Our members in the self-employed sector are looking for rights and protections to reflect the nature of the work that they do. In the “Next Steps to Make Work Pay” document, there are clear suggestions that there will be greater rights and protections for self-employed members, but that is a priority that we would like to see as part of the Bill, to fully grasp the current employment landscape in this country.
There is also a point around the consultation on new surveillance technology in the workplace. Clearly, technology in the workplace is one of the biggest benefits to lots of our members and to businesses, but it is also one of the biggest challenges when we think about the new world of work. Making sure that workers understand and are trained on, and can get to grips with, technology in the workplace, surveillance or otherwise, is vital to ensuring that they have the best rights and protections at work. Those two things would be our strong priorities for the Bill.
Joanne Cairns: For us, one of the key areas is statutory sick pay. The removal of the three waiting days and the lower earnings limit is extremely important and will make a massive difference to a lot of low-paid workers. However, the Government committed to strengthening SSP, and we would like the level of SSP to be looked at. It is well documented that the current level of SSP is below what people can afford to live on. If you earn the national living wage, you earn only around a quarter of your salary when receiving SSP, which has a significant impact on low-paid workers. That said, the removal of the three waiting days is extremely important and will make a big difference.
In respect of the right to guaranteed hours, which we warmly welcome, it is very important that the way it is implemented covers as many workers as possible. The commitment from the Government was that everyone would have the right to a contract that reflects the hours they normally work. We are concerned about the inclusion of the term “low hours” in the “Next Steps” document, which we feel could have the unintended consequences of making the right apply less widely than it should, and potentially undermining its effectiveness.
Chris Law (Dundee Central) (SNP)
Q
Joanne Cairns: We welcome the Government’s commitment to tackling fire and rehire. It is an issue not only when fire and rehire tactics are used, but when they are used by employers in negotiations as a form of threat to try to force unions or individuals to accept terms that they may not be happy with. Around a third of our members have been asked to change their contracted hours to support business need in the last 12 months, and one in five of them said that they felt forced into agreeing to the change, having been threatened with fire and rehire. It is a major issue. You referenced our legal case against Tesco, which demonstrates that this issue affects members in all sorts of workplaces.
Our preference would be for an outright ban on fire and rehire, and we would prefer the provision to be removed. If that provision stays in the Bill, our concern would be about the use of the word “likely”. We would like either for the word “likely” to be removed in reference to financial problems, or, at the very least, for there to be stringent guidance and a high bar set for the definition of “likely”.
Liron Velleman: At Community we had a similar case on fire and rehire back in 2021 with Clarks shoes. Our members at a distribution centre in Street in Somerset were threatened with a huge reduction in their hourly wage and the removal of their sick pay and coffee breaks. After a long campaign from our members in the union, and solidarity from across the UK, we managed to force the company to reverse its decision through ACAS mediation, but it clearly should not have been allowed to happen in that way at all. Our general secretary said at the time that, until fire and rehire is outlawed, no worker is safe from the harms that it can cause.
We hugely welcome the Government’s efforts to end fire and rehire, but we have similar concerns to USDAW about how the language about “likely” financial distress will be used in reality, given that it is rarely good-faith employers that use tactics such as fire and rehire in their workplaces. We do understand that there might be absolutely exceptional circumstances where the business would otherwise close. The question is whether the word “likely” will cast the net too wide and allow bad-faith employers to continue fire and rehire, even if the stated intention is for that not to happen.
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
Q
Liron Velleman: We rarely deal with collective redundancy on multiple establishments, other than for a few establishments, but it is important for the Committee to understand that collective redundancy is not always a huge battle between employers and unions. It gets into the news that this employer and that union are fighting to the death over something, but usually collective redundancy is an opportunity for employers and unions to sit around the table and try to minimise the impact on the workforce. Even with employers that unions might have a difficult relationship with, collective redundancy is usually an opportunity to do that.
It is very well known that Tata Steel recently announced collective redundancies at its steelworks in Port Talbot in south Wales. The original stated redundancy figure was around 2,500, but after work between the unions and the employer, that number has been heavily reduced through cross-matching and through finding training opportunities. Unions are not there just to say, “We are going to keep our members’ jobs for the sake of it,” and scream from the rooftops. Collective redundancy is an opportunity to allow mitigations to protect workers. Any improvements to rules around collective redundancy—whether that is reducing the number of employees needed to start a collective redundancy scheme, increasing the timeframe for that to happen, or looking at the establishment rule—are hugely welcome.
Joanne Cairns: On the establishment rule, we are very pleased that the loophole is now being removed. We took a significant legal case on behalf of our members who were employed in Woolworths, where 27,000 employees were made redundant in a single redundancy exercise when the company went into administration. In 200 stores with fewer than 20 employees each, there were 3,000 employees who were not entitled to any protective award even though collective consultation had not taken place. That was purely because they were employed in establishments with fewer than 20 people, even though the decisions were being made far above that level and affected 27,000 employees. It is just common sense that that is now being corrected.
We are aware that the issue of scope has been raised in this Committee. We went back and looked at the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992. Clause 23 of the Bill would not alter what section 188 of the 1992 Act says about
“the employees who may be affected by the proposed dismissals or may be affected by measures taken in connection with those dismissals.”
It would not mean that workers are being consulted over redundancies that do not affect them; it would just mean that workers who are affected by the redundancies, or their representatives, would be consulted regardless of the size of the establishment that they are working at. We do not see people being involved in consultation exercises that do not affect them; that will not be a result of the Bill.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
Q
You are obviously pleased with the legislation, and I know you think it could go further; I just want to ask a little about how you would characterise your engagement with the Department. Was it very welcoming? How many meetings did you have with Ministers and officials? Were draft clauses shared with you? How constructive was it?
Liron Velleman: Community has a productive relationship with the Department for Business and Trade. We have had productive relationships with parts of the Department for a number of years, but unfortunately not on a political level for the last 14 years. It is welcome that this Government have seen a sea change in how they want to do relationships with trade unions.
Nick Timothy
But could you answer specifically my questions about how many meetings you have had with Ministers and officials and whether clauses were shared with you?
Liron Velleman: I believe that meetings between Ministers and whoever they meet with will be on the public record, so I am sure you would be able to find that.
Nick Timothy
But you are not answering my question. I am asking you a question; I would like you to answer it.
Liron Velleman: I am not sure how many meetings we have had with Ministers related to this Bill.
Nick Timothy
Okay. Joanne Cairns?
Joanne Cairns: We have been involved in a number of roundtable meetings with DBT, which have been very helpful in understanding what the Government’s intentions are on a number of aspects of the Bill. I do not know exactly how many meetings we have been involved in, but the engagement of DBT with unions has been good, as it appears to have been with business as well.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
Q
Joanne Cairns: Many of our members are juggling paid jobs with caring responsibilities, whether that is childcare or looking after disabled partners and relatives. The majority of our members are women; the burden of care continues to fall disproportionately on women, so we really welcome a number of the measures in the Bill that will help workers with caring responsibilities, including the right to parental leave and paternity leave being from day one of employment. We welcome the shift in the burden to employers to justify why they have refused a request for flexible working, and the new right to bereavement leave, which widens the current provision entitling bereaved parents to statutory parental bereavement leave.
We think that there are some areas in which those rights could be strengthened. We welcome the Government’s commitment to review parental leave more widely outside the Bill; we will be engaging with that review. We think we need to look at the length of paid maternity and paternity leave, the provision of paid carer’s leave and the wider support that is needed to make sure that those rights work effectively for working families.
On flexible working, the shift to employers having to justify their refusal is welcome, but there are still eight business grounds on which employers can refuse a request. It is still very difficult for employees to ask for flexible working; they are often concerned about what the repercussions of making a request might be. We recently surveyed our members with caring responsibilities and found that only just over half were even aware of the right to request flexible working. Of those who were aware, only half had used it. We would like a more robust framework for making requests for flexible working. For example, we could abolish the restriction on the number of applications that can be made in a 12-month period; extend the right to all workers, not just employees; and ensure that there is a right to appeal if a request is refused.
However, I would say that there has been some really important progress through the Bill and, we hope, through the review of parental leave to support working families.
Liron Velleman: I do not want to repeat what Joanne has said, but I have a small point to make. The day one right to request flexible working is so important. So many people start a new job and then work out, “Okay, how am I going to balance this with my caring responsibilities?” If they cannot make that request for the first six months and they really struggle to make sure their kids are picked up from school or to deal with their elderly parents, they might find a not great way of dealing with it. It is then quite difficult to turn around to their employer and make the request six months down the line. It is so much better to be able to say, as a day one right, “This is what I want to give to this new employment that I have just received, but this is the world I exist in and these are the other responsibilities I have—how can we best make that work?” We know that our members will see a huge benefit from that, especially if they move to a new workplace.
The Chair
As there are no further questions, let me thank our two witnesses for attending.
Examination of Witness
Nye Cominetti gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Nye Cominetti. We have until 1 pm for this panel. Could you briefly introduce yourself, Nye?
Nye Cominetti: Hello, everyone. Thanks for inviting me along today. I am principal economist at the Resolution Foundation, a think-tank based just down the road. Our mission is to improve living standards for families on low to middle incomes. As part of that, we research and write about the labour market, along with various other issues. We have been interested in the employment reforms since they have been under way.
Greg Smith
Q
Nye Cominetti: Sorry, is the question whether the impact assessment is fit for purpose or whether the regulations themselves are fit for purpose?
Greg Smith
Well, the Regulatory Policy Committee has said that eight of the impact assessments for this Bill—the separate columns—are not fit for purpose. Do you think the Bill had its tyres kicked hard enough before it went into Second Reading and Public Bill Committee?
Nye Cominetti: It is very hard to assess the impact of the Bill, as many of the details are yet to be determined. The Government said that they wanted to do this within their first 100 days, and they managed to do so, but that meant that they had to leave many “fill in the blank later” bits in the Bill, so I do not particularly blame the civil servants in the Department for Business and Trade for having struggled to come up with clear numbers on the costings and the potential impact.
For example, on the right to a regular contract, the impact on business will depend on how “low” is defined, in terms of the qualifying threshold that workers will have to reach. It will depend on how businesses have to go about making the offer to workers. It will depend on how regularly those offers have to be made, which relates to the reference period. In the light of all those unknowns, it would be very difficult for the Department to have come up with firm numbers. I think in the end they said £5 billion, but it is hard to know whether that is a good or a bad number.
I would not be so negative as to say that they have failed in any sense; I just think that they were given a very difficult job. As more detail becomes available, it would be great if the civil servants who have already put a lot of thought into the process could come back and say, “Now that we know a bit more about what is actually going to be happening, here is our updated view on what the impact of the regulations might be.”
Greg Smith
Q
Nye Cominetti: No. I can describe in general terms how we might think about the potential impact, but I think any researcher or economist who tried to put a number on it would be misleadingly specific or misleadingly accurate. Not only do we not know what the direction of the impact might be—it could be that there are small positive or negative impacts on the size of GDP—but it is very hard to get a sense of the scale of the impacts. If you want some kind of judgment, the impact on economic growth will probably be very low—very close to zero. My expectation is that it will possibly be negative, but that is an incredibly hard judgment to reach, because you can point to impacts in both directions.
It is very uncertain, but the important point to make is that that does not mean that we should not be going ahead with these reforms. We should not be pursuing only those reforms where we can say, “The impact on GDP will be x,” even if not very confidently. One of the first things that this Bill should do is improve working lives for workers. It may be that we cannot put a monetary value on that, or that there is no associated impact on GDP, but to me that is the main and the first reason why many of these reforms should be undertaken.
Greg Smith
Q
Nye Cominetti: The same number, would be my best guess.
Greg Smith
What do you base that on?
Nye Cominetti: Internationally, we can draw scatter plots of the employment level in a country and the extent of employment regulation, and basically those lines come out flat. You have some countries with very high employment and very high levels of regulation, and some countries with lower employment and high regulation, so there is no clear relationship with the employment levels across countries. That is confirmed by the OECD, which has done lots of detailed work looking into the impact of periods when countries have either rowed back on reforms or expanded them.
What we do see in the employment data is that when you beef up the reforms around dismissals for individual or collective workers, you tend to see lower hiring rates. So the rate at which workers move around the economy will probably slow down if you make it significantly harder for employers to fire workers, and that gives rise to potential implications for productivity growth. Now, I still think those effects will be small. When the Office for Budget Responsibility, in one or two years’ time, starts putting the numbers into its forecasts, I expect them to be very small indeed. My expectation is that the employment level will be very, very narrowly lower if anything.
To give you some sense of scale, the OBR said it thinks that the employer national insurance contributions bill will be about £25 billion, and that that would lower the employment level in this country by 0.2%. The DBT said that it thinks the direct costs of the measures, including sick pay, are in the order of magnitude of £5 billion. If you compare those numbers, that starts to give you a sense of the scale of potential employment effects that we are talking about. I am sorry not to give you a more exciting answer, but my best guess is that the impact on employment levels will be small.
Justin Madders
Q
Nye Cominetti: It is a good question. One of the ways that I like to think about this package of reforms is that it extends to low-paid workers the kind of everyday flexibilities and dignities at work that people in professional jobs such as me and you take for granted. It is not the case that all low-paid workers hate their job or face the risk of losing their job every week, but it is the case that they experience a higher level of insecurity than higher-paid workers do.
You can look at that in various ways. In recessions, low-paid workers are more likely to lose their job, so they face a higher risk of losing their job in downturns. They are also more likely to rely on statutory sick pay if they fall ill, so for many low-paid workers, falling ill comes with an income shock. That is not the case for someone like me: if I fall ill, I go home and pick up an online meeting or two if I can, but if I cannot, I will get paid as normal. That is not the case for many low-paid workers, so that is a real insecurity.
Obviously, there are zero-hours contracts as well. For low-paid workers, I think roughly one in 10 is on a zero-hours contract. For higher-paid workers—the top fifth in the hourly pay distribution—it is a vanishingly small number and very uncommon indeed. I am sure that you have heard plenty of evidence about the kind of impact on security that zero-hours contracts can bring to some—not all—workers.
The most illuminating statistic is probably that 2 million workers say that they are fairly or very anxious about unexpected changes to their hours of work. You might think that that is because that comes with not just an impact on their life—“I do not know which days I’m going to be working next week, and I have to make it work alongside childcare”—but a potential income risk as well. In many respects, the working lives of low-paid workers are less secure than those of higher-paid workers. My hope is that some of these measures will go some way to redressing that balance.
Justin Madders
Q
Nye Cominetti: I would not want to try. It is not quite the same, but the closest that some studies have tried to get is saying to workers, “Would you consider this alternative job, which would improve your terms and conditions in these respects, but offer you lower pay?” That tries to get at the question of how much pay people would be willing to trade off for those other benefits, such as a more stable income or a better relationship with management.
It does not directly answer your question, but there was a study in America of Walmart workers which found that they would accept a 7% pay cut in exchange for being treated with better dignity by their managers, including things such as better advance notice of their shifts and not getting messed around late in the day to come in and pick up extra hours. I definitely cannot quantify it, but more ambitious researchers might be able to.
Steve Darling
Q
Nye Cominetti: Well, I have a few caveats. First, overall employment rates are lower in high-deprivation areas, so we need to remember that all these measures will have an effect on workers, rather than those who are not working. If you want to improve income levels, this is not the place to do it. As I was just saying, however, we know that low-paid workers experience those issues of insecurity at higher rates than high-paid workers.
You also need to remember that there is not a one-for-one overlap between high pay and high income and low pay and low income. Some low-income households will have higher-paid individuals in them, but because of having a large family or having only one earner rather than two, they will still end up in that low-income category. That caveat aside, it is still the case that any measures that improve working lives for low-paid workers will have the biggest impact on lower-income households.
There are questions about what the knock-on effects are going to be. If you were really optimistic, you might say that some of these measures to improve job quality could even have a positive labour supply effect. We know that, in the 2010s, that was a big driver of improved income at the bottom and massively increased employment among low-income households. So an optimistic take on these measures might be that you could trigger some of those kinds of effects, but that is much more uncertain.
Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
Q
Nye Cominetti: That is a tricky question. If measures to tackle zero-hours contracts are put in place effectively, I think that they will mainly smooth the income of those individuals rather than necessarily raise their level of pay. There might be a knock-on impact on the level of pay if workers have better outside options and can more readily bargain for pay increases or shop around for jobs, but the first effect that you would hope to achieve through these measures is smoothing pay—taking away the volatility from week to week. There is plenty of evidence that that is the element of those jobs that households struggle with most, not the level of hourly pay.
We know that, through minimum wage action, we have massively improved earnings for the lowest-paid workers, but it is the volatility that is most difficult to deal with, as I think anyone sitting here would readily agree. If someone is thinking, “Next week, my pay might go down by 20% or 50%, or maybe my hours will be zeroed down entirely,” it does not take much for us to imagine the impact of that not just on their wellbeing and psychology, but on their spending decisions. They might think, “I can’t afford to commit to that spending now, given that I’m uncertain about what my pay is going to be next week.”
If these measures are done well and genuinely smooth the incomes of those experiencing the worst volatility, I would expect improvements in individuals’ wellbeing. Potentially—again, more optimistically—you might see knock-on positive effects on the economy more broadly, if people feel more comfortable spending because they know what their pay is going to be in future. But as I have said a few times, that is definitely much more uncertain.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Nye Cominetti: The bit of the Bill that most obviously addresses that is the right to request flexible work, which is being strengthened, as I am sure you know—employers now have to give a justification for saying no. When you look at surveys of workers with disabilities or elderly workers, flexibility is very often mentioned as something that might have helped them to stay in work.
If you will allow me to make a second point, surrounding all these measures and, in fact, our employment framework more generally, are questions of enforcement and worker power—they are sitting at the side, but they are absolutely crucial. There are many existing rights that workers have on paper, but because our enforcement systems are fairly weak, especially compared with other countries where the state does more of the job of enforcing these rights, people do not necessarily experience in reality the entitlements that the law says they should have.
Even in a world where workers gain that strengthened right to flexible work, that means little if they, for example, look at the employment tribunal system delays and think, “Well, that’s an impossibility. There’s no point fighting my employer over this. I’m never going to win that,” or, “I can’t spend the next two years waiting to win that.” So the answer is yes, but only if we also resolve some of the existing problems about people’s ability to enforce their own entitlements.
Laurence Turner
Q
Nye Cominetti: You are right: labour market statistics are not currently in a good place. The Office for National Statistics’ labour force survey is in the doldrums in terms of response rates; so if you wanted to increase the resources going into that, I would welcome that, as a researcher. Realistically, many of these knock-on benefits are incredibly hard to estimate. Personally, I think we have to accept a world where we say, we know that workers will benefit in terms of wellbeing from some of these measures. I do not think you need to put a monetary value on that to say it is worth doing, personally, but I know that is not necessarily the way that Government Departments think about these things.
In terms of the costs—businesses will be saying, “If you do this measure, I will have to reduce hiring by this much”—I think we could be moving from relying on what businesses say. I know that many businesses will be engaging with these processes in good faith, but the history, for example with the minimum wage, is for businesses to say, “If you raise this cost there will be dire consequences: job losses will look like x and y,” and in the end that does not turn out to happen because businesses find ways to adapt. That does not mean that will happen this time—there is no guarantee that you can keep pulling off the same trick of raising labour costs and not triggering an impact on employment—but looking for evidence on what has actually happened in response to similar changes in the past or in other countries, rather than relying on what businesses say, might be a better guide. But that might be controversial.
Chris Law
Q
Nye Cominetti: Thank you for the question. I was hoping to get the chance to talk about sick pay specifically. That is one area where the Government have gone halfway to addressing an area of insecurity. Removing the lower earnings limit is great; the lowest earners, mainly women working few hours, all have access to SSP now, which is excellent.
Removing waiting days is an important change as well. It will no longer be the case that you have to wait four days to receive anything and, as you know, for most people who are off sick for a few days with a cold, that is a one or two-day situation, not a week. Those measures are good, but what they do is extend a very low level of coverage to more workers. As you say, we have not resolved the fundamental problem that if SSP is what you rely on, as is the case for a majority of low-paid workers, you will still face a very serious income shock if that is what your employer ends up paying you when you do that.
Raising the level of SSP comes with a much bigger cost. First, it would be employers that would pay it, and then the Government would face a decision about whether to reimburse, perhaps, smaller employers facing the largest cost, as has happened in the past. It is a more costly measure, which is why the Government have not done it, but I hope that they have it on their list to address it soon because, as you say, it remains the case that for our low-paid workers, falling sick means earning less and facing an income shock. I do not think that is right.
You can either look at high-paid workers who do not experience that shock, or you can look at the vast majority of rich countries who have set in place a statutory minimum much higher than we have in the UK. That is not the case in the US, but almost all European countries—not just the Scandinavian countries that we look to as the far end of the scale in terms of welfare state provision, but the vast majority of countries across Europe—have a sick pay system that is much more generous and offers much more protection to workers than does the system in the UK. So yes, I would agree that that remains a glaring unaddressed problem.
The Chair
I am afraid that brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions of this witness, and for this sitting. I thank you very much for coming along this afternoon and answering the Committee’s questions.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Anna McMorrin.)
Employment Rights Bill (Fourth sitting)
Thursday 28th November 2024
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Employment Rights Bill 2024-26 View all Employment Rights Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 28 November 2024 - (28 Nov 2024)
The Chair
Welcome back. Will the witnesses introduce themselves, please?
Mike Clancy: I am Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect trade union.
Andy Prendergast: I am Andy Prendergast, GMB union national secretary for the private sector.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
Q
Mike Clancy: The primary purpose of the Bill is to reset employment relations, and trade unions are an important part of that. I have the privilege of sitting on the ACAS council, which is a tripartite body responsible for overseeing good employment relations and good practice. That demonstrates that unions, employers and independents can work together successfully. I see that as the primary purpose.
The reality is that in so many jurisdictions that have positive employment relations and that are addressing their productivity challenge, unions play a very important role. An objective to have the right level of trade union membership in the economy, so that working people have a voice, is at the heart of the Bill. Previous Administrations have restricted the ability of working people to have a voice. So there is a real opportunity to, first, improve employee relations; secondly, ensure that working people generally have a voice; and thirdly, ensure that unions are part of the fabric of the economy in a way that addresses the challenges ahead. I would say that the Bill can deliver all those objectives.
Greg Smith
Q
Mike Clancy: The key thing we would like to see is that access to workplaces is not confined to physical premises, but is also digital. That applies where union recognition already exists. We need to ensure that we can address the workplaces of today and tomorrow, not just those of the past. Physical access is important, but many workplaces have remote, hybrid, virtual working arrangements, so we would want the Bill to be amended to ensure that digital access, in a way that is compliant with data protection, is addressed.
Greg Smith
Q
Mike Clancy: It probably looks like ensuring that the best practice from employers now—who allow us access to their intranet and to electronic and digital means, in terms of their staff—becomes the norm, and that it complies with data protection. That happens in workplaces up and down the country now, but some employers see the law in a different way.
An important thing to get across is that if you start to talk to an employer about organising their workplace, the best way to do it is by consensus. That means understanding the employer—understanding the nature of their product and what their concerns may be—as well as making sure that their workforce’s aspirations, if they want a collective voice, are delivered in a way that works successfully for all parties. The access conservation needs to reflect the nature of the workplace as it is now, not just as it has been. It should not be confined to physical premises.
Andy Prendergast: From our point of view, this is very much a 21st century Bill for a 21st century economy. It is not about looking back; it is about trying to make sure that what we have is fit for purpose, moving forward. Unionisation rates are around 20% at the moment. If we look at a graph of unionisation and also at a graph of rising inequality and the fall in productivity, we will see that they are almost perfect correlations. We believe that collective bargaining is a way of improving things. That has been identified by organisations as diverse as the World Economic Forum and the Church of England. If the Bill ends up with higher levels of unionisation, which leaves lower levels of inequality, we believe that that will be a good thing.
On where the Bill is lacking, I think, like Mike, that we need to make sure that there is a digital aspect of access. Many of our members working for gig economy platforms in parts of the new economy do not have the old workplace that we traditionally know. It is not a factory and not necessarily an office. So we have to talk about how rights can be accessed by people who work remotely, who work from home, or who simply do not have a workplace.
There is one area where the Bill could be strengthened. We welcome the improvements in statutory sick pay, but we do not believe that they go far enough. We did a survey today of care workers at HC-One that shows that over one third cannot afford to take sick leave. We saw during the pandemic that having people go to work when ill, potentially spreading diseases, is bad for everyone. We think something could be done on that later that would ultimately help workers and help the economy generally.
Greg Smith
Q
Andy Prendergast: They key thing for us is that everyone who ultimately wants to join a trade union has the option to do so. It is important that people are aware of their rights, aware that they can join trade unions, and aware that they have a right to, for example, SSP on day one, statutory holidays and the minimum wage. Rights that people do not know about and that cannot be enforced are ultimately no use. This is shamelessly partisan, but I would like to see union rates being far higher, and I think that the economy as a whole would benefit from that.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
Q
Andy Prendergast: I think the Bill is a major step in the right direction. One of the big problems that we have seen, certainly over the last 30 to 40 years, is the huge increase in insecurity in the workforce. That tends to have a massive impact on the individual concerned and their ability to fully partake in the economy, and to make long-term commitments through mortgages and loans—the kind of stuff that drives the economy. Ultimately, we have seen that as they have lost their guaranteed hours—in zero-hours jobs, for example—and there has been the removal of their employment rights, those people are less able to exercise those rights. So we see the Bill as a major way of moving industrial relations forward.
We would also point to the work around the pandemic. In the last 14 years, we were very much locked out of Government in most areas, yet when the pandemic came around, there was a fantastic bit of work between the CBI, the TUC and the Government, with Rishi Sunak standing on the steps of No. 10 talking about the fantastic work that led to the furlough scheme, which saved millions of jobs and millions of people from poverty. What surprised us is that that great work was then stopped virtually as quickly as it happened. If we look at other G7 countries, a tripartite system is what drives higher levels of productivity, lower levels of inequality, and ultimately, higher levels of investment and economic outcomes. We think that the Bill is a long overdue step in the right direction of moving some power back towards workers and away from businesses, too many of which exist for exploitation.
Mike Clancy: I echo those comments. If we look at the responses from the business community, yes, there is going to be some anxiety about the detail and how it will work—again, I reference my experience not just in ACAS, but from working with employers more generally—but we find ways to do this and operate in practice successfully. Good employers have nothing to fear in the Bill. That is not just good employers that are larger, and we think that with the right degree of consultation, which the Government have committed to, we will be able to address those areas where there are a few wrinkles and things to ensure work in practice.
We have to reflect on what the alternative was. The deregulatory, more de minimis approach to employment regulation applied previously, and if that trajectory had continued, we would not have addressed the issues of precarious work and productivity, and we would not have been able to do that in a way that looks at the workforce of the 21st century, as opposed to looking backwards.
There is a lot in the Bill, but that is not surprising. There will probably be a long period of adjustment. With the right consultation, I think we will get to a position where we look back at this as a milestone in changing how we do things, a paradigm shift in relations. I think that it will drive better engagement not just for unionised workforces, but for workforces more generally, because that is where employers will see that they can answer the challenges on the next generation of technology insertion and organisational design, and make sure that they can get the talent that they need.
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
Q
Andy Prendergast: As a union that represents a large number of relatively low-paid people, we regularly come across the barriers to getting back into employment. One of the big ones we have seen is the expectation of flexibility, and specifically one-sided flexibility. We have a lot of people who are on benefits and want to work; unfortunately, often the only jobs they are offered are zero-hours jobs. It is difficult for people on benefits, because it is a bureaucratic nightmare to get on them, and people need to be supported to come off them to a guaranteed wage in a guaranteed job. Too often, they are offered zero-hours contracts, which replaces the guarantee of certain levels of benefit payments with uneven levels of reward. We want to get people back into meaningful work.
There are clauses in the Bill on removing exploitative zero-hours contracts—and the point there is “exploitative”. We look after thousands of Uber drivers, for example, and for them flexibility is very much the driving point. In the same way, a number of people benefit from being on genuine zero-hours contracts. At the same time, organisations such as McDonald’s and Wetherspoons have 80% to 90% of their staff on zero-hours contracts. There is no excuse for that. We find that the moment an individual chooses to exercise their flexibility is the moment they stop being offered shifts. That is a major block on people coming back to work, particularly when they are on universal credit.
We want to be able to give people genuine offers of employment so that they can better themselves, fully take part in the economy and deliver for them and their families. The Bill goes some way towards addressing that.
Mike Clancy: I should make a general point before addressing more specifically the part of the economy your question focuses on. A failure of our economy for many decades now—in contrast with other economies with high levels of unionisation, collective agreement and partnership—is that we have not taken the fear out of change in the economy. That can mean that people’s reaction to change, and their ability to operate in the labour market, is correspondingly reduced. A lot of economies are able to ensure that if people lose employment, they are able to come back into employment much quicker—there are either statutory minima or collective agreements between employers, trade unions and others to make that happen. The Bill asks some fundamental questions about how we want to organise ourselves in the economy and says that, actually, it is better to have places where we convene and talk about the challenges than to do it company by company and enterprise by enterprise, and have an atomised conversation.
Andy touched on zero-hours contracts; we represent a lot of self-employed people, many of whom value their self-employment. Indeed, it is part of the process in film and TV production. They have experienced the precarity of that environment in recent years, particularly in relation to covid, and subsequently there have been other issues in respect of production. The legislation needs to look holistically at the economy. It is important to talk about flexibility in a way that engages all types of worker, not just those who may be able to work hybrid or remotely. The fact that the Bill makes employers, unions and others think about the flexibility proposition has got to benefit people’s ability to come back into the workplace.
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
Q
I want to ask about balloting. What are the practical implications for your unions of paper balloting? What sort of difference do you think electronic balloting will bring?
Andy Prendergast: It has been a somewhat strange situation in that, as far as I am aware, the only legally required paper ballot relates to industrial action. That sometimes creates a major impediment for us taking industrial action when that is the clear view of the workforce. There was a certain irony, not lost on us, that when Liz Truss was elected, effectively as Prime Minister, that was done via an electronic ballot. We have been told consistently by people in this House that electronic ballots are not safe and secure, yet you can have one to elect a Prime Minister but you cannot have one to take industrial action. If I am absolutely honest, the state of the Post Office does not help. We often have to have a fast turnaround on a ballot. Where I live, I normally get the post about every eight days. We end up with an antiquated system that simply does not work for this purpose.
If you look at electronic ballots, the important thing is that people have the opportunity to take part in a democratic process. It is a process that is allowed under the International Labour Organisation freedom of association rules and the European convention on human rights. It is vital that people are able to partake in democracy. We believe it is something of a strange situation that the one area that currently requires paper ballots is industrial action law. If I were cynical, I would argue that that is specifically to stop industrial action taking place.
For us, industrial action is always an absolute last resort, but at times it is necessary. People do not always like industrial disputes, but when you look at what they have achieved over the years, from equal pay via Ford Dagenham to the eight-hour working day, having weekends off, and significantly improved health and safety, it is important that workers have the ability to hold their employers to account in that way. Ultimately, something that simply allows them to take part in that democratic process has to be a good thing.
Mike Clancy: For too long, the arguments for inhibiting electronic balloting have, in my view, been entirely bogus. If you look at it from an employer’s perspective, they want the most representative turnout if they have a trade union in their midst, particularly in the context of difficult circumstances where industrial action may be in contemplation—and so does the trade union. We want a representative turnout, and we also want to be able to send a clear message if we get to a juncture where bargaining or something else in the process is proving to be difficult.
Electronic balloting is going to enable exactly that. The idea—this is where I feel the argument has been very bogus—that it cannot be done securely is in the face of all the evidence to the contrary. The sooner this particular clause can be progressed and made real, the better. Clearly, it will improve not only engagement, but the validity of results, and I believe that is absolutely something that trade unions want. The sooner we can do it, the better.
Chris Law (Dundee Central) (SNP)
Q
Mike Clancy: I am sure we will both have our views on the subject, but on fire and rehire, this is the space in which some of the most egregious employer behaviour has played out—behaviour that probably most in the business community look away from, because it is not the way they want to conduct their business with their workforces. We therefore absolutely welcome the fact that the Bill focuses on that dynamic. It has no place in good employment relations. But of course there has to be a space in which you evaluate, if an employer has a genuine financial challenge, whether it has some form of defence in that regard.
I cannot emphasise enough—in a way, this is not seen enough in the national media, on social media and so on—that day in, day out, trade unions solve problems with employers. They face difficult business circumstances at times, and they work with employers, communicate with their members and the workforce, and come out with some form of proposition that goes some way to resolving the issue. Therefore, the number of times that employers should fall foul of these provisions should be very small. If you conduct your engagement with your workforce either through a trade union or workforce representatives and in compliance with the law, and you are not seeking to evade your responsibilities—you see the importance of open book and sharing the finances, because that is all part of keeping the workforce engaged —this is really a minimum platform to deal with the employers who might sit on the extremes. I think it is very important that this has been addressed. It is sending a message about how we should do business around here.
Chris Law
Q
Mike Clancy: We will be going through clause by clause, will we not? We will have to look at where there is potential for employers to exploit these sorts of loopholes. What you have to understand is that often in employment relations, sensible employers read the writing on the wall. The rights of access may or may not come in for some time, but employers will think, “Right, we are moving into an environment where we need to engage with our workforce differently.” Other employers will say, “Look, that sort of behaviour is frowned upon in public policy. We are not going to go near it.” I do not think we should lose sight of the direction that the Bill sets on these matters. Let us be clear about the context. This is a big endeavour, and there will be detail to work through for both employers and trade unions. I think we should set out on this in the way that we mean to go forward. Let us do it co-operatively where we can.
Andy Prendergast: Just following up on fire and rehire, I was involved in resolving the British Gas dispute, where close to 500 members of ours got fired because they would not sign a new contract. At the time, it was roundly condemned across the House. The Prime Minister at the time got up and said that it was dishonourable, and that has very much been our view.
The real concern for us, as Mike says, is that, as trade unions, we sometimes have to make very difficult decisions. Following 2008, I would go into factories to negotiate pay cuts to keep people in work. It was heartbreaking, but we had to do it because it was the right thing to do. Overwhelmingly, we had those conversations not because of fire and rehire, but because, ultimately, we could convince our members that that was the best way of securing their jobs. We did something similar during covid.
The big issue for us is that if you look at British Gas, it is a highly profitable company and it went down a route that was, frankly, disastrous for it as a business and that it is still recovering from. We need to stop that behaviour happening. A contract is a contract. In this country it is almost your word, and if you are willing to break that it asks questions about whether you went into it honourably in the first place.
Some of the points you make are right. We have seen lots of financial engineering. We see inter-company debt. I think there is a concern long term that we may find cases where companies have engineered a financial position that allows them to do something they otherwise would not. That will have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Where we have collective rights, we can still take action on that when we need to. This Bill takes a significant step in the right direction towards a point where the expectation is that contracts are honoured and that companies are prevented from boosting profits at the cost of their workforce.
On the SSP point, as a trade union we are used to negotiating improvements. Occasionally we cannot let perfect get in the way of good. I am pleased that we are talking about an improvement on SSP. Does it go far enough? I do not believe it does. I think that will have to be looked at long term. There are huge areas, such as care, where it is catastrophic that people do not feel that they can take time off, and, as I said before, that has a real impact, but at the moment I am happy that, for once, we are talking about an improvement to this. Personally, I am always of the view that we bank it and move forward.
Michael Wheeler (Worsley and Eccles) (Lab)
Q
Andy Prendergast: When you look at the school support staff negotiating body, this is something that has been on the agenda for about the last 25 years. We have found overwhelmingly in schools that teachers have national bargaining and very clear terms and conditions that are vigorously enforced, but unfortunately for the support staff, it is almost like the soft underbelly. So often when schools enter financial difficulties, heads—when you read the school returns, they have often given themselves quite large pay rises—end up cutting hours and pay from some of the lower-paid people.
Over the last quarter of a century, we have seen a transformation in what schools are like. Most of us remember schools having one teacher and that was it. Now, we see increasingly more pupils with special educational needs go into mainstream education, and they need that additional support. People from vulnerable backgrounds get the support of teaching assistants, and we have seen educational outcomes really improve off the back of that.
For us, particularly as we see more and more academisation and more and more fragmentation, we often find that there is an undercut-and-poach approach from different schools, which ultimately means that one benefits at the expense of another. It is not helpful when we get into that situation. The school support staff negotiating body allows for minimum standards and the extra professionalisation of roles, which really have changed over the last 25 years. Originally, there was a little bit of a stereotype that teaching assistants were there to clean paint pots and tidy up. Now, they do very detailed work on things like phonics and supporting pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, and they really help to deliver classes. I think it is time that professionalism was recognised and rewarded.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
Q
Andy Prendergast: Personally, I was involved in two meetings, and they were tripartite ones. They were quite robust exchanges where we had Ministers, civil servants, people from the employers’ associations and large employers, and also people from trade unions. I think those meetings were really quite helpful. We were raising points that sometimes they would argue with or agree with, and they raised points that sometimes made us look at things differently.
In the wider sense of the union, we have had quite a lot of engagement, but I would expect a union to be engaged over a Bill that has a huge amount of clauses about trade unions. In terms of whether we saw any of it in advance, no. We were very much holding our breath when the Bill came through. Part of my job is to tell people things and make cases, and to be told that they have heard, and then something comes out that is the complete antithesis of everything that we talked about.
As I said, we did not see the Bill in advance. When it turned up, there were some things we liked an awful lot. Some things, as we said beforehand, did not go far enough. The majority of engagement was tripartite, and I think both ourselves and the business organisations that have taken part in that process have helped understand it, and we have got to something we can all live with. That is certainly our impression.
Mike Clancy: I would just emphasise that Prospect is not affiliated with a political party, so any comments I make are based on evidence of the past and the present. We have had proportionate engagement. We have not kept a count or a register in that regard. Frankly, probably trade unions and business would want more and more time on this, and I am sure that will be a challenge going forward.
What I think was most positive, and something I had not seen in my career before, was a tripartite meeting with a range of very senior business representatives, trade unions and civic society with officials, the Business Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister back in August. That is important because it demonstrates that we can get in a room, we can talk to each other and we can resolve problems. That, for me, is the absolute core of this Bill and the “Next Steps to Make Work Pay” agenda. I hope that we can do more of that. I have talked a lot—I have had the privilege of doing this job for a long time—about how we have lost convening spaces in the economy in the past period, so we may be shouting over fences or making our cases separately to Government. Government is difficult, and it is about problem solving. The more that business, trade unions and civic society can come together and say, “Look, we’ve got our differences at the edges, but we can do this together. This is how we would fashion an outcome within the public policy you set,” the better. We will always want more, but to be fair, with their strong pace and intensity, the Government and their supporting officials have done an admirable job in convening us.
The Chair
Thank you very much. I am afraid that we now have to go on to the next panel of witnesses.
Examination of Witnesses
Professor Alan Bogg, Professor Melanie Simms and Professor Simon Deakin gave evidence.
Dr Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
It may be that I do not ask a question, but for clarity, Professor Alan Bogg was my professor for labour law many years ago, and we were at one point work colleagues.
The Chair
I do not know what the collective noun for professors is—a proliferation, perhaps. Anyway, could you please introduce yourselves briefly?
Professor Bogg: I am Professor Alan Bogg, and I am a professor at the University of Bristol and a barrister at Old Square Chambers.
Professor Deakin: I am Simon Deakin, and I am a law professor at the University of Cambridge.
Professor Simms: I am Melanie Simms, and I am professor of work and employment at the University of Glasgow.
Greg Smith
Q
Professor Deakin: I would not say that it has holes in it. It is perfectly normal to legislate in this way and defer complex matters to regulations. As a potential Act of Parliament, it is no more or less complex than similar Acts that we have had in the past. Labour law has always been complex and very granular. There are many provisions in the Act that will take effect without the need for further delegated legislation, and there are quite detailed schedules. I do not have a problem with the way it has been drafted, but there are issues with its scope and coverage, which we might go on to discuss.
Professor Bogg: It is a very ambitious piece of legislation, and it was delivered at lightning speed—in 100 days—which is an important part of the context. The collective labour law dimension of what is in the Bill is actually very simple. Much of it is in the form of repeal, and there are some proposals for tweaks to the existing structure. In terms of the collective dimension, I do not think the Bill has holes in it. It gives a tolerably clear indication of what the relevant provisions will look like and what needs to be done.
In terms of the individual provisions, it is fair to say that there is detail that needs to be worked out on day one dismissal protections and on guaranteed hours, but those are very complex issues and I do not think there is anything unusual about that. It is the beginning of a conversation, not the end of the conversation, and that is why we are here today.
Professor Simms: I am not actually a professor of law; I am a professor of work and employment, and general employment relations. I am always interested in the system as a whole, and how law and the implementation of all kinds of other pressures collectively shape employment relationships.
I agree with my two colleagues that the Bill is a very useful starting point. Law can only ever go so far in determining the rules of the employment relationship. It will always rest on wider social systems, economic systems and so on.
Greg Smith
Q
Professor Deakin: The RPC said that about some of the impact assessments—it raised a red flag over some of them. They are concerned not so much with the legal drafting as with the economic effects of the law. The impact assessments are engaging in a cost-benefit analysis, which is attempting to put some numbers on the impact the law might have on the economy in terms of cost to employers and knock-on employment effects. Actually, they have quite a strict protocol to deal with. What counts as a cost is set out in some detail in protocols that we could discuss. For example, the cost to private parties—to employers—counts as a cost even if that is simply redistributing to households and to workers. From an economic point of view, we would be interested not so much in the private cost, but in the impact on the economy as a whole. Do these laws interfere with the way markets work? Are they going to lead to unacceptable costs, or will they produce countervailing benefits?
As a scholar interested in the economics of law, and having researched the impact of labour law, I was surprised by some comments in the RPC documentation. I was very surprised to read the RPC suggest that there may not be inequality of bargaining power in certain sectors, such as the public sector or transport, where there are very large employers, some of which are effectively monopolies. There will probably always be some inequality of bargaining power between individual workers and even smaller employers, but we have trade unions and collective bargaining because there is that inequality of bargaining power. The part of the Bill that addresses the ability of unions to organise, and to organise industrial action, in sectors where there are very powerful employers does seem to me to address a fundamental issue of inequality of bargaining power.
Elsewhere, the RPC asks for more evidence about asymmetric information and productivity. I thought the impact assessments were actually very good, in citing secondary sources on those very issues, and also balanced. They cited—I should declare an interest—work I wrote, but they also cited other work. You will see scholars cited in the impact assessments who have a less positive view than I do about the economic effects of labour laws. There are no citations at all in the RPC documentation. Now, that may be because that is not the job of the RPC. Fair enough, but I should have thought that the RPC request for more information and clarification from the Department for Business and Trade could quite straightforwardly be met.
Professor Bogg: I support much of what Simon said. Focusing on the collective reforms, there has been scaremongering about re-unionisation of the economy and how radical this all is. You would think that we were going back to 1965 in terms of the reform of the strike laws, when actually we are probably going back to 2015 with a few tweaks. The minimum service levels framework is being repealed, but as far as I am aware it was never used. There was a prospect of its use once, but it was so inflammatory that the employer in the ASLEF dispute stepped back from using it. The Trade Union Act 2016 ballot thresholds will be repealed. In that context, and with a few proposed adjustments to strike law, this is not very radical. It takes the UK from a hyper-restrictive framework in comparative terms, to a restrictive framework in comparative terms. In terms of the overall international context, even if all of this makes its way on to the statute book, the UK will still have one of the most restrictive strike laws in Europe.
Professor Simms: I could not agree more. It sets out an agenda that would be regarded as incredibly restrictive in many comparator countries. I think it is better than what we have at the moment, which is such a restrictive context particularly for trade unions and strike action. Concerns have been raised by the International Labour Organisation about the UK’s restriction on strike activity. In my judgment this, as drafted, does not take us fully into compliance even with some of the concerns expressed by the ILO—it is still incredibly restrictive.
Greg Smith
Q
Professor Simms: We have to be realistic about the resource capacity of our trade union movement at the moment. There are certainly things in the Bill that will make life simpler for trade unions—not necessarily easier, but it will require less resource to, for example, organise for a ballot, or to organise a re-balloting during a period of industrial action. At best case, that frees up some capacity to get on with the nitty-gritty of representing workers in the workplace and solving workplace problems. I cannot prove that that is going to happen, obviously, but that is certainly more than possible. But will it free up sufficient capacity to try and organise in the breadth of the retail sector, for example—lots of small employers? Personally, I think that is unlikely. I do not think that the UK trade union movement has that resource capacity at the moment.
Professor Deakin: Historically, what drives unionisation and strike levels is the economy. High inflation drives strike action and tends to drive union membership. Union membership, union activity and strike activity are highly sensitive to the wider economic context, which at the moment probably does not favour a massive increase in union membership. I would be very surprised if this particular measure moves the dial much on membership, and I do not think it will move the dial much on industrial action either.
What could happen, especially with the arrangements for sectoral pay bargaining, is that many workers, whether or not they are in a trade union, would benefit from sector-wide collective norms. That would be the case where the arrangements come in for two sectors that are mentioned in the Bill, and hopefully that is just the start. Other European countries and many countries outside Europe have sectoral collective agreements that, in effect, set a floor for an industry or sector. I am not sure whether you would call that re-unionisation, but I think the coverage of collective agreements is perhaps more important than simple membership, although unions depend on membership for their finances. The economic effects will turn very much on coverage.
Professor Bogg: As I said, the reforms to strike law are fairly modest, and I think that is true of collective bargaining laws. There are two incremental nudges towards sectoral institutions in two sectors, and there are some very modest tweaks proposed to the statutory union recognition procedure—lowering the preliminary membership threshold, potentially, and removing the majority support likely threshold—but it is difficult to see. I do not know what re-unionisation means, I must confess, but I will be very surprised if you see a radical upsurge in union recognition as a result of these very sensible but cautious changes in the legislation.
Justin Madders
Q
I want to ask you in particular, Professor Deakin, about the impact of the regulations on increased productivity and innovation—the general economic benefits. Do you think that that will have a positive impact on such issues?
Professor Deakin: I think so. The evidence internationally is that there is a strong correlation between stronger labour protection and both productivity and innovation. I think that sentiment in the research community has shifted very much in the past 20 years. That is partly because we have better data and probably better methods. Certainly, a generation ago, the World Bank was quite hostile to the idea of labour law and said that labour laws, in aiming to help workers, might harm them. That, however, is no longer the World Bank’s position. The World Bank has said that there can be too little labour law in an economy—too little protection for innovation and productivity.
Of course, productivity has many causes, and the way we regulate labour is only one issue. If we are talking about labour law, though, these reforms are essential to help improve the productivity position. Will this law on its own lead to an improvement in UK productivity? Not necessarily, because that depends upon how we regulate other areas of the economy, and that is affected very much by the way corporate governance works and also by training and other aspects that are not all covered by the Bill. But is this Bill essential in the area of labour law for improving economic performance? Absolutely. Does it go in the right direction? Yes, it does.
The research we have done in Cambridge, which I mentioned in my written evidence, shows that, on average, strengthening employment laws in this country in the last 50 years has had pro-employment effects, for various reasons. That is, as I said in my notes, not a predication or a forecast, but historically in this country, stronger labour laws are not associated with unemployment.
Professor Simms: Could I chip in as well and emphasise the point that Simon has just made about skills and training? Skills and training of managers—the professionalisation of managers—and of our workforce are really crucial ways of shaping productivity and innovation. They intersect very strongly with some of the issues in the Bill.
In general, the push to professionalise management of work—the managerial decisions—is a really important part of that more complex story that Simon has just spoken to. The signals through the law, but also through other areas of policy, to managers, organisations and employers about the professionalisation of their management are a really important thing that the state can do to support that general up-tick in productivity and innovation in general.
Justin Madders
Professor Bogg, do you want to add anything?
Professor Bogg: I am just a simple lawyer; I would not like to offer any views on the economics of it all. I will defer to my expert colleagues.
Justin Madders
Q
Professor Bogg: This is really the most critical point of all. We can enact shiny rights and put them on the statute book, and if they are not enforced, there is not much point to the entire exercise. What will be critical is the proper resourcing for a new body. The right direction of travel is for that to occur through a new agency, rather than having to co-ordinate across different agencies. I think that will make things more efficient.
It is also important that the employment tribunal system is properly resourced. I saw the welcome announcement that the time limits will move from three months to six months, in line with the earlier Law Commission recommendation. As the Lady Chief Justice said, the rule of law costs money in order for it to be done properly, so the tribunal system will have to be properly resourced. There needs to be a commitment to a principle of effective access to dissuasive remedies. That is absolutely central to all of this working or not working.
Professor Simms: Can I pick up on the enforcement case? It is important for the Committee to properly understand that the organisations that will be merged into a new agency have had to cut back, to some extent, on their advice and guidance to employers and employees because of the challenges of resourcing over the last years. They still work in those spaces, but they cannot do it at the scale that they have previously—ACAS in particular. Re-resourcing that expertise to support both employers and workers’ unions to make good decisions that never become a breach of any rights is really important.
Justin Madders
Professor Deakin, anything to add?
Professor Deakin: Enforcement is really critical. We do not have an effective enforcement regime in this country. Recent research on the minimum wage, for example, shows that on the whole, employers that do not comply with it can actually save money by not doing so. They are rarely punished, fined or required to pay wages back in a way that even covers the gains they make by not paying the minimum wage. We are not effectively prosecuting minimum wage breaches. We treat breaches of the criminal law involving theft in a supermarket, for example, and in other contexts extremely seriously. We do not treat wage theft with anything like the same seriousness.
There are hardly any company director disqualifications in cases of non-payment of the minimum wage. The message being given, or the one that has been given, is that compliance with the legal obligations is in some sense optional, and not complying can be profitable for firms. We are not the only country in that position. It is also an issue in the United States.
However, we can do more. We can certainly resource the inspectorate. In my note, I suggested that we can also facilitate collective remedies in addition to individual employment tribunal claims. It is difficult for an individual to take a claim to a tribunal, and it can also be costly for employers, who will, in many cases, have to organise a legal team to fight a case, and they will not get their costs back. It seems to me that neither side is necessarily happy with the way the employment tribunal system is working.
I believe that collective remedies, particularly through arbitration, which can be brought by trade unions—hopefully in future to the Central Arbitration Committee —are more effective than individual claims in many cases. It is not just a question of resourcing the new fair work agency. I think there should be a greater role for collective arbitration, and in my note I made some suggestions based on precedents from the 1970s, which could easily be used again.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Professor Deakin: There is a difference between a complex measure, written initially for lawyers to implement, and communication about that measure once it is enacted. I believe that the essential changes being made by the Bill can be effectively communicated. However, I entirely understand the problem faced by many smaller firms, which often lack resources when confronted with a legal claim. They may be able to take out insurance to cover their costs, but often it is the time spent in dealing with the dispute that is the real issue. I researched that about a decade ago, but I do not think the issues have changed. Often, litigants—claimants—feel unhappy about the way the employment tribunal system is working. Employers also often feel unhappy, even if they win a claim. Since that time, there has been an enormous growth in delays before employment tribunal claims are heard. It is an important issue.
Communication from the Department to all employers will be essential. However, I also think that there is scope for collective remedies, and to reassure smaller enterprises that other firms are complying with the law, so they do not feel under that much pressure not to comply because they see other employers not complying. I very much hope that we are moving towards a system of labour law in which we need less enforcement and litigation, with an inspectorate that is trusted by both sides. Countries such as Japan and Sweden, for example, have extremely low litigation rates. That is partly because they have highly effective inspectorate systems, and also because employers of all sizes have come to accept the importance of labour standards.
Professor Simms: I think that returns us to my point about the importance of agencies such as ACAS being able to advise in a way that is accessible. ACAS runs a free-access telephone service to support anybody with a problem at work, whether that is a small business owner or manager, or an individual employee. That kind of service, which people can use to ask questions, is an incredibly important part of any change. We know that a lot of the enterprise agencies also offer a similar kind of support. It is those support mechanisms, as well as the communication, that I think are really important. Just because the law is complex does not mean that we have to explain it in a complicated way.
Professor Bogg: These are real concerns, and they obviously need to be taken seriously. I can see that the day one dismissal protection may well cause real anxiety for small firms. I think the point has been made that you would not expect a small business owner to look through the Employment Rights Bill. I was up at 5 o’clock this morning feverishly sweating as I read my way through it, and it would not be reasonable to expect people without legal qualifications to do that. What will be crucial in later phases of this roll-out is having guidance, such as codes of practice, that are written in accessible ways for employers to be able to do the right thing, which most employers actually want to do. I think that is really important.
The area that will require a little bit more thought is the guaranteed hours provisions, which are complex. Some of that complexity is inevitable because this is a fiendishly difficult issue, given the range of different contractual arrangements that we have in labour markets, but I do not think that is beyond the bounds of smart legislators dealing with this as it goes through the process.
Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)
Q
Professor Simms: We were warned about this question, and I am going to be very cheeky and ask for two. First, I think a clear and proactive right to strike and join a trade union would go a long way to bringing us into line with many of our comparator countries. I also have some concerns about the negotiating bodies, which really look quite like pay review bodies at the moment, rather than free collective bargaining between the parties deciding their own issues and what works for them. Those are the two areas I would focus on.
Professor Deakin: I would make a change on fire and rehire. I think that the provisions on unfair dismissal are helpful but will not address the problem of collective agreements being undercut. At best, at the moment, the remedy for an unfair dismissal is almost certainly going to be compensation, when what is needed is a mechanism to embed terms and conditions going forward. The Department is consulting on reforms to the interim relief procedure, but I would go further. I think there has to be a change to the remedy for unfair dismissal so that the previous terms can very clearly be reinstated. At the moment, it is not possible to enforce a reinstatement order. You have to go to the county court even for compensation, but in the case of a reinstatement order, the employer can resist it and just pay compensation.
In my opinion, there should be a collective arbitration mechanism. The Central Arbitration Committee should have the power to reinsert terms and conditions for the affected categories of workers, and that would be true of the persons hired, if that happens to replace those who have been dismissed. That mechanism existed under 1970s legislation and would provide the kind of collective remedy that we have just been discussing. It would be important for stabilising terms and conditions in labour markets and avoiding the need for individuals to bring complex claims before employment tribunals. I also have ideas about zero-hours contracts, but you said just one.
Professor Bogg: I have said that I think enforcement is the critical dimension of the conversation about all of this Bill. One specific change that I think would be valuable is to remove the presumption that collective agreements are not legally enforceable. That puts the UK in an almost unique position in the world. One aspect of the P&O Ferries scandal that is not often discussed is that there were collective agreements in place, but because of the statutory presumption that they were not legally binding, P&O Ferries was able to put the collective agreements in the bin. I am not saying that I would mandate them to be legally enforceable, but I would remove the statutory presumption, which would give a signal to the parties that they could make them legally enforceable. I think that would bring some real value to the enforcement dimension of UK labour law.
Nick Timothy
Q
“It is very likely we will see increased unionisation as a result of the Bill”––[Official Report, Employment Rights Public Bill Committee, 26 November 2024; c. 67.]
and Mick Lynch said that the Bill will mean that “many workers”—more than 50%, he hoped—
“are covered by collective arrangements in one form or another.”––[Official Report, Employment Rights Public Bill Committee, 26 November 2024; c. 62.]
That is up from 22% today. So I think it is fair to describe that as re-unionisation. I do not really understand why the Labour party would be so ashamed of doing such a favour for the Labour movement, of which it is a part. But anyway, you just mentioned P&O. I just wanted to ask you, who did you think was right about P&O? Was it the Transport Secretary or the Prime Minister when he slapped her down for criticising them?
Professor Deakin: I am not sure I quite understand the question.
Nick Timothy
It is about employment rights. We have been discussing P&O throughout the whole—
The Chair
If nobody wants to answer the question because you don’t know the answer, that is fine.
Professor Deakin: I can tell you what I think about P&O.
Nick Timothy
Q
One of my concerns about labour market regulation relates to the use of substitution clauses by firms like Amazon and Deliveroo, where they give a licence to a courier and the courier is then entitled to share that licence with others. The expectation is that responsibility for checks for things like the status of the substitute, in terms of whether they can work legally and so on, and responsibility for the pay that will be provided to that person, all lies not with Deliveroo or Amazon, but with the person that they have contracted with in the first place. That is not dealt with in the Bill at all; I think it should be. Can you expand on that, please?
Professor Deakin: Of course, the issue of employment status has been deferred, has it not, to a consultation? But unless a way is found to include workers like the Deliveroo workers within the scope of protective labour law, the proposals to improve collective bargaining rights and many other rights will just fall away. Large businesses like Deliveroo, I would say, need workers; and if our labour law system cannot describe those workers as protected by one means or another, there is a clear defect in it.
There are various ways to get to that point. They do not all turn upon the definition of worker, or the use of a substitution clause to get you outside the scope of the current law. In some cases, and in some countries, independent contractors are protected by labour law rights, even if they do not count as employees. In our past, homeworkers who might have employed other people had legal rights under labour laws. So this issue absolutely has to be addressed. I understand it is out for consultation. Many of the measures contained in the Bill would not be effective, unfortunately, if this issue was not grappled with.
Professor Bogg: In the situation that you have just described, I think part of the driver for the use of substitution clauses is that they are used to avoid employment status. So in any review of employment status, a key thing that will need to be addressed is the problem of substitution clauses as a way of avoiding either employee or worker status. There is quite a simple way to do that, which is to treat personal work as an indicative rather than a conclusive factor, because it then just drops back into the range of things that the tribunal will look at.
In a situation where a large company is relying on wilful blindness to avoid responsibilities under migration rules or under health and safety legislation, there is a very simple response, which is to impose criminal liability on large corporations that try to rely on wilful blindness to avoid obligations in primary legislation. That is a very straightforward way of tackling an abusive avoidance of rules that are very important to enforce.
Dr Tidball
Q
Professor Deakin: If we take the whole of individual employment law, for example, the Bill will bring us closer to the OECD average, but there will still be various respects in which we would not be as protective of individual rights as other countries, especially when they relate to remedies for unfair dismissal. Enforcement could be made much more effective, but there is no doubt that the Bill brings us closer to the OECD norm—and not just there: many countries in east Asia and other parts of the world will have labour law systems that are at least as protective as ours. So it is a corrective.
On the other hand, I emphasise that UK employment law has never been as deregulatory as US law has, for example. We are not in a situation, as US unions and US workers are, of starting from scratch. We also have a history of labour law that we can build on. That makes it easier to think of this as the first step in a rolling programme that will effectively restore us to where we were before the 1980s. In the 1970s, more than 80% of workers in this country were covered by a collective agreement. Union membership was around 55% or even 60%, but coverage was over 80%. We had a very progressive employment protection law at that point.
Going back further, we were the first country not just to industrialise, but to have modern factory legislation. We now know that the implementation of the Factory Acts led to not just protection and things like the weekend, but improved productivity. This history is important for us.
Professor Bogg: This Bill seems as radical as it does only because the baseline is so low, and it is very important to keep that in view. Let us assume that this Bill is not enacted—if you look at the OECD countries, we are the fifth least regulated on dismissal protection out of 38 countries, and we are the third least regulated on hiring on temporary contracts. That is where we are in OECD terms, so the measures on dismissal protections and guaranteed hours will push the UK back into an intermediate position in the OECD. I do not think the Bill marks any kind of revolution just yet; it just pushes the UK back into the mainstream of other civilised OECD countries with employment regulation that works effectively.
Professor Simms: To return to enforcement, the challenges of both individual and collective enforcement in the UK at the moment really do add extra difficulty. Not only do the rights not exist in general—there are relatively few rights in general—but they are very difficult to enforce.
Chris Law
Q
Professor Simms: Clearly, there will be a period of adjustment. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which represents human resources specialists in the UK, has indicated that a period of 12 to 18 months would probably be a sensible adjustment period. Business and managers in the UK tend to want to conform to whatever employment rights and regulation there is. The challenge is communication, and communicating clearly in a way that then allows them to access knowledge, skills, training and development for their capacity to do those things. It will take time—it always does—but the general trend, certainly over my lifetime, has been that where new rights have been introduced in this area, most UK companies want to come into line as promptly as they reasonably can. We are talking not decades.
Professor Deakin: I think it would be really important to build a consensus on this issue, because what can be achieved in this Bill will begin a process that will have to be rolled out further if we are to have a modern system of labour market regulation, and that will require cross-party consensus. I very much hope that that will be possible.
The Chair
I am sorry; we do not have time for any more contributions, but thank you for your attendance.
Examination of Witnesses
Luke Johnson and Michael Lorimer gave evidence.
The Chair
Good afternoon. Thank you very much for coming along. Would each of you introduce yourself, please?
Luke Johnson: My name is Luke Johnson. I have been an entrepreneur and investor for the best part of 40 years, and I am currently the co-owner and the director of various businesses employing roughly 10,000 people.
Michael Lorimer: I am Michael Lorimer; I am the chief executive of the DCS Group. We employ about 600 people. We are in the fast-moving consumer goods sector, and we have the world’s biggest non-food clients. When you buy shampoo, shower gel or Fairy liquid from a convenience store or a discount retailer, we have probably distributed it and indeed made some of it, because we have a manufacturing division as well. That is quite unusual, I think—for a distribution business to actually invent a manufacturing business—in the last 10 years. We are based in Oxfordshire and Redditch, in Worcestershire.
Greg Smith
Q
Luke Johnson: I think you need to put it in context. From my various decades of creating businesses and jobs, I would say that we now have among the highest ever levels of tax burden and of overall regulation and legislation, and that this is a high-cost country. Job vacancies have been falling for at least 15 months. Unemployment is going up. Interest rates are massively higher than they used to be. Insolvency specialists tell me that they are rubbing their hands because they think that next year will be very busy. I would say that even if we do not suffer a technical recession next year, it is odds-on that there will be a serious slowdown. I am at the cutting edge of businesses, and, in some cases, some of my companies might not survive next year. I do not know how many Committee members have ever been involved in starting and growing a company and keeping it from failing, but it is not much fun.
The idea that now is a good moment for small and medium-sized businesses—which, let’s face it, are the future; they are the ones that disproportionately innovate and, actually, disproportionately create most of the jobs. They are the ones that are the next big businesses; every business started as a small business once. On the idea that companies that can barely afford any form of HR could stomach a big new Bill of 150 pages and 28 measures, they will not even have time to read it. The idea that they can adopt something like this when they are facing quite possibly—we have to remember that they have the hangover of two years when so many of them were shut. They have legacy debts and energy prices. Electricity prices in this country are the highest of any developed nation. Try manufacturing things here now. The timing of this is beyond belief, and that needs to be put into context. Whether £5 billion is the real cost or not, it is death by 1,000 cuts because you never know until you get a big tribunal what the real cost is, for example.
Michael Lorimer: I agree. Obviously, a Bill like this does not exist in splendid isolation if you are running a business. Luke has identified the increased costs of doing business, which are severe and impact small to medium-sized enterprises most, which, as you will be aware, represent 80% of the employment in this country. There was the news yesterday about the White Paper, “Get Britain Working”, and as a top line, I am very supportive of that. I think that is absolutely brilliant. Getting 2.8 million people back into work is something I am very passionate about. In Banbury, we are beside an area of deprivation, with a lot of people on benefits, and a lot of young people who are feeling quite depressed about life. We would love to be offering those people jobs—I cannot emphasise that enough. For six months of the year we have temporary staff coming in, and we are very glad they come—they come from different countries, work very hard and do great work for us.
My concern, without being able to give you a number on it, is that for some of the riskier hires that might come from the areas around where our business is based—in other words, people not in education, employment or training, kids who have not worked before, or people who have been unemployed for a long time; you hear on the radio every day that people in their 50s cannot get a job—businesses will be very slow to take a risk because of the day one legislation that is coming down the track. We have an HR department, so we can deal with this to some extent, but as you slide down the road and find businesses that employ maybe less than 20 or 10 people, there will be deep concerns and perceptions that this is just too expensive and scary.
I was hugely encouraged by the White Paper—I think the top-line aspirations are absolutely the right ones. It is the same direction of travel, towards 2 million jobs, that the Jobs Foundation have published a report on this week, and that the Centre for Social Justice are focused on. I would exhort all of you politicians, regardless of your colour, to get behind the concept of getting Britain working. But my fear is that this torpedoes a lot of those plans—genuinely, that is my fear.
Greg Smith
Q
Luke Johnson: We are still grappling with the fallout from the Budget. There are millions of pounds of additional tax that some of my companies will have to pay, and a 6.7% increase in the national living wage, when average inflation is 2% or 3%. As for the idea that many businesses have already given deep thought to this new piece of 150-page legislation—when we already have such things as the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Equality Act 2010, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and many other pieces of legislation—I dare say that large companies have given it some thought, but most of the businesses I am involved with are not so big. I think they will wait and see what the final result is before trying to measure whether it leaves the business smaller.
With any piece of legislation like this, we have to remember that it is not just the current jobs affected, but the unseen jobs and opportunities that were never created. I urge you to look at the fact that, for the first time in many years, the number of businesses being created in this country has been falling or stagnant for five years. That is more or less the first time in decades. If we lose the full employment we have enjoyed and the enterprise economy that we have managed to create—I believe it to be much more fragile than some might believe—it will be incredibly hard to get back. Jobs do not just fall from the sky. They appear because companies are created by risk takers, and they take a risk with every job they create. Jobs only exist because they are helping that business to progress, and 80% of jobs are nothing to do with the Government—they are private sector. If you crush the private sector, you crush jobs. All the research shows that the single most important ingredient for a happy society is jobs. Without jobs, you do not have civilisation.
Michael Lorimer: Our turnover is in the public domain, so I can share it with you. We will probably turn over about £370 million this year. We are in a high-turnover, very tight-margin business, so if we make £10 million net, that is about the height of it. It is very difficult to estimate the increased cost of national insurance contributions and the national living wage, because not all the details are yet clear, but we think it will be somewhere between £1.5 million and £1.8 million. That is quite a big chunk out of our net profit.
We do not have a huge problem with it. We are a company that believes strongly in creating prosperity. The national living wage is something that our hearts have no problem with, because we would like to see people getting paid correctly, but we have to mitigate that. That is something that we just have to get on with. Our company has grown successively every year since it started 30 years ago, in top line, bottom line and people numbers.
I need to stress this again to you: the passion that we have is growth and job creation. When we see people coming into the business, working their way through it, earning more money, developing their career and prospering, that is what brings us the greatest joy of all. My concern, which I have to repeat, is that businesses smaller than ours—following on from Luke’s point, we were a small business at one stage—are going to find it very hard to get on that growth trajectory.
Justin Madders
Q
Michael Lorimer: From my perspective, there is a pretty good balance between employer and employee at the minute. I am sure you could unpick that, and there could be cases for either side, but as somebody who runs a business in, quote unquote, a “fast-moving environment”—in fact, Luke Johnson’s business is much faster-moving even than ours—where you are focusing on driving your business and trying to get results, I think that there is actually a good balance. I am not particularly in favour of tinkering too much with it. That is my personal view.
Luke Johnson: I would slightly differ, in that I think some areas are increasingly onerous for employers. Increasingly, when I talk to entrepreneurs, they are looking to outsource, offshore or automate rather than employ people. Not all of that is legislation and regulation; post furlough and lockdowns, there is a vast amount of talk among employers and owners of businesses about workforce motivation. That goes back to a point that Michael made earlier about the number of people not in work who are of working age and able-bodied. I think this is an issue for society as a whole, and I think a happy society is one in which people are productively occupied.
I am surprised that you say that many employers want greater protections for their staff. They are very entitled to give them to them if they want. They do not need to rely on the Government for that; they can just give them better contracts if they want.
There are a number of concerning aspects to the Bill, which could be counterproductive if the objective is higher living standards. As I understand it, this Government’s priority is wealth creation, prosperity and jobs. Ultimately, although I do not believe that this legislation will be devastating to employers, I think it will be damaging for job creation and therefore counterproductive to wealth creation and to achieving higher standards of living.
Sarah Gibson
Q
You mention that you are concerned about day one rights. I wonder about the changes in the probation period. We seem to be in agreement that it might affect where you draw your prospective employees from. Can you suggest any amendments to the Bill that might encourage the entrepreneurial small businesses we so rely on to continue to take on staff from areas of deprivation or the long-term unemployed—those who currently struggle to get work?
Michael Lorimer: I was at a breakfast yesterday morning for the launch the Jobs Foundation’s report, “Two Million Jobs”. A chap from Sheffield spoke who runs an organisation that gets young people into work. He gave the example of a kid—I cannot remember his name—who would not normally find it easy to get a job interview. They trained him and helped him to get the right attire to get him into a job. The point was that this guy looked very risky—he had not worked, and he came from a long line of people who had not really seen any value in work—but he got the job because the people interviewing him saw something that they thought was worth working with. They knew they were taking a risk; they did. He has turned out to be an absolutely superb kid and is now progressing well.
Equally, yesterday I spoke to a friend of mine, a CEO of a business, who had somebody who interviewed incredibly well, did very well for the first 12 months, got promoted and at month 13 or 14 became an absolute monster to manage. Under the two-year rights, they were able to sort that out.
As we all know, you can get the interview stage right or wrong with hires. For SMEs, you just need to give comfort and space that hopefully they will get the right hires, but that if they do get the wrong hires and it is not the right fit, there is an escape route. Personally, I do not want to put a time on that. Our system works well for us at the minute, but I am sure Luke might have an opinion.
Luke Johnson: I find this a big piece of legislation, by my standards: 150 pages is probably what you are used to, but as someone running a business who has 1,000 other things to do than read a 150-page piece of legislation about employment, I find the whole thing rather a surprise. The Prime Minister said that he wants to
“rip out the bureaucracy that blocks investment”.
If there is a genuine belief in the Government that this legislation will boost investment, I have a bridge to sell them.
Laurence Turner
Q
“I do not think there is a direct link; you do not pass a piece of legislation and trade union membership and collective bargaining go up”.––[Official Report, Employment Rights Public Bill Committee, 26 November 2024; c. 67.]
Another witness, Mick Lynch, said that personally he hoped to see 50% collective bargaining coverage. That is compared with 39% now. It seems like thin margarine to me and certainly not a unionisation of the economy, but there we go.
My question to the panel is the same question that was put to employers’ federations earlier this week. We all understand the points that you have made, but are there specific measures in the Bill that you welcome?
Michael Lorimer: No.
Luke Johnson: No.
Michael Lorimer: I am not trying to be contrarian, but I think Luke’s point is a very good one. There are 150 pages and 28 new measures, or whatever it is. Apart from anything else, it is an administrative burden. I welcome the White Paper hugely, but there is nothing in here that I am excited about.
Luke Johnson: I will give you an example of one very specific issue that may arise that I do not think has been thought through properly, and its unintended consequences. There is an adjustment to collective redundancy rights. This would, I guess, normally apply in a business that is going through a very severe restructuring and possibly an insolvency.
What happens in an insolvency is that a buyer can keep that business alive and keep a chunk of the jobs, at least, from going by buying it out of administration. The one thing that goes through an administration is the TUPE rights of the employees. If you are only buying a small portion of that business, normally you can carve out only TUPE rights relating to the staff of the bit you are buying—let us say that it is several divisions, departments or whatever. As I understand it, this will tighten that, as proposed, such that almost any buyer of any part of that business will face the TUPE rights of the whole workforce. The unintended consequence will therefore be that parts of a business that were good and that could survive will not; they will be shut. The whole thing will be shut and all the jobs will be lost.
I do not think that whoever drew up that part of the legislation has fully thought it through, because it is in society’s interest that where businesses can be saved and rescued—I have been involved on both sides in those situations—they should be. It is always a great deal easier in certain respects to save a business that has failed because it had too much debt, or some other problem, than to start all over again from scratch.
Michael Lorimer: Perhaps I should add that there are aspects of this that I am quite neutral or comfortable about. There are some things around bereavement, and so on, that are all good. I emphasise that my focus today is around the day one stuff and flexibility.
Nick Timothy
It is quite conspicuous that you are the first two witnesses, I think, who actually run businesses yourselves, and your evidence is rather different from much of the—
Luke Johnson: Has any of the other witnesses ever created a single job?
Nick Timothy
I would have to leave that to them.
Michael Lorimer: I did think, Nick, that we could have met in the endangered species part of the Natural History Museum, as business leaders.
Nick Timothy
Q
Luke Johnson: I think there is a complacency about our current prosperity. There is this belief that jobs will always appear, that businesses will always invest and that living standards will naturally rise. It sometimes feels as if Britain is a nation running on fumes at the moment. We have large amounts of debt, certainly at Government levels. We have public spending projected to take, I think, 45% of GDP—a very high level compared with 10 years ago—and that crowds out the private sector. Interest rates, especially if you have to borrow from the bank, are pretty punitive.
As for the idea that we can continue to occupy the role in the world that we used to occupy decades ago, it is a dramatically more competitive place. There are dozens and dozens more countries where money can be invested, factories can be sited and jobs can be created. Many of them are much lower-cost than we are. They might argue that they have a hungrier workforce, or whatever it may be. No country has ever taxed and regulated its way to a higher standard of living. It feels as if that is what this Government are about. They need to get real about how prosperous economies are actually created.
Michael Lorimer: If I were speaking to him, I would say, “Listen well to those who matter most.” To go back to the White Paper, you simply cannot create jobs without the private sector on board. You can listen to all sorts of people who will give you incredibly important stakeholder advice, but if you want to create jobs and grow the economy, the business community has to be on board. If we want to create prosperity, the private sector is where it is going to happen. I would say, “Listen well to those who matter most.”
Secondly, I would say, “Take your time and consult widely on this.” I feel that at the minute the consultation is not wide enough. We are here today: there are two of us speaking, broadly on the same message. Take time and do not rush it through for the sake of meeting a timescale. Take time and speak to business. Go out to the country and speak to small and medium-sized businesses and employer groups.
A lot of this stuff is not controversial. It is tick-box and—to go back to the first question—it is reinforcing a lot of stuff we do in the business anyway. We have 600 employees; at the minute I think we have three people in total on long-term sick, so we do not have a lot of problems. We have an engaged workforce and we are delighted to pay people well, at above the national living wage. All that stuff is about us trying not only to help our people to prosper, but to help our customers and the Banbury community to prosper. All this feels quite counterproductive and could have a lot of unforeseen consequences.
Michael Wheeler
Q
Luke Johnson: It has already been raised, but if you introduce lots of rights like paternity rights and flexible working rights from day one, you risk having more problems, and that will be a cost. For example, there is a new obligation to protect employees from harassment. That sounds wonderful, but if you are in the licensed trade, as I am, that means that a single remark from a single customer could lead to a harassment claim for which you are responsible. How on earth are we to police that?
I do not know whether you are at all familiar with the state of the hospitality trade, but it is pretty dismal. We had two years where we were barely allowed to open; we have had unprecedented energy costs; we have higher rates; we obviously have all the costs for NIC and so forth from the Budget; and we have at best flat, if not declining, sales. I fear that hundreds more—if not thousands more—hospitality businesses will shut next year for good. That is obviously not the fault of this legislation, but it is petrol on the flames.
I suspect that a lot of the organisations you are hearing from are very large corporates with huge HR departments. In a way, they want to keep out new, young and innovative competition, because that is how big companies often behave. Building walls of regulation suits them, but that is not how you get a growing, vibrant and innovative economy. You get that through lots of smaller, younger businesses growing, coming up with new ideas and challenging the incumbents.
Michael Wheeler
Q
Michael Lorimer: It goes back to what Luke said about a lot of this day one stuff. I do not want to paint a picture that we do not do a lot of this stuff already, because we work on the basis that if you recruit well and you train and develop well, you will not have as many problems down the line. But it is easy for us because we have an HR department and legal advice, so if we do hit the buffers we can deal with it. For smaller businesses—the entrepreneurial businesses that Luke mentioned—the perception, which of course is always stronger than the reality, is that it will create a lot of fear and concern.
I was in a shop recently and it took a long time for me to pay for a pair of Wellington boots. I said, “Are you busy?” He said, “No, but so-and-so left and we are not replacing him, because we’re very fearful. We’re a small business with two or three employees, and we’re anxious about what’s coming down the line.” You just need to be very mindful. That is where wide consultation comes in: you need to speak to people and see where the sore points are going to be.
The Chair
I am afraid that that brings us to the end of this panel, because we are not allowed to go beyond 3.40 pm. Thank you both very much for sharing with us your knowledge and experience, based on your work as employers.
Examination of Witnesses
John Kirkpatrick and Margaret Beels OBE gave evidence.
The Chair
We now come to the next panel. Good afternoon and thank you for coming along. Can I ask you both to introduce yourselves briefly?
John Kirkpatrick: Thank you, Sir Christopher. I am John Kirkpatrick, the chief executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission which, as I am sure colleagues know, is the regulator and enforcer of the Equality Act 2010 and one of the UK’s national human rights institutions.
Margaret Beels: I am Margaret Beels, the director of labour market enforcement. I am aware that people are not always familiar with what that role does. It was created in 2016 by the Conservative Government, who perceived that there was a lack of joined-up thinking between different enforcement bodies. They perceived that my role would help by creating a strategy to apply to three of the bodies that have an important role in enforcement: the national minimum wage team, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority. I have a statutory responsibility under the Immigration Act 2016 to produce a strategy that covers the activities of those bodies, and to report on whether the strategies that I have set have made a blind bit of difference to what has gone on. Most recently—
The Chair
Sorry; I think that is enough. Perhaps if you have more to say, you will be able to bring it out in answer to questions.
Greg Smith
Q
John Kirkpatrick: I am not sure you would necessarily expect me to answer that question directly, Mr Smith. Nevertheless, I will say that yes, you are quite right: impact assessments are very important to us.
Let me say a bit more about that in the context of the Bill. As an example, I will take some of the provisions designed to improve opportunity and to regulate particular forms of contract. We know from our work that women and disabled people have lower rates of employment than men and able-bodied people, and we know that younger workers are more likely to be in zero-hours contracts than workers of other ages, and so on and so forth. The measures in the Bill that are designed to protect the interests of those people with protected characteristics may well be beneficial to them, but not if the result is that those jobs then vanish rather than improve.
What I would put back to the Committee, and potentially to the Government, is the real importance of assessing up front the likely implications of the measures that Parliament wants to put in place. If it does enact the measures, subsequently reviewing and monitoring them to know what impact they have actually had would be really important. I should probably put in my advertisement, at the end of that comment, that it seems to us that only if they do that will the Government be fulfilling their obligations, under the public sector equality duty, to assess the impact of the things they want to do on those in whose interests they seek to act.
Margaret Beels: I would address the question in a similar way, in the sense that when we look at the labour market, we see the job situation being very flexible, but one person’s flexibility can be another person’s precariousness. We are about to publish some research—in fact, we will publish it tomorrow—that is based on a survey of workers, which demonstrates that about 10% of workers are in precarious work and about 8% of workers get stuck in precarious work. That is the matter that needs to be addressed.
Greg Smith
Q
John Kirkpatrick: The answer is that it is hard to tell. You have already heard evidence on that—I heard some of the evidence this afternoon and you have heard other evidence in other sessions—from others who are arguably better qualified to answer the question than I am. As I say, I encourage you as a Committee to encourage the Government to ensure that it thinks that point through carefully, as you consider the Bill, and to bear that advice in mind as you scrutinise it.
Margaret Beels: My office has not done that analysis and I would be guessing if I answered the question.
Justin Madders
Q
Margaret Beels: I took on this role in the expectation that there was going to be a single enforcement body, which the previous Government had referred to but did not bring about. I was strongly supportive of the creation of a single body and accordingly I am supportive of the creation of the fair work agency.
From my perspective, which involves looking at what has worked under the existing arrangements and what could work better, I went back and looked at the recommendations in the strategy that I most recently published, on 11 November, and it had 12 recommendations. I looked at them and considered how things are working out now under three bodies with different governance, different plans and different ways of doing things, and whether I think that under a fair work agency regime those things would be done better. A fairly quick assessment is that half of them would definitely be done better; the other things would probably be done much the same. The ones that relate to having a better joined-up approach, to greater efficiency and to better sharing of information among bodies are the things that I think the fair work agency will do a lot better.
Justin Madders
Q
Margaret Beels: One of the things I found it hard to do was to assess the impact of the different bodies, because they all have their own governance arrangements. I have a statutory responsibility to decide whether more should be spent in one body or in another. In practice, however, because they run under their own governance, it is really hard to do that and assess whether spending a bit more on national minimum wage enforcement or a bit less on employment agencies would be better value for money, because value for money for the public purse is really important. We are all public servants: we are all accountable to you as parliamentarians and to the public. I have found it really difficult to answer that question about the effectiveness of the different activities.
Justin Madders
Q
John Kirkpatrick: It is clear, Minister, that a number of people with protected characteristics are particularly vulnerable to the sorts of practice or exploitation that the fair work agency would devote itself to being concerned about. I would defer to Margaret on whether the unification of the existing authorities will make for improved enforcement. If it does, it will clearly be of benefit to those people.
I suppose the one thing I would add is that it is really important in this kind of area and these parts of the labour market that there is clarity on both employers’ obligations and employee’s rights, and what their sources of redress might be if those rights are breached. Real clarity and distinction of who enforces what seems to me very important. There is no difference between us on this, nor anything in the Bill that would confuse that. The maintenance of that clarity, so that people can understand what their rights are and how to exercise them, seems to us an important precondition to the Bill being successful in that aim.
Margaret Beels: The research I referred to, which is being published tomorrow, demonstrates that the workers more at risk of precarious work are female workers and younger workers, as well as workers from a lower-working-class background. The industries in which they work that are most at risk of being precarious are hospitality, retail, agriculture and construction. I think, to the extent that the Bill will address some of the issues affecting more precarious workers, that will be of benefit.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Are there any specific areas of the Bill that you think could be simplified? Obviously, we have been discussing other things outside the remit of the Bill, but within the Bill itself are there any specific areas that, if they were simplified, would make enforcement easier and more effective?
Margaret Beels: I have responsibility for the national minimum wage team, and when I talk to them about what they do, they often refer to the fact that the complaints that come to them are not valid. They are made without full understanding by the workers of their rights around the national minimum wage. The teams talk about training their inspectors for six months, and it troubles me that that is an area where it is difficult to know whether you are being paid correctly.
From my point of view, I would favour arrangements that are better at communicating with workers as to what their rights are. I know that ACAS does a brilliant job, and the national minimum wage team themselves and the other agencies all try to communicate better, but I think there is an issue with the national minimum wage. If you pay a worker the national minimum wage, the chances are that they are not being paid the national minimum wage. To play it safe, businesses should be paying comfortably above it to ensure that they are okay.
John Kirkpatrick: I do not have a huge amount to add to that. I recognise that most enforcement of the Equality Act 2010 comes through the tribunal system, which imposes a burden on the individual to understand their rights and have access to appropriate advice, redress and so on. We can do a certain amount of enforcement ourselves.
The other thing that we will do, as the enforcer of the Equality Act, is try to provide as much clarity of guidance as we can. In a sense, that is the first step in an enforcement process. The most recent example, I suppose, would be the guidance that we consulted on and published on the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023, which came into force only a few weeks ago. We felt it desirable and necessary to put quite a lot more guidance into the public domain to help both employers and employees to understand their rights.
In a sense, the lesson from that is that yes, that is something we can own the responsibility for doing in our area of work, as others do in other areas—ACAS does work on this, as do others. The important thing is that the initial law is as clear and straightforward as it can be. I urge the Committee to have that in mind as it thinks about the legislation before it. The clarity and simplicity of the underlying law is the thing that makes it easier to enforce.
Chris Murray (Edinburgh East and Musselburgh) (Lab)
Q
First, what is your assessment of how effective the GLAA has been, given how it was constructed, and how has it been able to perform its functions? Secondly, specifically on modern slavery—thinking about those the GLAA was set up to protect, such as the Morecambe Bay cockle workers—how do you see those functions working in a single enforcement body?
Margaret Beels: It is really important that, in setting up the new body, the three bodies sit down to think about what they do well, so that when we bring them together, we will bring the best of what is done. One of the recommendations in my most recent strategy is to encourage them to start the dialogue with each other at every level—so what an inspector from, for example, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate does when they go out, versus what is done when a compliance inspector goes out from the GLAA.
I gather a lot of evidence from stakeholders, and they will say, “This works really well here,” or, “That works really well there.” In informing the fair work agency, there should not be a presumption that something will always be done one way because that is done by this lot; instead, we should look at the journey of non-compliance. It is important to help businesses to be compliant; that is, by far, the best way to achieve compliance.
Who is good at doing the communication with businesses, then? The national minimum wage team do that as well—they have their geographical compliance approach and they try to go out to help business. How do we build that into the structure of what is done? When it comes to deliberate non-compliance and modern slavery, you need to have the teeth to deal with that. The modern slavery dimension will move across into the fair work agency, but then it will have the whole spectrum of looking at how things are done.
Resources will be important to the fair work agency. All the bodies will talk about the fact that they do not have the resources that they would like to do the full job that they are there to do. I go back to challenge them: “Can you show me the value for money in what you are doing? Are you being as efficient as you might be?” My strategy talks about the use of artificial intelligence—are they building those tools into how they do things, so that they can have the maximum efficiency possible? Then, as they come together, will they listen to each other to make sure that they pick the best?
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
Q
John Kirkpatrick: We start from the position that everyone has the right to a workplace in which they are free from the risk of discrimination or of harassment. In our view, that ought to be the way it works. We have lots of evidence, as I am sure you and other Members have from your constituents. For example, from our “Turning the tables” report, we know that a quarter of respondents had been harassed by third parties in the workplace. That is a particular issue for people in customer-facing roles.
It was interesting to hear Margaret talking about sectors that are vulnerable to exploitation. Some of those where we have found vulnerability—[Interruption.]
The Chair
Do not worry about the bell.
John Kirkpatrick: I will carry on, as long as I am audible, Sir Christopher.
We have found similar sectors where people are vulnerable. We have issued specific guidance, often in combination with relevant trade associations, in sectors like hospitality and the performing arts, which appear particularly prone to instances of sexual harassment. We continue to do a lot of work on this; we have active enforcement activity, for example, with McDonald’s. We have also made an announcement only today with the Welsh Rugby Union; as some of you will be aware, they have had their difficulties in this area, but they have agreed with us a section 23 agreement, as we call it, to rectify what is going on.
It is really important. We are broadly comfortable with the provisions in the Bill that strengthen the sanctions on sexual harassment. We know that we are responsible for enforcing some of those that already exist, and we are concerned that the scale of that enforcement will be challenging for us and that we—Margaret spoke earlier about resources—will need the capacity to be able to do what we can to help enforce the measures that Parliament puts in place.
Margaret Beels: I am well aware from the evidence that comes to me that one of things that vulnerable workers also experience is sexual harassment. They are so desperate to keep their jobs that they will accept that, because it is the price of getting the next shift. That is unacceptable.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
Q
John Kirkpatrick: I think I said earlier that to the extent that some of those protected characteristic groups have worse experiences in the labour market than others, protecting them is absolutely desirable. The only risk is to the flexibility of employment, which can even include such things as zero-hours contracts, which are very convenient and desirable for some people. If those opportunities were to diminish, that would be of some concern, but I think that that does no more than repeat the point I made earlier that we need, both in advance and subsequently, to monitor very carefully the impact of these measures on levels of employment and quality of employment, which is what I think they are aimed at.
Margaret Beels: In terms of the sectors that we regard as being at the highest risk of labour exploitation, which is what I worry about, such as agriculture, the car-washing industry, construction or adult social care—we have not talked much about adult social care, but I have been doing quite a lot of work in relation to workers’ experiences in adult social care—I welcome the measures in the Bill that will start to address some of those issues. I know that the Bill will not necessarily address the totality of those problems, because there are obviously issues around the finance for improving those things, but previous speakers talked about what we as a nation value. We need to value our adult social care workers and the work they do, and to give them more support.
John Kirkpatrick: Since Margaret has introduced social care as a particular sector, I might add that the work we have done in the past on the workforce in that sector again showed an issue that I referred to earlier, which is the challenge of people being able to understand their rights, particularly where those rights are complicated and are not necessarily written in the most accessible language, even in the best guidance. That can be really challenging, and has been particularly for ethnic minority workers in the health and social care sector among others.
Margaret Beels: It was quite striking in the work I did on adult social care that about a third of domiciliary workers in England are on zero-hours contracts. That does seem a very high number.
The Chair
If there are no further questions, may I thank you both for coming along and sharing your expertise with us this afternoon?
Examination of Witness
Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson gave evidence.
The Chair
Dr Stephenson, would you please introduce yourself briefly?
Dr Stephenson: Thank you very much for inviting me here this afternoon. My name is Mary-Ann Stephenson. I am the director of the UK Women’s Budget Group, which is a feminist economics think-tank that works to analyse the impact of economic policy on women and men, and on different groups of women and men.
Greg Smith
Q
Dr Stephenson: We think this Bill marks an important step in the right direction in improving the rights of women in the workplace. We particularly welcome the provisions on zero-hours contracts, which will benefit over half a million women. We also welcome the changes to statutory sick pay; 73% of those who currently do not qualify for sick pay because they earn too little are women.
We welcome the fair pay agreement in social care—I know that the previous speakers talked about social care, and it would be good to talk a bit more about that. Obviously, women are the majority of workers in the social care sector, but they are also the majority of those needing care. Improving pay and conditions for social care workers will also have a beneficial impact on the recipients of care, because it will reduce turnover in the sector, which is a really big problem at the moment. There would also be a knock-on impact on unpaid carers, the majority of whom are also women—care is very much a female-dominated sector.
We welcome the improved day one rights to paternity and parental leave. These are often seen as particularly beneficial to fathers and partners, but we believe that women will also benefit from them. Women’s unpaid work is at the heart of their economic inequality; women do 50% more unpaid work than men. The time when a child is born is often the point at which the distribution of unpaid work gets fixed. Most parents go into parenthood thinking that they want to have a more egalitarian sharing of care than maybe their parents did when they were growing up. But as one person described it to me, “You wake up one day, and you suddenly find yourself back in the 1950s,” because of the very limited rights that fathers and second parents have. So we think that this policy will benefit women as well.
We welcome the greater protection against pregnancy and maternity discrimination. We know that you heard earlier this week from the Fawcett Society and Pregnant Then Screwed about flexible working and sexual harassment, and we very much support their positions.
There are some areas where we would like the Bill to go further. On statutory sick pay, for example, we think that the Government needs to increase the rate. The low rate at the moment means that even those who are entitled to it often continue to go to work when they are ill, which is not only bad for them, but bad for public health—
Greg Smith
Q
Dr Stephenson: At least at the level of maternity pay, for example. We are one of only four countries in Europe that does not extend some right to sick pay to self-employed people, so we think we should do that.
We were disappointed that the Government went back on their original proposals that people who were previously on zero-hours contracts who had shifts cancelled at the last minute should be reimbursed for those shifts. That is a particular problem for women, who often have to arrange childcare if they are in paid work, so having a shift cancelled means not just the loss of the pay, but paying out for childcare.
We think that this is a missed opportunity to improve rights to maternity pay—we know that that is under review—but particularly to deal with the discrepancy between statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance for people claiming universal credit. At the moment, statutory sick pay counts as pay for the purposes of universal credit, but maternity allowance counts as a benefit, so you lose universal credit pound for pound. If you are not entitled to statutory maternity pay and must go on maternity allowance, you are basically losing whatever money you get off universal credit. We are also supportive of the call from the Fawcett Society and Pregnant Then Screwed for a duty to advertise jobs as flexible.
We think that underpinning all this is the problem with our civil legal system; having improved rights at work is only as important as your ability to exercise those rights. Since the reduction to civil legal aid under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the only area of employment law that is covered by legal aid is discrimination law. Many people do not even know that they have a discrimination case until they see a lawyer in the first place, so if this Bill is to have the effect that the Government want, they need to look at provisions around civil legal aid.
Greg Smith
Q
Dr Stephenson: Yes, that is something that we have also called for. This is where a woman loses a pregnancy before the point at which it counts as a stillbirth. Late pregnancy loss can be extremely traumatic and have health implications for women as well as psychological implications, and we think that the right to paid leave in those circumstances is really important.
Justin Madders
Q
Dr Stephenson: We have not done as much work in this area as organisations such as the Fawcett Society or some of the trade unions, but we are very conscious that for women working in the hospitality sector, for example, third-party harassment can be a really serious issue. We think it is important that women have those rights and protections, but beyond that it is more that we would support them than that we have done much detailed work.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Dr Stephenson: Obviously, the provisions about paternity and parental leave as a day one right will benefit those with caring responsibilities. We are pleased to see that there are plans to review carers’ entitlement. The problem with leave for carers is that it is one of the lowest-paid benefits that we have in the UK. Very many carers end up in poverty as a result. We know that there are higher rates of physical and mental health problems among carers because of the poverty, the strains caused by caring and the difficulties of balancing caring work with paid work. Obviously, the flexible work provisions will go a long way to helping people with caring responsibilities, and we think that is a very good thing.
Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)
Q
Dr Stephenson: Yes. What we know is that at every point at which women’s rights have been improved in the labour market—the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the introduction of the national minimum wage, where women were the majority of those who benefited—there have always been some people who have said, “This will be disastrous for business and will lead us to stop employing women,” but that has not actually happened. The proportion of women in the labour market has gone up, and businesses have benefited from having an increased number of women in the labour market.
I think that what is proposed around paternity and parental leave is relatively minimal, compared with what is available in a number of other European countries, for example. I do not think that this will be disastrous for business. I do think that if we want women to be able to survive and thrive in the labour market, we have to redress the balance where women of child-bearing age are seen as much more of a risk for employers than men are. We know that in the long term we will all benefit from legislation that makes things better for parents and makes it easier for people to have children and to raise a family, because one of the crises that we are facing on a global scale is a falling birth rate. A society where there are not enough young people to work and pay the taxes that will support those of us here today when we are in our old age and to care for us when we are old is a society that is in trouble. Part of doing this is improving rights for parents when they have small children, so that people have the children they want to have, rather than thinking, “We can’t afford to do this.”
Anneliese Midgley
Q
Dr Stephenson: I am also an employer, and we have an incredibly flexible working policy. I think flexible work is largely beneficial for employers as well as workers, not least because it enables you to recruit and retain the best staff. At the moment, the labour market is relatively tight, particularly in some parts of the country and in some sectors. We have higher levels of, for example, economic inactivity among women than men and we know that this is something the Government want to do something about.
One of the reasons for economic inactivity among women is caring responsibilities. There are large numbers of women who are not in the labour market who said that they would like to be in paid work if they could find a job that gave them the flexibility they needed. That can only be a benefit to wider society, and ultimately to employers, first, because they can attract the best people and, secondly, because we are more likely to have a strong and growing economy.
Uma Kumaran
Q
Dr Stephenson: As I said, the flexible working provisions particularly benefit women’s labour market participation. Some of it is not just about participation, but about improved pay and conditions; for example, the end to exploitative zero-hours contracts improves women’s position in the labour market, which means they are less likely to leave the labour market.
Another thing is the fair pay agreements in social care, if they were seen as a starting point and extended so that, having started out with social care and looked at how it worked, you looked at other sectors such as early education and childcare. That is a sector very similar to social care, particularly now we have the big extension of funded hours coming in—largely private provision delivering public services that are majority publicly funded, with a majority female workforce on low pay and often working part time. That model of fair pay agreements could not just support women working in those sectors, but support more women into the labour market, if you had available, affordable early education and childcare.
We did some work with the Centre for Local Economic Strategies last year looking at the loss to the economy from women’s under-participation compared with men, and that loss comes to £88.7 billion. Enabling women to enter the labour market, to stay in the labour market or to increase their working hours has the potential to bring real benefit to both the national and local economy.
Alison Hume
Q
Dr Stephenson: Having a better enforcement body and proper enforcement of the living wage and equalising minimum wage rates with living wage rates for workers under 21—the hospitality industry in particular employs large numbers of younger people—will be really important. Good employers want to do the right thing, and they are undercut by bad employers who are deliberately breaking the law, so better enforcement is important.
To go back to my earlier point, outwith this Bill it is also important to look at access to proper legal advice for people in those situations. It can be very difficult—we have advice deserts in this country. One of the impacts of cuts to civil legal aid has been a reduction in any lawyers with specialism in certain areas, because the loss of legal aid has meant less money in the sector and fewer people going in to develop that specialism. Even if you can afford to pay, it can be quite hard to find a lawyer for certain areas. The enforcement mechanism will make a big difference, but we also need to look at legal aid.
Dr Tidball
Q
Secondly, we heard from an earlier witness that they were not certain whether the Bill would lead to a decrease in jobs among people with protected characteristics. What is your perspective on the role of the Bill in positively affecting those who have protected characteristics, particularly women and disabled women?
Dr Stephenson: On your first point, as I said earlier, women’s unpaid work is at the heart of their economic inequality. One thing we need to do is to have a better balance of those unpaid caring responsibilities between women and men.
The paternity and parental leave changes in the Bill are a step—a small step. We need to go much further, because we still have one of the biggest gaps in Europe between the entitlement for fathers and second parents and the entitlement for mothers. We also need men to have periods of leave in their own right that they are not taking while the mother is on leave.
The thing about paternity leave is that it is generally taken immediately after the birth and it is about providing support to a new mother just after she has given birth. It is a very difficult time: the first time you do not know what you are doing, and the second time you normally have a toddler to look after as well as a baby, so you need more than one pair of hands.
If we are going to change patterns of caring, there needs to be provision that would encourage and support men to have leave after their partners have gone back to work, where they are the sole carer, because it is not until you are the sole carer in charge of a baby that you actually understand what it is really like. If you are one of two parents at all times, there is always somebody else to do it. That needs a different type of leave.
We have called for a period of maternity leave, which is about recovering from childbirth, establishing breastfeeding and so on; for a period of paternity/partner leave, which is about supporting a new mother; and then for both parents to have a period of what we would call parental leave, which is about caring for a child. Both of those need to be paid, and they need to be individualised. We think that would make a difference. That is something that we hope would come out of longer-term reviews of maternity, paternity and parental leave.
In terms of whether the Bill would lead to a decrease in jobs for people with protected characteristics, as I said earlier, that warning is often heard when you improve employment rights—that actually, it will lead to job losses. That has not proved to be the case thus far, and I do not think the changes in the Bill are so significant that they would lead to job losses. For example, the changes to paternity leave are relatively minimal—it is about making it a day one right, rather than making people wait. It will really help those whom it benefits, but it would be unusual for an employer to go, “Actually, men now have a day one right to paternity leave, therefore I’m not going to employ them.” Of course, men have a protected characteristic of sex, just as women do.
In many areas, improving the situation of workers on zero-hours contracts, who are more likely to be from ethnic minority backgrounds, is more likely to improve their overall standard of living. It will help to lift them and their families out of poverty, so it is more likely to be beneficial.
Laurence Turner
Q
Dr Stephenson: I can speak to the first question; the second is probably beyond my area of knowledge. We welcome the move to include outsourced workers in gender pay gap reporting. We think that this has been a gap. We are very conscious that you will quite often see that the lowest paid workers, particularly in the public sector, are now outsourced. One of the reasons why people say pay in the public sector is better on average than in the private sector is not because it is better job for job; it is because the lowest paid workers have been moved out of the public sector and into the private sector, and a large proportion of those workers are women, for example cleaners, canteen cooks and so on.
Counting those workers in is really important, as is anything that encourages greater insourcing of workers. What we have seen with outsourcing is that the efficiencies and so-called savings have been largely at the expense of the pay and conditions of those outsourced workers.
The Chair
Thank you very much for coming along and giving your evidence.
Examination of Witness
Justin Madders MP gave evidence.
The Chair
We now come to the finale—the Minister. Can you briefly introduce yourself for the record, please?
Justin Madders: Good afternoon. My name is Justin Madders. I am the Minister for Employment Rights, Competition and Markets. I also state for the record that I am a member of the GMB and Unite trade unions.
Greg Smith
Q
Justin Madders: Thank you for the question. I think the first thing to say is that it is not that unusual. In the last three years, there have been 10 red-rated Bills. Obviously, as the shadow Minister, you will be aware that it was your Government that introduced those. I think there is a challenge here that that all newly elected Governments face: obviously, we have a clear manifesto commitment to deliver on our agenda to make work pay and a clear manifesto commitment to introduce the legislation within 100 days of taking office. That means that, by definition, there is not the time and scope for the normal dialogue and informal conversations that you would get between the Department and the RPC before the final impact assessment is published. I think there is a fundamental challenge there.
As you would expect, we undertook quite a lot work in opposition to develop our policies, but because that is not part of the formal process, we were not able to take that into account. The alternative was for us to wait six or 12 months before we got that impact assessment into a position where the RPC was happy with it, and I do not think the public would really forgive us for having that hiatus between taking office and legislating.
It is also worth saying that, if you look at the individual assessments, two thirds of them have been greenlit, so they are getting approval from the RPC. We acknowledge that there is more work to do on some of them, and we will continue to work with the RPC. I also have a little sympathy with some of the difficulties that the RPC had in coming to its conclusions.
A good example of that is the repeal of the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023, which the RPC has noted was red-rated when it was introduced as a Bill anyway. As that Act was poorly evidence-based in the first place, and has never actually been used since it came into force, it was very difficult for the RPC to have any real evidence on what the impact of a repeal would be. Our critique would be that the reason for that is because it was unworkable anyway, but I understand in the circumstances why the RPC would have some difficulty making a judgment on that.
On some of the other measures where it said that there was no evidence base, such as some of the equalities measures, we heard some pretty clear evidence both today and on Tuesday—for example, from the Fawcett Society and Pregnant Then Screwed—about some of the real impacts on individuals of the policies in the Bill. I would also say that I do not think there was any real evidence that there is not a need for this legislation. The general thrust from most witnesses was that this Bill would deal with some of the challenges in the labour market. Although not every witness said that, that was generally the case. Of course, as we move forward and get more evidence, we will happily work with the RPC to try to improve those reds to greens.
Greg Smith
Q
Justin Madders: I think it is important that we stick to our promises, and this measure was very popular with the public during the election. I think they wanted to see action quickly. We have had 14 years of atrophy and decline in the labour market—you are obviously not going to agree with that comment, but that would be our analysis—so the need to act quickly was there. A lot of these provisions will not actually become law for a number of months, if not years—in particular unfair dismissal, which we are saying will come in in autumn 2026 at the earliest. There is an awful lot more time to continue to engage and consult, and we intend to do that. Of course, because of the very detailed nature of employment law, a lot of it is developed in secondary legislation and also codes of practice. That is the completely normal practice, and that is why a lot of it is framed in this way.
Greg Smith
Q
Justin Madders: Yes, I do. I have to say, I did not agree with much of their evidence. I think it would be fair to say that they are outliers in what we heard while we engaged with businesses. Most businesses understood the importance of engaging and of enhancing workplace rights, and see the benefits of it. I can provide you with a list of all the organisations we have engaged with. It is certainly over 140 organisations. The majority of those are employers or employer organisations, so I think we have been pretty comprehensive. We are continuing that next week and will continue to do it for the rest of the Bill’s passage.
Greg Smith
Q
Justin Madders: I have sympathy with what was said there. The first thing to say is that the rates for maternity leave and allowance are set by the Department for Work and Pensions. I probably cannot say much more than that at this stage, although I have had some initial discussions with that Department about what we can do to reform this area, because we recognise that it is quite an outdated system.
Greg Smith
And on bereavement leave?
Justin Madders: Again, that is something I am sympathetic to. I understand that the Women and Equalities Committee is undertaking an inquiry on that at the moment, and we are going to see what it says.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Justin Madders: There were two questions there. On probationary periods, there will be more work done on that. The evidence that I picked up is that most employers feel that six months is about the right period. The reason why we have expressed a preference for nine months, which we are obviously engaging on anyway, is that we recognise that there will be occasions when people might be on the cusp of being hired or fired at that point and the employer just wants a little bit more time to work with them. We think that is a reasonable point, and we have responded to employers’ concerns on that.
As we move forward with this legislation, we will certainly be looking to ensure that all businesses, particularly small businesses, have readily available and easily understandable resources so that they know what they need to do. We do not want to pass a lot of laws that allow employers to fall into traps. We want them to comply with best practice, which is what we are trying to set out in this Bill.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Justin Madders: I think we all recognise the point that was made by a number of witnesses. I think that even Matt Hancock, when he was Health Secretary during the pandemic, said that he did not think that SSP was at a rate that anyone could live on. It should be pointed out, though, that this is within the remit of the Department for Work and Pensions; the Secretary of State has the ability to set the rate, and I cannot really tread on their toes. We recognise that at the moment there are several million people who do not qualify for statutory sick pay at all. Our focus in this Bill is on making sure that they qualify for that right.
Sarah Gibson
Q
Justin Madders: I take the point. I do not want to deflect, but that is really for the Department for Work and Pensions. What we are trying to do with flexible working is to make sure that as many people as possible are able to work in circumstances that suit them. We think that if we get this right, it will be transformative for lots of people who are locked out of the labour market at the moment, and that is what we are trying to achieve.
Chris Murray
Q
Justin Madders: Over the last 14 years, there has been a pretty hostile environment for trade unionists. That has been ramped up in recent years, which is why we have seen in the last couple of years the highest number of industrial relations disputes for about 40 years. The solution is not to continue to legislate to make it harder for people to strike; it is actually to change the culture and attitude towards industrial relations.
We are trying to make sure that trade unions have the opportunity to operate on a level playing field, and I think that we have heard plenty of evidence from both employers and trade unions that when there is a constructive relationship, businesses benefit and individual workers benefit. There is plenty of evidence that trade union members usually have better pay, and better terms and conditions—that is recognised throughout the world—and that is something that we want to help facilitate under this legislation.
Nick Timothy
Q
Justin Madders: I think that is actually a challenge for the trade union movement. I think that they would accept that this is really up to them. Personally, as a trade union member and someone who has been actively involved in the trade union movement for many years, I see the absolute advantages and benefits of being a trade union member, but it is really up to them to get into the workplaces, explain their advantages to the workforce and then engage on a tripartite basis with Government, business and workers to improve everyone’s working lives.
Nick Timothy
Q
Justin Madders: I would imagine that there are quite a few.
Nick Timothy
Can you name some?
Justin Madders: I cannot name individual CEOs. Octopus has been very positive, Sainsbury’s has been very positive and, as we heard today, the Co-op has been very positive. I think the CBI welcomed the Bill and welcomed the engagement as well, and Make UK too. There are quite a lot of organisations on the employer side that are generally welcoming of the intentions of the Bill, and I think that has been reflected in the evidence.
Nick Timothy
Q
Justin Madders: I think you will find that the Co-op is a real business, and it employs an awful lot of people.
Alison Hume
Q
Justin Madders: That is a really good question. One of the reasons was in your question—there are 1.6 million people employed in the sector. It is a huge part of the economy. Unfortunately, at the moment, as we heard in the evidence, it is characterised by poor terms and conditions and high numbers of zero-hours contracts, and quite often minimum wage is not enforced properly. These are people doing really important jobs in our society. They deserve a voice and a collective opportunity to raise terms and conditions, and the opportunity to work with employers to develop a career path. This is a transformative structure that will hopefully change the lives of many working people and, of course, the people they care for.
Uma Kumaran
Q
Justin Madders: There is generally an acceptance, both in the economic analysis we have heard from some of the witnesses today and from businesses themselves, that getting a motivated, engaged and retained workforce is good for productivity and the business overall. Having a more engaged and well-remunerated workforce has been shown to actually boost profits. The fact that the OECD was referred to by the Resolution Foundation as a body that believes that greater workers’ rights actually improve the economic outcome of the country is a really important factor that we need to emphasise.
Michael Wheeler
Q
Justin Madders: There are an awful lot of people who will benefit if we get this right. I am talking about people who do not know from one week to the next how many hours they will have or whether they will be paid enough to put food on the table. Our reforms on zero-hours contracts will really help with that. People who can be arbitrarily sacked for no reason for the first two years of their employment—about 9 million people—will benefit from that. The 1.6 million people in the social care sector will benefit. There are 900,000 people a year who will benefit from bereavement leave entitlements. Overall, as ACAS has suggested, the cost of disputes to the economy can be up to £30 billion a year. Just imagine what a difference it would make if we could shave a fraction off that. I think that the Bill is setting a new culture in our country about how we do workplace relations. It is putting the value of the worker/employee relationship with businesses at the heart of everything we do.
Dr Tidball
Q
Justin Madders: Obviously, the TUC report is not an official Government document, but it has some interesting figures. It reckons that we could gain up to £974 million from reducing the number of days that people take off due to stress and anxiety because of poor working conditions; another £930 million a year from improved staff wellbeing; £168 million a year from improved minimum wage compliance; £510 million a year from reduced industrial action; £8 billion a year, potentially, from improved industrial relations; and up to £2.6 billion a year from increased labour market participation—there are a number of reasons why that might be the case. We do not know how much of those figures will be delivered, because an awful lot of variables are in there, but it is an impressive attempt to quantify, in a way that we cannot, given the rules of Government the positive impacts of the Bill on the wider economy.
Anneliese Midgley
Q
Justin Madders: Engagement continues, and there will be more next week—we are meeting a group of small and medium-sized businesses—but to date 140 different stakeholders have attended official or ministerial meetings. You will have heard from many of the witnesses that they have been quite impressed, I think, with the level of engagement and how we have listened to concerns expressed about the Bill. We also undertook extensive engagement in opposition. We will continue to do that. We are moving through some live consultations at the moment. As we develop the Bill and some of the regulations and codes of practice that will follow it, there will continue to be engagement throughout. We are very clear that that is the best way to deliver excellent legislation, and we will continue it.
Laurence Turner
Q
Justin Madders: I hope it will have a positive impact on industrial relations. The way strike action spiralled in recent years was probably the result of frustration with a Government who were not listening to the voice of workers, were not prepared to address their concerns, and were actively moving to frustrate legitimate acts by trade unions to take industrial action. It is about the culture and the level of engagement, as much as it is about the legislation, but there is no suggestion, as far as I can see, that the Bill will massively increase strike action, as some people might have suggested.
The Chair
As there are no further questions, I thank the Minister on behalf of the Committee for his evidence.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Anna McMorrin.)
Westminster Hall
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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BACKBENCH BUSINESS
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Fishing Industry
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the fishing industry.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Efford. I am grateful to members of the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for this debate, and I am delighted to see such good geographic and political representation in this Chamber.
Before we come to the meat of the politics, as we enter Advent it is worth reflecting for a second or two that, in coastal and island communities right around our country, there will always be families with a sense of sadness because somebody will not be with them for Christmas. Last year, four people in the fishing industry lost their lives. That number goes up and down—in 2021, it was as high as 10. It is worth our remembering as we talk here in the safety, security and warmth of Westminster Hall that the way in which our fishers actually live and work is very different. They often take an enormous personal risk to put food on our table, and we should not forget that.
I will touch on four different areas. First, there are the year-end negotiations coming up between the UK, the EU and Norway. Looking ahead, we have the review of the trade and co-operation agreement and the transitional arrangements in 2026. There is also the ability of our fishing industry to access traditional fishing grounds and the extent to which it is being squeezed out of them. Finally, there is the availability of crew for many boats, especially those operating inside UK territorial waters, to whom the opportunity of visas through the transit visa regime is not available.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the right hon. Gentleman on bringing forward this debate. I have spoken to him, and I apologise that I cannot be here for the rest of it—I think it will be the first fishing debate that I will ever miss in totality.
In the debate we had on 5 November, the Minister discussed the issue of positive outcomes that could be attained if these issues could be resolved. The ability to go to sea to catch fish is reliant on having the crews to man vessels. Despite automation projects being brought forward, the problem is in the ability to access crews and thereby survive long enough to bring the benefits of these opportunities into local communities. This is not just a Northern Irish problem. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that some relatively minor tweaks to Home Office policy would enable the growth potential identified for Northern Ireland and all this great United Kingdom to be replicated in one form or another?
Mr Carmichael
As interventions go, I think that meets its total allowable catch. I will come on to that issue—the hon. Gentleman knows that, because we have debated it often enough. If he cannot be here for the entirety of the debate, his fishing constituents will know well enough that he is a regular and diligent contributor to these debates. He will be missed at the end of the debate, if he is not here.
Mr Efford, you and I are long enough in the tooth to remember the December fishing debate ahead of the December Fisheries Council, which was a staple of the parliamentary calendar when we were in the European Union. Of course, things have changed since then—the debate is no longer in Government time, but we always have the co-operation of the Backbench Business Committee in holding it, and the focus now tends to be on the UK-EU-Norway debates.
Essentially, we are still looking at year by year by year negotiations. I am afraid that, even outwith the EU, this remains an absolutely crazy way to run an industry. I cannot believe that any Minister in Government would ever go to Tesco or Sainsbury’s and say, “We’re going to tell you how much business you can do next year, but only for next year. By the way, we won’t tell you until the end of December—sometimes well into January or February—how much business you are going to be able to do.” Surely at some point we have to move away from this crazy annual round and get into a proper, stable set of multi-annual negotiations. But we are where we are for the moment, and that is what we have to deal with.
When the Minister responds, will he outline what he sees as the priorities for the negotiations this year? I also invite him to reflect on the role of the science that underpins the negotiations. The blue-chip science comes from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea—ICES. It is always complex, often quite nuanced, and often vulnerable to misrepresentation. It is a mix of empirical data, extrapolation through mathematical modelling, conjecture and the application of precautionary principles when the evidence is just not adequate. That is then balanced with socioeconomic factors and a bit of politics thrown in for good measure. The TCA negotiations will coincide with the arrangements on energy co-operation, for example. I am afraid we are back in the situation we were in during the EU days, when there was often conflation between different negotiations; and where there was linkage, it was inevitably the fishing industry that lost out.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent case. On his point about multi-annual quotas, does he not agree that ICES very carefully presents its advice in a manner that actually provides for Governments, Ministers and indeed the European Commission to adopt a policy of multi-annual quotas for stock recovery? It does not necessarily solely push the industry or the legislators into a position where they have to set the annual cliff edges that he describes.
Mr Carmichael
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many of the scientists who have contributed to the ICES data over the years will say exactly the same thing. They want to see the stability of the multi-annual approach that would allow the economic efforts and the conservation efforts to be managed together. That makes perfect sense.
At present, there is a real problem—albeit not a new one—in relation to data-deficient stocks. It has very real consequences that feed through to the whole process, due to the policy of proposing automatic precautionary quota cuts of at least 25% for stocks for which full scientific advice is unavailable. In the current round, for example, ling and lemon sole are not massively significant species, but they are an important and valuable part of the catch for the fishermen in the whitefish fleet in my constituency, and they face recurring quota cuts based on the fact that they are data deficient. If we do that year after year, we will have a quota that does not match the reality of the fish in the sea.
As a consequence, smaller species in a mixed fishery become a choke species, so it is a two-strand problem. First, there is not a proper quota for fish that could be caught and could be an economic benefit to the industry. Secondly, they can sometimes act as a choke species. Because there is a low quota for them, once they are caught other fish in a mixed fishery will not be able to be caught and landed either.
The opportunities that come with getting this right have been highlighted by the northern shelf monkish—a stock that was, following an ICES review, recently granted full analytical assessment and is no longer classed as data deficient. It will be a valuable species for the catching sector, no longer to be subject to precautionary quota cuts. However, the most significant point of all is that, based on scientific advice and full analytical assessment, for the first time, the recommendation now is for a quota increase of some 211%. That is where the operation of the various principles of ICES can be counterproductive, and it leads us to a situation in which we do not have the best outcome because there is a mismatch between what is in the quota and what is in the sea.
The fault, I am afraid, often lies in our own hands because it all comes back to how we fund and operate fisheries science within this country. In Scotland over recent years, our fisheries science laboratories have been salami-sliced away to the point of virtual extinction. There has been a chronic lack of investment in fisheries science. Something that was previously blue chip and widely respected across Europe has, I am afraid, been diminished to such a point that, in recent evidence to the Scottish Parliament, Dr Robin Cook, a fisheries scientist from the University of Strathclyde, said:
“It is of real concern that we no longer have a marine institute in Scotland with the capacity to deliver for the future. The directorate is dependent only on what it learned 10 years ago.”
If we do not put data in and do not gather the data for ourselves, I am afraid that we cannot really complain that what we get out at the other end is not fit for purpose.
I now turn to the trade and co-operation agreement review. At the point of leaving the European Union, expectations among the fisheries industries were very high, especially in the catching sector. It was the most obvious industry to expect a win from our departure from the European Union, and it was certainly promised one. It really takes something to do worse than the common fisheries policy, but somehow or other we found ourselves with a deal that the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation described at the time as
“the worst of both worlds”.
Provisions for review are built into the trade and co-operation agreement. We are in the transitional arrangements at the moment; the review will take effect over the course of next year and into 2026. From the discussions that I have had, I know that the EU sees that as a priority, and I would like to hear from the Minister that the Government see it in those terms as well.
The core issues at play are obvious: we are looking at quota numbers, specific stock allocations and, of course, access. It will take political will from this Government to win back the ground lost by Boris Johnson, but fishing communities expect positive change to be delivered. The fishing industry has a great story to tell; it is rooted in the island and coastal communities that define our country. The new Government have the chance to be part of that story and to close the sorry chapter of missed opportunities.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
My right hon. Friend talks about stories; I think that is one of our challenges in attracting new people into the industry, which is one of the reasons why we are facing the visa issues. The Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther in my constituency is doing a lot of promotion work, but it needs support, including educational support. Does my right hon. Friend agree?
Mr Carmichael
I absolutely do, and this is one of the reasons why it is so difficult for fishing boats in coastal communities to recruit a crew. For decades, teachers, careers advisers and probably even parents have been telling people, “Don’t bother going into fishing. It’s a dying industry; it’s got no future for you.” When you look at the history of the last couple of decades, you can kind of understand why people say that. I believe that they are wrong, but it is going to take a long time to turn that around.
In the meantime, in order for there to be an industry there for the next generation to be recruited into, I am afraid that we need to take measures now to maintain it. In the short to medium term, that requires a more sensible approach to be taken by UK Visas and Immigration in the Home Office. It also requires the industry itself to step up to the plate and to say, “We understand that the answer to this, in the medium to longer term, lies within our own hands. Here is what we propose to do to make it a more attractive industry for the future.”
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
I apologise for being unable to stay for the whole debate, including the ministerial response at the end of it; unfortunately, travel plans intervene.
On the point that the right hon. Gentleman just made, during the summer representatives of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, the Scottish White Fish Producers Association, the Scottish Seafood Association, Seafood Scotland and the North East Scotland Fisheries Development Partnership all endorsed the need for a better set of visa arrangements, so that we can deal with these post-Brexit labour shortages. Might it be helpful if the Minister agreed to visit the north-east to meet representatives of those bodies to discuss how we can address the labour shortages in a more productive way?
Mr Carmichael
I will take this opportunity to address the visa question; I was going to address it last, but we might as well address it now. The hon. Gentleman is right: especially for inshore fisheries, which are those working within the 12-mile limit of the UK territorial waters, the labour shortages are an absolute chokehold. The bigger boats that fish outside the 12-mile limit can take advantage of transit visas. Frankly, that is an abuse of the transit visa system, but it is the only mechanism available to boats to get the crew they need.
In news reports and on television programmes recently, there have been some quite disgraceful examples of the way in which the transit visa system has been abused. There are those in the industry who need to take a good, long, hard look at themselves. They have brought shame on the industry by the way they have mistreated those they have brought in on transit visas—although, to my mind, that also reinforces the need for a proper system of visas to be introduced for what the Migration Advisory Committee accepts is an occupation with a shortage of available labour.
The crux of the problem is that although the MAC designates fishing as a shortage occupation, the Home Office insists on a standard of English language competence that sits somewhere between O-level and A-level—in fact, it is just short of A-level—in the English system. Obviously, some language skills are necessary, but that standard of language skills goes beyond what is necessary. We have had for years now crews from the Philippines and from some African countries in particular who work in our inshore fleets and other fleets with no real safety concerns about their work, so I see no reason why the Home Office should continue to insist on that language standard, which acts as a barrier to the industry getting the crew it needs. If we accept that bespoke arrangements are required for the fishing industry, to insist on a language requirement that goes across all the workforce arrangements makes absolutely no sense to me.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
If the solution is to do away with English language standards, does the right hon. Gentleman think that would detract from the point the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) made about trying to attract a domestic workforce and investing in skills for that workforce?
Mr Carmichael
No, I do not think it does because, apart from anything else, I am not talking about removing a language requirement completely. It is the level of the requirement that is the issue—this requirement of something just short of A-level for English language. I also think it betrays a particular attitude to what a skilled worker is, which is informed, it seems to me, by people who think we should measure somebody’s skill only by their academic achievements, when in fact the people coming here to work on fishing boats have a much wider range of other skills for which there are no metrics in the current visa arrangements. Having accepted that there is a need for more visas to bring crew in, to get us to the point where we can do more to develop our own crew, it is unfortunate that, for this reason, we are basically undoing all the good work we have done.
To go back to the trade and co-operation agreement, having taken a fairly substantial detour, the question of access to UK waters post-2026 will be critical. For both quota and non-quota stocks, shares are heavily weighted in the EU’s favour, and the EU is more dependent on UK waters to catch its quotas than vice versa. EU vessels’ catch in the UK zone is worth between £450 million and £500 million a year, compared with around £80 billion-worth caught by UK vessels every year in the EU zone.
To put it another way, the UK shares of fishing quotas written into the TCA fall well short of the zonal attachment that was supposed to underpin the negotiations at the time of departure. They do not reflect the reality of where the fish actually are, and amount to an annual transfer of at least £400 million-worth of natural resources from the UK to the EU. The final cost to the fishing industry is far greater as multiplier effects from the fish catches are thought to be significant; they are typically assessed at between 2.5 and 3.5. Will the Minister tell us who will lead the review? What are the UK priorities for it? What engagement will he have with the fishing industry to ensure that he is able to deliver for them what Boris Johnson and the noble Lord Frost at the time of the departure so manifestly failed to?
I am mindful of the fact that I have taken quite a lot of time, but I am taking a lot of interventions. On the question of spatial squeeze, there are currently 48 offshore wind projects planned in Scottish waters alone. Seven of them are fully commissioned; two are under construction. In getting even to this point, the view of the fishing industry is that its voice has simply not been heard or, if it has been, it has been ignored. Many of those offshore wind developments are constructed in highly productive fishing grounds, and there are more on the way. Great British Energy and the Crown Estate announced another fishing licensing round just last year. That cannot be seen in isolation.
The fishing industry understands the need for change. Fishers are not blind to the realities of climate change; they see its effects day and daily in their own nets. The loss of cod in some parts of the North sea seems to be down to the changing temperature of the sea, which is having a real effect. The industry is also, ironically, part of the answer. The fish caught by our fishing industry are a good source of protein caught in a sustainable way in a low-carbon-emitting industry. In the rush to tackle climate change, there seems to be a determination to squeeze out some of the people who are most able to help us to move to that future.
Melanie Onn
I discovered an interesting fact following a conversation with my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume). She has been talking with her local fishers, who say that the population of brown crab in Scarborough and Whitby has gone up as they are making their homes in and around the wind farms there. So there is some subtlety and nuance in all of this.
Mr Carmichael
Absolutely, yes. The picture is complex and it depends what is being put where. However, for some of the spawning grounds for whitefish that have been affected, the evidence suggests that the construction is causing a problem. If we damage our spawning grounds, we are storing up a problem for ourselves a few years down the line.
Floating offshore wind is a particular issue for the bigger boats that are further offshore. When floating offshore wind farms are being constructed, virtually the whole area of their construction is closed down. It is impossible for those boats to trawl safely due to the cables that are there because of the floating offshore wind turbines.
I have one other matter that I want to place on record, and on which I seek the Minister’s continued assistance. His predecessors in office did take this seriously. It is not something that lies within the remit of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but it matters very much to our fishing community: it is the safety of fishermen at sea, which is a Department for Transport responsibility.
I have had two truly shocking incidents in my constituency in recent years. The Pesorsa Dos, a Spanish gill-netter, tried to foul the propeller of a local trawler, the Alison Kay, some time ago, and the Antonio Maria, a French longliner, did the same thing to another local boat, the Defiant. Both incidents happened inside the 200-mile limit—the exclusive economic zone—but outside the 12-mile limit of territorial waters. The United Nations convention on the law of the sea tells us that safety action has to be taken by the flag state. The flag state of the Pesorsa Dos is Germany, and I am afraid Germany does not see much interest to be had from prosecuting a German-registered but Spanish-owned trawler fishing to the west of Shetland.
The position remains dire. Sooner or later, if such behaviour is allowed to continue, somebody will end up with a boat at the bottom of the sea. This has to be taken seriously. Representations need to be made to the relevant authorities in Germany and France. Some effort has been made by Ministers at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for Transport, but more needs to be done. We simply cannot leave our fishing industry unprotected in this way.
The position with the Pesorsa Dos is interesting because it was fishing not just in UK waters but around Ireland’s. The Irish authorities took an approach rather different from the hands-off attitude of Marine Scotland and the Marine and Coastguard Agency, and took the Pesorsa Dos into port, where she was held for some considerable time. Of course, if she is in port, she is not out earning money for her owners. They threw the book at the Pesorsa Dos and its skipper.
The Irish enforcement agents, when they were climbing on board, found that the ladder provided for them broke. That meant an immediate €10,000 fine for failing to provide safe access. The matter recently finished in the Irish courts with a series of fines and the forfeiture of gear worth £470,000. I suspect that will concentrate the minds of the owners and skippers of that boat better than the hand-wringing and legalism we have in this country. A bit more of that sort of enforcement would be enormously welcome.
We all know that Al Capone was eventually done for tax evasion. Let us hope that the modern gangsters of the sea might be brought to book in a similar way, if not necessarily for the misdeeds themselves.
Several hon. Members rose—
Clive Efford (in the Chair)
Order. I have had a number of requests from people who want to leave before the Front-Bench responses. I cannot allow that to happen—certainly not in the large numbers that have made requests. If you intend not to be here, I cannot call you to speak. If you make interventions, you might find the Chair sympathetic if you take a little longer than normal. I understand that this is a very important constituency issue. I remind anyone who wants to speak that they should be on their feet so that I can see who wants to be called.
Anna Gelderd (South East Cornwall) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing this important debate.
As the MP for South East Cornwall, I am proud to represent a constituency with a rich fishing heritage. Our iconic small-scale fishing fleets and charter vessels from Looe and Polperro, and from Fowey in the neighbouring constituency, are the lifeblood of our communities. That proud tradition, passed down through generations, ties our communities to the sea.
I pay tribute to those who support our brave fishers and their families, including the harbourmaster and port authorities, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, for which I had the privilege of working, the Seafarers’ Charity and the Fishermen’s Mission. If hon. Members have not bought their Christmas cards yet, I suggest supporting those fantastic charities, which do so much when things go wrong. I also pay tribute to Seafood Cornwall Training and especially to Clive Palfrey of Looe, who works tirelessly to raise safety standards and still makes time to helm the Looe lifeboat.
This Labour Government are rightly committed to tackling climate change and biodiversity loss. Damaging practices have taken a significant toll on the marine environment, and urgent action is needed to secure the sustainability of our fishing industry and restore the health of the sea. Offshore wind is essential to achieving home-grown clean energy, but developments must be carefully sited to minimise disruption to ecosystems, sensitive habitats and our historic fishing grounds.
Marine spatial prioritisation provides a framework to balance those competing needs, but our fishers must be included in the decisions. I urge the Minister to ensure that consultations are held in local ports and are scheduled around tides so that fishers can attend without sacrificing a day’s income and do not miss the chance to be heard. That should be the norm rather than the exception. It is a simple ask, but it would mean so much to our fishers and, vitally, it would improve Government engagement.
Sustainable fisheries management is essential, and catch limits should be set using the latest scientific advice, but the UK currently lacks robust data on many commercial species. Does the Minister agree that it is essential to prioritise a road map to improve stock assessment and work with partners on shared stocks to secure sustainable management? Better monitoring and enforcement are vital to ensure compliance, but the issues with CatchApp and inshore vessel monitoring must be urgently addressed. Will the Minister seek assurances from the Marine Management Organisation that it will address them, ensure transparency and timelines on fixes, and adopt a pragmatic approach until the systems are fully operational?
Globally, management and enforcement around marine resources are often poor. Stronger labelling laws could block illegal, unreported and unregulated fish from entering UK markets and could protect our domestic fleets. I would be grateful if the Minister committed to a review of labelling laws, to protect not just the world’s oceans but our markets.
Locally, buying UK products helps to boost our fleets’ income. I pay tribute to fishmongers such as Pengelly’s of Looe, which does a great job of supporting its local fleet and offers an overnight service for those without a local shop. I also highlight the work of local Looe fishers Murray Collins, Dan Margetts and David Bond, who have a tuna tagging programme, and Dr Bryce Stewart and Dr Simon Thomas, who do pollack data gathering. I would welcome the Minister’s support in expanding fisheries science partnerships to fill knowledge gaps and secure robust data for all our commercial stocks.
I support a transition away from damaging practices that harm our future stocks, alongside advances in vessel safety and technology. Remote electronic monitoring is a cost-effective way to improve transparency, sustainability and data integrity while creating jobs. Better data means better management, which benefits everyone.
Fishing is central to the jobs, culture and identity of South East Cornwall, a region grappling with low income. Our fishers are ready to play their part in regenerating our seas, but they need a fair deal that respects their knowledge, safeguards their livelihood and protects the marine environment. I am proud that the Government are working with our fishers. I urge the Minister to continue working closely with fishers, scientists and all involved to secure a just and sustainable future for our seas.
Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. As the Member for Gordon and Buchan, I represent a constituency that plays a key role in Scotland’s fishing industry. The strategic transport corridors of the A90, the A947 and the A96, which run through my constituency, are crucial arteries on which our fishing industry relies for its distribution network. Those vital links connect our coastal fishing communities to processors and markets across the UK and Europe. I will touch on three crucial issues: the vital role that fishing plays in our food security, the increasing spatial squeeze in our waters, and the TCA.
Fish and fishing are part of our national food security. It should go without saying, but it is so important that the industry is not overlooked. The 2021 UK food security report stated that fish constitutes a valuable protein source, accounting for nearly 20% of the total animal protein consumed globally. With the consumption of fish going up in recent decades, both globally and in the UK, the figure will only increase.
Our fishing grounds—we are seeing something similar with our farmland—are becoming ever more crowded, with increased pressure for space and with competing and often incompatible uses of the marine environment leading to spatial squeeze. About 37% of the seas around Scotland are now in one of the 240 offshore or inshore marine protected areas. The industry also has to be mindful of the “Will they, won’t they?” potential for highly protected marine areas. Coupled with the expansion of offshore renewable energy, such as wind, tidal and wave, that means that the space for fishing in our offshores is shrinking faster than ever.
Fishing is currently excluded from about a third of Scottish waters. Back in the year 2000, the figure was only 1%, so we can see the scale and pace of change. Yes, we need renewable energy and we need to protect the marine environment—important sites such as Forvie in my constituency show that—but we also need proper consultation on how the fishing industry may be increasingly impacted. Generations of expertise relating to fishing, spawning grounds and species movement must be considered when other decisions are taken. The incoming competing pressures in our seas must not be prioritised over fishing or to the detriment of the fishing industry. The current balance does not feel equitable, despite the value of fishing in producing healthy, sustainable and low-carbon food, contributing to our food security and supporting thousands of coastal jobs around the country.
As has been said, the upcoming discussions on the trade and co-operation agreement post 2026 are crucial and of real concern to the industry. There is a clear imbalance off our shores, with EU vessels catching in our waters six times the value of fish that we catch in theirs. That imbalance affects not only boats at sea, but the entire supply chain, including businesses and workers in my Gordon and Buchan constituency who form part of the north-east’s fishing industry network. That imbalance needs addressing in the TCA review, and the review offers an opportunity to do so, but the Government must prioritise our fishing sector and not grant EU vessels inequitable access to UK waters as part of a wider deal with the EU. The rhetoric of resetting relationships must not come at the expense of our fishing sector or our coastal communities. It is so vital that the Government prioritise the TCA. There was silence on it in Labour’s manifesto, and that cannot be replicated here.
Lorraine Beavers (Blackpool North and Fleetwood) (Lab)
It is clear that ex-fishing towns such as Fleetwood, which I represent, have been devastated by the decline of our once prosperous fishing industry. My community and lots of others were built on fishing and thrived on it, but Fleetwood has suffered terribly from job losses and a decrease in living standards. Everyone in this room knows that our fishing industry is in decline. Does the hon. Member agree that if these negotiations are handled properly, we could see increased investment in our towns that could reverse the devastation to our local economy? That would be so important to many communities like mine.
Harriet Cross
I agree with the hon. Member, and I certainly hope that that is the case. It is important that these negotiations go well, and it is important that our fishing communities are helped and represented. As I was going to say, money that is spent in the fishing environment has an economic impact onshore that is 2.5 to 3.5 times greater. It is important for everyone across the country, including our fishing communities, that this is handled correctly.
I hope the Minister will address the concerns about how we manage the growing spatial squeeze that is felt by our fleet. There must be a proper assessment of the impact on supply chains and distribution networks. The strategy for the 2026 negotiations will be really important, given that they are starting so soon.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) paid tribute to those working at sea, and I want to pay tribute to the RNLI crews. It is a charity close to my heart. Its brave crews risk their lives to save lives at sea; they do us all a service, and they do us proud.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
Fishing is such an important part of Cornwall’s history and its future—as you can probably tell, Mr Efford, because half the MPs from Cornwall are here today. We are surrounded by the sea on three sides. Fishing has been integral to us for centuries: Cornish people have fished for pilchards for hundreds of years in Newlyn, St Ives, Mevagissey and Portscatho, among other places in my constituency. Oysters in the Fal have been farmed for half a millennium with traditional methods that are still in use today because of a byelaw dating back to 1876 that outlaws mechanised dredging—an early example of legislation that promotes sustainable fishing. That makes the oyster farms on the Fal one of a kind in Europe, if not the world.
Fishing in Cornwall is not just about the past; it is also about the future. Our fishing industry is vital for our food security, jobs and tourism. We need to preserve the knowledge and skills that have been passed down through fishing families in Cornwall for generations. The industry contributes more than £170 million to Cornwall’s economy directly from fish landed, and we have 500 fishermen at sea and 8,000 jobs in the supply chain. There are 15 jobs ashore for every one at sea. It does have a future and it does have profit. We need to make sure that the conditions are right and we protect it.
How do we do that? I repeat the points that have been made about the ongoing EU-UK negotiation process to set the fishing quotas for next year. In previous years, reductions to some quotas have been too large for fishers to adjust to: for example, the pollack quota last year was set at zero with no warning, and Cornish fishermen ended up being compensated. The past two years of annual negotiations have led to a £20 million reduction in fishing opportunities for the Cornish fishing fleet, so we need a long-term approach to quotas that is based on scientific evidence and that balances food production with protecting the environment, promoting sustainability and supporting the industry. As a result of the EU-UK trade and co-operation agreement, under Boris Johnson’s Government fishing was basically sold down the river; Boris Johnson’s name is sometimes not spoken kindly in Cornwall. In the renegotiation, we need to be careful to ensure that our Cornish fishers do not lose out like that again.
I have mentioned Fal oysters, which are a vital heritage industry in my constituency. To protect the population, there is an ongoing review looking at the size of the oysters that are caught. I would like the Minister to pay close attention to it; I think it was passed up to DEFRA in April or May. Central to that is clean water. Sewage dumping is destroying the shellfish industry. In May 2003, 11 shellfish sites in Cornwall were forced to close because of high levels of E. coli. I welcome both the Water (Special Measures) Bill, which will crack down on water companies that dump sewage, and the coming review. Agriculture will have a part to play as well.
Shellfish was an afterthought in the Brexit negotiations. There was extra red tape and there were reduced markets: as the UK is now a third country, we cannot export unprocessed oysters, scallops and mussels to the EU. That is a massive loss of market.
In conclusion, we need to look carefully at how we balance fishing, marine protected areas, sustainability, nature recovery, the environment and floating offshore wind. As an MP in Cornwall, I am a great supporter of floating offshore wind and would love to get it off the ground in the Celtic sea. We still have not quite got there; I want it kick-started, but it is important that everything has its space and that consultation is wide and is carried out with all of the industries.
Equally, we need a strategy for the ocean. We do not have one at the moment: we have a local plan for the land, but nothing similar for the ocean. It is important that there is a long-term strategy that looks at protecting certain areas and our ambition for zero-carbon electricity by 2030, but that still maintains profitable and vital heritage industries such as fishing, so we can carve out a place for everything as we go forward.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this important debate.
Fish and chips were deemed so critical to morale during the dark days of the second world war that they were not rationed, and extra resources were allocated to keep the home fryers burning. Today, the harvest of fish and seafood from our pristine waters is hard-won. It is estimated that fishing crews face the threat of death at 100 times the rate of the average UK worker. In my constituency of Dumfries and Galloway, the Isle of Whithorn will never forget the loss of seven of our sons when the scallop dredger Solway Harvester foundered off the Isle of Man in a force-9 gale 25 years ago in January. The two youngest victims were aged just 17. The sea is magnificent and unforgiving.
Today’s fishermen face the terrors of the deep and onshore threats too. Fishing in south-west Scotland centres on scallops, lobster and crab. The economic contribution of catchers and producers is vital to vulnerable coastal communities, yet fishermen are criticised as voracious plunderers when really they are cautious custodians of the sea. It took sterling work by my colleague, Finlay Carson MSP, to stave off the threat of the loss of livelihood for static-gear fishermen along the Solway coast. The clunking fist of the Scottish Government was set to ban them inside a six-mile limit to save berried or egg-bearing lobster, but it was the fishermen who spoke up about returning berried lobster to protect not just their livelihoods, but those of the next and future generations of fishermen.
Brexit could yet deliver a sea of opportunities for our fishermen. If we spend time at the quaysides and pierheads of Kirkcudbright, Garlieston, Port William, Stranraer and Portpatrick, we will not hear any clamour to return to the hated common fisheries policy of distant and faceless Brussels. In 2022, landings in those places were estimated at £4.5 million—an enormous shot in the arm for a rural area such as Dumfries and Galloway.
As we have heard, while the sea is vast, it is not limitless. Floating offshore wind is just one of the sectors exerting spatial squeeze, for we cannot fish between the turbines and their seabed infrastructure is another impediment. Shipping lanes and undersea cables, as important to Britain today as the convoys during the battle of the Atlantic, further hem in our fishing fleet. Plans have also been suggested for more marine protected areas in English waters to offset the environmental damage in existing MPAs. Fishing already pays the price of being excluded from prime fishing areas through the privatisation of the seabed, but being locked out of the MPAs adds insult to injury.
The waters are choppy, but fishing is a touchstone in Scotland: St Andrew, our patron saint, was a fisherman. Fishing is also about food security, so it is terrifying to hear this pivotal industry being touted in some quarters as a mere bargaining chip as the Government prepare for TCA renegotiation.
Seamus Logan
The hon. Member mentions the forthcoming TCA, which others Members have referred to. We have not yet heard who the chief negotiator of that review will be, but does he agree that it would be advantageous, once they have been identified, for them to come to Scotland to listen to the industry, to fishermen and fisherwomen, and to the fish processing sector to hear their concerns in advance of the negotiations?
John Cooper
I agree that it is important that the voices of people directly involved in the industry, both onshore and offshore, are heard. On the TCA negotiations, nothing—not quota or anything else—should be exchanged for automatic access for EU boats. War could not choke off our fish suppers; can we ensure that legislation does not either?
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and I extend my thanks to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for corralling us all here for this important debate. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on fisheries, he is a substantial expert in this field, and we have debated it many times—I am delighted to be back in the House and able to participate in these discussions. I agree with much of what he said in his opening speech, which reflects his years of experience on this topic.
On the anticipated finalisation of the transitional arrangements review in 2026, could the Minister bear in mind that the catching sector is willing and able to work and support the Government with all the facts and arguments that they will need when they enter into those negotiations? I am sure that the Minister will have heard the requests in the speeches today, which I add to by asking whether there could be an indication of the Government’s aims, ambitions and approach in those negotiations. What are they planning to do, particularly to achieve longer-term settlements rather than year-on-year negotiations? Nobody can run a business effectively in those circumstances and we would not ask or expect it of any other sector. If the Government intend to show respect to the fishing industry, addressing that would go some way to doing that. We have a golden opportunity to demonstrate our support for the sector.
I am going to talk an awful lot about processing, and I remind Members that this is not just about the catching sector. I am the Member of Parliament for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, and it will be of no surprise to anybody that the processing side of the industry means so much to our local economy, to those who continue to work in the industry and to the small and large businesses that operate in processing.
My constituency plays an essential role in serving the nation’s seafood. Almost every major UK food retailer buys its seafood from Grimsby, and the town continues to be a thriving hub for seafood processing, such as the bespoke smoking from our 150-year-old smokehouses. The Minister enjoyed a visit to my constituency to see them in action. We embrace the traditional techniques of smoking high-quality product and deliver that around the country, including to very high-end retailers. From Grimsby to Harvey Nichols might seem like a long stretch, but it is actually just a short hop through our seafood processing sector.
Good-quality food production buildings are very hard to find. Whether it is cold stores or processing factories, Grimsby is home to some of the best sites anywhere in the UK. We have around 500 food-related companies processing 70% of the nation’s seafood, most of which currently comes from Norway, Iceland and the Faroes, and is frozen and shipped through our local ports—not quite the romantic notion of what the fishing industry should or possibly could be, with direct catching and processing locally. The world has changed, and it is worth remembering that that is the reality of the sector and of the industry, so that it continues to support communities.
Grimsby is widely regarded as the seafood town. On the way in on the train, we see remnants of a sign that called us “Europe’s food town”, although perhaps we do not want to mention Europe quite so much in Grimsby any more. The industry is now worth more than £2.5 billion every year, so it is nothing to be shy about. I know that success has not always been the case, however, and I have seen at first hand that my constituents are not afraid to dig deep when times are tough.
Following the decline of the trawling industry, which we have seen in so many coastal communities across the nation, Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes stood tall and proud and adapted. That adaption to focus on the supply chain and processing of seafood means that currently, across Grimsby and the wider Humber region, there are 6,000 people directly employed in more than 50 approved seafood processing units.
It is not just processing that our area holds expertise in. As of this year, I am proud to say that the next generation of seafood professionals will hone their skills at a dedicated new training facility in Grimsby. The UK seafood school at Grimsby Institute will provide the next generation with the skills and knowledge that they need to thrive in the industry, with up to 75 students being trained to use those facilities in the school’s first year. I was pleased to go to the opening, where I saw the skills of the first tranche of new students. This is so important—the price of fish used to be a throwaway comment, but fish is now an expensive product, so retailers and processors are prepared to take risks in the training to prevent high fish wastage. This route encourages young people to be creative and to see seafood as high end and specialised.
That is incredibly welcome, but it does not stop there. The Minister will be pleased to know that the University of Lincoln is opening a centre of excellence, which will focus on the skills required by the processing sector in the local area to support people into highly skilled, well paid and long-term processing jobs. I was surprised to learn that a skilled, experienced filleter can expect to earn in the region of £70,000, because they are so in demand and waste so little fish. As tough a job as it is, it is well remunerated.
The Government have an essential role to play in enhancing and advancing this industry through their negotiations. The Minister will know that I have previously raised the issue of the distant water fleet. It would be welcome if the Government started to engage thoughtfully in the latest rounds of negotiations with our international allies.
Many businesses in Grimsby have benefited from multimillion-pound infrastructure and skills grants from the £100 million UK seafood fund. I have written to the Minister previously to ask about the status of its future replacement. That support be greatly appreciated by coastal communities with fishing sectors, because it has been used to create investment, extend jobs, create new jobs and upskill local communities so that they are able to access those opportunities in my area. Given the success of the initiative, it would be helpful to understand whether there is a plan to reopen the scheme or launch one, so that businesses in our local seafood cluster can continue to benefit from that support.
The fishing industry is important not just to this Government’s commitment to economic growth but to their commitment to building the healthiest generation ever. Fish is the cornerstone of a healthy diet, as it is rich in essential nutrients, such as omega-3 fatty acids, high-quality protein, vitamins and minerals. Those nutrients are vital to the healthy functioning of the heart and brain, and they reduce the risk of chronic diseases. By incorporating more fish into our diet, we can significantly improve our overall health and wellbeing. I had salmon at lunch time, as I hope everybody did—I was going to ask for a show of hands, but I will not embarrass people. Encouraging the consumption of fish not only helps individuals to lead healthier lives but reduces the burden on our healthcare system by preventing diet-related illnesses.
We have a food strategy, and we have a food tsar in Henry Dimbleby. We have great structures such as the NHS. We have great programmes of providing lunches in schools. Could we incorporate those aims into a state function, such as ensuring that fish is regularly on the menu for people in the NHS, care homes or education, so that they can benefit from all its goodness? That will help to support our sector as well as anything else.
On the topic of delicious food, if anybody is in the vicinity of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes, they would be more than welcome to join me in some of our world-renowned chippies. Whether that is Ernie Becketts, the Ocean Fish Bar, Wybers Chippy or Steels Cornerhouse Restaurant, they can be certain that they will have the best fish and chips.
There are other elements that throw risk into the future of some of those stores. We are currently undergoing consultation on the pedestrianisation of Cleethorpes marketplace. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) is giggling from a sedentary position, but it is very serious. Steels has been in existence in the Cleethorpes constituency for more than 100 years—it is incredibly well known and traditional. Those who run it are so concerned about some of these environmental changes—the anticipated pedestrianisation and roadworks —that they worry it will be forced to close its doors in the next 10 months, which is very problematic and does not encourage people to eat more fish, as they should be doing. I said it would be a slight detour, but I got back to the point.
I will conclude. The future of the fishing industry in the UK holds significant promise in both supply and production. By continuing to support and invest in this essential industry, we can ensure its sustainability and growth, which will not only bolster our economy but enhance our food security. The Government’s role in facilitating trade agreements and providing direct investment is crucial.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn), who gave what I suppose is best described as a commercial break in our proceedings, as she did a fantastic job of marketing the health and other benefits of consuming fish. This is déjà vu for me, in that I remember my first fisheries debate in 1997, for heaven’s sake. That was the annual fisheries debate we used to undertake in the main Chamber. One of the annual features of that debate was a contribution from the then hon. Member for Great Grimsby, the late Austin Mitchell, who I recollect was temporarily renamed by deed poll Mr Haddock, so enthusiastic was he to promote the fishing industry. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes is proposing to have a name change herself; she is certainly moving in that direction, given the nature of what she told us.
Melanie Onn
It is funny that the hon. Gentleman should mention that. I made it very clear in my maiden speech in 2015 that I would not be changing my name to Haddock or any other fish species. Interestingly, although Austin changed his name by deed poll to Austin Haddock, famously carrying a Harry Haddock inflatable to Parliament, we do not believe he ever actually changed it back.
Andrew George
Well, he died a fish, and we are very saddened by his demise. I should reflect, as we certainly did in those days, on the risk that people take to put fish on our table, of which my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) rightly reminded us. I remember that in 1997, we lost seven men in the industry in my constituency alone. It was just after the loss of the Margaretha Maria 200 miles off the coast of west Cornwall, in which we lost four men from Newlyn. We have sadly lost others in the industry since then. It is worth reminding ourselves just what a hazardous trade it is.
It is also a pleasure to see the Minister in his place. I thank him for coming down to my constituency in the summer to visit Newlyn and for the genuine interest he takes in the industry, both in the catching sector and in the processing and marketing sector, which certainly impressed everyone there who met him. I am very grateful to him for making that visit.
I come back to a debate on this subject after a decade’s sabbatical in the real world, which I must say is a very pleasurable place, and reflecting on a number of changes within the fishing industry in that time. Obviously, there is the B word; we do not want to return to the skirmishes of Brexit this afternoon, but it has certainly been a momentous change. During the period I was away, the fishing industry and fishermen were used as the poster boys for the Brexit campaign. I have to say that they were sold a very cruel hoax in terms of the outcome of the vote; they were made a lot of promises that have not been fulfilled at all.
I had been prepared to concede that there was a major opportunity for the fishing industry, and that it was the one sector within the UK economy that could potentially have benefited as a result of Brexit, but such a benefit has not been delivered. Those people who made promises at that time just walked away from the industry after they had come down to places such as Newlyn to have their photographs taken for the purposes of their referendum campaign. That caused a lot of bitterness within the industry. Nevertheless, we move on.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland said, the common fisheries policy was often described as the worst possible policy apart from all the others, because fishing is a very difficult industry to manage, as the Minister knows and, indeed, as we all know. I remember engaging in fishing debates 10 years ago and there was a genuine belief then that we could move the industry away from the annual cliff-edge of the quota negotiations to a multi-annual system that would enable the industry, especially the catching sector, to plan five years ahead. Yes, there would be adjustments during that five-year, multi-annual rolling programme, but nevertheless it would provide a greater degree of certainty.
As I said in my intervention on my right hon. Friend, the science supports a multi-annual programme. If we want a recovery programme for most of the stock, there is no reason why we cannot project forward five years—not with great certainty, admittedly, regarding the situation five years hence, but with an indicative quota going forward over that period. That would help the industry to plan for the future.
Another outcome for the industry in my area has been the detriment to the very significant export trade that existed. A number of companies operating back then —particularly those at the smaller end, admittedly—have gone out of business as a result of the impediments that predictably, indeed inevitably, were placed in their way, particularly for those involved in the export of live fish to the continent. That was predictable but avoidable, and it has clearly had a detrimental impact on the local economy. Nevertheless, our local community adjusts itself to the challenges it faces.
The hon. Members for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) and for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) have made some excellent cases on behalf of Cornwall’s fishing industry and the important role it plays in the local economy. Indeed, the Cornish Fish Producers Organisation produced a report, which I know was handed to the Minister, called “The True Value of Seafood to Cornwall”. It shows that the industry contributes £174 million to Cornwall’s gross value added per annum, with 500 full-time equivalent jobs in the catching sector alone. That equates to about 8,000 jobs in the seafood supply chain, so it is a significant player in the Cornish economy. It is often ignored, but nevertheless very important, particularly in my part of Cornwall with Newlyn being the largest port with a significant market.
The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth also mentioned the need for a fishing and marine strategy, and I hope the Minister will take that on board. There are both opportunities and challenges associated with rolling out, as the Government must, with our support, the offshore wind programme in the Celtic sea, which we in Cornwall are keen to ensure achieves maximum benefit to the local economy and the community. There is no reason why it cannot be rolled out in a manner that enhances fishing opportunities rather than creating a detriment to the industry, but that requires the Minister, Energy Ministers and others to engage in dialogue with the industry to ensure that the location of those sites is planned with great care.
I want to draw the Minister’s attention to one of the—probably—unintended consequences of the decisions taken, through a little story of an individual fisherman from my constituency. An inshore fishermen from Cadgwith, who fishes from Newlyn, has been affected by the cut in pollack quotas. As the hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth said, compensation was offered to the industry, and many who received the funds used them, naturally, because they are fishermen, to go into other sectors where in fact there was pressure. For example, the industry is trying to protect the crawfish sector and implement a recovery programme. By then, there was no reason why the fishermen could not invest in the gear necessary to catch crawfish, and that had a detrimental impact on the recovery programme efforts.
Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)
I want to clarify something in relation to pollack. My understanding is that the scientific advice given out in June was that the total allowable catch should be set at zero, but it was not set at zero. The quota was set at 925 tonnes; even now, the stocks are much lower this year because the decision was not in line with the scientific assessment.
Andrew George
I will come to that in a second. The nature of what happens off the Cornish coast, and certainly in the south-west and other areas, is that pollack is caught in a multispecies environment. It is impossible not to catch pollack even when targeting other species—the hon. Member helps me to make the point—so my constituent went and targeted hake. The first thing to bear in mind is this. While he was targeting pollack, he was between 8 and 20 miles off the coast. To target hake, he had to go 40 miles or beyond, and that placed his small boat in significantly greater danger. In other words, it put him at greater risk to pursue an alternative fishery. That is point No. 1 to bear in mind.
The second point is that there is a pollack by-catch if someone is targeting hake. During one month—March of last year—my constituent caught more than 100 kg of by-caught pollack, which he was entitled to land in the market. Indeed, he was required to land it in the market; he could not throw it overboard. He was obliged to land this fish, as a result of which his licence was frozen by the Marine Management Organisation. Following some dispute, he was fined £1,000, and he then had to move out of that fishery. Of course, he was not targeting pollack at the time; he was trying to avoid it as best he could. The MMO did not offer him any kind of solution to the problem that he found himself with.
As a result of all that, my constituent has come out of that fishery and has since been targeting crawfish, of which the industry itself had undertaken voluntary measures to increase the minimum size and to help to recover the stock. Indeed, the minimum size proposed by the industry and implemented in Cornwall has since been picked up, adopted, in national legislation. The crawfish season is now over, so we now have a fisherman who has tied his boat up and is no longer able to fish.
The point is that I hope that the Minister, when looking at this issue, bears in mind that when we propose regulation affecting the industry, that is in effect a two-dimensional policy affecting three-dimensional reality. That is the problem. I hope that the Minister will reflect on the lessons learned just from that little anecdote when considering how policy is implemented, and on the unintended detrimental consequence. The measure does not actually help even the species that it is supposed to protect.
I hope that we are not coming back here in 10 years’ time, gnashing our teeth about the same issues and continuing this annual bunfight in which we do not even know what the quotas will be in just a few weeks’ time; I hope we have multi-annual quotas. One of the best ways of helping the industry is to provide it with all the capacity to manage itself better and for us politicians to try to stand back and keep out of it.
Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak under you in the Chair, Mr Efford. My thanks and congratulations go to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate. I hope that in the coming years, the Government will find time to return the annual fisheries debate to the main Chamber. That was a good convention that the last Government cast aside, almost as quickly as they did their promises to fisherfolk following Brexit. I am sure that many of us would welcome its return.
This debate takes place in the season of the annual fisheries negotiations between the UK and the EU, as well as the trilateral negotiations with Norway. Last year, those negotiations resulted in more than half of catch limits being set above the scientifically advised levels, yet both international and UK law require that all stocks should be at sustainable levels. That is despite commitments under international treaties and agreements to end overfishing.
We currently have six commercially fished stocks—two cod stocks, two whiting stocks, one herring and a pollack—that are so depleted that the scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea is for zero catches. We need to understand just how poorly managed those stocks have been. ICES provides zero catch advice for a stock when it is so depleted that, even without any catch, it will not recover above the biomass limit reference point for spawning stock biomass, below which a stock’s reproductive capacity is compromised and it is considered to have impaired recruitment capacity. In other words, the stock has collapsed.
It is important to note that the decline of those stocks was not unpredictable, and nor was it unavoidable. Consistently fishing at too high a level guarantees that stocks will decline; if fishing is high enough, the stock will collapse.
[Dr Rupa Huq in the Chair]
Mr Carmichael
The hon. Gentleman is touching on an interesting issue. The ICES zero quota recommendations are what are called “headline advice”, which basically answers the question, “If you want this stock to recover in 12 months, what would you have to do?” Now, if we ask that question we will, of course, get the answer that the hon. Gentleman brings to the Chamber. In point of fact, in the early years of this century we had the cod recovery plan, which was the dominant feature of fisheries management in the North sea and went over, I think, 10 years—certainly five. He portrays the ICES advice as accurate, but there is a lot more nuance underneath that headline advice, and he would do well to look at that.
Barry Gardiner
I am, of course, well aware that it is headline advice and that other things come into play, but as the right hon. Gentleman himself mentioned in his opening remarks, the things that come into play—I think he called them the nuances—are often political—
Barry Gardiner
I think Hansard will record that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned that himself in his opening remarks.
Overfishing means that the stock is driven down even further. There is no cure to a collapsed stock that involves continuing to overfish. The Celtic sea cod stock has declined by 95% since 2012, but last year the total allowable catch was set at basically the level of the entire adult population—it was actually set just 2 tonnes lower—and now the entire spawning population is lower than that. If we roll over that TAC, the catch limit would exceed the entire spawning population.
The Irish sea whiting stock is currently about 9% of the level it is legally supposed to be. International commitments and the Fisheries Act 2020 commit the UK and the EU, which shares many of those populations, to maintain commercially harvested stocks at a level that can support maximum sustainable yield. The stock is at a mere 9% of that—not 9% of its natural size, but 9% of the already much lower level that is the legal minimum. That is another stock that has declined by more than 90% since the 1980s.
Climate change represents a significant threat to marine life and the fisheries that depend on a healthy ecosystem, but it was not climate change that collapsed those stocks; it was heavy and constant overfishing. We sometimes hear big fishing interests blame climate change for the collapse, and it certainly makes the recovery of those populations harder, but the truth is that we consistently set catch limits above scientifically advised levels. That has crashed those stocks and will continue to do so as long as Ministers are prepared to go into the negotiations and ignore the science.
In introducing the debate, the right hon. Gentleman spoke about climate change and cod stocks. In recent years, every time quotas for North sea cod have been set at sustainable levels in accordance with the science, the stocks of cod have increased. Every time quotas have been set out of line with the science, the stocks have declined. Our understanding of the additional pressures of climate change should be driving us to be even more precautionary in our approach to the protection of fish stocks—not to be pretending that it is the cause of their collapse. While I am thinking about cod and the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) about the processing industry, I should say that the cod that comes to Grimsby is predominantly from Greenland, Norway and Iceland, which have a much more precautionary approach to setting the quota.
Many people here will remember the introduction of the discard ban or the landing obligation referred to by the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George). It is a ban on throwing away perfectly good fish that had been caught. What many people will not know is that this ban applies only to quota stocks of dab, flounder and gurnard. All other non-quota stocks can be thrown away at sea perfectly legally, and many are. About 35,000 tonnes of dab are discarded in the North sea every year—that is roughly 90% of the catch and equates to about 5 million fish. Remember that when we talk about the importance of food security. The irony is that dab actually used to have a quota, but the quota was removed when the landing obligation was brought in.
The purpose of the landing obligation was to create a real incentive for fishermen to use gear types and fishing methods that reduced unwanted bycatch and led to more selective fishing. It was designed to reduce the choke problem by incentivising more selective gear that would avoid choke species. Unfortunately, that works only if it is enforced and all the evidence shows that the landing obligation is now being widely ignored. More worryingly, not only is it being ignored, but potential discards are not even being accounted for in the TAC-setting process.
The only solution to discarding and improving scientific assessments is for the introduction of remote electronic monitoring—cameras, specifically. Without them it is impossible to know what is being caught and being discarded. Monitoring is essential for compliance. We currently have a system that literally incentivises bad behaviour. I was very taken by what the hon. Member for St Ives said about his fisherman and pollack. A fisherman who, like the one the hon. Gentleman mentioned, spends money on more selective gear, abides by the landing obligation and avoids certain areas because of higher bycatch of unwanted species, is massively disadvantaged compared with a fisherman who ignores those regulations. We are, as it stands, incentivising non-selective fishing, rewarding illegal behaviour and punishing those who stick to the rules, such as the hon. Gentleman’s constituent.
The fishing industry rightly talks about the challenges it faces, yet its biggest challenge comes from an unhealthy marine environment that is incapable of supporting thriving fisheries. The notion that we can have a thriving fishing industry without a thriving marine environment is an illusion. We cannot have a growing sustainable fishing industry on the back of a depleted marine environment. No measure of Government support or access to markets can make up for no fish. Somehow this self-evident truth goes out the window when it comes to making decisions. We should be clear: if we do not recover fish stocks and start setting catch limits at levels that allow stocks to grow and adopting a precautionary approach that favours long-term sustainability, then we will be back there every year wondering why quotas have to be cut.
There are instances where the advice is for large increases in quota, and they were mentioned by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland; I think he said that when the data became available, it showed a 211% increase in relation to monkfish. When that is the case, I do not think we should chase down every last fish because that will simply result in smaller catches in future years, as well as significant increases in bycatch of other stocks, which will often result in overfishing. However, the argument the right hon. Gentleman made is absolutely right: we need to get good data and it needs to be comprehensive. Once we have that and we can base the scientific assessments on really strong data, we can make sure we fish in line with the science and that stocks can recover.
Mr Carmichael
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It comes back to the point I made about data and about the science that you base the data on. He will have heard in many of these debates over the years the concern that by the time the data is gathered and processed and goes through the ICES process, it is several years old, so it is reflective not of the fish stocks at the point at which the decisions are made, but of some years earlier. The one thing everyone can surely agree is that the better the data gathering, the better the science, and the better it is for fishers, conservationists and anybody with an interest in the seas.
Barry Gardiner
I am delighted to agree with the right hon. Gentleman, who chairs the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. It also adds grist to the mill of the five-year approach, but we perhaps need to be careful. It is perfectly reasonable to move to a five-year approach, but it would not necessarily immediately lead to us increasing quota. It might, in the first year certainly, actually lead to a more precautionary approach because one was looking at things over the five-year period. That might not be something that his constituents would appreciate so much.
We have heard today about spatial squeeze and how the fishing industry no longer has unfettered access to the entire ocean. That is true, but as has been pointed out it is unavoidable; indeed, for reasons of wider sustainability and our energy supply, it is important, but it is also an argument for acting in a way that grows our fish stocks.
Melanie Onn
On that point about the renewable side of things, there is an opportunity to bring the industry into consultation with the likes of the Crown Estate at a much earlier stage so that the voices of all of those co-located spatial sharers can be heard and planned around. There are examples of good relationships between offshore wind developers and fishing communities.
Barry Gardiner
I am delighted that I sat down to receive my hon. Friend’s intervention because she is entirely right. What she said goes to the remarks made by our hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) who, because of illness, is no longer in her place. She made a point about ensuring that consultations happen in accordance with the tides so that fisherfolk will actually be at the consultations and not out at sea. Her point was very interesting because that is not always appreciated.
Andrew George
The hon. Gentleman seems to be implying that the fishing industry is resistant to any conservation measures and would resist the proposed management measures that inevitably have to be brought into the industry. From my experience, the industry itself often proposes changes in order to protect its stock for the future. For example, the Trevose ground closure off the north coast of Cornwall during spring of each year was proposed by the industry itself.
Barry Gardiner
I am sorry if I have given the hon. Gentleman the impression that I think fishing communities would be against this; I do not think that. That is precisely why I welcome the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes and for South East Cornwall about the importance of consultation. Look at a case such as Lyme Bay: it was the local community, in consultation with the scientists, who produced the efflorescence that has taken place there. This must be done through the industry co-operating with the scientists.
We should note that MPAs were designed specifically to protect the nature within them from human activity that damaged it, and that includes fishing. It should therefore not be considered a negative that those areas are being protected. The partial ban on destructive dredging and bottom trawling in MPAs has been a success, and I hope it will be extended to a complete ban once the due process and consultation have taken place.
I wish the Minister and his team well in the upcoming negotiations. If he binds himself to the mast of science and turns an Odysseus-like ear to the siren voices urging him to allow greater quota, I cannot promise him popularity, but he would become a unique and respected first voice for common sense and a sustainable future for our industry.
First-hand sales of UK-landed seafood were over £1 billion in 2022, as my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes said. That is a good reminder that wild-capture seafood is a national resource. It is remarkable that the UK Treasury does not benefit directly and that those that benefit the most are large businesses that have managed to aggrandise themselves via the poorly regulated sale of individual quotas over many years. Small-scale fisherfolk and non-sector vessels are left to fish from the pool that accounts for just 4% of opportunities.
In addition, those big businesses that benefit the most by their control of quota also benefit from the free management of the resource via central and local government funding of the MMO, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Natural England and the inshore fisheries and conservation authorities. It is also clear that big businesses are best placed to make representations and influence policy in a way that a single-handed inshore fisherman simply cannot. A quick scan of successful Government grant applications demonstrates that it is also big business that benefits from grant schemes, with support being provided to companies with turnover in the millions.
The impact of market forces on this national asset has left a handful of families and businesses benefiting the most via consolidation of beneficial ownership of quota, while small-scale fisherfolk and our coastal communities wither and are lost. Depleted stocks and limited funding for robust data collection of all commercial species, leading to precautionary management decisions, are by-products of the current system. I ask the Minister whether it is time for the UK to consider what alternative systems to manage this valuable natural resource could look like.
I welcome the beginnings of transparency that have come about from the publication of quota holdings, but that is only part of the story of who benefits from the amazing national public asset that is our fisheries. We all know that in-year swaps and leases occur. Would the Minister look at completing the transparency exercise and requiring those swaps and leases to be published too? We need a system that is not based on the happenstance history of 40 years ago, when the current quota system was put in place, but that provides opportunity and certainty more equitably. We need a system that links opportunities to compliance with fisheries and conservation regulations and that helps to fund better data gathering and evidence to inform our fisheries resource management —one where a sustainable bounty from the seas ensures that the interests of our small fishing communities, the taxpayer and the planet are aligned.
It has already been said that fishing is one of the most dangerous peacetime occupations. The marine accident investigation branch accident reports make sombre reading, but they also provide an excellent opportunity for learning and change. Multiple capsizes of small vessels over several years led the Maritime and Coastguard Agency to update its codes for small vessel inspections, but reports from around the coast demonstrate that those new regulations appear to be applied inconsistently, and in some cases they run contrary to the marine architect designs and tested vessel stability.
The financial burden of being tied up by an MCA inspection and being required to make modifications to a vessel’s hull can be exceptionally heavy. Owner-operators are forced to sell their vessels and in some cases leave the industry, as they simply cannot afford to comply with an individual inspector’s request. I urge the Minister to speak with his colleagues at the Department for Transport to help convene a group of small-scale fishing vessel safety experts? They can help the DFT and the MCA to better understand the impact of their inspection regimes and to find a coherent approach to that vital work—one that provides a consistent set of outcomes, without the lottery of where a fisherman is based and which inspector they get producing different outcomes on similar vessels. The lack of MCA inspectors means that vessels can often wait weeks for an inspection slot. While a vessel is awaiting reinspection, the fisherman cannot earn. What should be a straightforward process can provide huge financial risk and strain, from which some of those microbusinesses simply cannot recover.
Finally on safety, I draw the Minister’s attention to a simple fact that the last Government seemed to do little to address. The MAIB reports set out the circumstances surrounding each accident and the component elements that led to it. All too often, these accidents are highly predictable and could be prevented by simply conducting good maintenance, onboard training and safe operations. Here, I would interject that the question of English language skills, which we debated earlier, comes into play: English language skills and the ability to communicate with every member of the crew is vital for crew safety.
Mr Carmichael
For the avoidance of doubt, as I might have said in a previous professional existence, nobody is suggesting that a crew should not have English language skills. The question, rather, is about the level those language skills are required to be.
Barry Gardiner
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and I thought that his points on visas were well-made, but it is important that we put safety at the forefront. Paradoxically, the common denominator that runs through every report is that the crew involved had all attended courses and attained the required safety and training certificate. I gently suggest that it is time for the DFT and the MCA to consider their syllabuses to see whether what is being delivered leaves graduates with the practical understanding they need to transfer to their work environment. I think a review is overdue.
The roll-out of CatchApp and inshore vessel monitoring to the small-scale fleet has been widely seen as a disaster by inshore fishermen. I am told that CatchApp is regularly down, and inshore vessel monitoring systems and approved suppliers are not required to provide robust support in a timely fashion, leading to lost days at sea. The stress and anxiety that those two systems are causing around the coast is palpable. The MMO warned, during the roll-out of both those systems, of the risks of pressing ahead with them before they were fully tested and, in the case of the I-VMS, that not stipulating service levels would leave fisherman at the mercy of the providers. We debated the issue in the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee at the time, but the Government simply rode over it. I appreciate that the roll-out programme came under the last Government, but can Ministers urgently investigate what is going wrong with those systems from the user’s standpoint, and what steps the MMO can take to make things work better?
Small-scale fishermen are the beating heart of so many of our coastal communities. Fishing is not a job; it is a way of life, but one where it is increasingly difficult for new entrants to be found or gain appropriate training. Many of today’s fishermen came into the industry via the youth training scheme. It provided college, a small salary and on-the-job training. Some of our country’s finest inshore skippers came via that route, but they are now close to retirement. Only large companies can afford to recruit and invest in new entrants, and over the past decade we have seen a growing reliance on foreign crews. We have heard, and will no doubt hear more, about visa problems. Local apprenticeship courses have met with varying success, but they will not provide the numbers or the pace to replace foreign crews, let alone the fishermen who have reached retirement.
When the Minister considers the successor funding scheme to the fisheries and seafood scheme, I will be grateful if he looks at what more we can do to grow our own talent and build the workforce, particularly for the small-scale fishing fleet. It cannot fund apprentices directly itself, but its members have a lifetime at sea and the knowledge to help to grow that talent.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank the Backbench Business Committee and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for this important debate. I particularly thank the right hon. Gentleman for the tribute he paid to our fishermen who face dangers at sea each day—“For those in peril on the sea”. The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) referred to the loss of the Solway Harvester; I well remember covering that tragedy as a journalist, and the shadow it cast on the Isle of Whithorn and Kirkcudbrightshire.
My fishing community and the other communities I represent are quite different from those constituencies. The Western Isles account for 22% of the inshore waters in what is mostly an inshore fishery, although that might well have been 0% of Scotland’s inshore fishing grounds if the SNP-Green coalition had got away with its ludicrous plans for highly protected marine areas, which the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) highlighted. Although those plans were defeated, pushed away by a rebellion across Scotland’s coast and the songwriting power of Skipinnish, and have been put away for now, they have created a high level of uncertainty, which means that some fishermen are deciding whether to stay or leave the industry.
In the Western Isles, the picture is mixed and somewhat rosy. We have had some £12 million-worth of tonnage landed in the past couple of years—something like 3,000 tonnes, of which almost 90% is shellfish and only 11% is white fish. Marine Scotland shows that there are 215 registered fishing vessels—small fishing vessels, like those for which my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner) has just made the case—and something like 290 fishers, or about 7% of Scotland’s national total.
The industry faces many different challenges in different constituencies, but we have a lot in common. I will give some attention to one of the biggest challenges facing the industry and the associated processing sector in the Western Isles. It was a pleasure to go to the annual general meeting of the Western Isles Fishermen’s Association a couple of weeks ago and see so many young faces among the attendees. There are young entrants to the industry, helped by locally administered schemes that encourage entrants. One such scheme is community quotas, which the Western Isles council, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, has bought and which it licenses from quota to new entrants. That all helps people into the fishing industry and has a significant impact.
That glimmer of hope should not mask something that is a problem for the islands’ industry, the Scottish industry and the UK industry: the lack of skilled crews. The demographics in the Western Isles are not good. Although I have talked about young entrants, the working-age population has dropped by 12% over the past 10 years, and there has been a 26% rise in the elderly population. All employers are competing for a reduced number of school leavers, and virtually all sectors are dependent on sourcing migrant labour to grow their business.
The most important ask from the Western Isles fishing industry is that the Minister recognise that there has to be some flexibility in immigration policy to allow the needs and demands of rural and island areas to be accepted. The current sponsored employment scheme seems to have been based on city and urban salaries; it ignores the variation in wages in rural and island communities, which of course are lower and are coupled with increased food, energy and transport costs. I suspect that the £70,000 salary for a processor that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) mentioned has as much to do with the lack of skilled people as it does with the skills involved in doing the job.
Only this week, I had some correspondence from the Isle of Barra. Barratlantic is one of the large seafood processors on our island chain. Christina MacNeil, the general manager, tells me that in 35 years of working in the seafood industry, things have never been more difficult. There is huge demand for langoustine and scallop, but supplying customers is becoming increasingly difficult because of the lack of staff. We can imagine how difficult it is on a small island. She has four Filipino workers, who have been employed there since April 2023; they came through the sponsorship scheme, but given the nature of the work and the lack of available staff, the company needs some flexibility in order to retain them. It can just about manage the salaries now, but if they increased to £38,000 a year the operation would be impossible. The company has been in operation for 50 years, but its future is in the balance because of restrictive immigration schemes.
It is the same for fishermen. It is impossible to employ UK crews, as we know, so they must look overseas. Once again, cost is a criterion, but so too is the visa system. Crews need an English qualification at a very high level, which means that they are almost barred from entry. That creates huge difficulties for fishing boat owners and processors in my constituency.
My plea to the Minister—it is echoed by others such as the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan), who is no longer in his place, as well as the Migration Advisory Council and almost every coastal community—is that there be flexibility in the visa system. We do not need a separate visa system, as some Scottish colleagues might argue. There is no need to replicate the system: we just need enough flex to take into account the needs of island and rural areas.
Mr Carmichael
In relation to separate systems, I suspect that the hon. Gentleman agrees that the problems for the fishermen in both our constituencies are shared by fishermen in Kilkeel, around the south-west coast and elsewhere in the country. Does that not rather illustrate the truth that the problem is for the sector rather than for any particular constituent part of the United Kingdom?
Torcuil Crichton
That is true. Our problems are not uniquely island problems, nor are they uniquely Scottish problems: they are demographic, economic and social problems for coastal communities around the whole UK. I know that that is not entirely the responsibility of the Minister.
Having risked the ire of the Home Office, rather than the Minister, I will carry on and risk the anger of my hon. Friends the Members for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) and for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd), and possibly of the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George). I am after their tuna, or rather our tuna. One quota for which the Minister does have responsibility is the bluefin tuna stocks, which have increased significantly. Thanks to climate change, bluefin tuna are roaming far north and wild in the Atlantic. There has been a great decade-long catch-and-release scheme around the British coast. The catch is by rod and line, so the catches are selective, of good quality and of the same stock as those caught in other regions of the UK. They have the potential to be a great home market and export market.
The UK was allocated something like 39 tonnes of bluefin tuna in 2023, but so far none of those commercial licences has been granted to a Scottish boat. All 13 were granted to the south-west of England; none of them has come to Scotland, far less to the Hebrides, where operators have set themselves up not just as rod-and-line operators, but potentially as smokers and exporters to the domestic and international markets.
For all the quota to be allocated to one area seems very odd. It is not what we would expect. We might expect weight to be placed on geography and on socioeconomic impacts: a bluefin tuna fishery in the Western Isles would be economically significant. For rod-and-line operators and others who have prepared themselves to turn commercial, it is deeply frustrating to be turned off in that way.
Jayne Kirkham
I do not wish to make too much of this, but looking at the other side of it, Scotland has been lucky enough to get the headquarters of GB Energy. Maybe we could think about the alternative as well.
Torcuil Crichton
I will turn my attention to GB Energy in a moment. First, I make another appeal to the Minister that from next year onwards the UK ought to allocate commercial bluefin tuna licences not on a “first come, first served” basis, or however the system works, but on a geographic and socioeconomic basis.
While I have the Minister’s ear and we are talking about quotas, let me make an appeal for spurdog fishery, which is managed by the UK Government and allocated on a monthly quota basis to all vessels. Due to the introduction of a management measure banning the landing of individual fish over 100 cm in length, fishermen have been unable to develop a market. All buyers who show an interest in spurdog indicate that they would far rather have spurdog over 100 cm. As a result of the measure, local fishermen end up dumping large fish, which could secure—and, prior to the ban, did secure—higher prices. Some relaxation on the question of permitting the landing of spurdog over 100 cm would at least open a limited marketing opportunity for fishermen on those vessels.
I do not want to wade into the big debate on quotas, on total catch allowances and on 2026—or perhaps I do. I will just wish the Minister well and ask him to consider some of the ideas that my hon. Friend the Member for that famous fishing port Brent West highlighted in his contribution. The quota should belong to no one. It should not be used to enrich those who are already rich from our seas; it should be treated as a national resource and a socioeconomic asset to be distributed according to port, postcode and socioeconomic need. As I say, there should also be a system of community quota, whereby excess quota or new quota is allocated to municipalities or regional development agencies to ensure that it is attached to landing ports and that it creates local jobs in coastal communities.
There has been a lot of talk about GB Energy, spatial squeeze and the conflict between the fishing industry and the new offshore wind farm industry. I understand why the conflict exists. The developments are somewhat controversial, but they would be less controversial if the offshore industry, like the onshore industry, were forced to provide a community benefit or community share or to pay more to the Crown Estate Commission for permission to make wealth from wind, which should, of course, belong to no one. If those funds were allocated regionally and locally, we could address the data deficiency to which the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West referred. We could create our own marine research centres in our coastal communities—not necessarily run by the Government, but certainly run by those communities—so that in the competition for data and in arguments with environmentalists and with Governments, we can have the science, we can tell what is in the waters around us and we can tell how the environment is shaping up.
These are leaps of the imagination, perhaps, for the quota system, but they should be considered seriously by the Government and by the fishing industry itself, if fishing is to have a future as well as a past.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for securing today’s debate on the UK fishing industry. He has been a steadfast supporter of the UK’s fishing communities for many years. I echo his words and those of many others in the debate who have paid tribute to all those who have died at sea, and to the valuable work of the RNLI. Fishing is a subject of huge importance to us Liberal Democrats, not only because of the industry’s economic significance but because of its cultural heritage, its role in sustaining coastal communities and its relationship with the health of our seas.
We have heard today from communities from all around the UK’s coastline, and about many different sectors of this age-old industry. The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) talked about resolving the visa issue for fishers, both within and outside the 12-mile zone, which many others referred to as well.
The hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) spoke about the importance of fish as a low-carbon, high-protein food source of which we should be consuming more, and the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) spoke passionately about how we can promote fish and seafood throughout the food chain, and about her brilliant local food-processing industry up in Grimsby.
The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) referred beautifully to Cornwall’s proud fishing heritage, and particularly the Fal oysters. On that point, while I have him in the room, I ask the Minister again to reconsider his decision to classify Pacific oysters as an invasive species. They are heading our way anyway—they are going to be here whether we like it or not—so I do not believe that decision makes sense any longer. After all, sheep were once not a native species in the UK; things do change.
The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton)—did I get that right?
Caroline Voaden
The hon. Member talked about the importance of encouraging young people into the industry. That is important for us all, wherever we are.
It is clear for us all to see that our fishing communities were deeply let down by the previous Conservative Government, and that the promises made to them in the run-up to Brexit have been badly broken. Instead of the “sea of opportunity”—which the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) optimistically said he thought was possible—the industry has been cast adrift, struggling with increased bureaucracy, reduced market access and rising costs.
We believe fishing communities deserve better. As we enter this annual negotiation period and approach the end of the transition period in 2026, we must learn from the failures of the past and ensure that the mistakes of the terrible, botched Brexit deal are not repeated. As many Members have said, we need multi-annual decision making to give the industry more long-term stability.
Negotiations on fishing quotas must be conducted transparently and be based on the best science available, with fishing communities at the table helping to shape the decisions that will profoundly affect their livelihoods. The Liberal Democrats want a fair deal for fishers—one that sets realistic catch limits, cuts unnecessary bureaucracy, invests in infrastructure and creates opportunities for coastal communities to thrive both on and off the water.
First, we need to tackle the avalanche of red tape that has engulfed the industry for the last few years. The increased paperwork for customs declarations, export processes and landing requirements has created delays, raised costs and caused untold frustration, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) described. Driving from Cornwall to Dover with a piece of paper to comply with an export requirement is utter madness in 2024.
Having to get a qualified vet to personally sign 17 different pieces of paper for one export consignment is also ludicrous, yet that is the reality for Offshore Shellfish, a high-quality mussel farm off the Devon coast—I have written here, “which I had the pleasure of visiting on a very windy day in September”, but I am not sure that it was all pleasure, because it was quite choppy. Mussels cannot afford to be held up by red tape; speed is key when exporting shellfish. We have to cut down on the endless forms that companies are being forced to fill in.
John Cooper
I was involved with the seafood industry in the early days of Brexit as a special adviser with the Scotland Office, and we found that much of the problems with live export, particularly of shellfish and things like langoustines, actually lay on the far side of the channel, rather than our side. I do not know whether it is still the case, but at that time the UK Government had a digital-first presumption to try to take away the pieces of paper the hon. Lady talks about but, in fact, it was those in Europe who insisted on that. I am not sure whether the hon. Lady is aware of that.
Caroline Voaden
I am aware that my predecessor used to say it was digital-first and that the paperwork did not exist, but I can tell Members that 17 pieces of paper have to be signed every time Offshore Shellfish wants to do an export consignment. It does not matter which side of the channel that comes from. The point is that it was a bad deal that was badly negotiated, and we should never have put our fish exporters in that position. The Liberal Democrats want a veterinary agreement with the EU to be signed as soon as possible, to simplify the processes.
Secondly, we must invest in the infrastructure needed to keep jobs and value in our coastal communities. By equipping coastal towns with modern processing facilities, we can retain more of the value generated by fishing within those communities, which will help to revitalise local economies, help coastal communities around the UK, and create high-quality employment opportunities, as was so well described by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes.
The future of fishing depends on the health of our seas, which is why sustainability is at the heart of the Liberal Democrat approach. We believe in a science-led system for managing fishing quotas, to ensure that decisions are based on all the available evidence about stock levels and marine biodiversity, not just the headline advice. We need to iron out the mismatches between data and the actual situation in the sea. Only when those two things match will we have the best data and be able to make the best decisions.
The last-minute decision by the previous Government to cut pollack quotas at a stroke showed the Conservatives’ lack of respect for our hard-working fishing communities. Like my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives, I know one skipper who had to sell his boat straight after that decision. It was just the last straw. We must have more long-term decision making so that we do not put people in that situation at the drop of a hat.
We would also establish an innovation fund to support the development of new technologies and practices that reduce environmental harm, while increasing funding for marine conservation projects and expanding the network of marine protected areas—but in consultation with the fishing industry. Protecting our oceans is not just about safeguarding the environment, vital though that is; it is about securing the long-term viability of the fishing industry itself. Nothing is more important to an industry that provides sustainable, quality food, contributes to our nation’s food security and wants to carry on doing that for the long term.
In my constituency of South Devon, fishing is not just an industry but a way of life for many of my constituents. Brixham harbour, one of the busiest and most successful fishing ports in England, is a hub of activity sustaining hundreds of jobs and contributing millions to the local economy. I am grateful to the Minister for his visit in July, which was much appreciated by the fishing community. We see bluefin tuna jumping in our waters, as in the Western Isles.
The challenges facing fishers in South Devon are stark. I have met many skippers in Brixham who shared the immense pressures they are under, from rising fuel costs to navigating the labyrinth of post-Brexit bureaucracy. They are deeply proud of their work and their heritage, but they feel abandoned by successive Governments that have made promises they have failed to keep. We are also facing an acute skilled labour shortage, which many have spoken about. Despite efforts to recruit home-grown talent through apprenticeships and partnerships, we simply do not have enough skilled crews to operate vessels or enough workers for our processors.
As many Members have mentioned, the current visa routes for non-UK workers are wholly inadequate. The transit worker visa, which many smaller operators rely on, does not meet the needs of modern fishing, while the skilled worker visa is unaffordable and impracticable for the industry. Its language requirements alone simply do not recognise the reality of working at sea. I ask the Government to work with the Home Office to create a visa system that meets the needs of the industry and supports its sustainability.
As we review the trade and co-operation agreement, we must look at what has happened. Operating costs have skyrocketed due to Brexit and the pandemic, compounding the challenges for exporters, who are so reliant on EU markets. Administrative burdens and barriers to trade remain a thorn in the industry’s side, and those burdens must be eased and smoother trade with the EU must be prioritised. Better access must be negotiated to weight it more in favour of UK fishers. It would be good to hear from the Minister how his negotiators will prioritise that.
Marine spatial planning, to which many Members have referred, must also properly recognise the value of fishing alongside environmental objectives. The industry supports the goals of the Fisheries Act 2020, but the pace and scale of the changes can sometimes feel overwhelming. That highlights the need for careful consideration of the socioeconomic impacts on fishers and coastal communities. Although we in the Liberal Democrats support an urgent move to renewal energy, is it right that we lease out the UK seabed to develop an industry that will export energy abroad at the cost of the UK fishing industry? Fishing and power can share the sea, but fishers must be properly consulted about the siting of new offshore wind, and there must be a discussion about turbines being located in some of our most lucrative fishing waters.
Looking ahead, I hope the new Labour Government will develop a clear and coherent strategy for the industry that takes into account the interconnectedness of environmental and economic objectives. The 2025 renegotiation of the TCA is an opportunity to address the challenges, and I hope the Government will consider socioeconomic factors when shaping future policy. Fishing communities deserve far better that the neglect they have endured over the past decade.
The Liberal Democrats remain unwavering in our commitment to advocating for practical and meaningful solutions that address the immediate challenges faced by fishing communities. We will continue to push for reforms that not only secure the long-term future of the industry as a whole, both at sea and on land, but protect the environment on which it depends.
Dr Neil Hudson (Epping Forest) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who is Chair of the EFRA Committee, on securing a debate on such an important topic for fishermen and women in our coastal communities right across the United Kingdom. Fish are one of the most valuable and powerful resources for our country; we must protect, preserve and nurture them, and support the industries that harvest them for us. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition are committed to supporting our coastal communities and our fishing industries.
We have had a wide-ranging debate. There have been powerful contributions from across the United Kingdom, and there was a lot of expertise within them. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland spoke powerfully about the negotiations, the importance of science, and the balance between economics and conservation. He also touched on the importance of safety in the industry, a point echoed by many Members.
The hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) talked about the importance of data and monitoring, while my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), who is a proud champion of her local farming and fishing communities, spoke about the issues of food security and the role fishing plays in that. She talked about spatial squeezing and the TCA negotiations and, at the end of her speech, she talked powerfully about the importance of the RNLI and how much we owe them for keeping people safe at sea.
The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) talked about sustainability, and my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper), who is also a proud champion for both his farming and fishing constituents, talked powerfully about safety and danger in the fishing industry. He also talked about spatial squeezing and gave his expert analysis of the ongoing fishing negotiations, which was welcome.
The hon. Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) talked about the negotiations and the need for a longer-term perspective. She spoke about the importance of the processing industry, which was valuable. I was pleased that she heaped praise on the £100 million UK seafood fund, which was brought in by the Conservative Government in 2021 to support the future and the sustainability of the UK fisheries and seafood sector. I thank her for praising that Conservative policy.
The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) talked about safety and echoed many of the scientific themes, and the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner)—with whom I served in the previous Parliament on the EFRA Committee, where we received regular briefings from DEFRA about the complexities of the fishing negotiations—talked powerfully about the importance of science and sustainability, data monitoring and the safety implications of fishing.
I will move now to the Western Isles, the name of which I am going to struggle to pronounce, so help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton)—
Dr Hudson
The hon. Member spoke powerfully about safety from his unique perspective representing island and rural communities, and he talked passionately about the appeals for quotas to the Minister as well.
It is important to highlight the benefits that we can and should reap following our departure from the European Union. For our fishing industry, that departure gave us the opportunity to increase our fishing quotas, which I am pleased the last Conservative Government took advantage of. As Members will be aware, the last Government began the process of replacing the EU’s common fisheries policy, which I think we agree was flawed, with a new bespoke framework for UK fisheries.
Six fisheries management plans were consulted on, covering major species, including bass, scallop, lobster and crab. The last Government negotiated quotas of 750,000 tonnes in 2024, an 80,000 tonne increase compared with 2023 that was expected to deliver a £70 million boost for the fishing industry. Can the Minister provide clarity, for the sector and for Members present, on what the Government hope to achieve in the quotas for next year and how they will approach negotiations for 2026 and into the future?
A significant fear is that the Government will use fishing as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the EU. Can the Minister quash those rumours now and assure our fishing communities across the United Kingdom that this Government will not let them down, as they are currently doing to farmers with their policies on the family farm tax on inheritance? We would like some reassurance from the Minister on that point.
The new Government have published consultations for the next five fisheries management plans, which I welcome. Can the Minister confirm that they will remain live documents, constantly open to review, updates and improvements, to ensure that those FMPs reach their objectives?
As has been said, in December 2021, the Conservative Government allocated £100 million specifically to support the long-term future of our UK fishing sector, supporting job creation and boosting seafood exports to new markets. Can the Minister clarify whether the Government will continue with that support or provide any additional funding to benefit the long-term future of the UK fishing sector? Can the Minister also commit to publishing an impact assessment of the Government’s new labour and employment reforms, including the increase in national insurance contributions and its specific impact on the fishing industry, including the fish processing sector and coastal communities?
I am also keen to press the Minister on several issues that we encountered on the EFRA Committee in areas that I led on in certain respects. I hope that the Minister can provide some clarity on the Government’s position today, not least because the sector has been waiting with considerable concern following the general election, as Labour’s manifesto was pretty short on fishing—in fact, it failed to mention it at all.
Last year, in the last Parliament, the EFRA Committee published its cross-party report on marine mammals, after an inquiry that I triggered. The report highlighted the issue of bycatch, in which seals, dolphins and other sea life are tragically snarled in fishing gear. Sadly, it is estimated that more than 650,000 marine mammals die each year from being needlessly caught worldwide, including more than 1,000 cetaceans in UK waters.
The last Government consulted on the introduction of remote electronic monitoring. Electronic monitoring systems utilise a range of technology, including cameras, gear sensors, GPS units and more. The last Government began to implement electronic monitoring systems in all priority fisheries, with the aim of achieving that by 2029. Those monitoring systems apply to all vessels over 10 metres in length and active within fisheries in English waters, including non-UK vessels.
Once we were satisfied that the implementation issues had been resolved for each priority fishery, the plan was to make it mandatory to have such systems installed. It was noted that there would be two years’ notice to give vessels time to adapt and for installation to take place. Will the Minister tell us what the Government are going to do in that regard? Does that remain the plan? What are the timescales?
Marine Management Organisation rules state that fishermen and women in UK waters must self-report all cetacean bycatch within 48 hours of their fishing journey, but very few reports are submitted. According to the MMO, six marine mammals were reported by fishing vessels as bycatch injury or mortality in 2023. In stark contrast, the previous Government’s bycatch monitoring programme estimated that between 502 and 1,560 harbour porpoises, 165 to 662 common dolphins, and 375 to 872 seals—both grey and harbour—were captured as bycatch in UK fisheries in 2019. Does the Minister agree that that suggests there is significant under-reporting of cetacean and other marine mammal bycatch? Will the Minister clarify what the Government are doing to improve the monitoring, reporting and prevention of such tragic and upsetting bycatch?
I have worked closely with Whale and Dolphin Conservation, the World Cetacean Alliance, the Sussex Dolphin Project and the Blue Marine Foundation, which are great organisations that seek to make fishing safer for the marine mammals that share the seas and oceans that we harvest fish from. Will the Minister commit to working with such organisations to tackle this issue, which unites us in humanity? No one wants to see those air-breathing mammals horrifically caught up by the fishing industry.
The UK has a very important role to play as a global soft power. Like all Members, I am strongly opposed to the hunting of any cetaceans—dolphins, whales or porpoises. There is no humane way to kill a whale, so that barbaric practice must end. Although there is a tradition in the Faroe Islands of killing pilot whales and dolphins for meat and other products, the previous Government long expressed their concern about the welfare issues surrounding those cetacean hunts and the domestic regulation currently in place. Ministers in the previous Government urged the Faroe Islands to look at alternatives to the hunting of dolphins and encouraged its representatives to consider the many economic and social benefits that responsible cetacean watching can bring to coastal communities.
During the joint committee on trade with the Faroe Islands in 2022, Ministers raised the UK’s opposition to the continued hunting of dolphins in the Faroe Islands on animal welfare and conservation grounds. I therefore hope the Minister will confirm that the new Government will uphold the previous Government’s position and use every appropriate opportunity to advocate for the end of cetacean hunts in the Faroe Islands.
This issue sadly stretches further than the Faroe Islands. Horrifically, whaling is still practised in various countries, including Norway, Iceland and Japan. Will the Minister outline how the Government are approaching countries that still conduct whaling?
Barry Gardiner
The hon. Gentleman missed out the United States of America from that list.
Dr Hudson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention.
What steps are the Government taking in international negotiations to stop that cruel practice? When negotiating fishing arrangements, trade deals or anything else, UK diplomats and Ministers must make the ethical case to countries that those unacceptable practices must end. Can the Minister reassure the House that the new Labour Government will continue to play their part on the world stage to end whaling once and for all?
It is important to work collaboratively with our international partners to ensure that global waters can thrive. Sustainability in fishing is pivotal to preserve these diverse ecosystems. Indeed, using a scientific, evidence-based approach that ensures high ecological and environmental standards in fishing from all fishing countries is paramount for sustaining our precious seas and oceans and ensuring responsible global trade.
I welcome the introduction of highly protected marine areas that protect all species, habitats and associated ecosystem processes within the site boundary, including the seabed and the water column. HPMAs allow the protection and full recovery of marine ecosystems. By setting aside some areas of the sea with high levels of protection, HPMAs allow nature to fully recover to a more natural state, and allow the ecosystem to thrive. Can the Minister update Members on the Government’s plans regarding the development of HPMAs?
Mr Carmichael
I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman says about HPMAs. Does he agree that the Government in Whitehall should learn the lessons from the experience of the Government in Edinburgh? That is, if we are to move to that level of protection, it is of primary importance that the communities that are going to be most closely affected are brought along as part of the process, rather than it just being visited on communities in a top-down closure that would result in the economic ruin we would have seen in Scotland.
Dr Hudson
I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. I agree that it is important to have joined-up thinking across the United Kingdom, and that communities should be consulted. If we are designating different areas of our seas and oceans, we should make sure that harvesting the sea goes in parallel with conserving it.
It is important to touch on how dangerous fishing is, an issue that has been spoken about powerfully by many Members across the Chamber today. It is undeniably a dangerous and demanding industry, so I welcome measures to improve safety in fishing. There is more that we need to do, and today’s debate has shone a light on that. I urge the Government to move ahead on a cross-party basis to see what we can do to make this industry much safer.
The hon. Member for Brent West touched on the stress and anxiety within the profession, and I want to touch briefly on mental health. The mental health of our fishing communities is very fragile, because it is such a tough and unsafe industry, there are financial pressures, and those communities do not know what is going to happen as the negotiations move forward.
The statistics show that people who are struggling with their mental health are more likely to have accidents, certainly in the farming sector, and the same is probably true in the fishing industry. It is important to acknowledge that and to support the mental health of our fishing communities. I commend the work of several charities that help in this area, such as the Bearded Fishermen Charity, Fishermen’s Mission, FishWell and the Angling Trust. All those charities do an amazing job in working with fishermen and women to support their mental health. Will the Minister join me in commending their work, and outline what specific support he believes can be put in place—as a Government and on a cross-party basis—to support our fishing communities with their mental health? If we want sustainability of fishing, we need to have sustainability among the people who work in that profession. We need to nurture it and support it moving forward.
To conclude, fishermen and women, fish processors and coastal communities all do incredibly tough and dedicated work to help the UK’s food security, as has been powerfully said by my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon and Buchan and by Members on both sides of the Chamber. The work that they do is important for feeding the nation with healthy, locally sourced and locally processed food that is key to a balanced diet. Mike Cohen, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, has said:
“The costs of doing business as a fisher and the rewards to be obtained from it also need consideration in government policy.”
I hope that the Minister agrees, and that the views of all the key fishing stakeholders and communities will always be considered at the heart of future policymaking.
The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)
It is always a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Huq.
I start by thanking the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who is the Chair of the Select Committee, not only for securing this debate—a really important one, which has been conducted in a civil and constructive way, and I look forward to similar discussions throughout this Parliament—but for his continuing commitment to championing the fishing industry, of which he is extremely knowledgeable.
Orkney and Shetland are crucial parts of the UK seafood industry, and their rich fishing grounds and aquaculture sites provide quality produce that is in demand across Europe and beyond. Back in the summer, I was very pleased to visit the area. In fact, while listening to many of the contributions to the debate, I realised that I have had the pleasure of visiting the constituencies of many Members who have spoken today.
We have heard some excellent speeches today, including the excellent sales job by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn), who gave a powerful account of the importance of fish processors. We also heard a point that is perhaps not widely understood—that so much of the fish we consume is, sadly, not caught by our own fishing fleet but frozen and brought here from other countries.
There was also strong representation from Scotland and the south-west of England. The hon. Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) made a similarly strong sales job. In passing, I thank Chris Ranford and the others who made me so welcome in Cornwall back in the summer. When I was in Shetland, I also had the pleasure to hear directly from some of the organisations there—the Scottish Fishermen’s Association and the Shetland Fish Producers Organisation. There are many people to whom I am grateful for informing me about this hugely important, hugely complicated issue.
I was struck by the comments about the safety issues, and indeed the danger that the people working in the industry face. Fishing is a really difficult and dangerous job. One of my first visits to a fishing area was to King’s Lynn, in my own part of the country. I remember standing on the quayside on a very cold January morning, looking at the relatively small craft setting out into the grey and thinking, “This looks like a very, very tough job.” It really is, and of course the risks involved have been outlined very well by several Members today. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland, who secured and introduced the debate, made the point about the risks involved very strongly, as did the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper). The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) also outlined those risks. I am very grateful to him, not only for his warm words today, but for his warm welcome when I visited his constituency.
We should all thank the people who do these tough jobs. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch published its 2023 annual report in October, sadly reporting on a year in which three fishing vessels were lost, with the loss of four lives. Those are four tragedies—far too many. We also heard today, from other speakers, about tragedies in the past. Having said all that, I think the industry deserves praise for its efforts to improve safety. That good work must continue, including, as a priority, addressing concerns flagged by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch about potential under-reporting of incidents.
I will try to address the points made by Members today, but I will start by setting out some of the Government’s priorities, because that information was sought by several Members.
We absolutely recognise that the fishing and seafood industry is culturally a significant part of the UK and integral to many communities, particularly our more remote coastal communities. Our fishing fleet and the associated onshore activities play an important role in boosting the growth of regional and coastal economies, including providing jobs. The industry also plays a vital role in our food security, bringing a nutritious source of food to dinner tables across the country. My job title is the Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs, and I see the fishing sector as playing a vital role in feeding the nation.
Through our fisheries management and our international responsibilities, the UK is absolutely committed to managing our fisheries in a sustainable way—a point that was echoed in virtually every contribution today. By meeting our responsibilities, we will support a vibrant, profitable and sustainable fishing industry alongside a productive and healthy marine environment. I think that goal of achieving a balance is shared by everyone.
What we now have, as an independent coastal state, is the ability to pursue our own approach to managing fisheries, both at home and on the international stage. We want to work increasingly closely with the industry to ensure that we deliver the best outcome for the UK. I will come back to this point: I am really keen that we co-create policy with those who are impacted by it. That point is made repeatedly by the Secretary of State.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
On consultation, too many meetings are held in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. That creates a huge burden for some of the fishers that want to attend them. They are often held in Newlyn or Brixham, the main centres, which can create logistical challenges for those wanting to voice their views on the formation of fisheries management plans. Will the Minister consider that when trying to reach a more hand-in-glove consultation with our fishing communities?
Daniel Zeichner
My hon. Friend makes an important point—one that I used to make when in opposition, and one that I have impressed on officials. The effort has been made to ensure that is considered wherever possible. It is not always easy to find the right times, but we are doing everything we can.
This Government will always back the British fishing industry. We are absolutely keen to boost trade, deliver benefits to UK businesses and push for sustainable fishing opportunities for British vessels; but we recognise the huge challenges that the sector is facing and are engaging closely with industry to create a more secure, sustainable and economically successful fishing industry that we believe will in turn support local communities.
On some of the specifics raised around post-2026 access, as I am sure hon. Members will be aware, a full and faithful implementation of the fisheries heading of the trade and co-operation agreement will see access for EU vessels to the UK zone become a matter for annual negotiation to sit alongside our annual consultations on catch limits with a range of coastal states and international fora on fishing opportunities. That is significant. We will always listen to what the EU has to say on the matter, but we are absolutely determined to protect the interests of our fishers and continue to fulfil our international commitments to protect the marine environment.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland rightly asked who would be leading those discussions; they will be led by my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office. He asked who would speak up for UK fishers; the answer is the UK Fisheries Minister, which is me. I admired the slight cheek of the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Dr Hudson) in challenging me not to let fishers down in those negotiations. I do not want to dwell on past misery, but let us say we are determined to do much better.
Daniel Zeichner
I recognise that there have been some opportunities—not many, but some—and we will do our very best to make more of them. But I do not get a general sense that people in the fishing sector look back and think that was our finest hour. We can do better.
Our ambitions for fisheries are no longer tied to the EU common fisheries policy.
Andrew George
I should have intervened earlier. The Minister is making a strong point. On the back of that, all we have to do is talk to the pollack fisherman in Cornwall to find out how they feel about what has happened in the last year.
Daniel Zeichner
Indeed. I am not sure that the two things are directly related, but having spoken to the pollack fisherman I am under no illusion about how difficult the situation they face is. There was a series of reasons why they had particular problems.
We now have the opportunity to set our own objectives for the UK fishing industry. As I have already set out, we want a thriving, sustainable fishing industry in the future.
I will turn to our ongoing negotiations with the European Union. Fishing opportunities for 2025 for jointly managed stocks between the UK and EU are under negotiation as we speak. I suspect Members know this well, but it is an important and complex agreement covering 74 quota stocks and arrangements for non-quota stocks, too. In those negotiations, as in others, we balance the objectives of the Fisheries Act 2020 and the joint fisheries statement to achieve outcomes that can support both the environmental and economic sustainability of our fisheries. That has been referenced extensively, including by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner), but we start with the best scientific advice, including advice on maximum sustainable yield where that is available.
Members have also raised the so-called UK-EU-Norway trilateral negotiations, which are also taking place as we speak, in Oslo. We are hoping that they will come to a conclusion before the end of the week. They secure around a third of the UK’s quota opportunities. The UK’s objectives will include following the scientific advice closely in setting those quotas and securing workable arrangements on northern shelf cod.
Alex Mayer (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard) (Lab)
In recent years, fish and chip shops have—excuse the pun—taken rather a battering. Will the Minister comment on what he is doing to ensure that my constituents, and indeed those of all Members, will be able to continue tucking into that tasty British staple?
Daniel Zeichner
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the challenge facing the fish and chip shop sector. They are an iconic part of our national landscape, and they have indeed suffered heavily from rising costs. These negotiations are really important, but let us all send out a clear message of our strong support for the future of the UK fish and chip shop sector.
I will turn to the annual bilateral negotiations with Norway and the Faroes, which are also in progress; it is a busy time of year, as Members probably realise. Those negotiations focus on quota exchanges and access to each other’s waters. I made a point earlier about the Secretary of State wanting to encourage co-design. When he was appointed in July, he made it clear that he wanted to improve the way DEFRA engages with stakeholders, and put more emphasis on co-delivering its policies and programmes in partnership with them. In that spirit, I have asked sectoral groups for this year’s UK-Norway fisheries negotiations to send proposed quota exchanges to the Government, and if deemed viable, they will be presented to Norway. I am determined that we try to do things differently and make the co-delivery model work.
I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes will be listening closely to this point. I know that UK Fisheries, and Members representing constituencies around Humberside, will be particularly interested in those negotiations to secure distant water fishing opportunities. I value the contribution that UK Fisheries makes to the UK fisheries and seafood sector. It is an important part of the UK fishing industry, but we need to remember that the total allowable catch for Arctic cod—one of the main stocks that the company has historically targeted in the Arctic—has fallen dramatically in recent years. It is down by about 60% since 2021, and the TAC is now at its lowest level since the early ’90s. Securing a large amount of Arctic cod for that sector is extremely challenging against the backdrop of a rapidly declining stock.
There was also a reference, quite rightly, to the fisheries management plan programme; the hon. Member for Epping Forest asked me to say a bit about that. We are grateful for the support of the fishing sector and wider stakeholders in helping shape those plans. We completely support them and think they are the right way forward. They have been developed collaboratively with the industries, and they will play a crucial role in supporting the long-term sustainability of businesses and delivering growth in coastal communities.
It is interesting that the plans are now internationally recognised as a gold standard in managing fisheries; I give credit to the previous Government for their work on that. They protect, and, where necessary, set out to maintain or restore fish stocks to sustainable levels. We are currently consulting on our next batch of fisheries management plans. I acknowledge that it is sometimes a challenge for people in the sector to keep up with all the work, but it is important and we are committed to working closely with people to co-design sustainable fisheries management policies, including implementing the short, medium and long-term actions set out in some of those plans.
We laid our first fisheries management plan-related statutory instrument on 16 October. That implements actions from our first fisheries management plans, many of which included suggestions from the industry. Beyond that, we are also progressing a wider set of other fisheries management reforms that are in line with our own domestic priorities as an independent coastal state. That touches on some of the points that Members have raised: the way we manage discards and the introduction of remote electronic monitoring.
On the powerful points made by the hon. Member for Epping Forest around cetacean catches, I absolutely share his concern. We are committed to continuing with remote electronic monitoring. It has started to be introduced. We think it has a real potential to transform how we get the better data that many Members have referred to. In the future it could inform the science, improve traceability and improve fisheries management. We are working to implement remote electronic monitoring in priority fisheries over the next five years. We will start with volunteers to design and test systems. We started work this summer with volunteers in the large pelagic trawl fishery on the Frank Bonefaas, the largest vessel in the fleet, primarily targeting mackerel, herring and blue whiting.
I very much hear the hon. Gentleman’s point about the concern that many of our constituents raise about the Faroe cetacean hunts. I assure him that Ministers continue to make that point strongly to our colleagues in the Faroes.
Dr Hudson
I am grateful that the Minister is acknowledging the importance of protecting marine mammals while harvesting from the seas and oceans. When he is around the table with his officials, will he address the other countries, such as Norway? Perhaps it will be his colleagues in the Department for International Trade when they are negotiating arrangements with Japan. On talking about the horrific nature of whaling continuing in the 21st century, can he assure everyone that this UK Government will stand firm and use their power in those rooms to put an end to whaling right across the world?
Daniel Zeichner
I think we can speak with one voice from this Parliament on those kinds of issues. I assure the hon. Gentleman that at events such as the G20 and the G7 that I have attended, we have raised those important questions.
I turn to the coastal state negotiations on quota shares.
Barry Gardiner
Before the Minister does that, could he look at what we might learn from the American fish management plans, which are gold standard and have had the clear management objectives that, I am afraid, many of ours lack?
Daniel Zeichner
I will certainly look at that. These are relatively early days in the fisheries management plans. A huge amount of work has had to be done quite quickly. We have established a good structure to look to the future—a much better way than in the past.
On the quota shares, it is because we are now an independent coastal state that we have the right to negotiate with coastal states in the north-east Atlantic on management measures for mackerel, blue whiting and Atlanto-Scandian herring. Those are important stocks for the UK that have been overfished in recent years because there are no sharing arrangements in place between the coastal states. We continue to push for comprehensive quota-sharing arrangements that are in the best interests of stock sustainability and of the UK catching and processing sectors. We see the three-way management arrangement with Norway and the Faroes that we signed in June this year as an important stepping stone towards securing a fully comprehensive deal on mackerel.
Almost all the speeches touched on the very challenging issue of marine spatial prioritisation. We know that considerable pressure is being put on the fishing sector by all the competing demands in our seas. And we know the seas are going to get busier over the coming decades. My hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Anna Gelderd) and the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) both raised those points. We absolutely need to factor in increasing spatial pressures and new activities such as the growth of new types of energy.
As a Government, we will very carefully consider the evidence marshalled by the cross-Government marine spatial prioritisation programme for English waters. Lots of work is ongoing on this. I am absolutely determined that we have a full and open debate and dialogue because it is such a complicated issue, and I am very grateful for the constructive engagement we are having with industry representatives.
I move on to labour shortages, which, again, were raised by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and others. We are, of course, aware of the concerns about labour shortages in the sector. Members spoke about the opportunities being there, if only we had the people to do the work—I thought that was very telling. My Department is working with industry to understand what we can do to alleviate those shortages, but they have to be understood in the context of our wider immigration policy objectives. I am sure Members will understand that there is an ongoing dialogue with the Home Office on that.
I pledge that we will work closely with industry to understand people’s labour needs—including, of course, what can be done to make the industry more attractive to the domestic labour market, which is an issue that people have worked hard on. The points made on training were really quite uplifting; it was very good to hear about the work being done in Grimsby, for example.
Dan Norris (North East Somerset and Hanham) (Lab)
What will the Government do to assist with training for the fishing fleets, not least in landlocked areas? In the west of England, we are very keen to promote training for things that are not necessarily associated only with our area. Are the Government having any discussions with metro mayors and others with large budgets for training and skills?
Daniel Zeichner
I will happily have a discussion with anyone who has a large budget at the moment, so yes—I will happily come and have a discussion with any mayors who are interested. We have also recently launched the UK seafood careers project, which works closely with industry and across Government and the devolved Administrations to look at how the sector can improve the recruitment and retention of UK workers. Please be assured: we are in constant dialogue and discussion with colleagues in the Home Office and in the education sector to see what we can do on this matter.
I will pick up another point made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland on enforcement and illegal fishing. We absolutely condemn any illegal fishing taking place anywhere, but particularly in English and UK waters—this is partly a devolved issue. We work closely as a Department with the Marine Maritime Organisation, the inshore fisheries and conservation authorities and other organisations. In fact, I was talking to the Marine Maritime Organisation about this matter only yesterday. We use a risk-based and intelligence-led marine enforcement model and carry out regular inspections in ports, onshore and at sea, which should ensure that appropriate arrangements are in place to enforce fisheries regulations and protect our waters. I was very interested to hear the right hon. Gentleman’s account of the approach taken in Ireland, and I will look closely at that.
Barry Gardiner
Does the Minister actually believe that the discard ban is being observed? If he has doubts about that, would he agree that ensuring there are onboard cameras and monitoring is the best way to put an end to that element of illegal fishing?
Daniel Zeichner
I very much hear what my hon. Friend says. I agree that the evidence rather suggests that we could do much better, which is why we are making that commitment to remote electronic monitoring.
I am coming close to a conclusion, Dr Huq. Many have talked about support for inshore fishers, and we are absolutely determined to do more. We are looking at the role of the inshore and under-10 metre fleet and at how best we can support them. We think a number of initiatives will benefit them; we are looking at provision of additional quota and new quota trials, which we believe will help the fleet in the long run. We are engaging with the five regional fisheries groups set up for inshore fishers to discuss concerns with policymakers and regulators, helping to identify problems, contribute to policy development and secure solutions. Certainly on my trips around the shores of this country, I have been struck by the concerns that people have and the points raised about some of the boat inspections. Obviously, that is a responsibility of the Department for Transport, but I continue to pursue that.
I have been struck also by the calls from key figures in the fishing industry, including Mike Cohen from the NFFO, for a proper fisheries strategy. I am very interested to talk to stakeholders in the industry in more detail about what that might look like—again, in the spirit of collaboration and co-design that we want to introduce.
I thank hon. Members. This has been a really informative and useful debate. Things have been raised that I will take away and raise with officials today. As I said at the beginning, I recognise just how tough this industry is because of the work involved and the safety issues, but I also recognise that it feels particularly tough as an industry at the moment. It is hard. But I genuinely think there are real opportunities ahead for the fishing sector, and this Government are absolutely committed to making the most of them to ensure that the industry can best contribute to our country’s food security and economic growth.
Mr Carmichael
I thank you, Dr Huq, and Mr Efford for your efforts in chairing us. We have had a genuinely excellent debate. Somewhere in the region of 19 Members of Parliament have taken part. I observe in passing that we have outlasted not one but two main debates in the main Chamber, plus petitions and an Adjournment debate. If that does not make the case for us retaking our rightful place in the main Chamber next year, I do not know what does.
I thank the Minister for a very comprehensive response to the debate. It will gladden his heart to know that I am confident that the Select Committee will be wanting to run the rule over quite a lot of the material that we have had here today. I genuinely thank all Members who have taken part, because it is important that we understand that this is not a contest between urban communities and fishing communities. There is an interest for all of us to be served here.
Finally, in response to the hon. Member for Brent West (Barry Gardiner), I place on the record a little bit of context: for the last three years we have set quotas for North sea haddock and whiting well below the ICES advice, and that was supported by the fishing industry. We all have opportunities to learn from one another.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the fishing industry.
Written Statements
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Republic of Korea Upgraded Free Trade Agreement: Round Three Negotiations
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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The Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security (Mr Douglas Alexander)
The third round of negotiations on an upgraded free trade agreement (FTA) with the Republic of Korea (RoK) took place in Seoul between 5 and 14 November 2024.
The talks were the UK’s first with the RoK since the Secretary of State for Business and Trade announced the Government’s intention to deliver the UK’s FTA negotiations programme in July.
Economic growth is our first mission in Government and FTAs have an important role to play in achieving this. An upgraded FTA with the RoK will contribute to growth, jobs and prosperity in the UK, and provide long- term certainty to UK businesses. Improvements to the existing agreement will include a comprehensive chapter on digital trade, simplified rules of origin and a range of additional commitments that capture advancements in trade policy beyond our existing terms. Total trade between the UK and the RoK was worth £17 billion in the four quarters to the end of Q2 2024. An upgraded FTA is intended to support further growth in this trade.
Negotiators made good progress on a number of areas, including but not limited to:
Digital trade
Constructive discussions were held to build on the existing agreement’s limited digital provisions. Discussions during the round covered a range of areas, including data, trade digitalisation, and co-operation on emerging technologies.
Rules of origin
Good progress was achieved towards securing a new rules of origin chapter that supports current and future supply chains. Discussions covered the chapter’s general provisions and origin procedures text, as well as product specific rules.
Services and business mobility
Productive discussions were held across a range of areas including domestic regulation, financial services, business mobility and professional and business services. The UK is seeking commitments to open up new opportunities for services trade.
Customs and trade facilitation
Good progress was made, with sides agreeing a large part of the chapter. These commitments will make customs processes more predictable and facilitative.
Good regulatory practice
Negotiators made significant progress towards agreeing the RoK’s first good regulatory practice chapter, which will support companies to operate in a more transparent and predictable regulatory environment.
Other areas
Positive discussions were held across a range of areas of the FTA including supply chains, trade and gender equality, and anti-corruption.
The Government will only ever sign a trade agreement which aligns with the UK’s national interests, upholding our high standards across a range of sectors, including protections for the national health service.
The fourth round of negotiations is expected to take place in London in the spring of 2025. The Government will continue to work towards delivering outcomes in the FTA that secure economic growth for the UK and will update Parliament on the progress of discussions with the RoK as they continue to develop.
[HCWS258]
COVID-19 Inquiry Response Costs: Quarter 2 2024-25
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The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
The covid-19 pandemic impacted each and every person in the UK. The work of the UK covid-19 inquiry is crucial in examining the UK’s response to and impact of the covid-19 pandemic. There are evidently lessons to be learnt from the pandemic and the Government are committed to closely considering the covid-19 inquiry’s findings and recommendations, which will play a key role in informing the Government’s planning and preparations for the future. Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Cumulative total Cost of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff (including contingent labour costs) £5,049,000 £5,303,000 £10,352,000 Number of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff (full-time equivalents) 280 284 N/A Quarter 1 Quarter 2 Cumulative total Total legal costs £4,236,000 £5,818,000 £10,054,000
The Government recognise the unprecedented and wholly exceptional circumstances of the pandemic, and the importance of examining as rigorously as possible the actions the state took in response, in order to learn lessons for the future. The inquiry is therefore unprecedented in its scope, complexity and profile, looking at recent events that have profoundly impacted everyone’s lives.
The independent UK covid-19 inquiry publishes its own running costs quarterly. Following the publication of the inquiry’s financial report for quarter 2 2024-25 on 24 October 2024, I would like to update colleagues on the costs to the UK Government associated with responding to the UK covid-19 inquiry.
Figures provided are based upon a selection of the most relevant Departments and are not based on a complete set of departmental figures and are not precise for accounting purposes. Ensuring a comprehensive and timely response to the inquiry requires significant input from a number of key Government Departments, including, but not limited to, the Cabinet Office, the Department for Health and Social Care, the UK Health Security Agency, the Home Office and HM Treasury, many of which are supported by the Government Legal Department. While every effort has been made to ensure a robust methodology, complexities remain in trying to quantify the time and costs dedicated to the inquiry alone.
It should be noted that alongside full-time resource within Departments, inquiry response teams draw on expertise from across their organisations. The staff costs associated with appearing as witnesses, preparing witnesses and associated policy development work on the UK covid-19 inquiry are not included in the costs below.
Breakdown of staff and costs
The Government’s response to the UK covid-19 inquiry is led by inquiry response units across Departments.
Number of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff: 284 full time equivalents.
Cost of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff: £5,303,000 (including contingent labour costs).
Financial year 2024-25 (Q1 and Q2), total cost of UK covid-19 inquiry response unit staff: £10,352,000 (including contingent labour costs).
Total inquiry response unit legal costs
Inquiry response units across Government Departments are supported by the Government Legal Department, co-partnering firms of solicitors, and legal counsel. These associated legal costs—excluding internal departmental advisory legal costs—for Q2 are below.
Q2 legal costs: £5,818,000.
Financial year 2024-25 (Q1 and Q2), total legal costs: £10,054,000.
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School Funding: Provisional 2025-26 Allocations
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The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
Today we are confirming provisional funding allocations for 2025-26 through the schools, high needs and central school services national funding formulae (NFFs). Overall, core schools funding (including funding for both mainstream schools and high needs) is increasing by £2.3 billion in 2025-26 compared with the previous year.
Within this £2.3 billion, high needs funding is increasing by a further £1 billion in 2025-26 to help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of supporting children and young people with SEND. The majority of this increase will be allocated through the high needs NFF. Through this formula, local authorities will receive at least a 7% increase per head of their population aged two to 18, compared with their 2024-25 allocations, with some authorities seeing gains of up to 10%.
The overall high needs funding increase of £1 billion includes over £90 million to increase the high needs element of the 2024-25 core schools budget grant (CSBG) to a full-year equivalent of over £230 million. This will be incorporated with the other teachers’ pay and pensions grants into a single CSBG (totalling £480 million) for special schools and alternative provision in 2025-26.
Funding for mainstream schools through the schools NFF is increasing by 2.23% per pupil compared with 2024-25. This includes a 1.28% increase to ensure that the 2024 teachers and support staff pay awards continue to be fully funded at national level in 2025-26. The 2025-26 schools NFF includes funding for pay and pensions costs that was previously allocated outside of the NFF, but is now being rolled into the formula—the 2024 to 2025 teachers’ pay additional grant (TPAG), teachers’ pension employer contribution grant (TPECG) and core schools budget grant (CSBG). This ensures that this additional funding forms an ongoing part of schools’ core budgets.
On top of this rolled-in funding, the core factor values in the schools NFF are rising, to increase the funding available to schools. Through the minimum per pupil funding levels, every primary school will attract at least £4,955 per pupil, and every secondary school at least £6,465 per pupil.
Central school services funding funds local authorities for the ongoing responsibilities they continue to have for all schools, and some historic commitments that local authorities face. The total provisional funding for ongoing responsibilities is £342 million in 2025-26, which includes £4 million for additional costs of copyright licences for schools.
Across the schools, high needs, and central services NFFs, we have kept the structure of the formulae largely unchanged from 2024-25. This is to minimise disruption for schools and local authorities due to the shorter than usual timescales for the 2025-26 funding cycle, given the timing of the general election. For 2026-27 and beyond, we will consider changes to various funding formulae, recognising the importance of a fair funding system that directs funding where it is needed.
Updated allocations of schools, high needs and central schools services funding for 2025-26 will be published to the usual timescale in December through the dedicated schools grant allocations, taking account of the latest pupil data at that point.
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Counter-terrorism Disruptive Powers Report 2023
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The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)
I have today published the counter-terrorism disruptive powers report 2023 (CP 1212). The report has been laid before Parliament and will be available in the Vote Office and online on gov.uk.
It is important that there is transparency in the use of our counter-terrorism tools. Publishing this report ensures that the public can access data and information on the range of powers used to combat terrorist threats to the United Kingdom, the extent of their use and the safeguards and oversight in place to ensure that they are used properly.
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Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation: 2022 Report and Government Response
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Yvette Cooper)
In accordance with section 36 of the Terrorism Act 2006, Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, has prepared a report on the operation of the Terrorism Acts in 2022, which is being laid before the House today.
I am grateful to Mr Hall KC for his thorough report and have carefully considered the recommendations and observations included within. I am today also laying before the House the Government’s response to the report (CP 1211). Copies of the report and the Government’s response will be available in the Vote Office and will also be published on gov.uk.
[HCWS261]
Serious Crime Prevention Orders in Terrorism Cases: Review of Police Powers
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)
I have today published the review of police powers to apply for serious crime prevention orders in terrorism cases. The report has been laid before Parliament and it will be available in the Vote Office and online on gov.uk.
This report is published and laid before Parliament to discharge the statutory duty under section 44 of the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021.
[HCWS260]
Visa Sponsorship
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Seema Malhotra)
The Home Office is committed to minimising abuse of the visa and immigration system by unscrupulous employers. We are now setting out our first steps to deliver on our manifesto commitment to ban rogue employers from sponsoring overseas workers. We are setting out stronger controls to prevent employers who flout UK employment laws from sponsoring overseas workers, alongside going after those who show signs of non-compliance. No organisation is above the law or too big to fail.
For the first time, visa and employment laws will be brought into close alignment, to ensure strong protections for those who come to work in the UK, especially in important areas of our economy such as adult social care.
The Government will deliver legislation for the flagship Fair Work Agency, ensuring fair and strong employment rights for all. Through this legislation, we will ensure that any business found guilty of serious employment law breaches, such as failing to comply with the national minimum wage, will have robust action taken against them—up to and including having their visa sponsorship licences refused or revoked. Alongside this, we are strengthening powers to ensure the compliance of those on the register of licensed sponsors.
Over the last two years, there have been a growing number of allegations about sponsors seeking to charge workers for sponsoring them, particularly in the care sector. Where these charges are inappropriate, individuals can fall into work-related debt and experience a significant amount of harm. To combat this, we are now taking action to ensure that if a business wishes to recruit internationally, they will be required to pay for certificates of sponsorship, sponsor licences and the associated administration themselves. This will end the intolerable practice of recovering these costs from workers, which has led to the exploitation and unfair treatment of staff, particularly care workers who have been left in debt to their employers. These rules will apply to the skilled worker route first and will be in force by the end of the year. We intend to build on this in due course, widening it to other sponsored employment routes.
This Government are also taking robust action against businesses that show signs of non-compliance such as committing minor visa rule breaches. Current rules impose action plans on businesses for only three months, but today we are committing to extending this to up to 12 months. While these longer action plans are in place, employers will be restricted in how they can use their licence, including limiting or removing the ability to sponsor overseas workers. If they do not comply with the action plan, fail to pay for the plan or make the necessary improvements by the end of their action plan, their sponsorship licence will be revoked.
We will take strong action against employers who do not comply with the rules, where necessary revoking their sponsor licence. We will strengthen this by making it harder for those with a long-term record of non-compliance to return to the sponsor register. The current penalties for breaking visa rules are too weak, with all revoked businesses facing only 12 months of sanctions—regardless of their track record. That is why we will be introducing longer cooling-off periods for businesses that repeatedly flout these rules or commit serious immigration breaches, barring them from applying for a sponsorship licence over this period and therefore hiring overseas workers.
This set of new measures shows how seriously the Government take maintaining the integrity of the visa and immigration system, ensuring that those who would seek to abuse the system face strong consequences. These measures are part of wider efforts to tackle the root causes behind the UK’s long-term reliance on international workers and wider action to link migration policy with skills and wider labour market policy. All those who work in the UK deserve decent employment with decent employers—this Government are working to ensure that happens.
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Local Government Finance
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The Minister for Local Government and English Devolution (Jim McMahon)
Today, the Government have published details of the local government finance settlement for the next year for councils across England, and our wider ambitions for the sector over the course of this Parliament.
Councillors, officers and frontline staff are due our respect and appreciation for the work they have done to keep services going through very difficult times. This Government are under no illusion about the scale of the issues facing local government. We know that the demand for, and cost of, services has increased significantly— and that this has made the job for councils in recent years much harder. After a decade of cuts and fiscal mismanagement inflicted by the last Government, compounded by spiralling inflation and a failure to grow our economy, councils of all political stripes are in crisis. Our fiscal inheritance means that there will be tough choices on all sides to get us back on the path to recovery, and it will take time.
We are taking immediate action to address these challenges. The autumn Budget announced over £4 billion in additional funding for local government services, £1.3 billion of which will go through the local government finance settlement. Outside the settlement, the Government have also announced additional funding to support local government across a range of priorities, including special educational needs and disabilities and homelessness services, a guarantee for income from the extended producer responsibility for packaging scheme, as well as funding for local roads maintenance.
However, fixing the foundations of local government requires a programme of reform over the course of this Parliament. After years of delays, we will update the local government finance system. The current funding system is fundamentally broken, wasting taxpayers’ money and starving authorities of the funding needed to provide the services we all rely on. The previous Government agreed with us on the need to reform the system, proposing a similar approach in its fair funding review, but where they were unable to, we will finish the job by consulting on and implementing an up-to-date assessment of needs and resources, starting in 2026-27. This will be the first multi-year funding settlement in 10 years.
Reform of local public services, so that they focus on prevention, is also critical if we are to end the cycle of system failure and cost escalation. We will reform services that have for too long been overlooked by the previous Government to improve outcomes for the most vulnerable residents who rely on them—particularly children’s social care, homelessness and rough sleeping, special educational needs and disabilities, and adult social care services.
We will reset the relationship with local government, working as equal partners to ensure that the sector delivers continuous improvement for its communities, operates at the highest standards of probity, and provides value for money, all while giving the sector greater autonomy, certainty and flexibility. We will rebuild the system of accountability and oversight in local government, including through an overhaul of local audit, scrutiny and standards, and will consult on strengthening the standards and conduct framework for local authorities in England.
Our upcoming English devolution White Paper will set out plans for a new governing settlement for England. This includes our landmark programme of devolution and reorganisation, which will give local leaders with skin in the game powers to generate new jobs, skills and, ultimately, the growth that our public services rely on, and to create more efficient and accountable local authority structures, moving towards suitably sized unitary councils.
There is no magic wand. It will be a long, hard slog, working with councils, to rebuild from the ground up, in order to deliver the services that taxpayers need and deserve. Together, this year’s settlement and our programme of reform mark the first steps towards stabilising and rebuilding local Government.
Local Government Finance Settlement 2025-26
This year’s settlement will begin to put us on the right course, spending taxpayers’ money efficiently, and ensuring that funding goes to the places that need it most. The autumn Budget announced over £4 billion in additional funding for local government services, £1.3 billion of which will go through the settlement. Overall, the provisional settlement will ensure that local government receives a real-terms increase in core spending power of around 3.2%.
In addition, the Government announced at the autumn Budget that they will guarantee that local authorities in England will receive at least £1.1 billion in total from the extended producer responsibility for packaging scheme in 2025-26.
In 2025-26, the settlement will target additional funding at the places that need it most. We will deliver additional funding for a number of priorities, including an additional £680 million via the social care grant; a new children’s social care prevention grant, worth £250 million; and a new recovery grant, worth £600 million, for places with greater need and demand for services (we have used deprivation as a proxy for this) and less ability to raise income locally. This tackles head-on the combination of rocketing demand, low tax bases that restrict the ability of local areas to raise income locally, and weakened resilience in many of these councils after substantial central Government funding cuts during the 2010s. Alongside this, our commitment can be judged against a guarantee that no local authority will see a reduction in their core spending power in 2025-26, after taking account of any increase in council tax levels. This will provide the protections required for all authorities, including district councils, to sustain their services. Taking into account both money allocated to councils through the settlement and the pEPR guarantee, every planning and social care council will have more to spend on services in 2025-26 than in 2024-25; and for almost all authorities we expect this to be an increase in real terms.
The Government are clear in their commitment to tackling the issues that matter most to rural communities. We are focusing on the services that people rely on, such as social care, where pressures have grown across the country in recent years. This will deliver for rural areas, just as it will for the whole country. In this context, funding from the rural services delivery grant will be repurposed, through improved methods for targeting areas with greater need and demand for services, while we invest in the priority services that people care about, such as adult and children’s social care. The Government believe that the rural services delivery grant is outdated and does not properly assess rural need. A large share of predominantly rural councils receive nothing from the rural services delivery grant. Put simply, it does not do as it claims. This is clearly not right, and the Government are keen to hear from councils about how best to consider both the impact of rurality on the costs of service delivery, and demand, as part of our longer-term consultations on local authority funding reform.
Further support for local government
The Government are under no illusions about the scale of the issues facing local government, and this settlement will begin to address the pressures that councils are under. We recognise, however, that we may see some continued instability as we adjust to the new system. Any council concerned about its financial position or its ability to set or maintain a balanced budget should contact the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The Government have a framework in place to support councils in the most difficult positions. We will not seek to replicate conditions that made borrowing more expensive. Where a council in need of exceptional financial support views additional council tax increases as critical to maintaining their financial sustainability, the Government will continue to consider requests for bespoke referendum principles. In considering requests, the Government will take account of councils’ specific circumstances, including the potential impact on local taxpayers.
The Government have committed to providing support to Departments and other public sector employers for additional employer national insurance contribution costs. This applies to those directly employed by local government. More information will be provided at the provisional settlement.
Supporting households
Many households are still feeling the impact of the prolonged cost of living crisis, and the Government are committed to protecting local taxpayers from excessive council tax increases. The previous Government, and the Office for Budget Responsibility in March 2024, both assumed core council tax and adult social care precept referendum principles of 3% and 2% respectively. The Government are now formally confirming that they will maintain the proposed core (3%) and adult social care precept (2%) referendum principles for next year. These strike the balance between protecting taxpayers and providing funding for local authorities.
We are ensuring that households receive the support that they need from programmes outside the settlement. The autumn Budget confirmed the extension of the household support fund for a further year, from 1 April 2025 until 31 March 2026. This will ensure that low-income households can continue to access support towards the cost of essentials, such as food, energy and water. Funding of £742 million will be provided to enable the HSF extension in England, plus additional funding for the devolved Governments through the Barnett formula, to be spent at their discretion, as usual.
Proposals in the policy statement for the 2025-26 settlement will be subject to the usual consultation process at the provisional local government finance settlement in December 2024.
This written ministerial statement covers England only. The policy statement will be deposited in the Libraries of both Houses, and has been published on gov.uk: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/local-government-finance-policy-statement-2025-to-2026
[HCWS265]
Integrated National Transport Strategy
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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The Secretary of State for Transport (Louise Haigh)
The Government have today set out our vision for the first integrated national transport strategy in over two decades, delivering on the commitment made in our manifesto.
For too long there has been no national plan for how transport should be designed and delivered in England, which has led to a fragmented and inefficient system that lacks join-up and cohesion. As a result, many of the people in our cities, towns and rural areas are poorly connected, with transport systems that do not work for them.
The strategy will drive a cultural change where people are put at the heart of how we design, build and operate transport. At its core will be a single national vision for how transport systems should work together, empowering local leaders to deliver integrated local transport that meets the needs of their local community.
The transport system should be safe, reliable and accessible for everyone—improving passenger experience and unlocking equal access to opportunities across England. Walking and cycling should be the best choice for shorter journeys and, where driving is the right choice, these journeys should be smoother and more predictable. I want public transport to be a more attractive option and for people to experience a seamlessly integrated transport network that works for them.
Today, I have announced my vision for this strategy and launched a public call for ideas, which gives everyone the chance to share views about their own transport experiences and what could be done to improve them.
In the new year, my Department will host a series of regional roadshows around the country, giving local leaders, transport operators and passengers the opportunity to help shape the way we deliver a truly integrated transport network.
This Government are committed to ensuring that transport works for everyone, and this strategy will set the framework for how we meet people’s needs today and in the future.
[HCWS266]
Grand Committee
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 (Consequential Modifications) Order 2024
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent
That the Grand Committee do consider the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 (Consequential Modifications) Order 2024.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I beg to move that the draft order, which was laid on 21 October 2024, be approved. This order is the result of collaborative working between the two Governments in Scotland and Westminster, and supports the Scottish Government’s decision to implement the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 in Scotland. The order will be made under Section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998, in consequence of the Scottish Government’s 2023 Act.
A Section 104 order is the most common type of Scotland Act order. They are used to make technical amendments to UK reserved legislation to facilitate the policy aims of an Act of the Scottish Parliament or secondary legislation made by Scottish Ministers. Scotland Act orders are a demonstration of devolution in action and I am pleased to say this is the fourth such order to be put to the House by this Government. Officials across the UK and the Scottish Government have worked closely together on this order, with consultation between the Home Office, the Scotland Office, the Office of the Advocate-General, the Scottish Parliament and the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service.
I will explain the effect that this order will have and the provision it will make. I should begin by explaining that extradition proceedings take place in summary courts: these are magistrates’ courts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and sheriff courts in Scotland. This means that if there are changes to the legal framework for bail conditions in relation to these courts, it would also impact on extradition cases. That is what could happen in this instance; both our Governments agree that this would not be appropriate, so we are using this order to prevent that. This order does not make changes to extradition law across the UK or affect current extradition policy and legal frameworks in any way. It ensures that courts in Scotland continue to have the ability to consider the question of flight risk as a ground for refusal of bail in the context of extradition proceedings and in line with the rest of the UK.
The order will ensure that a limitation on the courts’ ability to remand persons at risk of failing to appear in court under the new test for bail in Scottish summary courts does not extend to extradition cases. This will mitigate the risks of a person wanted for extradition being granted bail under the new regime when they would not have been under the previous regime. Without this order being in force, individuals accused of serious crimes while wanted for extradition may be granted bail under the new regime, because the courts would not retain their current levels of discretion to consider the question of flight risk. This creates risks in relation to the requested person absconding and evading justice.
The Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023 was passed by the Scottish Parliament in June 2023. It seeks to ensure that, as much as possible, the use of remand for domestic criminal cases within the Scottish criminal justice system is a last resort, reserved for cases where public safety requires it or there is a significant risk of prejudice to the interests of justice. The Act limits the circumstances in which the court in summary proceedings in Scotland can refuse an individual’s bail application by amending Sections 23B and 23C of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.
In particular, amendments to Section 23C includes a new subsection, which limits the extent to which a court may take into account any substantial risk of a person absconding or failing to appear when determining whether there is a good reason for refusing bail in summary proceedings. This would remove the ability of sheriffs to consider whether the individual in question may abscond from further proceedings unless they have already failed to appear in a Scottish domestic criminal court case. It should be noted that these restrictions would not apply to judges who are considering whether to refuse bail in summary proceedings, which are the equivalent of the Crown Courts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Extradition Act 2003, which applies across the whole of the UK, prescribes that cases of individuals arrested subject to an extradition request from an international partner are to be overseen by a specialist extradition judge. In Scotland, this is the Sheriff of Lothian and Borders. When hearing extradition cases, the sheriff has the powers available in relation to bail as if the case were summary proceedings in respect of an offence alleged to have been committed by the person. Cases proceeding by way of summary proceedings in Scotland involve less serious crimes than extradition cases currently do.
Under current Scottish bail legislation, the sheriff considering bail in an extradition case can consider the question of flight risk from the very outset of a case. This is important, as the nature of extradition means that the individual in question may pose a substantial risk of absconding or failing to appear. This order ensures that, when the provisions limiting the circumstances in which the court in summary proceedings in Scotland can refuse an individual’s bail application come into force, sheriffs retain their current levels of discretion to decide whether those subject to an extradition request are remanded in custody while they wait for their hearing.
I hope noble Lords can support this statutory instrument so that we can ensure that we have the right powers across the UK to deal with extradition requests in a fair and effective way.
Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her opening remarks and add my thanks to the Civil Service officials in the various departments that have worked on this order.
We will not oppose the order. As has been outlined, it makes consequential changes as a result of Section 2 of the Bail and Release from Custody (Scotland) Act 2023, passed by the Scottish Parliament last year. Section 2 amends the test which the court must apply when considering whether to grant bail to a person accused of or charged with an offence in summary proceedings. As has been outlined, in essence, Section 2(3) limits the extent to which the court may refuse bail in summary proceedings when reliance is placed on a specific ground of refusal of bail: namely, that the accused, if granted bail, might abscond or fail to appear at court diets as required.
I need not detain your Lordships with the more technical aspects of that change; suffice it to say that this order excludes from the alteration made last year bail decisions in extradition proceedings. That is an important decision, and one with which we on these Benches concur. It is notable that last year in the Scottish Parliament, both Scottish Conservatives and Scottish Labour MSPs voted against the 2023 Act. Nevertheless, we are where we are. It is of paramount importance that there is alignment across the UK for granting or rejecting bail in extradition cases, given that accused persons in extradition proceedings are often considered a flight risk and that maintaining the integrity of the Extradition Act and the UK’s broader extradition system is critical, points made by my colleague Andrew Bowie MP last week in Committee.
In conclusion, I ask the Minister what discussions the UK Government have had with the Scottish Government about the interplay between UK government policy in this area and changes to Scottish criminal procedure as enacted by the Scottish Government to avoid issues such as this emerging in future. In particular, have the UK Government made any assessment of the impact on UK government policy of the Prisoners (Early Release) (Scotland) Bill, passed only this week by the Scottish Parliament?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord—I was going to say “noble Lords”—for his contribution to the debate and for his questions. I also put on record my thanks to the Civil Service, which works tirelessly to make our Government function and to support the Opposition to make sure that we can deliver in the way that we need to.
With regard to the noble Lord’s question about making sure this never happens again, as he will know, we are trying to reset and normalise relationships and discussions with the Scottish Government and all devolved Administrations, and I hope that, as part of those ongoing and more regular discussions, issues such as this will be raised in advance. However, I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government approached the UK Government when they realised this anomaly and sought to work with the previous Administration and now the current one to fix it. That is a step in the right direction. With regard to the other issues that the noble Lord raised, I will have to write to him with an update, but I will ensure that it follows.
In closing, this instrument demonstrates the continued commitment that the UK Government have to work with the Scottish Government to deliver for Scotland, ensuring devolution in action as we celebrate 25 years of devolution. On that basis, I commend the instrument.
Voter Identification (Amendment of List of Specified Documents) Regulations 2024
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Lord Khan of Burnley
That the Grand Committee do consider the Voter Identification (Amendment of List of Specified Documents) Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 5th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Lord Khan of Burnley) (Lab)
My Lords, the Elections Act 2022 amended the parliamentary election rules set out in Schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983. This set out the requirement for voters to show photographic identification when voting in person in a polling station in Great Britain. The list of accepted forms of photographic ID is set out in rule 37 of Schedule 1 to the Act. It includes: passports; driving licences; various concessionary travel cards; identity cards bearing the Proof of Age Standards Scheme hologram, such as the Young Scot card or the NUS TOTUM card; blue badges; and the defence identity card.
As set out in our manifesto, the Government are committed to improving how voter ID works by addressing the inconsistencies and ensuring that legitimate electors are able to vote. We are carefully and thoroughly reviewing the voter ID rules and evaluating how they impacted citizens during the general election. Work is already under way on this evaluation, using data gathered at polling stations along with public opinion surveys and qualitative research with electors and the electoral sector.
The Electoral Commission has also conducted a thorough review of the 2024 general election. It published an interim report on voter ID in September, and a final report on the wider conduct of the polls earlier this month. We will, of course, carefully consider the findings and recommendations of the Electoral Commission as part of our own review of the voter identification policy and will respond formally to both commission reports in the new year. If, in our assessment, we find that changes are necessary or appropriate, we will bring forward further proposals on the wider voter ID policy in due course. I do not wish to speculate today on what they might be, but I will of course keep noble Lords informed on the outcomes of our work.
However, there is a clear gap in the existing provisions, which we can and should address now: the absence of His Majesty’s Armed Forces veteran card from the accepted voter ID list, which is why we made its inclusion on the list a manifesto commitment. The veteran card is a recognition of the service and dedication of our veterans to our country. This is just one of the things this Government are doing to honour their contribution. We should not allow the need for fuller consideration of the policy in the round to stop us making a necessary change that will support veterans to exercise their democratic rights.
I know that noble Lords opposite were supportive of this change when in government, and I hope that consensus remains. This instrument makes changes to the current legislation that sets out the accepted forms of voter ID and will result in the veteran card being added to the list of accepted forms of ID for the purposes of voting in Great Britain. It will mean that holders of the veteran card can use it to prove their identity when voting in person in polling stations for all elections from May 2025 onwards. The veteran card was fully launched in January this year and is now available free of charge to all veterans. This, alongside the already accepted defence identity card, will bring parity between veterans and serving armed services personnel when voting.
The regulations also make two further small changes, which are technical clarifications to support the smooth and consistent application of the law. They have been highlighted by electoral administrators operating the policy in practice. First, they provide clarification regarding the entry relating to Commonwealth passports by updating it to refer to the specific list of Commonwealth countries in the British Nationality Act 1981. This will make voter ID legislation consistent with electoral registration legislation. In particular, it will allow Zimbabwean passports to be used as identification at the polling station from May 2025.
Lord Mott (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the amendment that we are discussing today, particularly in reference to the Armed Forces veteran card. It was disappointing that it was not in place for the general election earlier this year, and I very much support what the Minister had to say today.
I also highlight and welcome the Electoral Commission’s report on the high awareness levels of voter ID when people went to the ballot box this year. There were a lot of concerns in the run-up to the election, but it is good to see that survey report high voter awareness.
The other incredibly welcome thing today, speaking as somebody who spent 32 years at the front line of politics working for a political party, is that these changes are being made well ahead of those elections in May next year. There is nothing more frustrating for a political party or political organisation than to have changes come into force at the last minute. There are implications for all political parties, not just for professionals but for the thousands of volunteers who keep our democracy vibrant in this country. Again, I thank the Government for making sure that we are making this change well in advance.
What else are the Government thinking now about participation, and how do we open up the democratic process to more people? The turnouts in the elections in July were disappointing, to say the least, and we need to make sure that everyone is completely engaged in the political process. Also, do the Government have any thoughts at this stage on further items of identification that may be added to the list?
I appreciate that my final point is a little cheeky. Having been in the Minister’s position, where I often used to say “next year” or “at some point”, could I push him a little further? He said next year; is there any date when the Government may have finished their review and he will be able to come back to us with some of those proposals? It could be quarter 1 or 2—that would be good. If we could have a little more detail around that, it would be incredibly helpful to us. As I sit down, I welcome these changes and thank him for the timely fashion in which the Government have introduced them.
Lord Hayward (Con)
My Lords, I follow my noble friend in welcoming the proposals that the Minister outlined in his opening comments. I have two or three points to raise. The first is that, when this SI was discussed in the Commons, the Minister identified that research was being undertaken by IFF Research on voter ID. Could this Minister clarify the terms identified for this work and why it is necessary, given that the Electoral Commission has in fact already undertaken its report, to which the Minister referred? It does not seem necessary to have two organisations doing the same thing.
In passing, I add my welcome to the Minister’s comments on Zimbabwe. As a former resident of that country, I am conscious that there are some 200,000 people of Zimbabwean nationality in this country; it would be helpful to that community.
I am concerned by a phraseology that the Minister used—that there might be further changes to ID that are not done as a group. If we are to make further changes to requirements for the opportunity to use certain forms of ID at polling stations, they must be introduced en bloc. We do not want a series of changes, one after another, and to have to sit in this Committee to consider them individually. It makes much more sense, whether they are because of the Electoral Commission’s work, IFF Research’s work or a combination, to bring them together as a single block. That reduces the workload on the Minister for a start, let alone for anybody else.
Although this is not quite within the field of the SI, it follows on from my noble friend Lord Mott’s question on the local elections taking place next May. Is the Minister in any position to indicate whether, in fact, those elections will be as those currently scheduled or are there likely to be any changes?
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, accepting the use of the veteran card as ID for voting is a welcome improvement, but to a very poor, expensive and quite unnecessary scheme. When the previous Government introduced the requirements for photo ID at polling stations their impact assessment said that it could cost £180 million over a decade, so I hope that the new Government have other spending priorities and recognise that scrapping or changing this scheme will not endanger the fundamental security of the ballot process.
As many Members on the Government’s side said in the debate in the House of Commons, this can be only the first of many steps in helping to make sure that everyone legally entitled to vote is able to. Issues with voter ID may not affect large numbers of voters, but many elections are determined by small margins. Etched in my own memory is being the election agent for a parliamentary by-election in which just 100 votes, or 0.1% of the vote share, separated my candidate from the successful Conservative candidate—now the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin. In the recent general election, seven seats were determined by margins between 15 and 98 votes. Many council elections are also determined by very small margins—sometimes there are even ties—so changes in the election rules really matter.
We are advised by the Electoral Commission that, on 4 July, slightly less than 0.1% of people were turned away from polling stations, never to return, because of the photo ID requirements, but that could have been the margin of victory in several seats. With the lowest turnout in a general election for 23 years, it is probably more significant that 4% of the non-voters said that their decision not to vote was related to the voter ID requirement. That is perhaps 800,000 people or 2% of the electorate.
There is no need today to repeat arguments about the motivation for introducing the photo ID rules and the complete lack of evidence ever presented to justify them. However, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the House of Commons at the time, made it clear what the intention was. Moving forward, the Electoral Commission has suggested that we would need a much wider review of what may be acceptable if we have any form of voter ID at polling stations—more than we are considering today. It suggests, for example, that the Jobcentre Plus travel discount card and the 18-plus student Oyster photocard should be acceptable in addition to the veteran card.
Let us look back to the commission’s consistent advice of some years ago and to the last Conservative Government’s report, conducted for them by the former chair of the Conservative Party, the noble Lord, Lord Pickles. There was no suggestion from either of a photo being required on any form of ID at polling stations. In debates during the passage of the Elections Act 2022, Ministers suggested that the process for obtaining a ballot paper should be akin to that for obtaining a parcel at a post office, but they could never explain to me why the Post Office’s ID requirements —including a bank card or a credit card—could not be acceptable at a polling station.
In the review of these regulations that the Government are now undertaking, will the Minister undertake to look at the costs of the photo ID scheme, admitted by the previous Government to be more than £100 million during those debates? Ideally, he would consider scrapping it while taking steps to ensure that voters know that their vote cannot be stolen. Even Ministers in the previous Government did not seem to know that, if you go to a polling station and someone appears to have already used your name and address to get a ballot paper, you can have a replacement issued. The fact is that hardly ever happens. In the 2019 general election, it happened in just 0.00004% of cases—an average of two cases per constituency. This was mostly down to clerical error and crossing off the wrong name rather than fraud, thereby showing that the expensive scheme is quite unnecessary.
Will the Minister undertake to review in particular the costs and the value of voter authority certificates, which can be issued on request by local authorities as a form of ID? The take-up of these certificates was minimal in the general election, with many people, particularly young people, remaining unaware of them, but the costs and time involved for election officials must have been considerable.
If the Government conclude that there must still be a form of voter ID at polling stations, can the Minister confirm that the review will look at alternatives to the current scheme using the official polling card issued to every voter by electoral registration officers? When I moved an amendment to the then Elections Bill in 2022 proposing just this, I was pleased to have the support of every Labour Peer present for the vote, with none of them voting against. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, who led for the Opposition at the time, said
“we believe, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said in introducing his amendment, that the Government have simply got it wrong on requiring voter ID to be presented at polling stations”.—[Official Report, 27/4/22; col. 337.]
She and her colleagues then voted for my amendment, calling for the official polling card to be acceptable as ID—as did the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord Khan of Burnley. I am pleased to see the latter as the Minister today; I look forward to his response as to whether he and his colleagues, now in government, remain supportive of this cost-saving and effective measure if any form of ID requirement is to be maintained.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing these regulations before the Committee. As we have heard from my noble friends Lord Mott and Lord Hayward, the timeliness of these changes is welcome. My noble friend Lord Hayward is right: it would be preferable to have any other changes come to us all at one time. I would also like to hear the Minister’s views on the possible changes to the May 2025 elections.
To go back to the SI, we on these Benches welcome the inclusion of the Armed Forces veteran card for use as voter ID. This is a sensible policy that allows our veterans to use a well-respected form of ID to exercise their democratic rights. I note that these regulations also allow for the national entitlement card issued by local authorities in Scotland to be used as voter ID. I also noted all the relevant changes to the forms required and the small changes outlined by the Minister.
These Benches’ primary concern is that the integrity of the ballot box is maintained. I therefore again seek the Minister’s assurance that this integrity will be paramount in any future changes that the Government may make.
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to this debate. I will respond to some of the points raised.
I thank first the noble Lord, Lord Mott, for his support for these regulations. I will tackle the issue he raised about additional documents being added to the list, as he asked for more clarification. On the subject of accepted documents at polling stations, I recognise that there have been calls from the public and noble Lords to include various additional forms of documents since the original voter ID rules came into effect. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, also touched on this. We are pleased to bring forward this legislation to include the veteran card on the list of accepted documents, as this has been frequently called for since the card was fully launched.
I understand that many people would like further forms of identification to be added to the list. As I mentioned, we are continuing to review the voter ID policy. If further changes to the list of accepted documents are found to be necessary or appropriate, we will bring forward proposals in due course. I look forward to discussing them with noble Lords at that time. I make that point in particular. I have had really healthy discussions with all noble Lords who have spoken and want to ensure that I continue to have that conversation with them.
Many noble Lords touched on the theme of increasing democratic participation, as did the noble Baroness on the Benches opposite. The Government are committed to encouraging democratic engagement among all electors, including young people. We will help to encourage the engagement of young people by legislating to give 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote in all elections.
The Government are carefully assessing the postal voting process as part of our wider review of electoral conduct and the registration processes. We have begun work on this and will work closely with stakeholders from across the sector to gather their feedback, analysis and ideas. The Electoral Commission has published its final report on the general election. We will carefully consider its findings and recommendations. Once we have completed our review, we will bring forward firm proposals for changes and improvements to our electoral system. I look forward to discussing this with noble Lords in due course. On the point about when the review will end, we expect to have a report on it in spring 2025.
The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, raised a number of important issues on Electoral Commission reports and our report in particular. I thank the Electoral Commission for its ongoing research into the running of our elections, and for its feedback and advice on potential areas of improvement. The commission published its interim report on the 2024 general election in September, focusing on the impact of the voter ID policy. Officials are already considering its recommendations. Two weeks ago, the commission published its full report on that election. This draws on the full suite of evidence and data, including surveys of candidates, returning officers and polling station staff, and feedback from charities and civil society organisations.
We will be carefully reviewing the commission’s findings and recommendations from both reports, and providing a formal response to both reports in due course. We are very cognisant of the need to ensure that the foundations of our electoral system are robust and secure, which the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, asked about, as we introduce further reforms to the way in which elections are run.
We are undertaking a strategic review of electoral registration, conduct and funding processes, looking at the biggest challenges and the pain points in the current system. We are working in partnership with the elections sector to understand how we can address these challenges in a practical and pragmatic manner. I will provide noble Lords with an update on the Government’s overall strategic approach to elections and electoral registration, including the outcomes of this review, in due course.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
Should I assume, since the Minister is saying that we will have nothing from the review until next spring, that there will be no further changes for the May 2025 elections?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
I am sorry for any miscommunication, but what we are saying is that we want to get everything ready for the May 2025 elections. The focus is on getting the review and I am sorry if I confused noble Lords on that point. It depends what comes out of the review: depending on what it tells us, we can act on that. That is our focus.
The noble Lord. Lord Hayward, talked about the IFF research and the point that the Minister in the Commons made on this. The Elections Act 2022 included a requirement for the Secretary of State to publish an evaluation of the implementation and impact of the voter ID policy on the first local and the first two UK general elections after the Act came into force. We have therefore contracted IFF Research, an independent research organisation, to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the July 2024 general election—we would have waited much longer for an evaluation of two general elections. It is essential that we understand how the policy has operated in practice, what has gone well and where there are any areas for improvement in the future. We expect that report summarising the work on the voter ID policy in the spring of 2025.
Lord Hayward (Con)
I thank the noble Lord for that clarification. I seek further clarification on that point: will the political parties be consulted as part of the IFF research, so that they as well as other organisations can have input?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an interesting point. The research is independently contracted, so that is something for IFF to consider. I reassure noble Lords that I will consult across the House on any concerns they may have around ongoing work on the report or its publication.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, raised a number of important issues. On the voter ID policy, he reminded me and my colleagues of how we voted when in opposition. I note the concerns about the policy requiring voters to show identification when voting, which is why this Government are conducting a thorough review of the voter identification rules. This will include evaluating their impact on the 2024 general election. I, too, am waiting for that review. A number of noble Lords have raised concerns, and it is right to raise concerns about all new policies to make sure that they are working in practice, promoting democracy and helping people to turn out and vote at elections. I say to all noble Lords: let us wait for that review to take place. We will carefully consider the findings and recommendations contained in both the report we have contracted and the Electoral Commission report and will bring forward a proposal in the future.
The noble Lord talked about the voter authority certificate. There is a big issue in that approximately 210,000 people applied for a voter authority certificate between January 2023, when it was launched, and 26 June 2024, which was the deadline for the UK election, but around 26,000 certificates were used as a form of ID on 4 July. It is not clear why so few electors used the VACs they applied for, so we want to conduct a review on that point of the voter identification rules, which will include the impact in 2024 of the VACs, and any changes or improvements will wait for that review to take place.
If I have not addressed any issues, I am happy to meet noble Lords about them, as we regularly do. An important point to make before I finish—I know the noble Lord will want to come back in—is that the Government are committed to improving electoral registration and addressing lower registration rates among all groups in society. Officials are working with their counterparts in the Welsh Government to learn in particular from automatic registration pilots under way there and to see how they are taking place. We will examine different approaches and use experiences from other countries to inform our decisions. My only point here is that we are waiting for the review. The Government are working on a number of improvements in this area, and that will take a bit of time as we set out our position.
Lord Hayward (Con)
I apologise for intervening again, but I seek quick clarification on a point that I raised at the end of my comments in relation to the county council elections next year. Is the Minister in a position to indicate whether all the county council elections currently scheduled will actually take place?
Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)
I apologise; that point was also raised by the noble Baroness opposite, and it is very important. I have just been handed a clear answer—it is exactly what I was going to say noble Lords, since I have not been informed of any plans—which is to reassure the Committee that there are no plans at the moment to cancel any elections, but if anything happens I will communicate through the usual channels of government machinery to ensure that noble Lords with a particular interest, expertise and passion in this area, over a number of years, are consulted.
We are all justifiably proud of our long history of democracy, but we should never take it for granted. The addition of the veteran card to the list of documents accepted as identification at the polling station will support this important community in engaging in the elections process and exercising their democratic rights. I hope that noble Lords will agree that these regulations provide for some important changes to our electoral rules, strengthening, widening and securing our democracy into the future. I hope they will join me in supporting the veteran community.
Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Baroness Hayman of Ullock
That the Grand Committee do consider the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging and Packaging Waste) Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 6th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee (special attention drawn to the instrument).
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, these regulations were laid in draft before the House on 24 October 2024. They introduce extended producer responsibility for packaging, which I will refer to as pEPR, in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.
PEPR is one of the three core pillars of the Government’s ambitious packaging reforms, alongside the forthcoming deposit return scheme and the simpler recycling programme in England. These will overhaul the packaging waste system, introducing the biggest change to policy in a generation. Collectively, the packaging reforms are estimated to deliver carbon savings of more than 46 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2035, valued at more than £10 billion in carbon benefits.
The new system established under these regulations will modernise the producer responsibility system for packaging in the United Kingdom by shifting the costs of managing discarded household packaging from taxpayers to those businesses that supply packaging and by applying the “polluter pays” principle. These regulations also implement international best practice, exemplified by the mature systems of our European neighbours, including Belgium and Germany, where comprehensive EPR schemes have been in place for some time.
I am sure that Members will note that this SI was drawn to the special attention of the House of Lords by the SLSC. I assure Members that this was on the grounds of it being politically or legally important and it giving rise to issues of public policy that are likely to be of interest to the House.
I turn to the benefits of the scheme. The revenue raised by this new system will generate more than £1 billion annually to support local authority collection, recycling and waste disposal services. This will benefit every household in the UK and stimulate much-needed investment in our recycling infrastructure. This will make a substantial contribution to the benefits of the packaging reforms, which together are estimated to support 21,000 jobs in our nations and regions, and will help to stimulate more than £10 billion of investment in recycling capability over the next decade. Revenue from pEPR will create a much-needed injection of resources into local authorities to improve the household kerbside collection system across the UK. In England, this revenue will fund the simpler recycling reforms that will enable consistent collection of all dry packaging materials, ending the postcode lottery for recycling.
Taken together, these reforms will support this mission-driven Government’s ambition to kick-start economic growth and create the foundations required to transition to a circular economy for packaging in the UK, ensuring that resources are kept in use for longer. It is a critical first step in meeting the commitment in our manifesto to transition to a resource-resilient, productive, circular economy that delivers long-term, sustainable growth.
I will now look at the new obligations that the legislation will bring in. First, these regulations introduce an obligation on businesses that supply household packaging, referred to as “producers”, to pay the costs incurred by local authorities in managing that packaging once it has been discarded. Producers will also be obligated for the cost of providing public information about the correct disposal of packaging. Producers will start incurring fees from April 2025, and invoices will be issued from October 2025 for the 2025-26 scheme year.
Additionally, from the second year of the scheme, producer fees will be adjusted to incentivise producers to make more sustainable decisions at the production/design stage, including decisions that make it easier for products to be reused or recycled at the end of life. This will mean that a producer who uses packaging that is not environmentally sustainable, such as packaging that is not widely recycled, will incur higher fees. Conversely, those using packaging that is sustainable and readily recyclable will incur lower fees.
It is right that businesses bear the costs of managing the packaging that they place on the market, but we must also protect the small businesses that are the life and soul of our high streets and the backbone of our economy. That is why only businesses with a turnover of more than £2 million and which supply more than 50 tonnes of packaging per year will have to pay disposal fees under this new system.
To administer this system, the regulations require the appointment of a scheme administrator jointly by the four nations. This body will be responsible for the implementation of pEPR. This will include the setting of producer fees and the apportionment and payment of those fees to local authorities in order to fund their waste management services. This scheme administrator will initially be hosted within Defra.
I turn to the detail of the obligations that have been retained from the current producer responsibility system. This instrument revokes and replaces the Packaging Waste (Data Reporting) (England) Regulations 2023, along with the equivalent regulations in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. The requirement for packaging producers to collect and report data on the amount and type of packaging that they supply is carried over from these regulations, as amended. This data is used to calculate producers’ recycling and fee obligations.
This instrument also revokes and replaces the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007 and the equivalent regulations in Northern Ireland. As was the case under these regulations, this instrument places obligations on producers to ensure that a proportion of the amount of packaging that they supply is recycled; it also requires them to provide evidence of this to the regulator. These requirements apply to all packaging, not just packaging likely to be disposed of in local authority household collections. To meet this obligation, producers must demonstrate compliance by obtaining packaging recovery notes and packaging export recovery notes from recycling facilities or those who export packaging waste for recycling.
I turn to compliance and enforcement. This instrument provides the four national regulators with enforcement powers and a duty to monitor compliance. It contains strong enforcement measures, including criminal offences and powers for regulators to impose civil sanctions in cases of non-compliance. As is currently the case, the monitoring and enforcement activity for the producer responsibility regime will be funded by the associated charges in these regulations, such as those for registration and accreditation. These charges operate on a cost-recovery basis; as such, they have been increased from the 2007 regulations to reflect the new duties placed on the regulators and the increased level of monitoring and audit activities.
In conclusion, there is no such place as “away”. It is therefore critical that we create the foundations required to transition to a circular economy for packaging, in order to ensure that resources are kept in use for longer and to secure vital carbon savings. I beg to move.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister on and thank her for bringing forward these regulations, which I wholeheartedly support; I also thank her for her clear exposition of what they contain. I have a couple of questions.
The Minister set out the responsibilities, particularly around informing households of what they are required to do. I understand that a lot of the waste that is contaminated cannot be effectively disposed of and recycled. Does the Minister know what percentage of household waste that constitutes, including whether it has gone up or down in, say, the last five or 10 years?
I am grateful to the Wildlife and Countryside Link and the Green Alliance for the joint briefing that they have produced for our use. I am also grateful to the Minister for drawing attention to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee’s report, which gave a very helpful background.
My understanding is that the regulations relate only to recycling. I wonder why the department has focused on recycling and not reuse. I have asked on a number of occasions both the Minister and her noble friend the Minister for Energy, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, what the Government’s policy on energy from waste is. It is a good way of using household waste that has been contaminated and cannot be reused. It also prevents it going to landfill, which I understand is where most of the waste that is not recycled will go. So it not only reduces household waste and disposes of it in an energy-efficient way; it also provides an energy stream that other countries in Europe use to great effect. My late aunt and uncle in Denmark had their household heating provided by energy from waste at a reduced rate, so there was a community interest in taking it up. I have not heard anything from the Government—either this department or the department for energy—as to their views on energy from waste.
The Minister referred to kerbside collections, the cost of which is obviously quite high. I have now lost the page but one of the figures relates to the substantial cost of kerbside collections. Is it the idea that household collections will be performed by local councils, which will be reimbursed under the regulations by the funds raised? I think that the Minister alluded to this; that would seem very sensible indeed.
With those few remarks and questions, I commend the regulations, but I am interested to know how much will go to landfill; why the Government have not looked at reuse; what the percentages are for contaminated materials that cannot be recycled; and what the Government’s views are on any residual household waste going to energy from waste plants.
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her extensive introduction to this long-awaited SI. This is a complex issue; it has taken Defra and the Government since 2019 to bring it to this stage. I congratulate both of them on managing to get the devolved Administrations to sign up to more or less the same scheme, which should make things easier. I have received briefings from various producers and had face-to-face meetings for several years, and I was beginning to think that we would never get here. I am grateful to those who provided me this week with briefing material, as well as to the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee for its report.
The opening section of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to implementing the “polluter pays” principle. That is to be welcomed. This is an opportunity to use the extensive powers in the Environment Act 2021 in order to implement the best environmental outcomes and to support the efficacy of reuseable packaging systems.
This SI obliges producers to provide evidence of the type of their recycling to the regulator. However, there is no information on how this is to happen, except that those manufacturers with a turnover of more than £2 million and which produce more than 50 tonnes of packaging will do this once a year. These producers will pay the fees to local authorities. Those with a smaller turnover of more than £1 million will have to report their recycling type but will not have to pay fees. There is nothing about how the information is to be collected by the manufacturer and what the format is for it to be reported.
I regret to say that this is something of a “get out of jail free” card. Defra and the Government are placing a great deal of trust in those who will pay the fee to provide the evidence of their recycling. The regulations include the principle, at Regulation 62(2)(b), that producers can offset fees for packaging that they market, as well as where they collect and recycle that packaging through self-funded initiatives.
There is a risk that producers could claim they have collected and recycled packaging when this is not the case. Research shows that 70% of soft plastic packaging waste collected by supermarkets for recycling was, in fact, incinerated. Can the Minister say why is there no standardisation of how evidence of recycling is to be provided?
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I too thank the Government for bringing these regulations to the Committee for debate. I think all noble Lords agree that reducing the impact of pollution by waste on our environment is an important goal. These Benches wholeheartedly support that objective and we want the Government to foster innovation in the packaging sector that drives down the harms of pollution.
We all agree that recycling rates are too low in both domestic and trade scenarios. Domestic recycling is not helped by councils operating dozens of different schemes. Standardisation is essential, but these regulations impose huge bureaucratic burdens on the regulator and the industry to the very tight timescale of April 2025. As we all know, the Environment Agency is hard pushed to deliver on all its current commitments, including on flooding, and it will have massive new responsibilities under these regulations. Just look at the information which has to be sent to the EA for registration and at all the six-monthly reports that it will now have to plough through.
Here is my first question for the Minister. I should say that I, too, have a number of questions, some of which are technical; I would be happy for the Minister to write to me, as I do not expect her to be able to come up with, off the top of the head, the answers from around 500 pages of regulations. What estimate has been made of the extra staff required by the EA and what funding will be available to it? The Minister said that £1 billion will go to local authorities for their expenses, so who will pay the EA for its additional burden? If local authorities are to get an extra £1 billion, I hope that the Government will clamp down ruthlessly on this nonsense where some councils want to collect garbage—I apologise for that awful American word—and rubbish such as dirty nappies and rotten food only once a month. That is simply not acceptable; I hope that the Government will clamp down on it and stop it.
I hope that the Government will also stop councils charging for the collection of garden waste. Garden waste such as grass clippings is recyclable. There should not be a charge for that.
Then we have the cost to businesses. Many have expressed concerns with the illustrative figures suggested by Defra since most producers think that the fees will be at the top end of the illustration. For example, Defra has, I believe, suggested that the illustrative fees for glass will be between £115 and £215 per tonne. How can businesses plan on that basis, with such a wide variation, while also adding the planned increases in national insurance and business rates? This is not freeing up business to go for growth, as the Chancellor claims. I understand that, in October, 85 industry businesses signed a joint letter to the Minister, Mary Creagh, calling for the scheme to be delayed. They are not opposed to extended producer responsibility but they want to know what fees will be charged—and in good time, so that they have more time to register with the Environment Agency.
Wines and spirits member companies account for 70% of the glass used in the drinks business. They have 300 member companies and more than 60% of them are small and medium-sized enterprises. They also want to see the scheme delayed for a year, in order to sort out not just the fee structure but the definitions of “non-household waste” and “packaging designed for business use”. They say that the vast majority of waste generated in the hospitality sector is disposed of via business waste streams, which they pay for, but they will also incur EPR fees so will pay twice. Defra had promised to avoid this double counting, I believe, but it has now decided to press on with these regulations regardless, and the double counting is included. Why? Can the Minister justify this unfairness? The Wine and Spirit Trade Association says
“that all packaging sold to the hospitality sector or on-trade operators should be classed as non-household and exempted from additional EPR fees”.
Again, I would like to hear the Government’s explanation on that in due course; the Minister may write to me.
Paper and card are major recycling commodities. I understand that approximately 50% of business waste is made up of paper and card. It is important, therefore, that the regulations work—and work well—for the paper recycling industry. The Confederation of Paper Industries has a number of concerns about the
“proposed policy, particularly in the context of the … Recyclability Assessment Methodology (RAM) and the illustrative base fees”.
With regards to the RAM, it is concerned that
“the thresholds for non-paper components in the paper and card category are high and not aligned with industry standards. This methodology will lead to high levels of contaminants, potentially increasing plastic waste, reduce the quality of recyclate, and limit opportunities for innovation and sustainable packaging design. They create barriers for the recycling industry and risk undermining the recycling process”.
I simply ask: is it right about that? I do not know, but I think that we deserve an answer.
Another of the CPI’s key concerns relates to the proposed fee structure. It says that
“the structure creates a cost advantage to choosing plastic due to its lightweight nature, which risks driving material shifts from paper to less sustainable, fossil fuel-based plastics, and disproportionately affects the competitiveness of paper and board packaging”.
This concern is similar to the one raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, when she was talking about the difference between glass and plastic.
Further, the paper industry is concerned about
“the inflationary effect of the fee structure due to higher per-unit costs; aside from these costs being passed onto consumers, it could also see the UK’s competitiveness reduced, potentially leading to disinvestment in domestic production”.
Again, I do not know whether that is right. I hope the Government can explain whether the industry is right to be concerned about that or whether it has the wrong end of the stick.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their valuable contributions to the debate. There has been an enormous amount of questions, which I will do my best to cover but I may well end up writing in response to some of them. As the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, said, it is a large document, although, having worked on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill, which I needed a wheelbarrow to get around the House, nothing ever seems large to me again. I will try to cover as many questions as I can but, if noble Lords will bear with me, I will go through Hansard and pick up anything that I miss.
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering, asked a number of questions about household waste. The UK household recycling rate was 45% in 2021, with no substantial change since 2015. However, there is a lack of robust data on contamination rates, so I cannot provide any detail on that. We have used assumed contamination rates, which have been informed by data from sector experts, for the impact assessments for collection and packaging reforms.
The noble Baroness also asked about incentives or targets for reuse as well as recycling. Under pEPR, there are already incentives to support the adoption of reusable packaging. Producers are obligated only once for a piece of packaging, not for each time it is collected and reused. Additionally, where reusable items are collected for recycling by businesses, these can be offset against their overall pEPR obligations. We think that this exemption, in combination with the offsetting provisions, incentivises a move to reuse and drives a move away from single-use packaging, but we will continue to review the effectiveness of these measures to ensure that they are sufficient to meet the UK’s ambitions to increase the reuse of packaging.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, asked about enforcement and compliance. The pEPR regulations set effective and proportionate enforcement powers to achieve high levels of compliance. We have worked closely with the environmental regulators to ensure that the fees payable to them are adequate to fund the full regulatory service. One such power is the ability to issue variable monetary penalties in respect of certain offences, including the failure to register and the failure to report data. These new variable monetary penalties will enable the environmental regulators to issue financial penalties that are commensurate with the nature of the offence and the size of the business, meaning that larger businesses may face significant financial consequences for failing to comply with the regulations.
Additionally, the scheme administrator that will be created by the SI will be granted the use of civil sanctions, including variable monetary penalties, to address the non-payment of disposal fees. Where a producer fails to pay its disposal fees in the prescribed time, the scheme administrator may issue a variable monetary penalty, the amount of which will be equal to 20% of the unpaid disposal fees or up to 5% of the business’s annual turnover, whichever amount is higher. The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, asked for more detail around the fees that would be charged.
The noble Baroness also asked about the appointment of the scheme administrator. The scheme administrator will be hosted in Defra and will report to the four Ministers of the four nations. There will be a governance structure that will include representatives from the value chain—in other words, producers and local authorities.
On the deposit return scheme, which was mentioned by a number of noble Lords, we are completely committed to launching DRS in October 2027 in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland; we laid the regulations for England and Northern Ireland on Monday. The Scottish Government are making the necessary amendments to legislation in Scotland, thereby enabling us to progress the appointment of the deposit management organisations in April next year.
Materials, the glass sector and plastics were all mentioned. I am sure noble Lords have read that in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, glass will not be part of the DRS scheme. The Government’s position is that glass would add considerable upfront cost and create complex challenges to the delivery of DRS, particularly for the hospitality and retail sectors—as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra—as well as disproportionately impacting small breweries and being inconvenient for customers.
Glass drinks bottles will instead be part of pEPR. We have been engaging with industry as part of the development of our illustrative base fees, and further engagement is planned over the coming months. To ensure that heavier materials such as glass are not disadvantaged in our model, where weight is not a limiting factor, costs are apportioned according to the volume of collected material rather than the weight. PEPR provides a strong incentive to move towards reuse, to which the glass sector is well placed to respond. Given the carbon intensity of glass recycling and its durable nature, reuse is the goal. PEPR will incentivise the reuse of glass, as fees will be charged only the first time a product is placed on the market and producers will be able to offset what they recycle.
Regarding the Welsh aspect of this, the UK Government, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs—DAERA—in Northern Ireland and the Scottish Government are not including glass, as I said, but the timing and the scope of the Welsh DRS scheme have not yet been confirmed. While this remains the case, there is no justification for extending the temporary pEPR disposal fee exemption on plastic and aluminium drinks containers to include glass. We will continue to work closely with the Welsh Government; once we have finally confirmed the details of their scheme, we will consider whether any amendments to the EPR regulations are needed.
I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, who asked whether material switching would happen because of this. Decisions on the use of packaging materials are complex and driven by a range of individual, business and market factors. At the moment, we have no robust evidence that switching would occur. As part of our illustrative base fees webinar on 3 October, we requested that the industry provide detailed evidence to support its claim; we also talked to other government departments. We have not yet received any substantial evidence. Having said that, we are planning further engagement with different sectors in December to discuss any findings and their implications. As part of this continuous engagement, we will aim to share as much detail as possible relating to pEPR fee calculations at these sector-specific round tables.
I was asked about the evidence that will be required from producers to show that packaging waste they have collected has been recycled. The regulator would not usually stipulate specific documents in relation to this requirement but would provide examples and principles acknowledging that every producer is different and may therefore have access to different evidence. A producer could obtain written confirmation from their reprocessor outlining what percentage of the materials that were collected and sent for recycling was actually recycled, but this would need to outline the reprocessing method to determine this value and the EA could expect the producer to have a documented process in place to validate this data. So it is quite complex.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, asked about single-use cups, including whether we are still committed to introducing the mandatory cup take-back scheme; I think she referred to that. We very much welcome the efforts of UK producers to lead the way on the take-back of single-use cups through voluntary initiatives, such as the National Cup Recycling Scheme. The collection and recycling of fibre-based composite cups is eligible for offsetting against pEPR fees. The Government recognise the urgent need to limit the environmental impact of single-use packaging, including fibre-based composite cups, and are considering the most effective ways to meet this challenge. I am more than happy to meet the noble Baroness to discuss this further, if she wishes.
The noble Baroness also asked about targets, PERNs and what is happening to deal with fraud in the system. The new regulations will increase the volume and frequency of data reported by packaging reprocessors and exporters to enable greater transparency right through the system. The regulations include new conditions of accreditation, and regulator fees will also increase to fund additional compliance monitoring of operators. As I mentioned earlier, there are also new civil sanctions to address non-compliance, including the ability to issue uncapped penalties.
Local authorities were mentioned by a number of noble Lords. In November, local authority chief executives were sent indicative estimates of their year 1 extended producer responsibility for packaging payment. Those estimates will cover the April 2025 to March 2026 financial year, so they will have some idea of the costs. The first payments for EPR packaging will be made by November 2025. I hope that that is helpful.
The noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, raised a number of issues around business and costs. The figures that were widely quoted in the press that it would cost industry £2 billion a year are inaccurate. Our estimate shows that the reforms will cost around £1.4 billion a year. This amount will cover local authority costs to manage household packaging waste, as well as scheme administrator costs. Individual producers will be able to reduce their bill by placing less packaging on the market—that is what the legislation is designed to do. Further, any smaller businesses are likely to be excluded due to the de minimis threshold, although it is assumed that the majority of producers will be liable. Hence, the fees will largely represent an industry-wide cost increase, with all firms facing a small increase in cost. For the average producer, cost increases due to pEPR are less than 1% of total revenue.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I had one quick question about the policy on energy from waste. Obviously, if the Minister needs to write to me on it, I would be very grateful. Also, the regulations clearly state that aims should be achieved around reduction and reuse, but at the moment, the regulations address recycling only. Any thoughts on that in writing would be very helpful.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The fact that there are incentives for producers to reuse is part of the purpose. It is about not just about recycling, but about changing behaviour to encourage producers to have packaging that can be reused. I hope that is the answer to that. I will write to the noble Baroness on energy from waste.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
Will the Minister write to me on the technical points made by the Confederation of Paper Industries? I think we would all like to see that response.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Absolutely. As I say, we have had quite a long debate with a lot of questions, so I assure noble Lords that we will go through Hansard and write with detailed responses on any outstanding questions.
This legislation is necessary to initiate the circular economy for packaging in the UK, ensuring that materials and products are kept in use for longer. I trust that noble Lords understand and accept the need for this instrument; I very much welcome their broad support.
Human Medicines (Amendment) (Modular Manufacture and Point of Care) Regulations 2024
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Cryer
That the Grand Committee do consider the Human Medicines (Amendment) (Modular Manufacture and Point of Care) Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 6th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
Lord Cryer (Lab)
My Lords, I beg to move that the Committee consider this amendment to the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 and the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations 2004. I am grateful for the opportunity today to debate this important amendment, which establishes a tailored regulatory framework to support point-of-care and modular manufacturing UK-wide, enabling decentralised methods of medicine manufacturing and moving innovative medicines closer to the patient.
The UK is leading the way as the first country to introduce a framework for these ground-breaking, decentralised methods of medicine manufacturing. We are demonstrating our commitment to supporting medical advances on the cutting edge of technology. The Government are implementing the new framework to enable a new sector of medicine manufacturing, facilitating the development of highly specialised medicines where they are most needed for patients, whether that is in hospital wards, operating theatres, community health centres or, in some cases, even in patients’ own homes.
One example of these products in development is a diabetic foot ulcer treatment using blood-derived products obtained from the patient and manufactured at the bedside. Modular manufacture can support early-stage vaccine deployment by allowing vaccines to be locally filled and finished, ensuring efficient supply to mass vaccination centres. These cutting-edge medicines are often very time-sensitive so they cannot just be picked up from a doctor, a pharmacy or a hospital in the traditional way.
I will now highlight why this change is needed. Increasingly, with advancing health technology, medicines are being developed that need to be manufactured close to patients. The approach by the UK medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency—the MHRA—needs to adapt to support the development of new technologies. However, current arrangements are geared for centralised factory-based manufacture, with a small number of fixed manufacturing sites named on manufacturing licences and marketing authorisations.
Point-of-care and modular manufacturing products may be manufactured at multiple sites across the country. Some of these products are developed to meet the unique needs of each patient, often derived from the patient’s own cells or blood. Some products must be administered within an hour, or even minutes in some cases, of being manufactured. This creates an urgency and a specific need that traditional manufacturing cannot easily accommodate. It would be extremely challenging for these innovative products to be regulated according to current regulations, with significant regulatory and financial hurdles.
The objective of this instrument is to provide an enabling framework to allow for the safe and efficient manufacture and supply of emerging medicines still in the early stages of development, with the regulatory clarity necessary to encourage these new products and approaches. It is vital that we have a regulatory framework that is flexible for new innovations but obviously does not compromise on patient safety.
I will now set out how the MHRA will ensure that point-of-care and modular manufacture products meet the necessary standards of safety, effectiveness and quality. The new framework is centred on a hub-and-spoke model, with a single control site as the hub for each product overseeing all aspects of point-of-care and modular manufacturing, including the spokes of individual manufacturing locations and their activities. The control site will be the only named manufacturing site on the manufacturing licence, clinical trial and marketing authorisation applications. The holder of the control site, as its name signifies, will be responsible for ensuring product quality across all manufacturing sites and notifying the MHRA of reportable issues.
The diligence of the control site in overseeing manufacturing locations will be scrutinised at routine MHRA inspections, and arrangements for oversight will be scrutinised as part of the licensing process. A number of manufacturing spoke locations will also be sampled and subject to inspections, to ensure that the oversight claimed by the control site can be independently supported by inspection findings.
The new framework is a modified form of the current regulatory framework for evaluation of regulatory compliance at manufacturing sites and safety monitoring. There will be no change in the expected standards that must be met for safety, quality and efficacy of the product. There will not be an increased risk to patient safety, with the MHRA retaining regulatory oversight.
I turn in more detail to the benefits of this new framework. First, patients and carers will benefit from access to new and more personalised medicines in a timely and more convenient manner, with the potential for some patients to be treated with medicines manufactured at home. This would help to move care from hospitals to communities—I know that this has been discussed for a long time, but this gives us the opportunity to actually do that—reducing the need for patients to stay in hospitals. Secondly, it benefits healthcare professionals by providing a greater range of more effective treatment options, which can improve patients’ response to treatment. Lastly, it benefits innovators and industry, by providing clear regulatory expectations and enabling speedier product development.
The new framework will remove regulatory barriers that are not suited to novel manufacturing methods. This benefit will be seen across all sizes of companies—large as well as small and medium-sized enterprises. I am pleased to bring forward this instrument using the powers of the Medicines and Medical Devices Act, allowing us to use effective regulation to support the development of medicines at the forefront of technology, enable patient access to pioneering medicines and help to move innovative medicines closer to the patient.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, in rising, I thank the Minister. It is also my first opportunity to welcome him to his place and, just as with his colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, I look forward to working with him in the constructive way that I do with her.
We may be surprised that there is not a massive queue of speakers lining up to take this debate into tomorrow, but part of the reason is that this instrument really is not that controversial. There is consensus on this and we welcome the intent of innovation. With a lot of legislation, particularly when it comes to technology, we know that there are two debates: one is on the precautionary principle and the other is on the innovation principle. I know that we always have to balance those two issues out. It is really important that the UK continues to be a leader in innovation, particularly health innovation.
From these Benches, we support this statutory instrument, particularly, as the noble Lord says, to enable manufacturers to produce medicines with a shorter shelf life closer to the patients. What is not to like about that? I have a couple of quick questions, not in any way to trip up the Minister or score points but simply for information.
The impact assessment talks about supporting
“innovation and flexibility, for example by introducing a Control Site and framework to preclude the need for each”
point of care and modular manufacturing
“site to be named on the marketing authorisation and to be individually inspected by the MHRA”.
I just wonder whether contingencies have been thought about. We know that there are quite often unintended consequences with any legislation, even if well intentioned, but also in what contingencies have been put in place. Is there an ironclad chain of responsibility? For example, if the single control site becomes inoperable or goes down, what contingencies do the Government have to provide relief to the manufacturers? I am sure that he appreciates the intent behind that question, but that would be very helpful.
Secondly, I would be extremely grateful if the Minister could reassure us what measures there are to ensure an ironclad chain of responsibility. We know that in the modern manufacture of medicines, thinking about the recent Covid vaccine, for example, that components can come from all around the world—it is like a modern supply chain. While only one manufacturer is named on a system, are there instances involving more than one manufacturer in the process? Therefore, how do the regulator, the Government and patients know who is responsible for their medicines at which stage? I know this is done very close to the patient, but there might be questions about who is held responsible. If this is a surprise question or the Minister does not have the answer, I am perfectly happy for him to write.
I know that I might sound like a country-club bore but, as a former Minister, particularly in technology, innovation and life sciences, I have continued to maintain an interest in this area, so I can share the pride that the Government have in this system being one of the first of its kind in the world. It sends a very positive signal to the world, building on our reputation of the UK being a leader in medicine manufacturing, which was obviously highlighted when we developed the Covid vaccine very quickly. As this system is the first of its kind, we hope that the Government will commit to closely monitoring its impact and provide the results in a transparent manner, but also to highlight anything that goes wrong or is unintended so that we can learn from it.
One of the questions I generally ask about legislation is on unintended consequences. They are often there and we cannot foresee them. What guardrails or safeguards are there in place? If an unintended consequence arises, how do we remedy that? Will it simply be laying another SI to correct the error? I would be very interested in what the Minister has to say.
Overall, there is no real contention on this. We very much welcome this SI. I look forward to hearing the answers from the Minister—and I hope I have waffled on for long enough that he can get the answers from his officials, who I thank on that. In particular, I know he has an official from Lithuania, so I say “ačiū”, which I hope is the correct way of pronouncing “thank you” in Lithuanian.
Lord Cryer (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for both his contribution and his welcome. He can tell that I am still shuffling papers around.
I suppose that there are always unintended consequences to any piece of legislation; we have all been around long enough to know that. Part of the answer here is that the new hub-and-spoke method creates a degree of flexibility while not compromising health and safety standards, which means that, if there are problems in the supply chain, it would be pragmatic to put in measures that would compensate for those. If you simply have a big factory churning out tons of drugs and treatments and that factory has a problem, it is much more difficult to alleviate that problem. Also, the factories, inspection plants and other points along the hub-and-spoke model will be subject to inspections in order to ensure health and safety and quality. That is principally the MHRA but there are also—this is off the top of my head—nine other third-party agencies that are used, for want of a better phrase, by the MHRA to conduct inspections.
I want to make a few comments in closing that will partly touch on the points raised by the noble Lord. I shall summarise the key aims of the new framework and how the MHRA is already preparing to deliver these changes. Having met MHRA officials, I can say with some confidence that they have been planning for this for a long time. It is vital that the regulatory framework supports the development of new medicines while protecting patient safety, which is in essence what the noble Lord was talking about.
The safety of patients remains the paramount interest in the new framework. The regulations are not about relaxing patient safety requirements; they are about making sensible changes to reflect the circumstances in which medicines are being manufactured. The new regulatory framework is based on and links into the current regulatory processes but, obviously, the existing regulatory processes address a very different method of manufacture and distribution. The new system will ensure that point-of-care and modular manufacture products meet the necessary standards of safety, effectiveness and quality.
The new framework will also bring a wide range of benefits to patients. By opening up a new sector of medicines manufacturing, patients will benefit from access to new and more personalised medicines in a timely and convenient manner. There is potential for patients to be treated with medicines outside hospital settings, even in their own homes, thus reducing travel time; in some cases, there will be no travel time because they will be manufactured by a small device in the patient’s home. The framework supports the concept of moving care from hospitals to communities, relieving pressures on the NHS. This may also reduce the overall treatment and social care cost.
The MHRA is ensuring that the health and care sector is ready to adapt to this new framework so that the benefits can be realised. Engagement is happening now, has been happening for a while and will continue to take place with a wide range of key health partners in industry, academia and other UK regulators, including the Care Quality Commission, the Human Tissue Authority and the Health Research Authority; obviously, the GMC and the NHS are also part of the extensive stakeholder engagement network to ensure institutional readiness. The MHRA’s engagement with stakeholders through the development of the regulations, including a formal public consultation, has shown widespread support; I am talking about cross-industry support for the new framework. Industry continues to be supportive of the framework. The Government and the MHRA will continue to engage with industry and manufactures, as noble Lords might expect.
As far as international collaboration is concerned, the MHRA is working internationally to ensure maximum alignment of regulatory approaches across international regulators. That is not global, but it is as far as can be reasonably practicable. This will enable the benefits of point-of-care and modular manufacture products to reach patients across the world. This international work is particularly important as the UK is the first country to introduce a framework to enable innovative ways of manufacturing medicine, so, in effect, the UK leads the way in this field—and this is UK-wide.
In short, these changes will support wider access to life-saving, innovative medicines. I hope that noble Lords will agree with them and, on this basis, join me in supporting these important regulatory changes.
Medical Devices (Post-market Surveillance Requirements) (Amendment) (Great Britain) Regulations 2024
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Lord Cryer
That the Grand Committee do consider the Medical Devices (Post-market Surveillance Requirements) (Amendment) (Great Britain) Regulations 2024.
Relevant document: 6th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee
Lord Cryer (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to be here to debate these important regulations, which herald a much-needed shift in the way we manage medical devices in Britain. This draft statutory instrument represents the first step in a series of amendments that will be introduced in the near and medium term to reform the Medical Devices Regulations 2002 to enhance the safety of medical devices, ensure availability for patients and support innovation.
To give one example—the most obvious one—the 2020 Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, led by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, revealed the shocking experiences of patients with implanted pelvic mesh, which caused intense suffering to thousands of women. Their lives have been irrevocably changed and we must act on the lessons learned in the noble Baroness’s report. The review made it abundantly clear that, to keep patients safe, substantial reforms were needed to enable the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency—the MHRA—to effectively regulate medical devices.
Post-market surveillance, or PMS, is vital for patient safety. PMS refers to the activities that manufacturers conduct to collect and evaluate the experience gained from their devices in real-world use. The MHRA provides regulatory oversight of this process to ensure that safety issues are identified and addressed promptly. Historically, the Medical Devices Regulations have provided only limited provisions for PMS, with guidance covering the detail. Although many manufacturers perform PMS to not just an appropriate but a very high standard, this is not universal. Bringing these requirements into legislation will ensure clarity, level the playing field for manufacturers and, crucially, improve data quality reported to the MHRA, reducing the risk of safety failures.
This statutory instrument is necessary to improve the ability of both manufacturers and the MHRA to identify issues with medical devices and take timely action. It delivers patient benefits in three key areas. First, it improves patient safety. This instrument will enable not only the MHRA but the whole health system to better protect patients by more closely monitoring the safety and performance of devices within the NHS and in local communities. This will result in more rapid identification, investigation and resolution of safety issues, allowing the NHS to focus resource effectively. The review led by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, reported that patients felt unheard and their concerns were often dismissed. These regulations will strengthen the patient voice by requiring manufacturers to undertake patient and public engagement during their PMS activities and monitoring.
Secondly, this instrument will support more rapid access for the NHS and patients to transformative—I hope—technologies. These measures provide stronger assurance that products on the market are safe and effective, which will support the implementation of new routes to market. For example, this instrument will help support the introduction of an international reliance framework as part of future medical devices regulatory reform.
Finally, this instrument will support innovation. The collection of real-world data can highlight opportunities for manufacturers to refine and improve devices. This process will result in more user-friendly and effective innovations, ultimately achieving better outcomes.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, as with the previous instrument, this side welcomes the instrument being laid. Once again, the lack of people queuing up to speak in this debate demonstrates that it is relatively uncontroversial; we now outnumber the audience, as it were.
We obviously support this instrument. The Minister was absolutely right to refer to the report by the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, and to the pain and misery that the valproate scandal—and other scandals—caused so many women. On that, I know that the Minister will not be able to answer me now but I wonder whether he can write to me on the recent report by the Patient Safety Commissioner. He suggested an initial sum to be paid to the victims of that scandal, as well as looking at future remedies. Are the Government any closer to considering the Patient Safety Commissioner’s recommendations? These women have suffered enough. They have been out of pocket and have suffered physically, financially and emotionally. I would welcome an answer on that at some stage, probably in writing.
It is obviously right that we increase the scope for post-market surveillance. As a quick aside, noble Lords may know that I was a Member of the European Parliament for a few years. British companies used to lobby me on their concern that manufacturers could go to certain jurisdictions to get a CE mark then sell that product across the EU; they sometimes wondered whether the surveillance or testing of that product was sufficiently strong compared to in the UK. This gives us a huge opportunity now to be more aware of CE marks. The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland says that
“the CE mark is not a quality mark, nor a guarantee that the product meets all of the requirements of relevant EU product safety law”.
It places an onus on suppliers to make sure that they comply, but not every product is tested.
That is why it is important, particularly given the scandal to which the noble Baroness, Lady Cumberlege, referred in her report, that we now take the opportunity to ensure that these products are as safe as they claim to be—not only those manufactured in the UK and GB but, particularly, those coming from abroad. I want some sort of assurance that the Minister thinks this will be an effective way to make sure that we avoid that problem.
Secondly, having left the EU a few years ago, we have to be aware that there was clearly some friction. Hopefully, we will move to a better relationship between the UK and the EU. We want to avoid unnecessary conflict, but has the Minister thought about what happens when, in the post-market surveillance, the UK regulator deems that a product from an EU country which might have a CE mark is not safe? How do we ensure that that does not cause conflict with the EU regulators for that product, and is it going be a constructive relationship?
Are the EU standards organisations fully acquainted with what we will be doing here in the UK, and open to the fact that we might find that some products are not high quality and will therefore remove them from the UK market? Will that cause conflict with the EU, given that those products have a CE marking? It will be one way of trying to reduce some of that post-Brexit friction. We might be doing it for the best reasons, but they may feel it is undermining the CE mark.
Lastly, can the Minister commit to ensuring that Northern Irish regulations remain closely aligned to Great Britain’s, so as to avoid confusion and delay? We know that the Windsor Framework produced a solution for Northern Ireland after the Brexit negotiations, but there are concerns for people in Northern Ireland about alignment with GB, understanding that there is also an alignment with the EU. Can the Minister make some commitment or give an assurance that Northern Ireland will remain as closely aligned to GB as it possibly can?
With that, these regulations are not particularly controversial. We welcome the fact that there is post-market surveillance. We wish we could have done it as strongly before, given that there have been concerns about certain medical devices. It is really important that we learn the lessons from those scandals, particularly the pelvic mesh and other scandals that have caused so much misery and suffering. We must make sure that we do not see that sort of suffering again.
Lord Cryer (Lab)
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for his comments. The Committee will not know, but he mentioned to me beforehand that he might raise products from other jurisdictions and that I might have to write to him. I should just like to say that his prediction was right: I will have to write, but I shall say a couple of things briefly.
As far as product safety from other jurisdictions is concerned—I will come to the European Union and other jurisdictions later in my closing remarks—there is a scheme for implant cards. I mentioned at the beginning that this SI will, in all probability, be the first of a number which will, at some point, cover putting implant cards into products so that their exact provenance can then be traced. If something comes from another jurisdiction that does not use that method, obviously I hope that that is in itself a way of ensuring some level of safety.
We have both mentioned pelvic mesh, for instance, which has been absolutely deadly. I will say something about that in a minute, but a few years ago there was another scandal involving really nasty breast implants which leaked. When this is fully rolled out, if a woman has a breast implant, we will have the implant card attached to the product and its provenance can be immediately seen: you can see exactly where it came from. That will hopefully ensure an increased level of safety.
As far as the victims—I think that “victims” is the right description—of pelvic mesh are concerned, I know that this has been going on for a while, but the Government are now looking at various options and, at some point in the near future, there will be an announcement on what exactly will be done.
This instrument marks an important change in how we manage medical devices in Great Britain. It will enable not only the MHRA but the whole of the health system to better protect patients. That is what this entire SI is about. The Government acknowledge that patient safety remains paramount, and these regulations must be carefully balanced to support innovation and ensure patients have access to the most effective medical devices.
Where appropriate, the new draft PMS regulations align with international requirements—which the noble Lord mentioned—helping to support the availability and favourability of the Great Britain market and reduce the additional burden on manufacturers supplying medical devices across multiple jurisdictions. The new PMS requirements will also provide a level of regulatory certainty for manufacturers, hopefully making the UK a more attractive location to launch their products.
As I mentioned in my opening comments, this draft statutory instrument represents the first legislative step towards broader medical devices regulatory reform. It will create a strong foundation for further regulatory amendments that enhance the safety of medical devices, ensuring their availability and supporting innovation. It will do this by introducing measures for medical devices after they are placed on the market.
The MHRA is also developing measures for medical devices before they are placed on the market, with the intention to lay additional draft legislation before Parliament in 2025. As I mentioned at the beginning, this will include measures for unique device identifiers—implant cards—and new rules to ensure that claims are consistent with the intended purpose of a device, although there is already existing legislation that covers that to a degree. It will also deliver changes to the classification of some medical devices.
As part of this subsequent legislation, we intend to introduce a framework for international reliance that takes into account, where it is safe to do so, decisions made by comparable regulators in Australia, Canada, the EU and the USA when determining whether a product can be sold in the UK.
Delivering these regulations first, ahead of wider regulatory reform, enables this framework by providing the MHRA with stronger assurance that devices are safe and perform as intended. It demonstrates the Government’s commitment to patient safety and responds directly to the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review, which I and the noble Lord mentioned earlier, led by my noble friend Lady Cumberlege. The review highlighted the terrible consequences for patients when medical devices do not do what they are supposed to.
The MHRA has taken a pragmatic approach to the development of this instrument and prioritised patient safety while supporting global harmonisation across the UK medical device industry.
These regulations will be subject to a six-month implementation period. The majority of devices registered with the MHRA have EU regulatory approval and already comply, or are moving towards compliance with, EU PMS requirements. Therefore, given the similarity of these requirements with those in the EU, we do not expect manufacturers to have difficulty meeting these new GB requirements within this timeframe; however, the MHRA will continue to monitor the situation, and talk to and support industry to get it to readiness.
The MHRA is prepared for these regulations. The strengthened PMS requirements are expected to increase the volume of data and vigilance reports submitted to the MHRA. However, we anticipate that accompanying improvements to data quality will off-set this burden and support automation within the existing MHRA systems.
Before I move to my conclusion, there was one more point, about Northern Ireland. As the noble Lord mentioned, this SI, unlike the previous one, is covered by the Windsor Framework, so a separate process applies to Northern Ireland.
Having said that, I trust that we have demonstrated the need for these regulations to ensure that patients and the public continue to benefit from safe access to medical devices. As the first legislative step of the wider medical devices regulatory reform, this instrument will create a strong foundation and allow for future changes to enhance the safety of medical devices, ensuring their availability and supporting innovation. In turn, we intend to support our life sciences sector to create an environment that fosters safe innovation—I emphasise that.
Lord Kamall (Con)
I would like to have some more details, in writing, about the conversations that we will have with the EU if our post-market surveillance finds something wrong with a product that has a CE mark to make sure that that will be done co-operatively and will not be seen as causing unnecessary friction. I know that the Minister discussed international co-operation in an earlier answer. There is no need to answer now, but if he could include that in a letter to me that would be welcome.
Lord Cryer (Lab)
A process of consultation has been ongoing for quite a while. It has been done in a very constructive way on all sides, I hope, and certainly on the UK side. I will write to the noble Lord about that, as he asked.
House of Lords
Royal Assent
Thursday 28th November 2024
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Retirement of a Member: Lord Levene of Portsoken
The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)
My Lords, I should like to notify the House of the retirement, with effect from today, of the noble Lord, Lord Levene of Portsoken, pursuant to Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. On behalf of the House, I thank the noble Lord for his much-valued service to the House.
BBC: Impartiality
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Baroness Deech
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the BBC’s measurement of its duty to deliver due impartiality as required by its Charter, and of how impartiality is addressed by its complaints system.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
My Lords, it is for Ofcom, the BBC’s independent regulator, to hold the BBC to account on its duty to deliver impartial news content under its royal charter. The Government must set the right framework for the BBC to operate in; however, editorial decisions are, rightly, not something that the Government interfere with. The BBC is hugely important to public life and must be responsive to its audience—the British people—including through its handling of complaints.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, the BBC’s impartiality and accuracy in its coverage of the Israel-Gaza war have been thoroughly documented and found to be failing by the Asserson and Danny Cohen reports. To say that the audience trusts the BBC is no substitute for measuring impartiality. BBC Arabic reporters have been found to be supporting terror and to be anti-Semitic. Among the most egregious failings was Jeremy Bowen jumping to the conclusion that Israel had bombed the al-Ahli Hospital on 17 October last year, when it turned out to be an Islamic Jihad misfired rocket, and never apologising for this report, which caused great reputational damage. Today, a union has urged BBC staff to wear a keffiyeh or the Palestinian flag colours, while the BBC remains silent in this flaunting of impartiality. Will the Minister demand that the BBC set up an inquiry into the BBC Arabic service and, in the next charter review, call for an external ombudsman to settle BBC complaints, which, as we all know, are handled slowly and by the BBC marking its own homework? With all due respect to Ofcom—
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The BBC, as I said in my initial Answer, has a duty to provide accurate and impartial news and information. I am sure all noble Lords would agree that that is particularly important when it comes to coverage of highly sensitive issues, such as the conflict in Gaza. The BBC is editorially and operationally independent and, therefore, decisions on its editorial line are for it to take. Of course, the BBC has upheld complaints against its own coverage of the Middle East, including for falling below standards of accuracy in its reporting. It is then for Ofcom, the independent regulator, to ensure that the BBC is fulfilling its obligation to audiences as outlined in the charter.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)
My Lords, I highlight for the Minister, and indeed the whole House, a report called The Future of News, published by the Communications and Digital Select Committee of your Lordships’ House earlier this week. In that report, our inquiry found a growing risk of a two-tier media environment influenced by a combination of technological change and a growing number of people turning away from news because of a lack of trust. The question of audience trust is a matter for the media, including the BBC, but our report has some clear recommendations for the Government. Will the Minister please assure me that she will look at this report and give our recommendations serious consideration, particularly those that we highlight on competition issues, copyright and SLAPPs?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I look forward to reading the report that the noble Baroness refers to. The Government recognise that society’s shift online presents new challenges and opportunities to news media as well as to the provision of trustworthy information. That involves the issues around trust, which the noble Baroness referred to. I will ensure that there is a response to the report and look forward to debating it when it comes before your Lordships’ House.
Lord Fowler (CB)
My Lords, I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. The most important people in any news organisation, surely, are not the armchair correspondents, commentators or, for that matter, critics but the reporters. Is it not a fact that the BBC has a reputation around the world for the accuracy of its reporting? Surely our concern should be not the BBC but the overseas Governments who exclude outside reporters from what is happening on the ground in their countries.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I agree that the BBC has a very positive reputation overseas. The correct handling of complaints is part of that reputation and sustains it. It is a really important part of our soft diplomacy, which is why the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, announced yesterday that the Government will provide the BBC World Service with a funding uplift of £32.6 million in 2025-26.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister not agree that as all political parties, including my own, complain about the BBC, it must be doing something right and is demonstrating impartiality? There are clear processes through Ofcom, as she said, for those who wish to complain. Is she satisfied that Ofcom is carrying out its statutory obligations on impartiality with regard to GB News?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I agree with the noble Baroness’s first point; everyone across your Lordships’ House will get frustrated at some point, which is probably a sign that the BBC is on the right track. On news and current affairs, as the Question suggests, all broadcasters have a responsibility to be duly accurate and impartial. It is for Ofcom, as the regulator, to ensure compliance. We believe it takes that responsibility seriously.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, we live in a world where social media has a huge impact on public discourse. Can the Minister explain how the Government will monitor the activity of all BBC employees on social media and ensure that it does not undermine the perception of the BBC’s required impartiality?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I assume that, like all organisations in the public sector, the BBC will have internal processes to monitor this, and a social media policy.
Baroness Keeley (Lab)
My Lords, the BBC does incredible work at home and abroad but it has finite resources and, let us face it, is often under attack from politicians and other media outlets. Can my noble friend the Minister confirm that, unlike successive previous Administrations, which have too often sought to undermine the BBC and its public service role, this Government will act in a way that recognises the BBC’s key role in informing the public on complex issues and its great value to the creative industries?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I welcome my noble friend’s view on the BBC, which closely aligns with that of the Government. The BBC matters hugely to our public life and this Government are committed to supporting it so that it can succeed well into the future. In doing so, we will ensure that it is responsive to the public and able to tell inclusive stories about the lives of all people in all parts of the UK.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
My Lords, in the Media Act the last Government dropped the requirement for public service broadcasters to broadcast some programmes about science, cultural matters, social issues and matters of international significance. Does the Minister think this should be rectified?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The Government are still considering the mid-term review recommendations that require updates to the BBC framework agreement and decisions will be made in due course. I am happy to write to the noble Viscount on the specific points he raised.
Lord Robathan (Con)
My Lords, at George Alagiah’s memorial service, in his excellent address Tim Davie said that George was the best of the best because he gave the facts of the news rather than his opinions about it. That was a fairly barbed comment. When will people like me who do not want to subsidise the opinions of commentators be allowed to stop paying the licence fee?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The Secretary of State and the Prime Minister have committed to the licence fee for the remainder of the current charter period, until 2027. Ahead of the charter review, the Government will keep an open mind about the future of the licence fee and engage with the BBC, the public and other stakeholders before making decisions, but I am afraid that the noble Lord is not currently exempt from it.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, before we move on to the next Question, I remind the House—as I find myself having to do quite a lot—that we are in Question Time and expect questions from noble Lords and prompt answers from Ministers. It is Question Time, not “speech time”.
Asylum Seekers: Wethersfield
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Lord German
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they plan to close the Wethersfield site used for housing asylum seekers and instead to make greater use of dispersal accommodation.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, in begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I draw the House’s attention to my interest in the register that I am supported by RAMP.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
The Government have restarted asylum processing and are delivering a major uplift in returns. Dispersed accommodation has always been a key part of meeting our statutory obligation and we continue to source more through our asylum accommodation plans, ensuring that it offers value for money and considers the impact on local areas. We will reduce the reliance on and need for accommodation as progress is made on clearing the backlog.
Lord German (LD)
My Lords, in the run-up to the general election the now Prime Minister said that he would close Wethersfield and the Home Secretary said it was no longer providing value for money. In that case, when will the Government decide that they are going to close Wethersfield, given that there are some very bad reports from NGOs about conditions in that site, which are causing great concern to those worried about the mental health of those who are there?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
We will continue to keep it under review. As I have said, the proposal is to reduce reliance on accommodation in due course. The noble Lord will know that we have already closed the “Bibby Stockholm” and decommissioned Scampton in Lincolnshire. It is a process; as numbers fall, we will continue to review this on an ongoing basis.
The Lord Bishop of Winchester
My Lords, reports by Doctors of the World and Médecins Sans Frontières speak of the high levels of psychological distress experienced by many of the residents who are accommodated at Wethersfield, and this is corroborated by those from the diocese of Chelmsford volunteering on site. Can the Minister say what access there is to therapeutic mental health support on site, especially for those suffering from complex conditions such as PTSD?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate for the question. We are cognisant of the pressures on individuals at the site. There is a regular meeting between the police, agencies, local councils and others to assess the needs on site, and we had some external reports which the Government have responded to positively. I take on board his points; the Government’s position is to try to resolve those. Individuals spend a maximum of nine months at the centre before being dispersed, and I hope that will help with the issues raised by the right reverend Prelate.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, it is deeply disturbing that the Government have broken a manifesto commitment by opening new asylum hotels, such as the one in Altrincham. Can the Minister tell this House how many new asylum hotels are being opened, or are scheduled to be opened, and how local concerns are being addressed in decision making?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question; there is a net increase of seven so far. The Government’s manifesto commitment is to reduce the use of hotels and get rid of them in full during this Parliament. We are doing that by increasing the volume of asylum processing. There were 10,000 processed this month, compared with 1,000 a month when the noble Lord was in office. Since July 5, we have removed 9,400 people by deportation—a 19% increase since the noble Lord was in office. I think he needs to reflect on the fact that we have had four months in office and we have made an impact. We have closed “Bibby Stockholm”, decommissioned Scampton, put in place a £700 million saving on the Rwanda scheme and put in place new border security to stop boats in the first place. Please will noble Lord reflect on that and give credit to this Government for their actions?
Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth (Con)
My Lords, I wonder whether I can take the Minister back to Wethersfield. It is a village I used to live in, so I know that it is not at all suitable for asylum seekers. Not only is it unfair to the community, it is very unfair to the people on the site, which is some way from the village. The Government were committed to closing Wethersfield; when will they do so?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
Well, let me remind the noble Lord that Wethersfield was opened on 21 March 2024, with an order laid in the name of the Home Secretary at the time—one James Cleverly. The starting point of the site was with the previous Government, which had planning permission for 1,700 places. This Government now has 580, which is capped, with the potential to look at a phased increase to a maximum of 800. We are trying to reduce the reliance on asylum. I cannot give the noble Lord a commitment on the site at this point, but the Government’s direction of travel and intention is to reduce the reliance on sites such as this. As he says, it is a very isolated site, in a very isolated part of Essex, and that should be reflected on, along with the other issues that he and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Winchester raised.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, knowing that the Minister is deeply committed to trying to find a way forward on this issue, can I ask about what I think is his view, too: that we must tackle the root causes of displacement worldwide? There are 120 million displaced people, with a further 7.5 million in Sudan alone in the past 18 months because of the war there. What more can the Government do to tackle root causes by bringing together civilized nations to look at ways of stopping the flow of asylum seekers in the first place?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Lord makes an extremely valid point: one that is on the Government’s agenda. He will know that, since July 5, the Prime Minister has made considerable efforts, meeting with European partners in particular to look at the flow across the Mediterranean and to take action on some of the long-term issues, which are linked war, climate change, hunger and poverty, as well as a small proportion who are involved in criminal activity and/or irregular migration for economic purposes. A number of the drivers can be solved by international action and it is on this Government’s agenda to do so.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, two weeks ago, 146 asylum seekers were moved into the Dragonfly Hotel in the west of Peterborough, without the knowledge of the Labour-led Peterborough City Council or the two Labour MPs for Peterborough and North West Cambridgeshire. Irrespective of whether one agrees with the policy, can the Minister please take on board the necessity to improve protocols around communication, because the movement of asylum seekers at that level has an impact on wider public services? To impose that situation on an urban area such as Peterborough, which already has issues, is not fair or appropriate and, frankly, the Home Office needs to do better.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I say to the noble Lord that it is right and proper that consultation takes place. It should take place and I will ensure I take that message back to the Home Office.
International Banking: Payments
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Lord Lamont of Lerwick
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the plan by the BRICS countries to establish a separate banking payments system, and of the implications for the international banking system and the ability of the United Kingdom and its allies to impose economic sanctions.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government believe an integrated global financial system is the best way to achieve global prosperity and financial stability. Fragmentation is damaging to the global economy, whereas deep, liquid markets boost economic efficiency. That is why we will continue to work with our international partners to strengthen the rules-based international system and our interconnected financial and economic systems.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. While the idea of a BRICS payment system, which was announced by Mr Putin at the BRICS conference in Kazan, may seem rather fanciful and a long way off, it nevertheless needs to be taken seriously. Does he not agree that, if it ever happened, it would be a major threat to the western-led financial system? Above all, it would make it impossible for the West to impose sanctions on countries such as Russia, China, Iran or other malign countries. Is the Minister aware that, after the BRICS conference, Chinese state media reported that the proposed new payment system would be based on technology taken from the Bank of International Settlements, with its bridge development? Is he also aware that America has apparently expressed some concern to the Bank of International Settlements about this transfer of technology to possible malign actors? Should we not be taking this very seriously?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for the points that he raises, and I agree that, of course, we should take these developments seriously. I will not comment on the specific proposals announced by the BRICS countries that he refers to; I would not want to speculate as to what systems may or may not come into common usage. The Government believe very much that the current international model for the financial system works effectively, and we will continue to work with our international partners to maintain an interconnected financial and economic system. On the noble Lord’s question on the effectiveness of sanctions, we continue to believe that economic sanctions are an important and effective tool, and we will continue to utilise those sanctions where necessary. On the potential to undermine them, we will pursue any necessary steps with our allies to maintain the interconnected system and reduce opportunities for the circumvention or evasion of international sanctions.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that if the President-elect of the United States goes ahead with some of the more extreme versions of his tariff ideas, it is likely to add a momentum and an impetus to the attempts by the BRICS to break away from the financial system that currently exists?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. On the potential move by the forthcoming Trump Administration, the UK will continue to work closely with the US on a range of security issues, including sanctions, to advance our shared priorities. I do not think it would be appropriate for me to comment on the Trump Administration’s future policies. In terms of actions by the BRICS, we obviously respect each country’s right to choose its own path and partners, but we will continue to collaborate with our international colleagues around the globe, including BRICS members, in forums such as the UN and G20, to build an open, stable and prosperous world.
Baroness Kramer (LD)
My Lords, because of my complex family, I need to transfer funds across international borders several times a year. The system assumes I am a terrorist, the banks have rip-off charges and exchange rates and obstructive technology. Even the new online apps, for which I had high hopes, have very severe limitations. Do western Governments, including ours, understand that if they fail to remedy this absolutely hapless international payments system, and the BRICS devise any international payment that is even halfway efficient and reasonably priced, users will simply flock to the BRICS system out of sheer frustration?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I share some of the noble Baroness’ frustrations in this regard. I am always happy to vouch for her that she is not a terrorist; I am very certain of that fact. The noble Baroness is obviously making a very serious point. Clearly, fragmentation along the lines that she describes would be very damaging to the global economy—we must ensure that this does not proceed. The evidence of the extent to which fragmentation has occurred is mixed, and we should keep an eye on the data. I very much bear in mind the points she makes.
Baroness Bryan of Partick (Lab)
Can the Minister understand the concerns of BRICS and other countries about how the US uses the dollar for political ends, such as sanctions against Cuba?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
No, I would not agree with my noble friend on that point.
Lord Marland (Con)
My Lords, many emerging markets are relying on the RMB for funding, which will form the cornerstone of the BRICS payment system. Will the Government review this overzealous regulation—which the noble Baroness referred to from the retail side—but from a commercial side, which is forcing British banks to withdraw from funding in emerging markets?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
It is extremely important that British companies are able to engage in emerging markets in the way the noble Lord describes, and I will happily look at the point that he raises.
Lord Skidelsky (CB)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Collins, stated in this House on 15 October:
“Sanctions … are a crucial tool to weaken Russia’s ability to attack Ukraine”.—[Official Report, 15/10/24; col. GC 21.]
After nearly three years of sanctions, do the Government still consider them to be an effective tool, especially in the light of the evasions which have been mentioned earlier in the debate? I call upon the Government yet again to give an undertaking to publish their assessment of the effectiveness of the sanctions regime, so we can have an evidence-based debate on the subject rather than being fobbed off with mere assertion.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
The answer to the noble Lord’s first question, in terms of whether we consider them effective, is yes. In the case of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, these measures have dramatically reduced Russia’s access to global financial markets and weakened its ability to finance its illegal invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s increasing reliance on North Korean and Iranian weapons highlights the impact these sanctions have had. We will pursue any necessary steps with our allies to maintain and reduce opportunities for the circumvention or evasion of international sanctions.
Baroness Wheatcroft (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that a sensible use of the sanctions now might be to seize the money that has been taken and sanctioned from the Russian regime and give it to the Ukrainians now, while they can use it?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
That is very much the spirit that lies behind the Financial Assistance to Ukraine Bill, which will shortly be before your Lordships’ House. The Financial Assistance to Ukraine Bill provides spending authority for the UK to implement our commitment to the G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans to Ukraine scheme, a landmark agreement which provides a collective £50 billion to Ukraine.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, there is much evidence that the international order is undergoing a process of major and very troubling change. The BRICS proposal is just one manifestation of this phenomenon. Given what we have heard from my noble friend Lord Lamont, does the Minister agree that we must be even more clear-sighted as to where our national interests lie? In particular, can he outline what the Government are doing to protect our substantial interests in the financial services industry and indeed in the interconnected system that he mentioned?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness that we should of course always proceed from a position of our own national interest. The Chancellor in her Mansion House speech two weeks ago set out a very comprehensive programme to ensure that our financial services industry was examined from that position of our own national interest and set out a comprehensive set of proposals in that regard.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, can the Minister give the House an update on the proceeds from the sale of Chelsea Football Club, which were supposed to have been released and sent to help humanitarian causes in Ukraine?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am afraid I do not have that specific information to hand, but I am more than happy to write to the noble Lord.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, we know that the BRICS grouping of countries is looking to expand, and has recently invited allies of ours, such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, dare I say it. What conversations do the Government intend to have with those two allies, particularly as the BRICS grouping promotes its alternative international financial system?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
As I said earlier, we absolutely respect each country’s right to choose its own path and its own partners, including which international groupings it associates with. The UK will continue to collaborate on international challenges with countries right across the globe—including the BRICS members that he mentions—in forums such as the UN and the G20, to build an open, stable and prosperous world.
Storm Bert: National Preparedness
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the state of national preparedness in advance of Storm Bert and the adequacy of the flood warnings prior to the storm reaching the United Kingdom.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
In begging leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, I refer to my interests as co-chairman of the All-Party Water Group and as honorary vice-president of the Association of Drainage Authorities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
I am very impressed. Protecting communities from flooding is a priority for this Government. The Government continuously assess preparedness for flooding at local and national levels in England. The Met Office, Environment Agency and Flood Forecasting Centre provide multiple flood forecasting and warning services, work with local resilience forums and partners to inform actions, and will consider the effectiveness of the flood response.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
I am grateful for that response. Our hearts go out to those who lost their lives in the recent floods. Should we be doing more maintenance and dredging between floods? Also, does the Minister share my concern that there should be a one-stop shop for flood warnings? We are to go to the Environment Agency for all flood warnings apart from surface water, for which we have to go to local councils. Obviously, in a time of deep distress, such as a forthcoming flood, it would be much better if there was just one place to go for both preparedness and the issuing of sandbags and such.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
On the dredging question, the Environment Agency undertakes dredging to manage flood risk where it is technically effective, does not significantly increase flood risk for others down stream and is environmentally acceptable. Some locations will benefit from this and others will not, so it is looked at case by case. On flood warnings, my feeling is that most of the time they work very well. I am signed up for them: we get them by email and text, and we get a phone call. I urge anyone who has not signed up for flood warnings and who lives in a flood area to do so, because they are effective. Regarding having a single place, that is something I can take back to the department to review.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, for every one degree rise in temperature, the air can hold up to 7% more moisture. In the UK, rapid climate change is having an ever more devastating impact on our local citizens and property. We are particularly seeing a rise in very localised extreme weather surface water flooding events. What action are the Government taking to help improve the forecasting models for these hyper-localised devastating flooding events?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The answer is twofold. First, what do we need to do to reduce the likelihood of surface flooding? A lot of the nature-based solutions that we have been bringing in and discussing in the water Bill will help towards that. Climate change is having a serious impact, so we need to review the effectiveness of how we are working and have a long-term model. We have set up the new flood resilience forum, which will look across the board to consider floods that have taken place and how we can react better in future.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to my interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission. Given the need to mitigate surface water problems in all sorts of areas, what consideration is being given to tightening up the planning guidelines, which at the moment make it very easy for people to pave over what would otherwise be grassed areas or areas where there could be natural drainage?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
This is a really important question. We have a planning Bill coming up, during the passage of which, as I understand it, we can look at this issue. As a Government, we have committed to ensuring that when we build, we build more high-quality, better-designed, sustainable homes, because we need to ensure that our built areas increase climate resilience and promote nature recovery. We have the National Planning Policy Framework, which has been consulted on, and that will inform better planning and sustainable growth for our built environment.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, Storm Bert was a tragedy for home owners who were flooded out and whose homes and businesses were destroyed; they have our sympathy and support. It was also a disaster for farmers, who are already worried about increased cost and tax burdens as a result of the Budget. The Conservative Government introduced the farming recovery fund to support farmers in these exact circumstances. Can the Minister tell the House exactly how much financial support has been given to farmers through the fund in response to Storm Bert, since she confirmed that the scheme has already been opened?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
As I am sure the noble Lord is aware, we recently announced £60 million to be distributed through the farming recovery fund for the previous floods. It is very important that we support farmers. It is a very difficult time when your land is flooded; it can take a long time to recover and be very expensive. We are currently looking at this.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
On that point, will the Minister look carefully at the criteria that are set? Farmland that is more than a mile from a river has been flooded, and yet the owners are told that they are not eligible for this funding. It all comes back to surface water and building on flood plains. Will the Minister look closely at that criterion?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
At the moment we are reviewing the whole criteria around flood funding, because it is not fit for purpose and certain areas that require funding are not necessarily eligible to get it. We are looking at it in the whole.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, is the Minister confident that the Government are prepared and ready to handle red warnings?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The Government are confident that they are working extremely hard to learn from previous events to improve responses as they go forward. That is why we have set up the Floods Resilience Taskforce; we want to ensure that we do the best job we can.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, on that point, flooding is just one aspect of the wider issue of national resilience. What action are the Government taking to ensure that we have proper command and control mechanisms that can identify need at times of national stress, can identify the resources that are required to meet those needs and can co-ordinate the activity of various services, including the emergency services and the military, in the most efficient manner in a time of considerable crisis?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
That is a very important point. I give credit to the different organisations in Cumbria, where we do national resilience extremely well. In Penrith, people come together because we have had a number of similar events, not just flooding, and we have learned from them. Good work is taking place at the moment, and it is very effective.
The Earl of Kinnoull (CB)
My Lords, will Flood Re, which the Minister knows all about, be included in the review? Quite a lot of claims must have been made to Flood Re following recent events, and certainly some risks were not covered by Flood Re because of its rules. Considering the Flood Re rules again in the light of this disaster may well be a good thing.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Flood Re has been running for a number of years, and I am sure the noble Earl and other noble Lords are aware of the exceptions to what can be put forward to it—for example, multiple-occupation buildings. My understanding is that it is being reviewed, because it is available only up to a certain date and we have reached the stage where it will be looked at. The other issue is that businesses are not covered either. It is important that we continue to monitor and review its effectiveness, while also looking at how we support the people who are not supported by what is a very important insurance back-up.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, I will take my noble friend the Minister back to the question from our noble friend Lord Harris on paving in built-up areas. I hope I did not mishear her; I think she did not specifically say whether the new planning arrangements will address that issue, which is a very serious problem in high-density urban areas. It is usually to do with people wanting to park cars. Will the Government promote the use of porous materials, which will support the weight of vehicles but are much less damaging to the environment?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I do not want to pre-empt the outcomes of the National Planning Policy Framework, but some excellent porous materials are now available, and it is important that the Government encourage their usage where they are appropriate.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Con)
I will follow up on the planning issue. One of the places that flooded was the Billing Aquadrome, which was built as a leisure resort and temporary accommodation for people to spend riverside holidays. One of the problems with temporary caravan homes is that they are often built on flood plains. They are used not just for holidays but for permanent residences, because of the housing shortage. Many people there suffered considerable problems. What does the Minister think can be done about these matters?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
It is an important point. I am aware that, when you have serious floods, often caravan parks—I do not know whether that is the right terminology—and the people who live in them get flooded over and over again. There is one near where I live, so I completely understand the noble Lord’s point. I am unsure whether their management will be included in any future planning framework, but I am sure that we will come back to this question as the National Planning Policy Framework moves forward.
Hares (Close Season) Bill [HL]
Thursday 28th November 2024
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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COP 29
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, I must acknowledge that, for the past 14 years, the UK has been a global leader in this area. We are the only major economy to have halved carbon emissions since 1990. In that time, the US’s emissions have stayed the same and China’s have tripled. In fact, we account for just 1% of global emissions. Despite this, we have seen that other countries are not persuaded just because the United Kingdom is going further and faster than others; they are persuaded by living standards and prosperity.
At COP, the Secretary of State announced a new target to cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 81% by 2035, but he has not explained what this will cost the British public. Why is this? He also argues that he will deliver savings through energy policy, and that those plans will boost jobs, growth and national security, and will cut household energy bills. This is very debatable.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that the Secretary of State’s climate agenda will not lead to growth. There were also concerns about the National Energy System Operator’s report, which shows that the Government’s rush for clean power by 2030 will add costs to our energy system. In addition, the head of offshore wind development at RWE has warned that the RHG’s rush to meet the 2030 target will lead to price spikes, with consumers losing out. Yet, despite the costs, His Majesty’s Government’s plans would still leave gas pricing the system around 50% of the time, or they would leave the equivalent of a million of homes in the dark, waiting for the wind to blow or the sun to shine.
Billions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money will go to China, the world’s largest polluter, powered 60% by coal, which dominates clean-tech supply chains. Will the Minister set out an assessment of the increased reliance on coal-powered Chinese imports for the Government’s clean power by 2030 goal? What does this mean for global emissions?
The Government’s plans will result in the opposite of what is being promised: low growth, high bills, jobs lost and even blackouts, for more carbon in the atmosphere. Yet, in Baku, the Secretary of State signed the UK up to a $300 billion annual climate finance target. Can the Minister tell the House what this new target means for the British taxpayer?
Although I do believe that Britian has a role to play in global leadership, we must focus on delivering cheap energy, innovation, exports and, ultimately, living standards. If the Secretary of State continues down the path he has set out, our country will possibly face hardship.
Earl Russell (LD)
My Lords, we welcome this Statement and the progress made at COP 29. The world—indeed the very future of humanity—stands at a cross-roads. One path leads to a near-term end of the viable future of humanity on planet earth, and the other leads to concerted, collective and constructive change and a willingness to fight for humanity’s future. Time is a luxury that is rapidly running out. We are on the cusp of breaching our collective goal of limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees. We must keep hope alive. We must fight for further rapid progress with the little time we have left.
The near future—one that our children will experience—is one where they will need to fight climate change and deal with the ever-growing consequences of the failure to do so earlier. The tragic loss of life and destruction from Storm Bert is the latest reminder of this fact. It is not acceptable that funding shortfalls mean that the number of properties to be protected from flooding by 2027 was cut by the previous Government by 40%. Will the Minister commit to including natural flood defences as a central part of the £5.2 billion flood-defence spending to protect our communities? Much more work is also needed on adaption and resilience programmes.
COP 29 concluded with a deal that, while welcome, still leaves much to be desired. The $300 billion a year is a start, but the developed world must do more to support the developing world to implement its own clean energy and adaption programmes. It is estimated that this funding can deliver reductions equivalent to more than 15 times the UK’s annual emissions. Simply put, we can either pay now or we can pay more later. The greatest cost of all is always that of doing nothing.
We very much welcome the return of UK leadership on the world stage on climate issues, after the dying days of the Conservative Government did so much damage to our international standing and reputation with their retreat from reality. I congratulate our negotiators on their work. We welcome the commitments to new ambitious emissions targets, including the reduction by at least 81% by 2035. Delivery depends on bolder and more decisive action. We support this programme and I express our willingness to work with the Minister to help the UK to seize this opportunity.
We need concentrated and immediate action to insulate our homes, reduce energy costs and ensure that no one has to choose between heating and eating. The delay to Labour’s warm homes plan until spring 2025 is unacceptable when millions of people, including 1.2 million pensioners, face a cold and uncomfortable winter due to the cut in the winter fuel allowance. We need clearer plans to roll out heat pumps, to increase the update of electric vehicles, to fix the unacceptable delays to grid connections, and to achieve rapid progress in improving our energy security and enabling a swift reduction in energy bills.
We will work to progress the GB Energy Bill through this House, but we call on the Minister to give clear commitments to deliver clear community energy programmes. Labour must do more to decentralise the energy transition, bring much-needed jobs and growth from the green economy, and work to ensure that the benefits of our transition and increased energy security are properly communicated. Climate leadership must prioritise solutions that protect communities and restore nature. The nature and climate crises are interlinked and intertwined. We are one of the most nature-deprived countries in the world. Our 30 by 30 target still has unrealistic delivery pathways.
I note that the Statement says:
“The UK will decide what our own contribution will be in the context of our spending review and fiscal situation, and that will come from within the UK aid budget”.
On loss and damage, are these funds ring-fenced against the development cuts announced in the Budget? Lastly, I call on the Government to give the gift of time to the Climate and Nature Bill—a Private Member’s Bill being discussed in the other place. It is so important that we update our climate legislation.
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Lord Hunt of Kings Heath) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank both noble Earls for their comments and questions. I must say that it is good to welcome the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, to the Dispatch Box to talk on such an important issue; it is like old times. His comments were interesting because he started by talking about his own Government’s achievements in the area of climate change, net zero and the decarbonisation of our power supplies. But then he moved away from that, and it is worth reflecting that, of course, it was Prime Minister May who showed leadership on net zero, and it was the last Government who signed up to the £11.6 billion in international climate finance for the period 2021-26. They also signed up to the national adaption programme 2023-28.
It was the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, who so ably led the COP 26 Glasgow negotiations. I was just reminding myself of the ministerial meeting in Copenhagen only two years ago, co-chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Sharma, in which Ministers agreed the urgency of responding to climate change and of the need to accelerate practical action and support for a just transition to low greenhouse gas emissions. It seems to me that the Conservative leadership is essentially turning its back on climate change, and it seems to be obsessed with fossil fuels.
As we heard from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, both just now and in the Oral Question earlier, climate change is here. It is having damaging impacts in this country and globally. We simply cannot hold back: we have to charge on. I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on the importance of flood defences, charging on to net zero, heat pumps, and grid connections. His comments on the GBE Bill were helpful, and I noted his point on community energy. He mentioned the warm homes plan: we have that and continue to work on it, but we have already made some substantive announcements, which I hope he will be able to study.
There has been a lot of comment on the outcome of the negotiations, which were obviously very challenging. Developing countries were disappointed with some of the outcomes. The fact is that the focus was on finance, and the agreement calls on all actors to scale up financing to $1.3 trillion for developing countries by 2035 from all sources, public and private. Also agreed was a goal for public and publicly mobilised finances of at least $300 billion per year for developing countries by 2035. I should say that this new goal will take account of contributions from major economies such as China that are in a position to support developing countries.
Although we made strides in relation to finance and carbon markets, COP did not make progress elsewhere. We wanted much stronger outcomes on taking forward the global stocktake, agreed at COP 28, on the transition away from fossil fuels and on keeping 1.5 degrees Celsius alive. We will continue to push that as we move towards the run-up to COP 30 in Brazil.
I acknowledge that both noble Earls have welcomed UK leadership, which has been very important. The visit of the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State was influential, and it is right that Britain should be there at the negotiating table. I know that noble Lords say that we produce only 1% emissions, but there are many countries with 1% emissions, and collectively, we are very powerful. I acknowledge that we want to build on what the last Government achieved in this area. National consensus here is very important indeed.
On the 81% target for 2035, we think that that is in line with the advice from the Climate Change Committee. Clearly, we will now need to work through the implications of that. On our contribution to the £300 billion of public and publicly mobilised finance, clearly, I cannot be drawn on what that will be. As we have said, this will go into the multiyear spending review. However, overall, we can at least recognise that agreement was reached in very difficult negotiations.
I know that noble Lords are concerned about China, and I understand the issues they raise. The fact is that China disclosed that it has contributed £24 billion in climate finance to developing countries since 2016. We know that part of the COP agreement is to encourage more voluntary contributions on that basis. It is interesting that International Energy Agency figures show that China is accelerating its use of renewable energy.
There is clearly much to discuss and to tease out of the agreement, and a lot of work has to be done on the pathway to Brazil. But at least an agreement has been reached which gives us some hope that we can move forward, and for this country, the message is to charge on.
Lord Woodley (Lab)
My Lords, the Statement clearly says that the move towards clean energy is unstoppable, and of course I welcome that, but I have two questions for the Minister. First, does he agree that to get consumers to buy more electric vehicles, reducing VAT from 20% to 5% would be incredibly helpful? Secondly, does he agree that the mayor of Liverpool’s proposals for a Mersey barrier—which, obviously, would generate energy not through wind but through tide—would be a fantastic step forward in investing in the long-term prospects of cleaner energy?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, on the issue of tidal potential, my noble friend may be interested to know that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has tabled a related amendment for consideration in Committee on the Great British Energy Bill, and I look forward to discussing it. Of course, I recognise the potential, and we will be very happy to discuss that with the mayor and other local bodies—that is without commitment, I have to say.
On electric vehicles, obviously there has been a lot of discussion recently of the decisions of commercial manufacturers. We are committed to the manifesto commitment to phase out new cars powered solely by internal combustion engines by 2030. We realise that there are many challenges for industry at the moment. Ministers in the relevant departments are engaging with key industry figures, and obviously, we want to work very closely in partnership with industry to tackle some of the challenges that have been raised.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, the Minister made it clear that a number of targets appear to be floating around, as my noble friend touched on when he opened the discussion. Is the 2030 target anything to do with net zero, or is that just an ambition for cleaner energy? I have heard that target described as “base camp”, which means we have not started climbing even when we get there. Would he agree with that description? It is rather different from some of the descriptions the Government have offered in the past.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, it is always interesting to have the noble Lord’s perspective, given his long-standing interest in energy. He enjoyed being Energy Secretary, and it is good that we have a department focused very much on energy issues. I think the target is consistent: 2030 is the aim for clean power; the 2035 goal we have agreed on the reduction in greenhouse gases is the UK offer that we have made. The actual target we have set is an 81% reduction in emissions by 2035, against a 1990 baseline. I am clear that this is consistent with 2030—in other words, the 2030 target takes us on to the 2035 target we have now agreed. The noble Lord asked that question on Monday, and we are clear that we are being consistent; and obviously, we are taking the advice of the Committee on Climate Change on this.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, one of the things that has improved hugely is satellite monitoring of emissions, particularly of methane. According to a recent report, some 1,000 major methane escapes have been identified and notified to the nations which caused them, but there has been very little reaction or implementation of measures. The UK has shown leadership here as part of the global methane pledge. How can we much better ensure that we implement the solution to emissions of this most concentrated of greenhouse gases, as doing so is really important?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord, who raises a very important issue. In fact, during or around the time of the COP 29 discussions, we announced £5 million to help developing countries tackle methane emissions from their fossil fuels. This is supporting delivery of the global methane pledge launched at COP 26. However, I am very happy to take a further look at this and to respond to the noble Lord in some detail about what further actions we might take on this important matter.
Baroness Hayman (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of Peers for the Planet. There were two COPs this year but as far as I could see, in the Statement there was only one passing reference to nature, yet biodiversity loss and climate change are profoundly integrated and intertwined challenges. Does the Minister recognise that we need to find the policy synergies to address both issues and to manage the trade-offs that sometimes need to be made? Can he also think about where we could make a start with some integrated language in the Great British Energy Bill?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
That is quite a challenge from the noble Baroness. When we come to Committee next Tuesday, we will certainly discuss this issue further, but I very much take her point about nature and biodiversity. She is also right to highlight that there are sometimes tensions. Yesterday we had an Oral Question on the use of farmland for solar farm development; there is clearly a tension there that has to be managed, and I very much accept the challenge she described.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I welcome both the tone and substance of the Statement. Indeed, I recall the £11.6 billion commitment made by the Conservative Government—because I made it myself at the UN meeting. However, my focus is on the progress that was made. Article 6 of the Paris agreement focused on carbon trading. Can the noble Lord focus on the UK’s approach to that? Linked to that, I associate myself with the just point made by the noble Baroness, on climate-based solutions. In practical terms, we have seen that when we are looking at climate solutions, nature-based solutions provide the best example of both mitigation and adaptation on the ground.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I readily acknowledge the noble Lord’s personal commitment and thank him for it. I do think a consensual approach to this is really important in giving long-term stability both to our country and to industry, in terms of the policies that we are taking forward.
On Article 6, at COP the parties agreed outstanding rules to fully operationalise it. This can enable higher global mitigation ambitions and facilitate flows of finance, particularly to emerging and developing economies. We obviously very much welcome this outcome. It delivers high-integrity rules to govern international carbon markets, which are underpinned by environmental integrity, as he said. Obviously, in terms of what we now do, we will be taking this forward. However, alongside some of the disappointments that have been expressed about the outcome, this is a very important one.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests, particularly as working vice-chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative. According to the IAEA, nuclear power must significantly expand to new markets if climate rules are to be achieved. Currently, there are 31 countries using nuclear power. We learned from COP 28 and COP 29 that around 30 so-called newcomer countries are either embarking on or considering its introduction, and some are already building their first nuclear reactors.
As nuclear energy expands to new locations, it is critical that non-proliferation in nuclear security practices and standards keeps pace. This will require significant extension. Moving in the wrong direction could foster a world with more weapons-usable nuclear materials that are less secure, more countries with the ability to produce these materials and perhaps even more nuclear weapon states. Engaging with Governments who have established nuclear energy to promote key non-proliferation standards is essential. What steps are we taking in that regard? We need to make sure that Atoms4NetZero does not turn into “Atoms for Peace”, which left many dangerous materials lying about all over the world.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend. I understand that six more countries signed the nuclear agreement declaration at COP. These are the countries that have pledged to triple nuclear energy by 2050. It is quite clear that there is a global renaissance occurring in nuclear energy. I have attended a number of international conferences where there is a lot of interest in countries like ourselves, who have turned back to nuclear, in countries that have not had nuclear power stations. This has great potential for the UK. We have great potential for exporting technology and expertise and, in relation to what my noble friend said, efficient systems of regulation. I assure him that we are encouraging business and agencies here to do all that they can in an international setting. I have met a number of Ministers from countries who are going back to or starting nuclear on that. In relation to non-proliferation, the work of the IAEA is critical. I assure him that the United Kingdom plays a very strong role in it and contributes to it extensively.
Lord Mott (Con)
My Lords, I refer the House to my entry in the register of Members’ interests. I welcome the Statement today, but can the Minister reflect on the recent COP and those over the last few years and whether the format of discussion, debate and agreement is best achieved through the format of COP or whether there is a better way to move this forward on a more regular basis, perhaps holding to account some of the countries in the world on a more regular basis?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, it is clearly an interesting question. The noble Lord will have seen that some of the country participants in Baku were very unhappy with parts of the process. Some felt excluded from some of the key corridor discussions, if I can put it that way. The problem is that it is the only forum that we have for discussing and negotiating these important matters. Whatever fora you have, if you have over 190 countries involved, it is going to be very complex. Notwithstanding that I understand the frustrations of many countries and the difficulties, the fact that agreement was reached and we can now see clear a line to Brazil next year means that we need to continue to work with the process and encourage it to be run as effectively as possible. I do not see any option but to go with the COP process.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
The noble Earl, Lord Russell, raised the warm homes discount. I am the honorary president of National Energy Action. I see that the discount rate is still £150. Given the current level of electricity bills, this seems quite low and not to have been reviewed for some time. Will the Minister review this and look at the level of the warm homes discount?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I have to say to the noble Baroness that at the moment we do not have any plans to review it.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, China is a major contributor to global emissions. Much of its energy is still generated through coal and it is still building coal-fired power stations. China is not alone. India is also building coal-fired power stations and depends on coal for much of its energy as well. The result is that both countries are keeping their prices low, compared with the rest of the world, and the undertakings that we have from them seem rather hazy. What guarantees are there that they will reduce their consumption of coal and are they likely to keep to them?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
Obviously, there are no guarantees, but that is why it is very important to move to Brazil and deal with mitigation, in a way that we were unable to do in the last COP negotiations. In relation to China, I understand entirely what the noble Lord is saying. I understand entirely his concerns. However, China was a player at the COP discussions. It did indicate the voluntary payments that it has made to developing countries and I believe we have to work very hard to keep China in the tent.
I repeat again that, although clearly China has overtaken the EU and is now the world’s largest emitter, it is also developing extensively in renewable energy. What alternative do we have? In the end, we must come back to climate change and the awful consequences, for us and globally, of not taking action. It would be a huge mistake to put the brakes on, say, “No, we’re going to rely on oil and gas”, and hope that nothing happens. We just cannot do that. We have to work with China and India. We have to try as hard as we can to bring them with us and that is what we are seeking to do.
Lord Hogan-Howe (CB)
My Lords, this is a complex issue and I am a layman in what is a complex world. One thing which we are in control of but which we do not seem to make much progress with is building regulations for new properties. This confuses me. They still seem to allow gas boilers to be put in. They do not seem to encourage solar panels or glass that converts sunlight into electricity. Yet we are already building new properties. This Government quite properly have a huge ambition to build far more properties. Is this not the time to embed the price of some of these changes in the price of the new property, perhaps with some kind of taxation encouragement? At the moment, we are building properties that we know will not be helpful in the future when it is within our gift, with existing technology, to do about something it. It is confusing. Every time I have asked about this, somebody has said that they are looking into it. Is it not time that somebody did something about it and encouraged builders—incentivised them—to help us to make some progress, in this area at least?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord is right about the complexity of this whole area of policy, but he makes a powerful point. On Monday, we had an Oral Question from the noble Earl, Lord Russell, on solar panels on roofs, when essentially the same question was asked by a number of noble Lords. I recognise the force of his argument. We are having cross-government discussions at the moment looking at building regulations. I hope that within a fairly short period of time we will have a positive outcome.
Lord Wilson of Dinton (CB)
My Lords, I am perplexed by the slowness with which we pursue nuclear power. In 1980, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, announced to the House that we would build one PWR a year through the 1980s. I know because I drafted it. But it did not happen. Why is it so expensive and so slow?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
Oh, my Lords. In 2007, the last Labour Government decided to go back to new nuclear—I was the Minister responsible from 2008 to 2010. We were starting to talk about Hinkley Point C with EDF and about developing a supply chain, and it was not until 2017 that the final investment decision was made. Hinkley Point C had many design changes because it was found that you could not simply take a model from France and put it in Britain without there having to be a lot of changes. However, there were a lot of positives, and it is being built—they are making substantial progress now. The second reactor has been much more efficiently built because they learned from the first reactor. Sizewell C, which will be 3.2 gigawatts, is moving to a final investment decision and will, in essence, be a replica of Hinkley Point C. So, although the noble Lord is right that there has been a lot of delay, I believe we can start to see greater progress. The small modular reactor and advanced modular reactor programmes have great potential for us in this country and for UK companies.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, when it comes to the UK share of the $300 billion, whenever it is paid out to developing countries, which we are all for, can the Minister give some assurances that the money will go to the destinations as directed, and that corruption, which can be prevalent, is taken account of? It may be that the new Government have made a reassessment of that.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, that is a very important point. The integrity of the process is vital in terms of going forward. On our contribution, I think I said earlier that this will have to wait for the multiyear spending review.
Stellantis Luton
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, just two days ago, the Prime Minister stated that he will
“get people back to work”.
It is therefore extremely distressing that just 12 hours later Stellantis announced the closure of its plant in Luton with 1,100 jobs put at risk. The loss of these jobs has driven the Secretary of State to come to the other place in an attempt to mitigate uncertainty, but we have to ask: what more bad news is to come?
We hear the Government talk about growth and helping business, but that does not appear to be happening. We are committed to the reality that business matters. It matters for our high streets, our economic growth and, critically, for people’s livelihoods. Although we welcome the Government’s Statement in acknowledging this terrible situation, this process has taken far too long. We hear that, on parts of the Government’s employment Bill, businesses were not even consulted. On the Budget, which will deliver the highest overall tax burden since 1948, the engagement on the national insurance jobs tax was low—a tax raid on businesses of £25 billion that will reduce wages, stifle growth, deter investment and likely bring about a return to inflation and a higher cost of living for everyone.
When in government, we demonstrated unwavering support for businesses during the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic. Understanding the difficulties they faced, we provided 100% business rates relief to the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors, ensuring their survival during the worst of the crisis. Post pandemic, we extended our commitment with a 75% business rates relief policy, helping businesses rebuild and adapt to the new norm. We made it clear that, had we remained in government, this level of relief would continue.
However, the Government have chosen a radically different path. They have slashed business rates relief to 40%—a decision that we believe will be harmful to the recovery of our valued high streets and communities. This has been compounded with unnecessary measures that burden businesses even further. Estimates suggest that the business rates paid by thousands of shops, pubs and restaurants will more than double next year as long-standing relief is tapered off. Altus Group said the cut from 75% to 40% next April will mean an average 140% rise in business rates bills for more than 250,000 high street premises in England alone. The British Institute of Innkeeping has suggested that one in four independent pubs are
“set to fail as they face a wall of taxes from the Chancellor’s Budget”.
We should also recognise family businesses. They are the lifeblood of our economy and growth prospects, but the founder of Family Business United has said its members were shocked by the Budget, saying:
“It’s caused a lot of conversations around succession. The unintended consequences will be reduced investment”.
Another membership organisation, Family Business UK, says it has been “inundated” by inquiries about membership and advice.
The increase in national insurance contributions has already hit 1 million small firms, with analysis from the Treasury and OBR revealing that 60% of the costs are being passed on to working people immediately, rising to 76% in the medium term. This happens through reduced wage growth, price hikes and job cuts. Deutsche Bank predicts that 100,000 jobs will be lost as a direct consequence of these policies.
Despite claims by the Chancellor that there will be no further tax rises, the Business Secretary appears unable to back this assertion. Leading economists from Oxford Economics suggest that further tax increases are inevitable in the new year.
Meanwhile, the latest surveys paint a bleak picture of the economic outlook. S&P Global warns that business output is falling for the first time in over a year, with employment cuts now ongoing for two consecutive months. The CBI reports the sharpest decline in business sentiment in two years, and major investors like Pladis, one of the world’s fastest-growing snacking companies, are questioning the viability of investing in the UK. This sentiment is echoed by over 80 CEOs who recently warned the Government of £7 billion in added costs they fear will lead to job losses and price increases.
The Government are not just failing businesses; they are stifling growth, stopping innovation and deterring much-needed investment. These policies are dampening the entrepreneurial spirit that drives our once great economy, forcing businesses to lay off workers, cut back on expansion and abandon innovation in the face of mounting costs. If we want to foster a thriving economy, we must reverse this course, support businesses and restore confidence in the UK’s potential for growth and innovation.
Just nine months ago, Stellantis committed to investing in its Luton plant making electric vehicles at the site for the first time. Now, the plant is closing, bringing an end to its 120-year history of car production. What steps have the Government taken to engage with the manufacturer along the way? What work is the Minister undertaking with the Department for Work and Pensions to support Stellantis workers?
Stellantis was about to produce electric vehicles, yet just two nights ago the Government’s EV policy appeared to change and allow hybrid vehicles, despite the manifesto’s commitment to banning fossil fuels. Can the Minister clarify the Government’s position on this?
The Chancellor claims taxes will not increase, yet the Business Secretary in the other place appears unable to back this statement. Can the Minister please clarify the Government’s position on whether they will raise taxes? Furthermore, in relation to Stellantis, will taxes need to increase to support the production and adoption of electric vehicles?
We have witnessed the sharpest fall in business sentiment in two years. Economic activity is stalling. We need more than Statements from the Government referring to growth. We need concrete action plans to ignite the desperately needed inward investment into our economy which will benefit everyone.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, I feel that the onus is on me to concentrate on the Statement at hand. This is undeniably a sad announcement for a business that stretches back to the start of the previous century. It is a sad day for Luton, which has a proud tradition in vehicle manufacturing. Most of all, it is a sad day for the 1,000-plus men and women who are potentially losing their jobs.
There are people in your Lordships’ House who know Vauxhall better than I do, but although I no longer have a pecuniary interest in the automotive industry, my past work in that sector led me to value the skills and ingenuity of the people around whom I worked. My first question is this. Many businesses in other sectors are crying out for the skills possessed by the people being laid off, but in many cases those jobs are not in Luton. How do the Government plan to help retain those skills and channel those people, who are skilled workers, into well-remunerated, vital jobs? My second question concerns the town of Luton itself. What is being done to support the local community that is being denied an important driver of its local prosperity and economy? The Government need to work with Vauxhall and others to mitigate this, as it will be a major shock for the area.
This sad announcement is at the leading edge of a wider set of issues that face UK vehicle manufacturers and the Government’s plans to electrify personal transport in the UK, their so-called ZEV mandate. There are important questions regarding this ZEV mandate. As we know, 22% of cars sold this year have to be electric vehicles, EVs, rising to 28% next year. If a business fails to meet that target, either it pays a £15,000 fine on each internal combustion car it sells or it buys credits. This is handing cash to usually foreign competitors, such as Mr Musk’s Tesla. This system was put in place by the previous Government. Is it a sensible industrial strategy?
Successive Governments have taken a largely supply-side approach to this, and initially it had some success. Does the Minister agree that unless the Government address the demand side, UK manufacturers will not achieve their mandate targets? Added to that, the previous Government sent out mixed messages that caused many people who might have bought their first EV to opt for one more internal combustion engine. Demand needs to be stimulated. Infrastructure remains patchy, pavement charging is expensive for users—inhibiting the spread of EVs to people who do not have a drive on which to charge their vehicle—and sensible subsidies are being phased out. Can the Minister confirm that her department is now discussing incentives—for example, cutting VAT on EVs—with the Treasury?
Lib Dems have repeatedly called for it to be made easier and cheaper to charge vehicles by rolling out far more residential on-street chargers, ultra-fast chargers at service stations and the electricity grid infrastructure needed to support them. Additionally, VAT on public charging should be cut to 5% and all charging points should be accessible by a bank card, rather than the collection of different smart cards required.
Meanwhile, as demand stalls, the market for UK firms is getting harder. UK car makers are already competing with Chinese EVs that benefit from inbuilt domestic subsidies. In the EU and the US, these Chinese businesses are likely to face high tariffs in future. If both these huge potential markets erect such barriers, the likelihood is that Chinese EVs will flood into their remaining markets. Can the Minister set out the Government’s position on possible UK tariffs on Chinese EVs?
Yesterday the Secretary of State referred to the £2 billion for research and capital funding that was announced in the Budget. Can the Minister tell us the split between R&D and capital for that money? What is the phasing of that money—for example, how much will the industry see this financial year?
In summary, for the UK car industry basic costs have risen, energy costs have rocketed and labour costs will rise following the Budget. In the meantime, UK manufacturers are trying to sell more EVs than UK consumers want to buy, with a backdrop of cheap, subsidised imports. Does the Minister recognise that these are existential issues? When will the industry get to know what the Government’s response to these issues will be?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their responses to the Secretary of State’s Statement in the other place. The news on Tuesday that Stellantis was commencing a consultation with staff on the future of the plant at Luton will have been very difficult to hear for the hard-working staff, their families and the wider Luton community. We have asked the company to share the details of its plans with us so that we can put in place the right support across government to help them through this process. Luton has a proud history. While this is disappointing news, we are confident that the town has a bright future ahead. We will work closely with Stellantis, trade unions, Luton Borough Council and other partners to look at the impact of this decision.
I heard the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, about the zero-emission vehicle mandate and how it links to this decision. Ministers met Stellantis within days of coming into office to discuss the pressures it was facing in its business, including concerns on the zero EV mandate, but that was not the only concern it raised. Noble Lords will know that this is a complicated area. The automotive industry is operating under a lot of different pressures, and this is just one of them that we are seeking to address.
The noble Earl, Lord Effingham, asked about consultation. The Statement made clear that the Secretary of State has been in constant discussion with Stellantis and others in the automotive industry to address their concerns. The Secretary of State for Business and Trade and the Secretary of State for Transport are listening closely to the concerns of the industry and the wider sector about the transition to electric vehicles. This included the round table earlier this month to hear directly from major automotive companies, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders and the charging sector. In response, we will shortly be fast-tracking a consultation on our manifesto commitment to end the sale of new pure petrol and diesel cars by 2030, but the question here is the transition rather than the endpoint. I think we are clear about what we want to achieve by 2030. We will use this consultation to engage with industry on the previous Government’s zero EV transition mandate and the flexibilities within it, and we will welcome the industry’s feedback as we move forward.
We want to do everything we can, together with industry, to secure further investment in the British automotive sector now and over the longer term. That is why in the Budget the Chancellor committed £2 billion to research and development and capital funding to support the zero-emission vehicle manufacturing sector and the supply chain. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked about this support. The Government are already backing the wider industry with more than £300 million to drive uptake of zero-emission vehicles, and we have also committed long-term funding of more than £2 billion of capital and R&D funding to 2030 for zero-emission vehicle manufacturing and its supply chain as part of a comprehensive offer to attract strategic investment and deliver real growth. There is a real opportunity for the UK from the transition to zero-emission vehicles, and we welcome the commitment Stellantis made to expand its production of electric vehicles at its other plant in Ellesmere Port by adding a second van model.
This is a complicated issue. An expansion of electric vehicle production is going ahead. I make clear that, at Luton, only diesel vans are being produced, so, if anything, production is switching to electric vehicles and not the other way around. Our automotive sector is at the heart of UK manufacturing and the global and British brands that make vehicles here are central to unlocking further growth and investment. Our industrial strategy will address these issues and ensure that further growth and investment is absolutely at the heart of what we intend to do. As the Secretary of State said yesterday, the Government are clear that decarbonisation must not mean deindustrialisation, and that winning the race to net zero and having a world-leading automotive sector must go hand in hand.
The noble Earl, Lord Effingham, asked about the Budget. I do not need to take any lessons from the previous Government, since they left a £22 billion black hole that we inherited. I am sorry to remind them—I know they would rather we forgot that—but let us be honest: that is what we have inherited and have been struggling with ever since. The Budget dealt with that black hole in the Government’s finances, and—as the noble Earl mentioned—over this Parliament the Government will transform business rates into a fairer system that protects the high street, supports investment and is fit for the 21st century. The Government are permanently lowering business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure properties from 2026-27—so we are addressing business rates.
The noble Earl mentioned the employment Bill. I am proud that we are bringing modern employment practices to this country—the previous Government promised this, but it was never delivered. The noble Lord, Lord Fox, asked about imports, and several noble Lords mentioned Chinese EVs. Again, this is a complicated area, but we are closely analysing how imports of Chinese EVs will impact the UK’s economy and industry. It is worth stressing that the UK’s economy and industry differ from other countries in both ownership and markets. We export 80% of what we make, compared to, for example, the US and EU, where a greater proportion of production is sold domestically. So we need to adapt our approach to what is appropriate for our situation here in the UK. When we need to act, we will do so, but any action taken on Chinese EVs has to be the right one for the UK industry.
We are also looking at unfair trading practices on an international basis by supporting global initiatives at the WTO and G7, and domestically through our industry-led trade remedy systems. Here, we already apply 44 trade remedy measures, 28% of which are on China. I hope I have addressed the main points that noble Lords have raised today, and I look forward to further questions.
Lord Woodley (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest: three generations of my family have worked at Vauxhall. My sympathies go out to the Luton plant. I thank the Minister for meeting me and the former chief executive of Vauxhall last week to discuss the difficulties surrounding Stellantis.
The noble Lord, Lord Fox, covered most of my points admirably, and I thank him for that. There is no doubt that the ZEV mandate has been and still is a problem, and it needs changing now or this will not be the last problem we have. The plant at Luton is profitable, and it is not 1,100 workers losing their jobs but 4,000-plus when we add the component supporters.
Maybe there are cynics among us who would say that the Government have not tried and that this situation does not have a great deal to do with the ZEV mandate but rather relates to the value of the land that sits alongside the airport at Luton. I would not like to be a cynic, but I sincerely hope—in line with the demands of my union, Unite, for this company to be pushed to rethink its closure strategy—that it is made sure that, if the land is sold, it is sold for industrial purposes and not for housing. I would like to hear the Minister’s comments about that. However, this is not over; we have a lot of work to do and my people at Luton are determined to fight this. I wish them the very best of good fortune.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for those points. As I said at the outset, we very much feel for the people of Luton—this is a terrible time for them. My noble friend is quite right that this is not just about the people who are directly employed in the sector; it has much wider ramifications. At the end of the day, these are commercial decisions, but we are working very closely with Stellantis on how the consultation is dealt with and what support can be given to those affected. There will be the opportunity for some people to transfer to Ellesmere Port, but we understand the impact that this closure will have on the remaining population.
The Government recognise that Luton is a vibrant and very diverse community that has ambitions for the future. We are already investing £20 million in the Stage mixed-use development to help unlock Luton’s town centre regeneration plans, so we are looking at what wider support we can give. In the meantime, it is absolutely right that we focus on those who are affected now, and that we give them support through both the Department for Work and Pensions and further negotiations that we will have with Stellantis, to make sure that we provide the maximum protection for those affected by this decision. However, I will not underestimate the challenge of this, and my noble friend is quite right to raise it. I am sure there will be further discussions about what else we can do.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, this is the tip of the iceberg of the obsession this Government have with their punitive net-zero targets. I agree with the noble Lord opposite. I visited Vauxhall Ellesmere Port as a former Member of the European Parliament. I was closely involved with the car industry. As the noble Lord rightly said, this is not just about the 1,100 workers at the Luton plant. They will all have families and people to support, so there will be at least 4,000 people affected just from that plant alone, and that is without the thousands of others who work at the small and medium-sized manufacturers that supply that plant—and that is aside from the vast local economy. That figure of 1,100 at Vauxhall that the Government, and even the newscasts, keep emphasising is very much understated.
Therefore, I ask the Minister: what exactly have the Government put in place to deal with this? Clearly, the trade unions are vehemently opposed and the TUC is opposed—I had a look at the Morning Star, by the way—and I think we would all be extremely interested to know. I ask the Government to start to rethink clearly the consequences of this obsession with these targets that, in my view, are totally unrealistic and will damage the future of this country.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
As I said, we will provide whatever support we can to the people affected. We are talking to Stellantis about how we can identify these individuals and what support they need, and we stand ready with the Department for Work and Pensions to provide accelerated support and help to them. I challenge the noble Baroness’s concern that we should step back from our progress on rolling out electric vehicles, which is part of our net-zero ambitions. I think everybody understands the need for us to meet our net-zero ambitions, which are very important for this country and our climate but also for delivering green jobs for the future.
As we set out in the manifesto, we will support the transition to electric vehicles by accelerating the rollout of, for example, charge points. That ambition was supported in the Budget and was confirmed with £200 million for an accelerated charge point rollout next year. We are working closely with industry stakeholders to promote positive messages around electric vehicles and improve consumer confidence in the public charging network, so there is a lot that we can do to carry on promoting the use of electric vehicles.
Those who have electric vehicles respond with a very positive view of their ownership, so they are popular when people purchase them; we just have to persuade people to make that transition when they purchase new vehicles. As I say, that is important for our climate change ambitions and for jobs in the future. We believe there will be more jobs in future based on the rollout of electric vehicles.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for the Statement. This must go down as one of the more difficult jobs that any Minister has to do in any circumstances, so I thank her for the clarity of her replies so far.
My sympathies go to the families of the direct and indirect workers, the shopkeepers and all those members of the community who are always affected by these closures or proposed closures. As I come from a family where most of them worked in manufacturing, we have had that experience. That was in the Midlands, not Luton.
This all brought to mind my noble friend the late Lord McKenzie of Luton, the amount of work that he did to improve the prosperity of Luton and how he would be feeling today and fighting for that community. Can my noble friend the Minister say a little more about the efforts to find jobs and improve the prospects of transfer for those workers who are directly affected?
We know this is a global issue; there is no point in pretending otherwise. When some of us who were members of the EU Internal Market Sub-Committee and then the EU Services Sub-Committee visited various research plants, they showed us the exciting developments that were taking place in car manufacturing. If only we were a bit quicker at developing research into practical production. That is a failure that this country has experienced for a long time. The work and the knowledge are there, and the Minister has indicated that we are further supporting that research. Will she confirm that? There was an implication by the Opposition Front Bench spokesperson that Stellantis was abandoning production. Can she confirm that Stellantis is developing production at Ellesmere Port and that it has not abandoned manufacturing in this country?
One issue where politics and government come in is in the provision of consistency. One of the difficulties that manufacturing has had over the years is that Governments do not provide consistency and long-term objectives. Can my noble friend the Minister assure the House that there will be consistent government policies rather than chopping and changing, so that industry and manufacturers know where they stand for years to come?
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My noble friend rightly reminds us of the fantastic contribution that Lord McKenzie made to this House. I am sorry that he might be looking down and hearing these messages from us, because I know how passionate he was about his town.
My noble friend makes a point about consistent policies. We have learned over many years that industry responds to consistent policies and consistent targets, and it is important that we maintain that. That is why I made it clear that we are still pursuing, and are determined to deliver, our targets for net zero and the contribution that the rollout of electric vehicles will ultimately make to that. That is an important message. We are hearing from the automotive industry, among others, that it wants those consistent policies; as my noble friend says, it does not want us to chop and change, which is not helpful to anyone. The industry makes long-term investment decisions, and we have to support it in that.
On the jobs, the announcement from Stellantis has been relatively recent and we had hoped we would not have to hear that message from it, so we are still in active talks with it and are continuing to talk about the full implications of who will be affected. We will continue to work closely with it and the trade unions and the council on the next steps of its proposals. It is early days, but we are actively pursuing this issue and we take to heart the fact that we need to protect those workers and their future in whatever way we can.
My noble friend mentioned funding. I think I mentioned that we already committed in the Budget to a multiyear funding commitment to the automotive sector, with long-term funding of over £2 billion of capital and R&D funding to 2030 for zero-emission vehicle manufacturers and their supply chains, so we are putting in the money to support that investment. We have a proud history in all this of being at the forefront of R&D, and it is important that we capitalise on that R&D investment.
In the intermediate term, the Department for Work and Pensions is ready to support anyone affected by the decision. It has a rapid response service that is designed to support and advise both employers and their employees when faced with redundancies. Affected employees will be able to access our broad range of support, including universal credit and the new-style jobseekers’ allowance, as well as, perhaps more importantly, access to tools and support to find new jobs in the area. Our priority is to find those people new jobs in the sector.
Baroness Randerson (LD)
My Lords, the SMMT says that EV sales overall fell by 30% last month compared with October 2023. This is clearly a critical time in the industry. My noble friend has explained many of the problems facing the UK auto industry, most of them a direct result of the previous Government’s dysfunctional policies, but the Statement emphasises the amount of work that has been going on, which makes the point that the Government were fully aware of the critical condition of the automotive industry. I am therefore concerned that the Government are announcing yet another consultation. They have emphasised how closely they are working with the industry, so they know the problems. They have identified the problems with current policy, and it is essential that action takes place now. Why are we having another time-wasting consultation when the Government tell us they know all the problems?
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
As the noble Baroness has said, the problems at Stellantis are due to a variety of factors that have impacted its business across the whole of Europe, not just to do with electric vehicles.
On consultation, the Government’s intention is not to have what we would see as a normal, traditional consultation; this is going to be a quickfire consultation to get everyone around the table quickly to understand what needs to be done. I reassure the noble Baroness that we are not pushing this into a long-term period of time. I anticipate that it will be in the form of round tables and quickly getting all the issues on to the table so that we can begin to address them.
We will look at some of the wider problems that are affecting the industry but also at the impact that the zero-emission vehicle mandate is having. If there are adjustments that we need to make, we can look at them in the rollout of that mandate, but we need to be clear, as I said earlier, that the endpoint is that we need to have clean transport in the future.
Civil Service: Politicisation
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Lord Butler of Brockwell
That this House takes note of the case against politicisation of the Civil Service.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to my Cross-Bench colleagues for giving me the opportunity of this debate. I am also grateful to those who have put down their names to speak. I just regret that they have so little time allocated to them when there is such a wide range of experience on this subject.
It seems that a major change has been taking place in our country’s governance, which should not go unnoticed. In most of my speech, I will be speaking about the most senior levels of government, although I will end by saying something about the Civil Service as a whole. I make clear at the outset that my Motion is not intended as an attack on politically appointed special advisers, known as “spads”. On the contrary, I regard such advisers as essential in giving Governments the political support that the Civil Service cannot and should not give. I am delighted that some distinguished former special advisers are taking part in our debate today.
My contention is that wise Governments combine the political impetus given by spads with the objective advice and continuity that the Civil Service provides on the other side. I fear that at the highest level this balance has gone awry. I can best make my point by comparing the latest transition, from a Conservative to a Labour Government, with the last such transition I took part in, which was from the Major Government to the Blair Government in 1997.
For many years, the Prime Minister’s office has been composed of a combination of career civil servants and appointees of the party in power. In 1997 and in the world in which I grew up, the head of the Prime Minister’s office was the principal private secretary, a civil servant often—some might say too often—with a background in the Treasury. When the party of government changes, it has always been the role of the principal private secretary and the other civil servants in No. 10 to form a team with the political appointees, and to work together with them in support of the Prime Minister.
In 1997, the transition from a Conservative to a Labour Government seemed to go pretty well. I have a handsome minute from Tony Blair saying so and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, takes the same view. I do not think that the same can be said about the recent transition. I welcomed the appointment of Sue Gray as Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, although many of my former colleagues did not. I thought that the experience and advice of Sue Gray, a former senior Cabinet Office civil servant, would help the Labour Party prepare for government. But, for whatever reason, that arrangement did not work out.
The balance now between political appointees and Civil Service staff in the Prime Minister’s office has completely changed. Following Sue Gray’s departure, the political staff in No. 10 have taken over almost completely. Morgan McSweeney is now chief of staff. Special advisers occupy the roles of deputy chief of staff, head of political strategy, director of policy, director of communications, press secretary, speech-writer and director of digital strategy. All of them have politically appointed staff supporting them. At the last count, there were said to be 41 spads in No. 10.
There is currently a mystery about the Civil Service post of principal private secretary. A month or so ago, it was reported that Nin Pandit had been appointed to the post. I do not know her, but she is said to be first class. However, her career was in the National Health Service and she has never worked in a Whitehall department outside No. 10. That would be the first time in 100 years that the principal private secretary in No. 10 has lacked such Whitehall experience. Her lack of experience of the Treasury or any other Whitehall department is bound to be a disadvantage in that linchpin role. More recently, however, a competition for the post has been advertised and applications will close in the next few days. I ask the Minister, when she replies to the debate, to tell the House what is going on. Is a fresh competition for the post of principal private secretary to the Prime Minister being conducted, and will Ms Pandit be free to apply?
More recently, Jonathan Powell has been appointed national security adviser as a spad, not a civil servant. I make no criticism of his suitability for this post. It seems that he is well fitted for it, both by ability and experience. But the occupation of this crucial post by a spad is bound to throw some doubt on the objectivity of the National Security Council’s advice to government. The dangers of that are illustrated by the experience of the Blair Government in the lead-up to the Iraq war, on which the commission I chaired reported.
This brings me to my second point, which is the number of appointments to senior positions in the Civil Service without any open competition. I should say that the first Civil Service Commissioner, my noble friend Lady Stuart, has told me how much she regrets that a prior commitment prevents her taking part in this debate. If she had been able to take part, she told me, she would have made the point that the Civil Service Commission plays a fundamental role in safeguarding the integrity of the Civil Service by ensuring that appointment is on merit after a fair and open competition.
Now exceptions can be made, but they should be rare. Exceptions for appointments at the most senior level require the consent of the Civil Service Commission. The excellent note prepared by the House of Lords Library shows that the number of senior appointments under the exceptions procedure has increased sharply under successive Governments since 2020. The fact that a number of these appointees have been either donors or advisers to the governing party in opposition is bound to give rise to scepticism. In one case, the donations were not declared in seeking the approval of the Civil Service Commission.
Whatever the merits of such appointments, it seems to me that, overall, a clear pattern is emerging. We have moved to the American pattern of replacing senior civil servants with political appointees when the party of government changes. As one of my former colleagues said to me, civil servants in the centre of government have become an endangered species.
I make no criticism of the calibre of the current political appointees, of whom I know nothing. But it seems to me that we should not abandon, without noticing it, the balance of a permanent Civil Service providing continuity and experience, which has served this country well for the last 150 years, since the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms. I note that President-elect Trump has announced that, with the help of Elon Musk, he plans to purge the career civil servants in the United States and replace them with staff entirely loyal to him. Is this a direction that it would be sensible for our country to take?
I come to my final point. Recent Governments seem to have overlooked the fact that the constitutional role of the Civil Service is, as an institution in its own right, to serve the Crown. It is His Majesty’s Civil Service, analogous to His Majesty’s Armed Forces and His Majesty’s judges. It is not any one Government’s Civil Service. To take just one case, the treatment of Sir Tom Scholar by the short-lived Truss Government illustrates this misunderstanding. In my view, any Minister who loses confidence in a senior civil servant is entitled to ask for a change. This is then a problem for the head of the department concerned, or for the head of the Civil Service—a problem that has to be solved either by finding a new role for the person concerned within the Civil Service, or, if that cannot be done, by making him or her redundant. It is not the role of any politician to summarily dismiss a member of the Civil Service.
Having drawn attention to what I regard as adverse changes threatening the constitutional role of the Civil Service, I want to end on a more positive note. The sad and premature retirement of Sir Simon Case requires the appointment of a new head of the Civil Service. My understanding is that this appointment is being undertaken through a proper competitive procedure, overseen by the First Civil Service Commissioner. This has produced a shortlist of appropriate candidates from which the Prime Minister will properly make his choice. I should like to hear that the impartiality of the Civil Service will be recognised by the Prime Minister clearing his lines with the leader of the Opposition in making his choice.
This country has been well served by a permanent Civil Service, providing continuity and constructive advice to whatever Government our democratic arrangements produce, with the aim of helping them to implement their policies. I believe that that help on the part of the Civil Service should be unstinting. I ask the Minister, when replying to this debate, to confirm that this constitutional arrangement, which is embodied in legislation, is one which the Government support and will foster.
Lord Mandelson (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Butler, on introducing what is a very important topic for debate. I hold him in the highest esteem. Indeed, when I first became a Minister in the Cabinet Office in 1997, I felt as if I ended up, in effect, working for him, rather than the other way round.
When my grandfather left government in the 1950s and went to Nuffield College—a great college in a very great university—he wrote and published Government and Parliament: A survey from the inside. For him, good government boiled down to
“an intelligent Minister who knows what he or she wants, commanding the understanding, co-operation and support of his civil servants.”
“Intelligent” and “commanding” are the operative words. We need lots of Ministers who are like that—people who can both direct and drive government with a real sense of purpose.
But good Ministers also need good, seasoned and sometimes more specialist advisers in order to do their jobs. When I was a Minister, my principal political advisers were actually my civil servants, not because I was politicising them in any way in a party sense, but because they were there to explain things and to warn and caution me about the policies I was developing and implementing. I want to stress that they welcomed the one or two additional advisers I recruited to my department. Indeed, they found them indispensable, as did I, because they often introduced an important external dimension to the work we were undertaking. So I do not share the view that a Minister, or even a Prime Minister, bringing in an appointee should be seen in any way as a sinister move—that they are incapable of serving the national interest. In that category I would firmly place Jonathan Powell, at the heart of whose work is his belief in and desire to serve the national interest.
So, while I understand the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Butler—and no doubt Labour may make, by the way, the occasional mistake—I think he is at best overstating them and at worst being slightly unfair to some of the individuals he has named, and to the processes that have brought them to their jobs. I feel very deeply that there will not be anything like the systematic undermining of the Civil Service that we have seen in recent years: when half a dozen Permanent Secretaries were fired at the whim of Prime Ministers Johnson and Truss; when ingratiation was being encouraged as the route to career advancement; when “Not one of us” was a bar to promotion; when individual public appointments were scrutinised for loyalty to Brexit; and when government policy was conducted by private What’s App, rather than on properly considered Civil Service advice.
I pay tribute to the many senior and junior civil servants who withstood the pressure they were under. In particular, I agree that we should record our thanks to the outgoing Cabinet Secretary, Sir Simon Case, who put up with so much, including endless attempts by Ministers to denigrate and demoralise the Civil Service for no better reason than to disguise their own ineptitude. This was the true and unacceptable politicisation we never want to see again. I have every faith that the new Cabinet Secretary will be able to work closely with the Prime Minister and his colleagues to ensure that British government recovers its reputation and, once again, becomes the envy of the world.
Lord Maude of Horsham (Con)
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Butler, on securing this debate. We spend too little time in this House considering the really important issues around the Civil Service, which plays such an important role in the life of our nation.
I start by repeating a strong commitment to our current system of a permanent, politically impartial Civil Service. Answering the question of whether we should continue this system is sometimes interpreted as a statement that everything in the current arrangements is fine, and I am afraid I do not believe that everything is fine with these arrangements. There is a simple proposition: that Ministers are responsible and accountable for everything their departments do, yet they have very truncated authority to influence the appointment and management of the officials who do it. It is not a bad principle that authority and accountability should be aligned, but this is not the case. The authority of Ministers over these important resources, for whose actions they are accountable, is severely truncated.
Your Lordships may be aware that, 12 months or so ago, the report of a review I undertook on the accountability and governance of the Civil Service was published. In the chapter on the appointment of civil servants, I started by setting out some principles that I think are uncontroversial—I consulted on them quite widely—and that should frame any changes made to these arrangements. I said the following—forgive me for quoting it; I appreciate that not every one of your Lordships may have read every single word of my review:
“Any new arrangements should … 1. Retain a critical mass of career civil servants that will ensure … a. That there is sufficient capacity to deliver independent and dispassionate advice to incumbent ministers … b. That political impartiality will be maintained so that the Civil Service can serve an incoming government of a different complexion equally effectively … 2. Subject to 1. above, give ministers sufficient authority to influence appointments that they judge to be critical to delivering their priorities … 3. Require internal appointments to be subject to a ‘merit’ test similar to that used for external appointments … 4. Recognise that in the assessment of ‘merit’ the judgement of ministers can be as pertinent as the judgement of civil servants … 5. Create a genuinely independent regulator covering internal as well as external appointments, empowered to ensure a balance between 1. and 2. and to swiftly resolve disputes”.
I argued that the regulator can be an empowered Civil Service Commission—this is no criticism of the noble Baroness who is the first Civil Service Commissioner—but it should be fully and obviously independent in a way that it is unable to be at the moment.
I made some recommendations for how the arrangements could be changed. There is no time to go through them, but the key point I made was that any addition to Ministers’ ability to influence or make appointments must be balanced by enhanced oversight by a genuinely independent regulator—in my view, the Civil Service Commission. Any new arrangements should include, but not be limited to, allowing an incoming Government to make some appointments, but the key is transparency and oversight. They should not be appointments made as some kind of indulgence, or a kind of turn-a-blind-eye, hole-in-the-corner dodge at the discretion of the Civil Service leadership. I do not blame the Government for the controversy that ensued when they came into office and made some appointments; I blame the consistent failure, including my own, to put in place sustainable and transparent arrangements that will regularise such appointments and make them routine.
Finally, it is time that we should follow the other countries that have similar systems to ours and make the head of the Civil Service, ideally, a dedicated, full-time head of the Civil Service, accountable for the health of the Civil Service to an external monitor or regulator—again, in my view, the Civil Service Commission. That would include responsibility for ensuring that the sort of changes I advocate do not imperil the political impartiality that is so important.
Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)
My Lords, I remind noble Lords that this is a time-limited debate, and we want to have time at the end for the winders, in particular the Minister. If everyone could stick to their advisory time of four minutes, I would be very grateful.
Baroness D'Souza (CB)
My Lords, the Civil Service has come in for a great deal of harsh criticism in recent years, but most especially following the Brexit referendum. A National Audit Office report in 2016 complained that there was still no functioning cross-government approach to business planning; no clear set objectives; no coherent set of performance measures; and serious concerns about the quality of management data. The underlying theme of that criticism is that the Civil Service is no longer acting as an impartial provider of expert advice. This in turn led to the proliferation of special advisers and outsourcing by arm’s-length management bodies.
Despite the reforms introduced by the CRaG Act 2010, criticisms have continued, exacerbated by the Brexit legislation and by events such as partygate and those during the Truss Administration. In more recent years, the Civil Service has come under attack for the failure of both departments and arm’s-length bodies to deliver. Why did destitute families have to wait six weeks for their universal credit payments to materialise? Why were there no cross-departmental cost-saving procurement measures in place? Why did the Grenfell tragedy happen?
Proponents of a more politicised Civil Service argue that these failures in public services would be remedied if clear accountability was achieved by establishing a class of officials appointed by the Government of the day and from whom impartiality was not expected. This might encourage recruitment of more motivated, proactive staff and allow civil servants to take a more public role. Ministers would assume clear accountability for failure, delays in service and expenditure. They could influence public appointments without adverse comment and appoint experts at will. The changeover that would happen at the end of each Administration, as happens in France, would ensure a fresh intake at regular intervals. This might provide, it is said, something more than a Civil Service once described by Sir Tony Blair as the enemy of enterprise.
The reality today is that, despite many legitimate concerns, while Ministers get on with ideology, the Civil Service on the whole gets on with the job of delivering partisan policies without losing the values of disinterested service for the public good. Problems arise due to the exact definition of accountability; for example, who is accountable for which part of a given policy? What are civil servants meant to do if Ministers prevaricate on urgent issues or ignore evidence, putting, for instance, public health at risk? Who will speak up for civil servants when their own Ministers call their integrity into account? The Civil Service as constituted in the UK is expert in making a complex administrative system work and shows remarkable commitment to the job of public service. Its continuity enables opportunities to build valuable institutional memory.
But, as we know, all is not perfect. The Civil Service is about processing policies; it is not an independent service but an impartial one. It is not about stating whether a policy or a Minister is wrong but about insisting that impartial processing requires good public administration evidence and the appraisal of options. Greater commitment to transparency of those processes would help to allay criticism.
Given the nature of the British constitution and the possibility of large parliamentary majorities, it is surely necessary to maintain an impartial Civil Service, to enshrine this more firmly in statute and to provide a champion to combat future attacks.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, in the 1970s and 1980s, as a trade union official for civil servants and then university teachers, I negotiated with senior officials in six government departments. My time spanned three Conservative and two Labour Governments. I was privileged to meet the noble Lord, Lord Butler, as well as several other Permanent Secretaries and many Ministers.
During that period, I developed a huge respect for the ethos of the Civil Service. The integrity of Civil Service officials was evident, as was their emphasis on impartiality. They were committed to presenting a balanced and unbiased picture to Ministers across each change of government. I also witnessed considerable respect from Ministers for the competence and intelligence of their civil servants. It was invariably a working partnership based on trust.
In the several changes of government at that time, however, it was also clear that every new Administration had doubts about the Civil Service they were inheriting, anticipating that it had somehow been drawn in by the previous Administration. It is to the credit of our Civil Service that it was able to demonstrate to every Government that it was there to serve them. However, it would be naive to be starry-eyed about this; the issue of politicisation of the Civil Service is not a new concern. The first Committee on Standards in Public Life, of which I was a member, looked at this question, and the committee did so again when later events became of public concern.
Codes of conduct for the Civil Service and for Ministers have been instrumental in ensuring high standards over the years, but over the years as well there have been several instances of alleged and proven bullying by Ministers, and Ministers have occasionally aired frustration that their plans were somehow being blocked by a departmental agenda. That was also alleged by one of our more recent Prime Ministers, who did not last long. There have been senior appointments with a known political commitment, and there have been attempts to get rid of senior officials who, to paraphrase Mrs Thatcher, were “not like us”.
While all investigations have produced additional guidance to refine and clarify the codes, they have invariably concluded that, in general, these were isolated incidents and that the checks and balances in the codes have helped to maintain the Civil Service ethos. Unfortunately, the impact on public perception of these events as they mount up, as well as the effect on the morale of loyal civil servants, is more difficult to remedy. There is no doubt that several recent events have had the same effect. This House’s Constitution Committee has recently highlighted cases under the previous Government where there may have been political or ideological grounds for senior civil servant departures from the service and found that due process was not followed. Incidents such as that clearly undermine public confidence.
The then Government did not accept the committee’s recommendation that the Civil Service Commission should be involved in ensuring due process. I hope the Minister will assure us that my Government will look again at this issue. In recent years, I have been appalled at the number of attacks on the integrity of civil servants by senior members of the Government, including a former Minister who is now leader of the Opposition. The many dealings that I have had with Ministers and civil servants have only reaffirmed my view that the core value of serving the Government of the day without fear or favour has served Governments, the Civil Service and the public very well. Ministers and civil servants have distinct roles; strong and sound relations between them, based on trust, are vital to ensuring that government functions well and public confidence is restored. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will reaffirm my Government’s commitment to the fundamental value of political impartiality in our Civil Service.
Lord Bichard (CB)
My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Butler, in securing a debate on this subject. I thoroughly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Maude, that we do not discuss the Civil Service often enough in this place; it is really rather important.
As a former Permanent Secretary, I suppose that it will not surprise noble Lords if I say that I do not favour further politicisation of the service. I do not support it because it confuses accountability, narrows the breadth of advice available to Ministers, does not always ensure that the national interest is paramount, and provides no continuity. When it works well, our current system can deliver the impartial, objective and high-quality advice that Ministers need to function well—when it works well. But I accept that there are very respectable arguments to be made for some degree of further politicisation in one form or another. In my view, these are significantly strengthened by some impatience with the failure of Whitehall to address some rather important issues.
The really great organisations are self-critical, and I think that it—I almost said “we”—needs to be self-critical at this moment, too. For example, on several occasions I have recently drawn attention to the failures of integrity and trust evident in the infected blood scandal, the Post Office Horizon scandal, Grenfell, Windrush, Hillsborough—I could go on. These can no longer be treated as isolated incidents, were—I say with some shame—they the result of honest mistakes honestly made. Taken together, they suggest that there is an issue around the integrity and trust on which the reputation and credibility of the Civil Service has been built, and it needs to be addressed.
A particular failing in all those cases was a complete lack of transparency and openness, in spite of that being one of Nolan’s Seven Principles of Public Life and a requirement of the Civil Service Code. Whitehall has long struggled with the concept of openness, and I welcome the new Government’s proposal to introduce a duty of candour. It remains to be seen whether it will be wide enough or sufficiently enforceable to restore confidence.
Of course, something that many Ministers—former, past and present—and stakeholders have shown impatience with is the ability or capacity of the Civil Service to deliver. When I joined the service all those years ago, I was struck by the lack of importance attached to delivery, the failure to recruit enough high-quality managers, and the tendency to embellish process and bureaucracy—again, I could go on. I am told that it has all changed, and I actually think that some things have changed, but from my frequent recent interactions with the Civil Service I have to say that there is still more to do.
There is frustration, too, at what is seen as a lack of political nous. That is not about politicising officials—it is asking officials to be shrewd politically, and politically astute, to be able to engage in a conversation about the political realities of life. We do not put that highly enough in the development of the Civil Service.
Finally, to retain confidence the Civil Service needs to be genuinely creative in the advice that it gives. I do not think that the evidence suggests that we are now up there with the very best nation states in that function; that is another thing that we need to address.
I do not support politicisation—I really do not—but I can see why some people argue for it. What people and Ministers want is a Civil Service which, at the very least, anticipates and solves problems, delivers decent services, can be trusted, and has political nous. That is how we will resist the arguments for further politicisation, by delivering that.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton (Lab)
My Lords, I draw attention to my entries in the register. Probably most relevant today is the eight years that I spent at No. 10, starting in 1997.
I am grateful to the noble Lord for introducing today’s debate. In all honesty, I think that a better topic would have been the broader and fundamentally important one about what ingredients we need for a vibrant, confident and independent Civil Service. It is inevitable that we all draw from our past experiences and it is, of course, important to recognise that no age was perfect and that the pressures change. I recognise the noble Lord’s immense service, and I enjoyed working with him and with the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, on the recent Institute for Government Commission on the Centre of Government.
I want to make three points: first, that Civil Service impartiality is the bedrock of effective government in the UK; secondly, that the Conservative Governments of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss dangerously damaged this principle of an impartial Civil Service, and indeed seriously damaged the morale, confidence and capability of the Civil Service; and, thirdly, that where Civil Service reform is needed, and it is, that reform must rest on the partnership between an effective and impartial Civil Service and clear ministerial direction.
Civil Service impartiality—the ability to serve the Government of the day without fear or favour—is one of the core values promoted by the Civil Service Code. But it is more than that; it is fundamental to effective government in our country. At its best, it enables effective working between Ministers and the Civil Service by setting clear expectations for each of their respective roles. That goes beyond theory—it is about the practical delivery of better government for our citizens.
It was therefore with deep concern that many of us watched previous Conservative Administrations systematically degrade respect for Civil Service impartiality. We saw very senior civil servants, even a Cabinet Secretary, leave their roles through politically motivated decisions without due process. Bluntly, they were ignored, bullied, disregarded and ridiculed. Able civil servants saw what was happening and either left or went through the paces to avoid conflict. This erosion of process and undermining of Civil Service impartiality more recently had real and devastating consequences: the pressure on civil servants to break the law under Boris Johnson and the ridiculous and disastrous Liz Truss mini-Budget that we all remember well.
Equally concerning has been some of the recent rhetoric that we have heard. I was, frankly, shocked to hear the new Conservative leader making the extraordinary claim that 10% of civil servants should be imprisoned. This is silly and dangerous rhetoric that undermines public trust and damages morale. We need to rebuild trust, not play games.
In this context, I will briefly address some recent baseless claims about Labour Civil Service appointments in government. Despite Conservative party and friendly media uproar, the recent report from the Civil Service Commission found that fewer exceptional appointments were made in the Civil Service in the months after the 2024 election than is typical in a similar length of time. So let us please get on with the serious conversation.
I know how crucial it is to have an effective partnership between Ministers and civil servants. That is not to say that change is not needed: fewer generalists, more external appointments, more diversity of thought and more understanding of front-line delivery. The Civil Service is not, and should not be, neutral about delivery of the Government’s programme, but there is a crucial distinction between this and politicisation. Impartiality means being able to serve an incoming Government of a different political complexion with the same commitment shown to the incumbent Government. Frankly, some of us have probably looked at that in the past and wondered whether it was possible—and then seen it happen.
For me, it is actually quite simple. Government is about what, why, how and when. The politician must provide the leadership on what and why but must be guided and helped by able civil servants working in partnership to produce the how and the when. The Government, I believe, are now rebuilding proper processes and the necessary mutual respect between Ministers and civil servants, in order to deliver the effective government that our citizens deserve. That relies on mutual respect between Whitehall and Westminster and between government and civil servants. We here have a responsibility to help build that respect.
Lord Turnbull (CB)
My Lords, I share the premise of this debate that all is not well within the triangle of relationships between Ministers, civil servants and special advisers, but the term “politicisation” may be a misdiagnosis. The problem is not so much that civil servants are being appointed on the basis of their political views; these processes are still conducted under the aegis of the Civil Service Commissioners. The issue is a different one, but equally troubling. It is that, over time, more of the work of civil servants, particularly policy advice, is being done by special advisers. So the correct diagnosis is that the Civil Service is being marginalised and not being used to best advantage.
The central principles of the Civil Service have for many years been a career service, selected and promoted on merit, serving impartially whichever party is in power. This had several advantages, including continuity of experience and development of a strong ethos. A downside, however, of a grow-your-own-timber approach is an excessively inbred service. There have been a number of reforms to address this problem. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Labour Administrations pioneered the role of special advisers, but the numbers were initially low. By 1997, there were still only 40, of which about six were in the Prime Minister’s office. The latest figures showed that that there were around 115, of which more than 40 were in the Prime Minister’s office—possibly quantity over quality. Over the years, there have been many highly effective special advisers.
In the Civil Service, my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, initiated a reform programme, one of whose components was a working group called Bringing In and Bringing On, which recommended that many more vacancies in the senior Civil Service should be filled by competitions and more of those should be open to people outside the Civil Service. Under this initiative, many talented people have been brought in and have made a significant impact—we have the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, here as an example. The top of the Civil Service is no longer a closed freemasonry.
Taken together, these changes have greatly widened the insights available to Ministers. But is the right balance being struck? I doubt it. The pushing out of civil servants is seen most clearly in the new arrangements at the top of the Prime Minister’s office, where there is a chief of staff, then two deputy chiefs of staff and a director of communications, all filled by special advisers. We still do not know the position of the principal private secretary. The Code of Conduct for Special Advisers makes clear that their role is to provide an additional source of advice for Ministers, so that political considerations can be brought to bear on official advice. However, the code also states that, while spads can offer their own advice, they should not “suppress or supplant” the advice of civil servants. Thus, it was clear that these two streams are to be complementary to each other and not in competition.
Some of the problems derive from the concept of chief of staff. In my view, this is like chewing gum and Halloween: an unwelcome import from the United States. The title of chief of staff, in the UK context, is a nonsense. The special adviser code makes it clear that the chief of staff cannot manage Civil Service staff. When Jonathan Powell was appointed with that title, the rules were changed to allow him to do so, but he found that it was not necessary for him to fulfil his role and the power was allowed to lapse.
How then should departments be organised? There should be a special adviser cadre with its own leader, and an official cadre led by of the head of the Civil Service or the Permanent Secretary. Neither should attempt to outrank the other. They should collaborate to make the best use of the different skills and experience that each side can bring.
Baroness Hodge of Barking (Lab)
My Lords, my congratulations go to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, on securing this important debate. I join him in affirming the constitutional importance of an impartial Civil Service, recruited on the basis of merit, whose job is to provide honest, objective and impartial advice delivered with integrity: advice that speaks truth to power and enables the democratically elected Ministers to decide.
I also say that, in my 12 years as a Minister, I enjoyed working with countless dedicated, capable and effective civil servants. I learned that the best way to deliver the best for the country is through a strong partnership between civil servants and Ministers, working constructively together, still challenging each other but not wasting energy criticising and attacking, but rather focusing on delivering the priorities and programmes on which the Government were elected. I would question, however, whether some traditional protocols remain fit for purpose today. It is these matters that lead to the challenge on impartiality. In the limited time, I will raise two issues.
The doctrine of ministerial accountability, asserting that civil servants are accountable to Ministers who in turn are accountable to Parliament, needs reform. Established in 1918, it was most recently affirmed in the late Lord Armstrong’s 1985 memorandum. But in 1918, there were just 22 civil servants in the Home Office. Today, there are around 40,000 in that one department. It is absurd to expect Ministers to be accountable for the actions of such a large number of people working in a much more complex organisation.
It is not just that people such as Charles Clarke, Amber Rudd and the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, lost their ministerial jobs because of the actions of civil servants of which they were mostly unaware. If civil servants cannot defend themselves because they are solely answerable to Ministers, they too can find themselves treated unfairly. I think of Jonathan Slater, Sir Tom Scholar, Stephen Lovegrove and the noble Lord, Lord Sedwill.
There is a further flaw at the heart of the doctrine. Ministers cannot recruit, promote or dismiss civil servants because that would breach the doctrine of impartiality. But how can anybody be held responsible for the actions of people whom they cannot hire or fire? In European countries and America, the powers of the administrative class and the political class are separate. In the UK, we consider them inseparable. We need to think about that, revisit the doctrine of ministerial accountability and introduce greater transparency, well-defined accountability and proper enforcement into a reformed system. We need to do that to protect, not undermine, impartiality.
Secondly, too many civil servants come from too limited a background. Institute for Government research claimed that 75% of current Permanent Secretaries went to Oxbridge; only 16% got the top job from a previous post outside the service and only 22% had experience of leadership outside government. The concept of an impartial Civil Service does not sit well when it is so unrepresentative of the society it serves. Furthermore, I have seen too many talented people, like the late Lord Kerslake, rejected by the Civil Service club because they were outsiders. Impartiality is not just a matter of politics; it is also about who we appoint and promote to foster it. I ask the Minister and the noble Lord to consider these issues as we strive to improve the effectiveness of our highly esteemed Civil Service.
Baroness Prashar (CB)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Butler, for securing this debate and for a graphic description of some of the worrying trends that we are witnessing. I declare that I was the First Civil Service Commissioner from 2000 to 2005 and, more recently, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge of Barking, a member of the commission on governance, chaired by the right honourable Dominic Grieve. Our report, published in February, contains recommendations to strengthen the quality of governance of the Civil Service, which I will mention later.
My role as First Civil Service Commissioner gave me an excellent ringside view of the Civil Service. It became clear to me that its operations are often judged through their specifics and not assessed or understood as a whole. It also became clear to me how central the role of Civil Service Commissioners is in not only maintaining the impartiality and values of the service but assisting and influencing the reform of the Civil Service by bringing a different perspective.
Changes to the Civil Service have mainly been driven in response to perceived dilemmas and political drivers rather than any continuous and systematic assessment of the organisation and its needs. The agenda for reform has been piecemeal. The shortcomings of the Civil Service are often blamed on its constitutional position as an impartial organisation. As a result, inappropriate changes and actions by successive Governments have led to behaviours not aligned with the values of the Civil Service, and in some cases the marginalisation of civil servants. This has had a detrimental effect on the morale and confidence of the Civil Service and Ministers have expressed a lack of confidence in it. It is now an organisation under strain.
The Civil Service is a national asset, held in trust by the Government in power for the next Administration. Any changes to its status should not be seen as within the confines of the Government of the day. It is recognised that it has not changed fast enough to keep pace with modern-day demands, so the focus should be on ensuring that it is fit for purpose. This is a cross-party matter. Impartiality, in my view, is not the problem; questions of politicisation, personalisation or marginalisation—whatever you want to call it—will not deliver an effective Civil Service. It is the wrong solution. It detracts from the more relevant debate about what kind of Civil Service we want and how to increase its effectiveness.
Trust—a word at the heart of the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms of nearly 170 years ago—is now more than ever an important theme. The impartial and non-politicised Civil Service and its enduring values have been the bedrock of much of our governance and maintenance of trust, which, sadly, as we know, is dissipating. What we need is a cross-party initiative to consider how to raise its productivity, capacity, expertise and skills to make it strong, responsive and agile, and not just a debate about its values. I therefore urge the Government to consider carefully the recommendations of the governance report that I mentioned earlier to bolster the status of the Civil Service as an impartial organisation and focus on its requirements as an organisation.
Given the limited time, I am unable to go into the detail of the recommendations, but I urge the Government and others to look at them carefully. Does the Minister agree that constitutional status should now be entrenched in legislation by putting the Ministerial Code and the Civil Service Code on a statutory footing, and that steps should be taken, as recommended by this report, to reset the relationship between Permanent Secretaries and Ministers, increase the transparency of some aspects of the Civil Service’s work and enlarge the role of the Civil Service Commissioners?
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, we all remember senior civil servants openly in tears the morning after the Brexit vote, or the Civil Service union threatening to go on strike over the Rwanda scheme. Those are troubling examples of a politicised Civil Service, but I will focus on a more insidious trend that is in denial.
The Civil Service is drowning in identity and diversity groupthink. However, there is an obstinate refusal to acknowledge that a particular outlook on, for example, gender or race is political at all, let alone one that could compromise impartiality. It is hiding in plain sight. Every time you get an email with pronouns in the signature, or see civil servants wearing those rainbow progress lanyards, it is a one-sided display of an allegiance to a contentious political ideology. You might agree or disagree with the ideological positions that these markers point to, but there is no doubt that signing off “She/her” is as partisan as ending an email with the slogan “Adult human female” or “From the river to the sea”.
This is not to just blame the blob; the politicisation is perhaps the unintended consequence of policies and legislation initiated by politicians. Take the public sector equality duty in the Equality Act: by obliging public bodies to focus on staff action plans around protected characteristics, expansive and monolithic HR departments have created an internal culture dominated by EDI priorities. In typical mission-creep fashion, there is an ever-growing plethora of diversity training courses, identity-based staff networks and allyship schemes.
But inclusion does not include dissent. I have two brief examples. The relatively new Civil Service Sex Equality and Equity Network—SEEN—believes that biological sex is binary and immutable, and operates across 50 government departments, including here in Parliament. SEEN has not been welcomed to the network fold, and is regularly subject to obstruction and persistent abuse. Earlier this year the chair of SEEN, Defra lawyer Elspeth Duemmer Wrigley, faced legal action, accused of harassment for expressing at work gender-critical views such as “only women menstruate”—which is true, by the way. While that vexatious complaint was eventually dropped, Elspeth’s anonymous accuser is now suing Defra for allowing SEEN to exist at all, claiming it creates an intimidating, humiliating and offensive work environment.
In the second example, the hostility is not from a grievance-mongering colleague but is top-down. In 2023, DWP civil servant Anna Thomas won a £100,000 settlement after she was wrongfully fired by her department. Her alleged gross misconduct was that she whistle-blew about the DWP’s embrace of political ideologies, such as critical race theory, which she feared breached the Civil Service Code. Part of her complaint was an all-staff memo from the Permanent Secretary about transforming the department into an “anti-racist organisation” in the wake of the George Floyd killing. This included circulating BLM-inspired materials asking white staff to assume they were racist.
Do we really believe that such white privilege-obsessed officials or the Defra complainant provide objective and impartial advice to Ministers? Would they think to seek out diverse opinions on any given policy area? Kemi Badenoch recently revealed that when she wanted to investigate problems at the Tavistock clinic, officials repeatedly lined up the usual progressive charities, academics, NGOs and experts. The civil servants were not being malign, but their worldview is so narrowly focused that they could not conceive of why anyone would want to hear counternarratives as well. The consequence was that both officials and Ministers missed evidence of the awful harms being done to children—a terrible price to pay for this aspect of a politicised Civil Service.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, I too am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Butler, for securing this important debate. I am deeply interested in the subject not just because I worked extensively with civil servants through much of my career but because the issues and principles involved read across—in perhaps even starker terms—to the military.
My own view is that we are best served in this country if public servants are apolitical—not in their personal views, of course, because no one can dictate how someone thinks, but in subordinating those views to the service of whichever party and whichever Ministers are in power at the time. That is certainly the system within which I worked for many years. I saw a great number of civil servants at close hand and, while I inevitably became aware that the personal philosophy of some was not exactly attuned to that of the Government of the day, I never observed them doing anything other than their very best to deliver the policies of that Government.
Why, then, is there a perception in some quarters of a deep state seeking to thwart the will of elected politicians? Why do some suggest that we need a more politicised Civil Service if future Governments are to implement their agenda effectively?
I will use my brief time today to set out three significant and somewhat interrelated issues that might account for this. The first is the very high degree of sustained centralisation we have seen in government over the past few decades. In his recent book, Failed State, Sam Freedman argues—persuasively, to my mind—that this has led to Ministers assuming responsibility for a range of issues beyond their ability or capacity to control effectively. Part of the answer to that problem seems to have been the establishment of numerous arm’s-length bodies to oversee a variety of enterprises and activities, but this in itself results in reduced ministerial control and perhaps an accompanying sense of powerlessness.
The second issue is the problem of bureaucratic inertia, something I certainly experienced at first hand. This phenomenon is not exclusive to government but rather a function of size; large companies face exactly the same challenge. The trend of government centralisation and the expansion of responsibilities that this entails, though, have exacerbated the problem. Institutional inertia is best addressed not by replacing one group of people with another but by business practices focused on outcomes rather than process. Overcoming it requires people to be incentivised to achieve things rather than to protect the status quo.
This brings me on to the third issue: that of culture, and in particular our whole approach to risk. We as a nation seem to favour risk avoidance rather than risk-taking, and this trend is perhaps most obvious in government. Departmental officials expend a lot of effort preparing their Ministers to defend themselves in Parliament—fair enough—but a defensive posture can make an organisation resistive to innovation. We need to strike a much better balance here. We need to see risk, and a certain amount of failure, as necessary to progress, and not as an automatic cause for condemnation. Accountability is important, but so is tolerance for responsible risk-taking.
While there are aspects of the Civil Service that would benefit from improvement, efforts to change its fundamental nature would in my view be aiming at the wrong target. Reducing departmental responsibilities to manageable levels, creating structures and incentives that promote and reward achievement, and embracing a greater degree of risk-taking and tolerance of a degree of failure would do far more to promote effective government than further politicisation of the Civil Service.
Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (CB)
My Lords, I too join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Butler, for securing this debate, in which I wish to concentrate on one point: the role of His Majesty’s Civil Service in the relationship between the branches of our constitution, in which it has played an indispensable role, in my experience.
Under the last Labour Government, there was a profound change to the relationship between the branches of government through two means. One was the Human Rights Act 1998, and the second was the reform to the office of Lord Chancellor. Prior to that time, the Lord Chancellor had operated as the linchpin of the constitution, enabling the judicial, executive and parliamentary branches of government to function smoothly and generally harmoniously.
The question then arose of how that relationship was to be managed without the Lord Chancellor. Here it is important to see what role an independent and impartial Civil Service has played in enabling our constitutional relationships to function properly, for I believe that without an impartial and independent Civil Service, the relationship could not function as it is now functioning.
I will take three examples, drawn from my own experience. The first is the position of the Permanent Secretary to the Secretary of State for Justice. I will use modern terminology, because it has all changed so much over the years. Taking that position, when one looks at what was put in place in 2003, many aspects of the relationship between the Secretary of State for Justice and the Lord Chief Justice required a working partnership. In my experience, having worked with Permanent Secretaries in the department since 2003, it would have been impossible to make that partnership work without an impartial and independent Civil Service. There are obvious tensions, and they have to be managed.
The second is the position of the Government Legal Department. I sometimes feel that it is possibly the least appreciated, but most vital, part of the functioning of our constitution. Its head and the legal directors in the various departments must be able to give impartial advice, uninfluenced by politics and with a clear understanding of constitutional convention, in the certain knowledge that the advice they give will at times be most unwelcome. They must not suffer the fate of lawyers elsewhere who give unwelcome advice. From my experiences, although time does not permit me to detail them, I am convinced that, without that independence and impartiality, we would have had a number of very serious problems that would have interrupted the smooth running of our constitution.
I will say a brief word about the Cabinet Secretary. I believe that it was the late Lord Jeremy Heywood who instituted regular meetings between the Lord Chief Justice and the Cabinet Secretary. Those were indispensable to ironing out bumps in the road that resulted from the tensions inherent in the relationship. Without someone who is impartial, apolitical and absolutely committed to understanding the constitution, such meetings would have been impossible. You can test the efficacy of this by looking at the emergency brakes on the relationship: the ability of the Lord Chief to speak in Parliament and the very elaborate appeal system if money is not provided.
We should be profoundly grateful and not change the position of His Majesty’s Civil Service in these respects without a very clear understanding of what it has achieved and must continue to achieve. I welcome His Majesty’s Civil Service as playing a vital role in our constitution for the future.
Lord Hannett of Everton (Lab)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Butler, for securing the debate, and I pay homage to his career and the recognition he has across the political divide.
I have not come through the political movement as an MP or a Minister—I am conscious of the experience in this House on all sides—but I have had some dealings with civil servants as the general secretary of a union dealing with the Olympics and trading hours, and with Sunday trading. I have always felt that my conversations with civil servants were honest and true, and, in a sense, I never felt that they were there to deliver an outcome with me; they were more there for a fact-finding exercise on the points that I wanted to make.
For me, this debate is as much a learning curve as a chance to pontificate on the way that the Civil Service should go. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, referred to its 150 years. The Civil Service has an important constitutional responsibility, but it is more important that we value our civil servants, because they have a very difficult line to walk between the Minister and government policies. Therefore, they have to feel valued. Having looked at the code, which refers to “integrity”, “objectivity” and “impartiality”, I would imagine that the question for us Peers, if something is wrong, is about whether a tweak in the Civil Service is required rather than a wholesale change. I suppose that the exam question is: have some points caused confusion? I listened to both the noble Lords, Lord Mandelson and Lord Butler; they may have slightly separated on minor points but they were together on their main view of the service.
We must be doing something right if the Civil Service has survived for 150 years. The arrangements that have been established for those many years mean, as I said, that what is needed is more a tweak than a wholesale change. As a trade unionist, and as someone who likes to think of fairness as a clear objective, my final point—I could repeat many of the points made by noble Lords—is that we should do this in a sensible cross-party way if there are to be any changes. As importantly as anything else, we should respect the people who want to be civil servants and play an exceptionally important role for the Government and the country.
Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho (CB)
My Lords, I too thank my noble friend for this important debate. I draw attention to my interests—particularly that I am currently chairing the Government’s advisory board on the digital centre of government.
Arguably, one of the most severe pressures on the Civil Service is the pressure to be fit for purpose in the digital age. However, this is not a separate issue to that of politicisation: they are increasingly intertwined and, in my opinion, they must be thought about together. Today’s reality is clear: digital skills are no longer optional extras. Data analysis, digital service design and agile project management—let alone the nuance needed in understanding AI tools—have become as essential to governance as policy writing and stakeholder management. This shift creates real tensions within our supposedly neutral institutions.
First, we have a significant skills gap. The traditional recruitment and career paths are not delivering the digital expertise we need. When the service brings in external talent, it faces resistance from those concerned about maintaining Civil Service independence. When people stick to conventional processes, they are criticised for falling behind.
Secondly, digital transformation often requires quicker decisions and implementation. This culture can conflict with processes designed for careful deliberation and political neutrality. As public services become increasingly digital, the line between policy and implementation grows less distinct. Technical decisions about system design now have major policy implications—for example, around digital inclusion or data privacy. In addition, civil servants now face complex challenges related to algorithmic decision-making.
Thirdly, artificial intelligence and automation have evolved beyond mere tools: they are fundamentally uprooting old ways of working and raising the expectation of public sector employees. When digital projects fail or services do not meet expectations, this provides politicians with stronger arguments for exerting more direct control over these services and perhaps bypassing normal processes.
However, there are many opportunities for meaningful reform. It is essential to use this moment to modernise the culture while preserving values. When I worked on the Government Digital Service from 2009 to 2014, the case for change was clear. Returning to government just a couple of months ago, I was somewhat dispirited to find that not enough had shifted. I suggest three urgent actions to the Minister.
First, it is vital to reimagine Civil Service training. Digital skills should not be separate from traditional competencies: they should be integrated into a new model of public service professionalism. We need civil servants who are technically confident and competent and who are deeply committed to public service values.
Secondly, we need new models of accountability that recognise the complexity of modern governance. Rather than choosing between political control and Civil Service independence, we should develop frameworks that allow for rapid innovation while maintaining appropriate checks and balances. This could also include new forms of parliamentary oversight.
Thirdly, there are far more opportunities to use high-quality data and transparency as a tool for trust. Better and more open data would allow us to make government decision-making more visible to the public and more effective between Ministers and departments. This can strengthen democratic accountability without compromising Civil Service independence. But there is a huge amount of work to do to shift the current culture. Data is still too often inoperable and badly utilised. This reinforces silo-based working and continues deepening a lack of clear measurement and accountability in departments.
As we have heard so eloquently today, throughout history, the Civil Service has evolved to meet its new challenges. It is possible to build a service that is fit for purpose in 2030 while preserving its commitment to political neutrality. However, it will not happen by chance: it requires a focus and a determination to bring about that cultural change. I am lucky to have worked with many brilliant and dedicated civil servants, but surely they deserve to work in a modern service, using the best tools of the culture available in 2024, and not still to rely on some that feel as though they might date back to 1824.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)
My Lords, I claim even less authority on and direct experience of the matters before us. I have been most impressed by the range of opinions, and the wealth of experience that has been on display, and therefore thank the noble Lord for bringing this debate to us. It will be like a massive seminar for some of us. I am happy to take refuge behind the three quite remarkable interventions that came from along these Benches—from the noble Baronesses, Lady Warwick, Lady Hodge and Lady Morgan—like machine-gun fire. In detail and from personal experience, together they offered a view that I very much want to take as my speech without having to rewrite any of it. Therefore, I want just to draw attention to the one question that has been recurring to me and to ask the Minister, or anybody who can, to answer it. We have talked a lot about the need to have continuity in the Civil Service that we can respect, trust and all the rest of it, between Governments, when Governments of different persuasions follow each other. We had personal examples from the noble Lord, Lord Butler, of his experience in 1997, for example, and more recently.
However, it is not so much the continuity of the advice and support between Governments that interests me but the continuity of advice and support within departments when there are such frequent changes of those who run them. How do civil servants respond to the advisers who come with Secretary of State X, when, six months later, he is replaced by Secretary of State Y? Some such churns have produced quite radical differentiations that have required quite a lot of nimble footwork on the part of the reliable and dependable Civil Service. Therefore, I want to take advantage of this debate simply to ask: could those who run our Government see to it that they put people in place, leave them there for a little bit and give them the advice they need politically—of course they need that—so that the Civil Service then can play a proper, constructive role within such arrangements? For what it is worth, that is a humble observation, but one that strikes me as needing some attention.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)
My Lords, clearly, I must begin my contribution to this timely debate on the politicisation of the Civil Service, so magisterially opened by my noble friend Lord Butler, who headed that service as Cabinet Secretary with great distinction, with a declaration of interest and also of experience, having been myself a civil servant for the 42 years prior to my arrival in your Lordships’ House in 2001.
Does this discredit my participation in this debate? I do not believe so. On the contrary, I suggest that it validates it. In those 42 years, I was never subjected to political pressure on the advice I offered to Ministers, nor was that advice put through a political filter before it reached Ministers. I loyally served Governments of both main parties. Sometimes my advice was accepted; sometimes it was rejected. That system did not work perfectly but it worked well.
In the mid-19th century, Britain, following what were called the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms, broke away from a system of public service appointments, including military ones, which was corrupt, patronage-dominated and heavily politicised. Following those reforms, we entered a system best described as a meritocracy, from which politicisation was banned, which largely survives to this day, although in recent years it has come under increasing criticism and its foundations have been seriously weakened, sometimes almost inadvertently, sometimes in the belief that politicisation would produce better results. In passing, I note that the Civil Service broke the glass ceiling for senior appointments for women before most other professions did so.
What form has that weakening taken? Partly it is in the loss of mutual trust between civil servants, who give advice and deliver programmes, and Ministers, who take decisions and account for them to Parliament. Now, when things go awry, there is a daily blame game in the press and in Parliament, with civil servants anonymously blaming Ministers and vice versa. That is a pernicious development, and one likely to result in worse overall outcomes.
Then, in addition, there has been an all too evident falling-off of skilled, evidence-based advice, which simply does not reach Ministers in a clear and trenchant form, either because it is diverted or watered down or because it is substituted by party-politically motivated advice.
I worked for some years in an international organisation, the EU Commission in Brussels, which was staffed by several nationalities, among whom those weaknesses that I have described were all too prevalent, and they did not produce good results. Indeed, the Northcote-Trevelyan public service ethos which we brought with us was widely admired, and in some ways copied, until our lamentable departure from the EU snuffed that out. Now we have what is often termed a “creeping spadocracy”, in which politicised advice is favoured over objective, evidence-based advice.
I am not for one moment suggesting that special political advisers do not have an important and essential role to play. They evidently do, in maintaining links, particularly with the governing party’s parliamentary support, in drafting obviously party-political speeches and in being available to test civil servants’ advice in terms of political viability. However, such political advisers should not be regarded as a substitute for public service advice. The two can and should interact and coexist.
I can think of no better way of concluding these arguments against the increasing politicisation of the Civil Service than with the lapidary words of the resolution passed in the late 18th century in the other place, which stated that the power of the Crown
“has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished”.
Lord Waldegrave of North Hill (Con)
My Lords, I too thank and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, who will be embarrassed when I say that he is one of the pre-eminent public servants of this era, but it is true. I shared a room with him in the Cabinet Office in 1971 when I was a civil servant, before I left to be one of two political appointees in the political office of the Prime Minister, the other being Lord Hurd.
I take it for granted that there should be now, as in the past, political assistants to Ministers. They should be few and under discipline—preferably under the discipline of the Permanent Secretary—for their ethical and other behaviour. I have always favoured a Cabinet system on the European model, where they fit into the discipline of a structure. There should be expert advisers—such as the noble Lord, Lord Levene, who left us today—as there have been since the days of Lloyd George and Churchill, also fitted into discipline and structure, but not too many and not running wild; nor do we need to politicise the Civil Service itself to answer what is the usual argument for doing so. The usual argument is that the inherent bias of the Civil Service—to the left, say the Conservatives; to the right, say the socialists—stops Ministers doing what they have promised.
This is rubbish. Did the Civil Service stop Margaret Thatcher, Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson turning the previous approach to economic policy in this country upside down? Of course it did not. Did the Civil Service stop the same Government, with assistance from me, introducing the poll tax, which vanishingly few civil servants thought to be a good idea but which, after the electorate and the Cabinet endorsed it, we pursued? No, it tried to make a bad policy better, as perhaps it is doing now in other matters, but it carried it through. Only weak or muddled Ministers, or those without backing from the Prime Minister, the Cabinet or the House of Commons, complain about deep-state conspiracies stopping them from carrying out their wonderful projects. Politicisation is unnecessary for even radical Governments. That is my first point.
My second point is that this country, like all democratic countries whether or not they have written constitutions, depends on having a plurality of institutions to check and balance power. As poor delivery by Governments on what they have promised, allied to social media, feeds short-term populism, such checks and balances matter more and more if we are to avoid what the late Lord Hailsham called an “elective dictatorship”.
I do not know whether what Mr Tim Shipman wrote in his book was correct. I have heard no denials from the dramatis personae concerned. He tells how, on 4 October 2019, members of the Government and their political advisers told senior civil servants they were contemplating ordering them to break the law. He records Helen MacNamara, a deputy secretary in the Cabinet Office, replying that in that case, “None of us can work for you. The police don’t work for you; like me, they work for the Queen”. Her answer was, in my view, exactly correct but could derive only from an apolitical, confident, professional Civil Service doing its job right at the centre of government. Who is to say, whether from left or right, whether such pressure might be exerted again? Checks and balances are needed and will be needed again. One of the greatest is an independent, apolitical, professional Civil Service.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I want to indulge the House with some reflections on my personal career experience as a political appointee in government. I do not want to see a politicised Civil Service, but a limited appointment of outsiders to support Ministers in policy, as well as political roles, is no threat to the integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality of our brilliant Civil Service.
My own experience as a political appointee goes back a long way. I first served as a special adviser to Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank in the Callaghan Government. In that role, I learned a great deal from my first Permanent Secretary, Sir Peter Baldwin, whom I should imagine the noble Lord, Lord Butler, knew very well. He persuaded me to be totally transparent in the advice I gave to the Secretary of State with every note copied to civil servants. As a result, he brought me on to the department’s policy board—the top board in the department.
But that closeness does not mean sycophancy. There is a danger in the Whitehall culture that promotes an adherence to a settled departmental view, which officials feel constrained by. Outside challenge, if delivered in a collegiate way, is a very good thing. A modern example of that departmental view is, for instance, the Treasury’s institutional opposition to the very idea of an active industrial policy. That has to be challenged from the inside.
I went on to serve in Sir Tony Blair’s No. 10 Policy Unit for over seven years, primarily working on European questions. The Foreign Office was greatly supportive of my role, and I am forever grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Jay of Ewelme, to our excellent ambassadors on the whole, and to Sir Stephen Wall for the support he gave me. In my political networking across Europe, I believe I added something that they were not in a position to give. I also saw at first hand how Ministers operated in different administrative and political cultures on the continent.
When the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, was a European Commissioner, I worked in his cabinet. I believe, like the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave, that the cabinet is a good model of bringing in outsiders and expert officials who are released from their director-general’s grip by being members of a cabinet. That facilitated fresh thinking. I think we should be more open to the cabinet model in Britain.
I also saw virtue in the German model of politically appointed state secretaries who took decisions on their bosses’ behalf as well as playing a managerial role in their department. Cabinet Ministers were released from day-to-day pressures and able to focus on the big picture because they had a high level of trust in their politically appointed state secretaries.
Because of the 24-hour—now perhaps 24-minute—news cycle and the dominance of social media, politics and government have taken on the nature of a constant general election campaign. We may regret this, but it is an unalterable fact of political life and, therefore, effective government needs strategists, polling experts, focus group interpreters and message crafters right at the centre of government. It also needs the outside expert to bring a breath of fresh air to a Civil Service that wants to drive reform but has become cynical and despairing as a result. I want to see to those outside experts working, and perhaps the best practice is to follow what the European Commission did for me when I was in Brussels, which was to make me an agent temporaire working on the same basis as officials, with the same responsibilities and duties, but only for the term of the Commission to which I was appointed.
Baroness Murphy (CB)
My Lords, I add my voice to thank my noble friend Lord Butler for introducing this debate. I hovered on the edge of one arm of the Civil Service, in the shape of the Department of Health, and have observed since 1997 the total politicisation of that department with some astonishment and some despair. There is, in fact, no longer a Department of Health and Social Care; there is only a department of National Health Service management.
My first brush with the department was in the early 1990s, when I became the Chief Medical Officer’s personal adviser on mental health and ageing. I was given a somewhat daunting list of 14 telephone numbers. I remember counting them and thinking, “Oh wow—all these experts!”, but the phone numbers were those of civil servants in the department, or else in what was the Home Office and is now the Ministry of Justice, or in the Department of Education and in what is now the Department for Work and Pensions. They were all policy specialists on mental health or ageing. Most had worked in their department for five, 10 or 15 years. Many were frighteningly bright, and all carried in their heads the history of policy positives and negatives. I found them inspiring.
Along came the 1997 election, and Tony Blair swept in with reforming zeal. As an NHS manager by then, I was delighted. I thought, “This is what we want: a bit of delivery of policy”. Shortly after the election, I was having lunch in a Norfolk pub with the much-missed Baroness Hollis of Heigham. Patricia had just been appointed in the new Government as a Front-Bench spokesman on social security. She said, “We’re going to get rid of all those Tory civil servants and get a new lot in who haven’t been contaminated”. I was somewhat surprised but thought that she could not possibly mean the upper middle grades of the Department of Health, and I am sure she did not. But over the next five years, all bar one of my contacts had taken early retirement, voluntary redundancy or moved out to NGOs or other careers.
What has happened since then? There is a department obsessed with the English National Health Service and interested in acute hospital performance and not much else. Mental health and learning disability policy in effect stopped. We have got a new Mental Health Bill in 2024 that is in fact the same as the 1983 Act. Learning disability hospitals were meant to close, but that stopped. Public health policy was eventually all but destroyed by sending it out to local authorities—which was the right thing to do, but they had to find their feet all over again. When the pandemic came along, there was nobody at the centre insisting on responding in the time-honoured way. Track and trace was a farce. Links with the justice system never progressed, children’s mental health was largely ignored, maternity services fell off anyone’s agenda and went downhill, and social care is still being ignored. There has been minimal focus on the antecedents of ill health. Alcohol policy, obesity, lack of exercise and deterioration in family cohesion have all generated nothing except passing interest and a few reports.
Having refocused, did it work to have NHS performance taking over the whole of the DH? Perhaps I shall ask my colleagues around the House whether they think that the NHS has got better. Every three years, we have a new Minister, a new policy, some old policies are recreated, and everything is changed yet again. It has not been a happy story. I think it was happier when we left policy to the Department of Health to get on with what it could do, and we should let managers in the health service—out of the Civil Service—be separated into something quite independent. That is my experience of the politicisation of the health service, and I do not like it.
Lord Moore of Etchingham (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is an honour to speak in this debate secured by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. He is the living embodiment of what a politically neutral civil servant should be.
I bring a particular and slightly odd perspective to this question because, like most journalists, I had far more professional experience of politicians than of civil servants. This changed when I began work on the biography of Mrs Thatcher because, in order to see the relevant government papers not yet released, I was positively vetted as if I were a civil servant—I was not, I hasten to say, paid from the public purse. I spent nearly 15 years inspecting those papers in the Treasury. My titular boss was Sue Gray, of blessed memory. I learned then how preposterous are the claims made by some politicians that civil servants just get in the way. No Government Minister could work effectively for a single day without the careful attentions of professional civil servants. Politicians inevitably know little about process, yet government cannot function without process.
I also saw, from studying those papers, what great civil servants can achieve. Perhaps the finest surviving exemplars of such public servants, whose apogee was the 1980s, are the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and the noble Lord, Lord Powell of Bayswater, who I do not think is present. The former was Mrs Thatcher’s principal private secretary, and later her Cabinet Secretary. The latter was her Private Secretary for Foreign Affairs, although that title does not do justice to his extraordinary role. The noble Lord, Lord Butler, revealed to me that there came a point when the two men, though friends, were so much at odds that the noble Lord, Lord Butler, tried to shift the noble Lord, Lord Powell, from his post and pack him off to a foreign embassy.
In the careers of these two remarkable men, so well recorded by the very high standard of written communication that existed in the Civil Service at that time, can be traced the necessary tensions of Civil Service life: between the needs of neutrality and propriety on the one hand, which the noble Lord, Lord Butler, rightly sought to uphold as Cabinet Secretary, and, on the other, the enforcement of the authority of the Prime Minister, which the noble Lord, Lord Powell, as a vital private secretary, rightly sought to advance. Thanks to them and many like them—some present in this Chamber today—a balance was achieved, and we were as a result well governed.
I support the spirit of the noble Lord’s Motion, but where I differ from him, if only in emphasis, is that I fear the neutrality of the Civil Service is today compromised not only by politicians but by the Civil Service itself—only the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, has raised this so far. Things have happened that would never have happened in the days of the noble Lords, Lord Butler, Lord Wilson of Dinton and Lord Turnbull.
The Civil Service has politicised itself in several ways. I have time to mention only one, but it speaks for many others. In the summer of 2020, after the tragic killing of George Floyd, many government departments decided—through Permanent Secretaries, not Ministers —to take a view. At the Ministry of Justice, the Permanent Secretary, Sir Richard Heaton, declared that
“racism takes many forms; that privilege takes many forms. It’s why the Black Lives Matter movement is so important”.
Similar thoughts emerged from the Department for Education, the Ministry of Defence and elsewhere in Whitehall. BLM hashtags often appeared on officials’ communications. BLM was not then, and is not now, at all politically neutral. It is a hard-left organisation committed to defunding the police and the propagation of racist attitudes towards white people—yet British officialdom metaphorically took the knee. This was a collective abnegation of neutrality, and it was unrebuked by the Cabinet Secretary.
The senior Civil Service has increased its numbers by 64% since 2012—not to the public benefit. It fusses about pronouns at the bottom of emails, but its understanding of the grammar of good government has markedly declined. Comparable accusations may be made against politicians, often rightly, but to debate more fully this demoralising and historically un-British situation, we must acknowledge the degree of fault on both sides.
Lord Wilson of Dinton (CB)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Moore. He is a great biographer and a great journalist; I often read him, and he is sometimes right. It is also a great honour to have followed the noble Lord, Lord Butler, both in the job of Cabinet Secretary and now in this important debate. In the brief time, I shall say limited things and express unease. I feel deeply uneasy. You know as you get older that you will get uneasy with the world, but I am worried that I am right.
I feel passionate about the concept of the Civil Service set out in the Northcote-Trevelyan report. I will read it because it deserves to be read out. It says that
“the Government of the country could not be carried on without the aid of an efficient body of permanent officers, occupying a position duly subordinate to that of the Ministers who are directly responsible to the Crown and to Parliament, yet possessing sufficient independence, character, ability and experience to be able to advise, assist, and, to some extent, influence, those who are from time to time set over them”.
That model stands now, and I hold to it. I argue passionately against changing anything that increases political involvement in open competition and appointment on merit.
However, it is worth remembering that, even when Northcote-Trevelyan was implemented, it was opposed by some people who thought that patronage was a good thing. Disraeli was strongly opposed to the creation of the Civil Service Commission. He invented the post of First Civil Service Commissioner for a friend of his who needed money and was hard up. He got a post in the Treasury, through a loophole, for a Mr Maude, whom Queen Victoria wanted to get into the Treasury. He argued that patronage—that is, political appointments—was
“the outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, and that is Power”.
I do not hear in this debate a wish to alter that. I hear a wish for more ministerial involvement in appointments.
All I wanted to say to the noble Lord, Lord Maude, was, “Come and talk to me. I can deal with this. This doesn’t require major changes of procedure and code; it requires a chat”. When I was Cabinet Secretary, I could have dealt with him amicably.
Looking around the Chamber during this debate, I have seen 11 Cabinet Ministers of different parties whom I have worked for. I do not think they have any idea what my own political views are. The joy of the Civil Service is the ability to take a Minister as your client, to work for them and to give them your very best support to make things happen, whatever their political allegiance. Politics is a bit of a nuisance.
None the less, I have to say that I am worried at the moment. I think No. 10 is going awry. The skill of the Civil Service with an incoming Government is to enable them to appear to have been in power even when they are learning the job, but that has not happened. That is a sign that the balance is wrong—the noble Lord, Lord Butler, is right.
More generally, the job of Governments and Ministers is more difficult than it used to be, if only because of social media, where you have to comment all the time rather than stopping, thinking and taking advice. The job of the Civil Service is weakening because of Brexit, which was a huge blow in terms of management, followed in no time by the pandemic. The loss of people at the top has been very bad: Tom Scholar is the worst, but there have been others that are pretty bad.
I am out of time so I must sit down. I could speak at greater length, but my view is that we need a royal commission on the Civil Service. Too many things are going wrong. I could give the House a longer list, but the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, spelled out some worrying things. HR management is going wrong, as are many other things. This debate should be the prelude to a more serious look at what is happening.
Lord Godson (Con)
My Lords, I associate myself with the remarks of all previous speakers about the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell. I particularly associate myself, as a former member of the fourth estate, with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham. Having spent many hours interviewing the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, for my biography of the late Lord Trimble, I too owe him much for his matchless wisdom.
I wish that the Civil Service was the same organisation in ethos, values and capability as it was when the noble Lord, Lord Butler, was Cabinet Secretary. I am not always confident this is the case nowadays. As a result, I believe it is Ministers who need more support. I therefore wish, perhaps surprisingly to the Minister and Members opposite, to commend the new Government on their decision to remove the arbitrary cap on special adviser numbers.
Far from politicising the Civil Service, as the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and others have pointed out, special advisers can perform a critical function in preserving its impartiality by offering Ministers the political counsel that civil servants rightly cannot provide. I very much hope that the Conservative Party will not now make the errors it made the last time it was in opposition, during the 2005 to 2010 Parliament, in calling for an artificial cap on numbers, thus leaving Conservative Ministers sometimes under-resourced to deliver their priorities when they eventually got into government.
This brings me to my other point. The risk of politicisation in the Civil Service is real, as noble Lords pointed out, but it is too often narrowly defined as meaning party politicisation emanating from Ministers and spads. Rightly, Civil Service leaders understand the importance of impartiality between parties. Increasingly, however, as both the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham, pointed out, they have drifted into positions on sensitive issues such as gender and race, which are also highly political without necessarily being party political.
This was accompanied by the rise of staff networks. There are 24 across government, on top of the networks in each department. There is no central oversight or even a full list of all departmental groups. These networks aim to promote inclusivity, as they define it. However, they can cross the line and undermine Civil Service impartiality as well. I will give just one example. Earlier this year, the Civil Service Muslim network was suspended after hosting speakers who encouraged staff to lobby their line managers and others on Gaza policy—a clear breach of the Civil Service Code. We need new rules now to set clear boundaries on what staff networks can and cannot do. There should be no network activity during work hours and no inappropriate lobbying of Ministers or other officials at any time.
Finally, I wish also to draw attention to the importance of the Civil Service across England, Wales and Scotland. This cannot be overstated. One area that is overlooked too often, but which has been highlighted in the Constitution Committee’s report on Permanent Secretaries, is the role of civil servants in the devolved Administrations. Further guidance is now essential to ensure that they work and spend public funds solely within their devolved competencies, safeguarding both the impartiality and integrity of the union.
Maintaining the strength and impartiality of the Civil Service is vital, as so many have pointed out. At the same time, we need to restore to Ministers their own ability to deliver on their mandate for the British people. It is not some whim of Ministers; they are the servants of the people, and they should continue to be. The Civil Service needs to back them. The Civil Service leadership needs to reorganise the changing landscape of politics and recognise the danger of taking sides on profoundly contentious issues that continue to divide the country.
Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, for bringing this important debate to the House. At a time when the integrity and professionalism of our civil servants is under scrutiny, particularly from certain factions within our political landscape, it is imperative we remind ourselves of the foundational principles that govern their work: the Civil Service Code. It is equally important to address the unfounded accusations of politicisation levelled against them by some politicians and others who appear to misunderstand the essential role of the Civil Service in our system.
I am less qualified than many noble Lords present here to speak about these matters, having never held an office which would have resulted in engagement with the Civil Service in Whitehall. I have, however, held the most senior office in local government, as the leader of the Welsh Local Government Association. I engaged frequently with the civil servants in Cardiff Bay and Cathays Park—the Welsh equivalent of Whitehall. In my contact with them, the officials carried out their roles with dedication and a commitment to the Civil Service and its core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.
When negotiating on behalf of local government colleagues, I did not always agree with some of the results of the advice officials had given to Ministers—particularly the funding settlements for local authorities across Wales—but that was a matter of trying to square an ever-decreasing circle of poor financial settlements from the UK Government, which continued to decrease in real terms year after year. There were always so many demands on the base budget. Civil servants would prepare choices for Ministers, who then made their political judgment about their allocations. I never felt there was a pre-determinism about it; just a realisation that, despite the case we put forward for greater funding of public services, the finite resource they had to deal with was the greatest block to realisation, rather than any prejudice or aversion to local government, or, indeed, politicisation by the officials.
As many noble Lords have noted, it is well chronicled that the Civil Service has had a difficult time. Civil servants have demonstrated immense resilience and commitment to their roles. The pandemic required rapid policy development and unprecedented levels of collaboration across departments. Civil servants’ ability to provide accurate data, research and policy evaluations has ensured that the responses were not only timely but effective. That was not the action of a politicised body; rather, of a professional service dedicated to safeguarding the health and welfare of our nation.
Boris Johnson’s hard rain reforms of 2020 resulted in the defenestration of a succession of Permanent Secretaries, and all the difficult issues resulting from the pandemic clearly had an effect on the service. The “partygate” scandal of 2021 and the political crises of 2022, which resulted in the unprecedented appointment of three Prime Ministers and 67 Cabinet members in a single calendar year, also had their effects: musical chairs, but without the music.
However, the rate of churn of civil servants moving roles is long standing and can undermine productivity. A lack of expertise among officials has a negative effect on how key projects are managed and on departments’ institutional memory. I therefore look forward to reading the forthcoming plan, announced by the Minister with responsibility for public sector reform and government functions, the honourable Member for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale. She has outlined that the Government will soon set out a dedicated plan for boosting productivity through greater use of new technology. This will play a key role, and I trust that it will assist the service to move on and move forward.
Lord Young of Old Windsor (CB)
My Lords, I too salute my noble friend Lord Butler on securing this debate. My contention is that a neutral Civil Service is vital in supporting the constitutional channels of communication between state and government, especially in a crisis, and especially in the context of our unwritten constitution, which is 99% reliant on precedent, and 1% “seat of the pants” when things go wrong.
Before I came to your Lordships’ House, I was, for many years, Private Secretary to the late Queen. I offer an illustration of what happens when that 1% occurs in a crisis. It relates to the events of the first week of April 2020—the second week of lockdown, as your Lordships will recall. In so doing, I am conscious of the omertà principles I signed up to. As your Lordships would expect, I have sought permission from those whom I will name.
It was the early evening of Monday 6 April. I was walking home from Buckingham Palace in the pouring rain; the Queen had just moved to Windsor Castle. I stopped at a bus shelter to take a call from the excellent Martin Reynolds, the principal private secretary to Boris Johnson. We knew that the Prime Minister had gone into hospital the night before. His protection officers had overheard some consultants discussing how they were going to tell Carrie that he might have to go into ICU and on to a ventilator. Clearly, I had to update the Queen on this.
We had our suspicions, because, just the previous Wednesday, the final face-to-face audience at Buckingham Palace had been scheduled. The Prime Minister considered it his duty to be there to do it face to face and the late Queen considered it her duty too—in a sort of Blitz spirit, “Well, I’ve got to die sometime” attitude—but it really was not the moment for taking unnecessary risks. In the end, both participants were so keen to go ahead with it that Martin and I arranged for him to tell the Prime Minister that the Palace wanted to cancel and for me to tell the Queen that No. 10 had got cold feet, which was very lucky, because, by the end of the telephone call—obviously, I would not reveal what was discussed—the Prime Minister had started coughing. It was just the next day that I had a call from my noble friend Lord Sedwill, who I know would wish to be in his usual place today, to say that the Prime Minister had tested positive for Covid, so there was a scenario that we had avoided, luckily, of an unknowingly positive Head of Government being in proximity to a strong but vulnerable Head of State, and history might have taken another constitutionally taxing path.
But back to that rainy bus shelter near Battersea: more and more people were joining the call as I was sitting there on my mobile phone. There was no Deputy Prime Minister. There was no precedent to draw from. Yes, Spencer Perceval had been shot and died—there was some precedent there—but there was no precedent for a Prime Minister who was alive but unable to communicate for an unforeseen period.
It was the impartial nature of the discussion of what was described as scenario C—the euphemistic, anodyne-sounding scenario which was really about what would happen if the Prime Minister died—that was so important. The impartial nature of the advice that I was receiving from the Cabinet Secretary and the principal private secretary, enabling me to report to Her Majesty in supporting her as Head of State, was crucial. It put state before government and certainly before patron. It is crucial when the rulebook runs out to be able to rely on people who have clear judgment to be able to navigate the space between the lines.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, that was a fascinating and remarkable speech. I must apologise that I am the only person speaking from these Benches. Two of my colleagues went down—I hope, not with Covid—in the past two days and had to withdraw, so it is left to me to express our commitment to the idea of an impartial Civil Service. I declare some interest: two members of my close family have spent a significant amount of their career in the Civil Service; I have encouraged many of my university students to join the Civil Service; and I have taught many civil servants over my career.
Government is different from political campaigning and from private business. That is one of the things that some of our Ministers in the past couple of Governments and the current one seem almost to have forgotten. The constant concern with political campaigning has distracted them from the fact that government is difficult and long-term, and you cannot pull a lever and hope that things will be delivered within six months. That is a real problem that social media and the 24-hour news cycle have made worse and therefore more difficult both for Ministers and for officials.
We also have the problem that public trust in government as a whole—politicians, the Commons, the Lords, civil servants—has sunk to a horribly lower level. We all enjoyed “Yes Minister”, but it did not do the reputation of the Civil Service much good over the long run. Then, of course, there has been the damage of the past nine years, in which Ministers in the chaos of Brexit came to distrust their civil servants in thinking what was possible and what should not be. There has been rapid ministerial churn. I know a civil servant well who had six different Ministers in two years to deal with. At that point, you begin to lose faith in the consistency of policy or your ability to promote it.
We also had some Ministers who really did treat civil servants as servants—let us be realistic—and others who believed one of the worse aspects of economic neoliberalism, which is the public choice theory that there is no such thing as a public interest and that civil servants are simply another interest group managing their own affairs as well as they can, working as little as they can and earning as much as they can, and that anyone worth knowing should be making money in the private sector rather than making rules in the public sector. That leads to a preference for private consultants over public officials, which leads to a great amount of government waste, as we have seen. The worst of that was when Liz Truss famously said that she wanted to hear only “the good news”—the precise opposite of the duty of candour, which is what we really need between Ministers and officials, and which, as the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, rightly pointed out, we have not had enough of in recent years.
There are some severe problems that we need to recover. Let us also be honest that Ministers have blamed their civil servants, and poor Ministers have blamed their civil servants as poor workmen blame their tools. The quality of Ministers is as important as the quality of civil servants. Many of the best civil servants I worked with when I was in government left within the five years that followed, and the priority that we now have for restoring the morale and quality of the senior Civil Service is extremely important.
So what should we be doing? The concept of public service is something which, I hope, members of all parties will commit themselves to. Public service matters. The quality of our civil servants also depends on not allowing the gap between public service pay and private sector pay to get too wide. I know of a number of cases recently in which people who have been on secondment from the Civil Service have found that either those interested in employing them cannot take them on because they have to pay them so little compared with others or because the choice of secondment and leaving is a matter of whether or not you are going to have a much higher salary—so the gap is possibly also too large.
We have not really come to terms in our Civil Service with the need for a greater number of specialists. What I have found from the experience of those I know is that the HR function does not value those with special language skills or special knowledge skills or, in particular, those—the few—who have good digital skills. Clearly, the balance between generalist and specialist, and how one continues to ensure that we are valuing and improving those skills as people rise through the system, is extremely important. That also means people moving in and out of the public service in the course of their career. I support the idea that, at senior levels, there should be open competitions, including people from outside as well as inside the Civil Service.
I strongly support the suggestion that local government should be part of where you need to gain your experience from. The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, mentioned the Sam Friedman book, in which he strongly suggests that one of our fundamental problems in Britain is overcentralisation, which is why the central Civil Service has grown so much while local government is very nearly going bankrupt. Unless we get delivery out of Whitehall and back into local democratic government, we will not regain the trust of the public in the quality of our government. So there is much to be done, and much to be done also in training new Ministers, and recognising that Ministers also have to be responsible and open to policy challenge, making sure that there is open debate within.
I will just say a couple of things about political advisers and special advisers because, in preparing for this speech, I came across an interesting article by the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, which distinguished between special advisers and policy advisers. He said that, in his experience, special advisers were extremely useful and policy advisers “necessary but not enough”. The earliest special advisers, I remember from Roy Jenkins’s time in government, were indeed outside specialists recruited to provide you with politically oriented specialist advice—very useful. Most spads today are political advisers; they are to deal with media management, managing the party and polishing the Minister’s reputation. I suspect that what we ought to see more of is experts from outside coming in. Some might say that I am an academic and the sort of person who would like to have more academics in government—but I would do my best to resist that.
I recall the first Policy Unit in No. 10 that I was aware of. Harold Wilson developed his own policy unit with a really good mixture of civil servants and outside experts. As someone who worked in a think tank, I worked with them and well remember the resistance of the traditional Civil Service to them, particularly the “dark-eyed evil genius” whom the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, remembers so well—she now sits on the same Benches as the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, of course. That sort of mix of insiders and outsiders, of different skills, is what we need.
Lastly, I strongly support everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, said about the digital revolution and the importance of gaining digital skills. Whitehall has been, on the whole, resistant to that. Certainly, when I was in government, the resistance to the government digital service’s proposals was very strong. That is something that we all need to spend a great deal more time on.
Part of that is that we need to get back to training civil servants all the way through, from beginning to end. It was a major failure of the coalition Government in 2010 to abolish the National School of Government. I note that most things I have read on this say we now need to have another physical site for something that will rebuild the skills, the morale and the sense of solidarity of our public service as a whole. To maintain the impartiality and the quality of our public service, we need to carry through a fundamental set of changes in order to maintain the best of what we already have.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Butler, for securing this debate on a matter of great importance to the effective functioning of our democracy. In so doing, I pay tribute to someone who has made such an invaluable contribution to public life. As a former Cabinet Secretary—in fact, the noble Lord was Cabinet Secretary when I was at university and I thank him for his time and generosity towards me in this House—his distinguished career in government lends exceptional authority to our deliberations. It is humbling to follow in his footsteps and the contributions of so many eminent noble Lords in this debate.
Let me affirm at the outset that politicisation of the Civil Service is to be avoided. The principles of impartiality, integrity, honesty and objectivity enshrined in the Civil Service Code are not abstract ideals. They are the bedrock of a system that has strengthened and sustained our nation for generations. However, political impartiality does not mean—and has never meant—isolation from the political realities of governance, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, stressed.
Contrary to some claims, and as the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, pointed out, the Civil Service is neither neutral nor independent. Nowhere in statute or case law is it suggested that Civil Servants should, or have a duty to, act independently of government. As Lord Armstrong stated in his 1985 memorandum on the responsibilities of civil servants:
“The Civil Service as such has no constitutional personality or responsibility separate from the duly elected Government of the day”.
Civil servants are servants of the Crown. Yes, they should be able to advise and challenge robustly, but they work on behalf of the Government to implement their policies and achieve their objectives. Impartiality does not grant civil servants the autonomy to decide which political decisions merit execution and which do not. It is for the electorate, not individual civil servants, to judge the wisdom of those decisions and policies. The Cabinet Secretary wrote in his recent resignation letter that civil servants
“must remain servants of others. We should resist the temptation to become the arbiters of, or participants in, legitimate democratic debate, leaving party politics to politicians”.
That the nation’s most senior civil servant should feel compelled to remind his peers of this foundational principle is striking and underscores the importance of today’s debate.
It is also important to clarify that Ministers have a legitimate role in the appointment of civil servants. Under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, the power of appointment is vested in Ministers, not officials. The Civil Service Commission’s recruitment principles acknowledge that ministerial involvement in the appointment of senior civil servants can enhance the appointment process. My noble friend Lord Maude correctly highlights that it is vital that they should have such influence in his magisterial Review of Governance and Accountability in the Civil Service. When exercised responsibly, this involvement ensures that Ministers, who, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge, points out, are accountable to Parliament and the electorate, can help shape a Civil Service that can deliver the Government’s mandate effectively and efficiently.
I will touch briefly on the role of special advisers. As a former spad, I echo the noble Lord, Lord Butler, in recognising the crucial role of special advisers in connecting politics and civil servants to support Ministers’ priorities. Like my noble friend Lord Godson, whom I congratulate on the excellent reports of Policy Exchange in this space, I welcome Labour’s decision to remove the arbitrary cap on the number of special advisers from the Ministerial Code. Far from undermining Civil Service impartiality, spads shield officials from political pressure, allowing them to maintain their objectivity while enabling Ministers to make informed decisions. They are a vital element of the machinery that preserves the integrity of the Civil Service, but their presence should not lead to a progressive exclusion of officials from controversial or challenging political crises. At best, government is a symbiotic blend of political advisers and permanent officials, as I can attest from my time in Downing Street. The noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, and my noble friend Lord Waldegrave reinforced this point.
However, we must confront the widely acknowledged challenges facing the Civil Service. While we should celebrate the professionalism and dedication of many civil servants, it is an open secret that the quality of the highest leadership within the service has, in some cases, fallen short of expectations, as the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, illustrated. This failure was brutally exposed by the Grenfell and infected blood inquiries and stands in stark contrast to previous generations of leaders who exemplified the finest traditions of public service, many of whom have spoken in today’s debate. It also stands in contrast to the achievements of previous generations of Ministers, who have successfully harnessed the Civil Service to deliver political, and sometimes controversial, goals.
The decline in leadership quality cannot be ignored, as it impacts the effectiveness of the Civil Service and, by extension, the Government’s ability to deliver for the public. The leadership has a responsibility to ensure that the Civil Service can continue to serve future Governments and perhaps encourage more of the responsible risk taking advocated by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. For this reason, I raise the opacity surrounding the Senior Leadership Committee, a body ostensibly tasked with overseeing appointments at Permanent Secretary and director-general levels and maintaining the capability of the service.
The House of Lords Constitution Committee, in its recent report on appointing and removing Permanent Secretaries, highlighted the troubling lack of transparency in the committee’s operations. We still lack a clear public record of its deliberations, or the business cases presented before it. This lack of accountability erodes trust in the system and raises legitimate questions about the fairness and propriety of senior appointments. I would be grateful if the Minister could update the House on this matter.
Some of the debate has focused on the politicisation of appointments through exemptions to the Civil Service recruitment principles. This is unsurprising, in light of the controversies surrounding Ian Corfield, Jess Sargeant and Emily Middleton. I emphasise that it is entirely legitimate and often essential for Ministers to bring in external talent to tackle specific challenges. The Vaccine Taskforce, which played such a pivotal role during the Covid-19 pandemic, is a sterling example of the use of exceptional appointments to hire the right people, with the right expertise, to solve critical problems. The noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox, emphasised the similar need for digital skills in government.
However, such appointments must be accompanied by adequate transparency and honesty. Ministers have a duty to disclose all relevant information about appointees to their Permanent Secretaries, to ensure that the process and integrity of these appointments remain above reproach. Labour Ministers, however, failed to disclose the links of these individuals to significant political donations. It is most troubling that the Chancellor did not inform her Permanent Secretary or the Civil Service Commission that one of her appointees was a personal donor both to her and the Labour Party. These omissions and lack of transparency undermine public confidence and give rise to perceptions of impropriety, even when appointments are made in good faith and involve capable individuals.
Unfortunately, the Civil Service Commission’s recent report on the use of appointment exemptions fell short of providing the clarity and accountability needed. In future, the Civil Service Commission should publish a complete list of all appointments to the senior Civil Service made by exception, not just the most senior posts, along with every exemption to the external by default rule. They should consider including more information on any political activity by those appointed under exception, and doing so in cases below SCS 2, as is the case with special advisers. Will the Minister commit to publishing such a list to improve transparency?
As many noble Lords highlighted, our country has indeed been well served by a permanent Civil Service. We must defend impartiality, demand transparency and ensure leadership worthy of the challenges ahead. Only then can we protect the Civil Service from politicisation and preserve it as the impartial and vital engine of our democracy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, for securing this debate. I know it is an important matter to the noble Lord, as it is to your Lordships’ House, to the other place and across the country. As has been noted during the debate, it is also an area in which the noble Lord brings substantial expertise and experience, reflecting his long and distinguished career in government—like the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, I was at university at that point—which it is clear that a number of noble Lords who spoke today have benefitted from.
My noble friend Lady Morgan said noble Lords were drawing from their own experience, but I have to say that it is an impressive and slightly daunting collective experience to me, as a relatively new Minister. Like the noble Lord, Lord Hannett, I am on a learning curve. It has been a thoughtful and valuable debate from that perspective, informed by the varied and extensive contribution of noble Lords, many of whom have unique experience and qualifications to speak on the matter.
In my remarks, I will do my best to respond to the various points that were made. I will also make sure that the Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office, who is responsible for the Civil Service, receives a copy of the record of this debate and the highlighted reports, including that mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Maude of Horsham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar. I declare an interest: I was rejected by the Civil Service fast track, which said I was too opinionated—I think it was probably right.
Like many noble Lords, I pay tribute to the outgoing Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, for his service to the country. The noble Lord, Lord Maude, noted the importance of an impartial Civil Service to the change of Government, and that is vital. Nowhere is the importance of an impartial Civil Service more evident than in the instant transition from one Government to the next following a general election, in which the Civil Service manages to pivot seamlessly—although it probably works really hard to make it look seamless—to support the elected Government of the day. My ministerial colleagues and I have greatly appreciated the work of the Civil Service, and we are thankful that its impartiality has allowed us to begin our work right away.
We do not believe that the Civil Service should be politicised and do not intend to allow this to happen on our watch. I agree with my noble friend Lord Mandelson that the portrayal given by the noble Lord, Lord Butler, felt slightly overstated, but I recognise his concerns. I welcome the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave of North Hill, on the checks and balances required.
It was particularly thought-provoking from my perspective to hear beyond that point about impartiality to the wider perspective of what we need from the Civil Service to be able to deliver. I particularly note the contributions from my noble friend Lady Hodge of Barking and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, on unwelcome advice being required, as well as the point of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, about having a better balance in relation to risk.
As the noble Lord, Lord Butler, and the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, among others, noted, the basis for a politically impartial and permanent Civil Service was first set out in the Northcote-Trevelyan report of 1854. The report urged a move away from recruitment based on patronage and set out the standards that laid the foundation for the modern Civil Service.
As the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, stressed, this is about impartiality not independence from government, although I note that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, suggested that it should be both—so I am clear that there are different views across the House, which is actually quite helpful in a debate of this nature.
The Armstrong memorandum of 1985 set out:
“It is the duty of civil servants to serve their Ministers with integrity and to the best of their ability”.
It said:
“The British Civil Service is a non-political and disciplined career service”.
This was codified in 1996 with the creation of the Civil Service Code, a document that, as has been noted, governs the conduct of civil servants to this day.
My noble friend Lord Hannett referred to the Civil Service Code, which sets out the four values that should be demonstrated: integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality, including political impartiality. This, as noble Lords will know and as has been noted, goes back to the Northcote-Trevelyan principles, including that the principle of fair and open competition. It clearly states that civil servants support the Government of the day.
The code’s importance is such that it is now based in statute, as set out in the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010. It is a contractual obligation for all members of the permanent Civil Service to abide by the code. The importance of the Civil Service Code is underlined in the newly updated Ministerial Code, which was issued by the Prime Minister earlier this month. It includes this requirement:
“Ministers must uphold the political impartiality of the Civil Service and not ask civil servants to act in any way which would conflict with the Civil Service Code”.
There is an equivalent requirement for special advisers, set out in their own code of conduct. The debate reflected the usefulness of having both a politically impartial Civil Service and special advisers to drive government programmes. The noble Lord, Lord Godson, spoke about the value of spads, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Finn.
The noble Baroness, Lady Finn, among others, referred to the role of Ministers in appointments. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 sets out how civil servants should be appointed on the basis of fair and open competition, and outlines that the Civil Service Commission is responsible for publishing a set of recruitment principles.
However, I heard what a number of noble Lords raised about the need to have experts coming in. The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act is clear that there can be exceptions to the recruitment process. Indeed, exceptions are a long-established part of bringing talent and expertise into the Civil Service. Often this is to fulfil specialist, short-term or urgent requirements. My noble friend Lord Mandelson gave good examples of how the external talent and perspective of people appointed by Ministers can add to, rather than detract from, the Civil Service.
Where appointments are made by exception to the principle of fair and open competition, requirements are placed in all cases on the employing departments. They must be satisfied, first, that the use of the relevant exceptions route was justified and, secondly, that the individuals in question could uphold the values of the Civil Service Code.
There were over 16,000 appointments without competition in the last two years of the Conservative Government. This put into context the small number of appointments by exception that have been made under the current Administration so far—a point made by my noble friend Lady Morgan.
Indeed, as was noted by noble Lords, last week the independent Civil Service Commission published its report into appointments by exception in July and August. Noble Lords will recall that this was a period of heightened scrutiny of government appointments. The commission found that
“fewer exceptions were made in this period than is typical in a similar length of time”.
Its report also concluded:
“The Commission was largely satisfied with processes in place within departments to apply, consider and approve exception requests”.
I also note, for completeness, that the report found that, as is generally the case, there were some areas for improvement and that there had been two technical breaches with record-keeping issues. The commission defines a technical breach as those
“which have no or minimal impact on the legal requirement that recruitment into the Civil Service is fair, open and based on merit”.
The debate has reflected general support for the value of a permanent, professional and impartial Civil Service in the United Kingdom. Ministers must be able to speak to their officials from a position of absolute trust. They must have confidence that the advice that they receive is candid, objective and honest, and neither determined by the civil servants’ own political views or opinions nor stripped of inconvenient facts or relevant considerations.
My noble friend Lady Hodge raised an interesting point about accountability, and both she and the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox of Soho, discussed how hard it is for outside candidates to get appointed, as I mentioned earlier. The noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, discussed the undermining of the Civil Service, and the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Dinton, mentioned the impact on the Civil Service of both Brexit and the pandemic. It should be a matter of regret to everyone in your Lordships’ House that the relationship between Ministers and the Civil Service appears to have deteriorated so markedly under the previous Government.
A number of noble Lords gave specific examples of where Ministers have appeared to undermine or publicly comment on civil servants with a detrimental view. I will not comment on specific examples, but I will note them—as all noble Lords should—as well as the potential impact on morale and trust. I feel strongly about morale because, to get a Civil Service that works effectively, we need to have good morale across it.
We need to work across your Lordships’ House to ensure that we get the balance right and that we get the Civil Service that we need to deliver not just for Ministers but for the country. I note the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, about ensuring that we have a self-critical Civil Service. We must address the critical failures that contributed to tragedies such as Grenfell, the infected blood scandal and the Post Office scandal, but there are also wider societal issues in the inquiry reports that Ministers need to address in response. There were also criticisms of how Ministers themselves operated, which we need also to address.
This Government’s relationship with the Civil Service is critical to our delivery of our missions. In his first message to the Civil Service following the general election, the Prime Minister set out his vision for a refreshed relationship between Ministers and civil servants, with openness, collaboration and transparency at its heart. He reiterated his confidence, support and respect for civil servants. I felt that that respect has shone through today’s debate. The Prime Minister’s newly published Ministerial Code confirmed these messages. He set out that Ministers should demand and welcome candid advice, and that Ministers and Permanent Secretaries should have a trusting and positive relationship, with regular opportunities for the exchange of feedback. The code is also clear that Ministers should ensure that government resources, and specifically Civil Service activity, is not used for party-political purposes.
It is worth remembering that underpinning all of this, for both Ministers and civil servants, are the Seven Principles of Public Life—the Nolan principles—which are common standards to which we are all held that are vital for ensuring that we are working together and pulling in the same direction in the public interest.
As was noted by a number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Liddle from his own experience, there is an important role for special advisers here. They are a critical part of the team supporting Ministers. They add a political dimension to the advice and assistance available to Ministers, while reinforcing—as the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, outlined—the political impartiality of the permanent Civil Service by distinguishing the source of political advice and support. They can help Ministers on matters where the work of government and the work of the government party overlap and where it would be inappropriate for permanent civil servants to become involved.
In response to a number of points from noble Lords on how the Civil Service could be supported and improved, over the coming months the Cabinet Office and the Treasury will continue to work with departments to improve productivity and efficiency, both in the public sector and in the Civil Service. More detail on this work will be provided at the next spending review, due to conclude in spring next year. As part of this, the Government are also developing a strategic plan for a more efficient and effective Civil Service, including bold options to improve skills, harness digital technology and drive better outcomes for public services.
I shall turn now to points that have not yet been covered. The noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, raised specific points about the PPS role in No. 10. The principal private secretary role has been advertised externally. I would like to confirm that Ms Pandit was appointed through an exception route, which was approved by the Civil Service Commission, and was on secondment from the NHS. The vacancy was announced on 6 October; she is able to apply for the role substantively, should she so wish.
In relation to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Butler, about whether I could confirm that the Prime Minister will clear the appointment of a new Cabinet Secretary with the leader of the Opposition, I assure the noble Lord that all the appropriate processes will be followed in connection with what is a critical appointment, not just for the Government but for the country as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Maude, asked about improving the transparency of appointments by exception, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Finn. The Civil Service Commission recently confirmed that it will change its policy on the publication of information about exceptions, which it has considered. These are now published monthly, rather than annually, so as to demonstrate the commission’s commitment to transparency and maintain public confidence. I hope that noble Lords will welcome this change.
My noble friend Lady Warwick of Undercliffe asked whether the Government would reconsider the recommendations of the Constitution Committee to give a role for the Civil Service Commission when senior civil servants depart. I will write to the noble Baroness on this matter, since it is something that requires careful consideration. I also reaffirm to my noble friend that this Government are very much committed to the Civil Service values, including, but not limited to, impartiality.
My noble friend Lady Wilcox of Newport spoke about her experience, and I thank her for her contribution, both in today’s debate and in local government. I agree wholeheartedly about the professionalism of civil servants, particularly in the past few years when they, and the nation as a whole, faced a number of unprecedented challenges. I am pleased to hear that she has had an excellent relationship with the Welsh Government Civil Service based in Cardiff, and it is heartening to hear her speak so highly of those with whom she worked, even when they did not see eye to eye on some of the funding decisions.
On the topic of Civil Service morale and turnover, it is a source of great regret that hard-working civil servants across the UK feel this way. I shall certainly ensure that the House is updated in due course, when my colleague, the Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office, reports on her plan to increase productivity through technology.
My noble friend Lady Hodge asked about ministerial accountability and diversity of civil servants’ backgrounds. This is a really pertinent point. In relation to the principle of ministerial accountability and the need for general diversity in the Civil Service, while it is true that the system has changed significantly since 1918, the principle that Ministers are accountable to Parliament and the public, and the civil servants to Ministers, remains important in our system. It was reasserted in the recently published Ministerial Code.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, raised a point about candid advice, which I agree is a critical function of the Civil Service. The noble Lord may have seen that the importance of candid advice was highlighted in the new Ministerial Code, which sets out the Prime Minister’s expectation that Ministers should demand, and welcome, candid advice.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, will not be surprised to hear, I did not entirely agree with many of her points on EDI. The majority of staff time spent on diversity staff networks is voluntary and unpaid, and we believe that staff networks have a valuable purpose. However, the allocation of working time spent on cross-government staff networks is an agreement between the staff network volunteers and their departments as employers. All civil servants should follow the standards set out in the Civil Service Code and Civil Service Management Code in relation to all aspects of their roles.
The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, about the politicisation of the Department of Health is not one that I or this Government recognise, but it is useful to hear alternative views in this debate. One noble Lord raised the issue of groupthink, and again, it is always useful to hear alternative views.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Butler and Lord Turnbull, raised the appointment of Jonathan Powell as the new National Security Adviser, and I am pleased that they agree that he is well suited to the role. I had more to say on that point, but I am keen to respond to some of the other points.
In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, I welcome that there is broad agreement between our Benches because I feel it is vital to both parties and to government in general that parties on both sides of the House agree on the importance of how we approach policy on the Civil Service. The noble Baroness made a number of informed and specific points in this debate, not least from her own professional experience, and I would be happy to meet to discuss them further. She asked specifically about updating the senior leadership appointments protocol. This is currently being updated and will be published in due course.
I will come back to the noble Lord, Lord Maude, and others who raised points about the Civil Service Commission and its independence—I am trying to get through my notes—and I will write to noble Lords about the duty of candour, not least because I know that it is of huge interest, not just to noble Lords who are present today but to your Lordships’ House generally.
In conclusion, I felt it was fitting to hear the personal anecdotes from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Old Windsor, and his account of the early days of the first lockdown. It felt like a fitting end to the main part of the debate, demonstrating the value of the impartial Civil Service in keeping things going. I also enjoyed the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and would welcome the opportunity to talk to him as well.
I thank everyone who has contributed to this important and fascinating debate, and particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Butler, for initiating it. As the Prime Minister said, this Government is one of service. We continue to strengthen our relationship with civil servants while ensuring that the Civil Service remains impartial. We will continue this work and will continue to protect the very foundation of a non-politicised, impartial Civil Service.
Lord Butler of Brockwell (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comprehensive response to this debate, and I thank everybody who has taken part.
I found it a very heartwarming debate, not least because of the complimentary remarks that have been made about me personally. I think of Adlai Stevenson, who was asked whether flattery was damaging, and he said, “Only if you inhale”. I shall try hard not to inhale.
The debate was also heartwarming because I think there has been general support for the concept of the impartial and permanent Civil Service—that really has not been challenged. The other theme to it is, however, that the Civil Service needs improvement. The Civil Service should never be complacent about that; it should always be challenged. The noble Lord, Lord Bichard, I think, made some points that struck very deep. So there is work to be done there, and the Civil Service and those who lead it should not shrink from it.
I finish by thinking of Sir Matthew Stevenson, who, when he was proposing a change, was told, “If you make this change, life will never be the same again”. He said, “You know, that is the characteristic of life—it is what distinguishes it from death”. So there is work to be done, and let us all work to try to continue the improvement of our Civil Service and our general governance arrangements.
Schools: Mobile Phones
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Baroness Kidron
That this House takes note of the increasing interest in mandating that schools be mobile phone free.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, it is a privilege to open today’s debate, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who have chosen to speak. I look forward to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lady Cass, who has done so much for children in a long career in paediatric medicine, including as President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Her voice is very welcome in this debate and her presence will undoubtedly enrich the work of the House. I declare my interests on the register, particularly as chair of 5Rights Foundation and of the Digital Futures for Children research centre at the LSE, and contributor to the DFC’s report on smartphones in schools.
The issue of smartphones in schools should be straightforward. School is for learning, for building relationships, for personal development and acquiring skills such as sports, debating and drama. The academic literature shows that smartphones interrupt that learning and, as the Library note records, a report has stated:
“Because the same finite pool of attentional resources supports both attentional control and other cognitive processes, resources recruited to inhibit automatic attention to one’s phone are made unavailable for other tasks, and performance on these tasks will suffer”.
In more straightforward language, a phone unused on a desk diverts attention that is then unavailable for learning.
Government guidance published earlier this year is also unequivocal. The introduction by the then Secretary of State, Gillian Keegan, says:
“Mobile phones risk unnecessary distraction, disruption and diversion. One in three secondary school pupils report that mobile phones are used in most lessons without permission. This not only distracts the single pupil using the phone, but disrupts the lesson for a whole class, and diverts teachers’ efforts away from learning”.
There are calls for further research, but the evidence that we already have indicates that restricting personal devices benefits learning, with a particular benefit accruing to those identified as disadvantaged or struggling academically. This is important, because advocating for phone restrictions in schools is sometimes characterised as a “middle-class moral panic”. The evidence suggests otherwise. Inasmuch as phones are a distraction or a barrier to the opportunities and activities that schools offer, they have no place in school, but for those who still doubt, let me add four further points.
First is the case of Singapore. In 2020 the Ministry of Education announced that it would embrace smartphones in school and invest in devices for students who could not afford them, simultaneously promoting wide-ranging digital literacy education and teacher training. But in October this year, Singapore’s Straits Times reported widespread misuse of those devices, with one parent discovering their 13 year-old son had spent more than three hours on apps such as YouTube and TikTok and just 13 seconds on Google Classroom. That prompted public calls to restrict personal devices in school, and some schools have already done so.
Secondly, research from Policy Exchange this year found that schools with an effective ban on smartphones were more than twice as likely to be rated outstanding by Ofsted. There may be other contributing factors, but none the less one of the characteristics of an outstanding school is effective smartphone restrictions.
Thirdly, schools that have had well-managed restrictions talk of culture change. Ellie, a 5Rights young advisor, said:
“Because it was banned for everyone, there was no judgment for not having a phone, and it was a lot easier to foster communication with everyone”.
A head teacher quoted in the government guidance said that
“pupils have the headspace and calm environment to learn, and staff have the quiet and focus to teach”.
It is not simply about learning; it is about building a respectful and communicative school community.
Fourthly, and possibly most importantly, children know that they are distracted. A 2019 survey of 3,000 children reported that 45% found their phone distracting at school. In algorithmic terms, 2019 is the dark ages. It marks the earliest days of TikTok’s For You page algorithm, dubbed TikTok’s “secret sauce” by tech journalist Alex Hern, which we now know—because of disclosures prompted by legal action by 14 US states’ attorney-generals—is so powerful that a new user can become addicted in less than 35 minutes.
Noble Lords will note that I have not used the word “ban”, because there are times when smartphones are necessary. There are medical reasons—for example, children with diabetes who use the phone to manage blood sugar. There are services that support children with certain learning difficulties. There are pedagogical and PSHE reasons for having a phone in class. Some vulnerable children or children with caring duties need real-time access to communication. Each of these is acknowledged in the government guidance and each should form part of phone restriction policies in schools.
The Government might argue that the current guidance is so comprehensive and sensible—it is—that no further action is needed. But an estimated 37% of schools do not have a comprehensive restriction in place, and the DfE’s own research found that 20% of secondary school pupils reported mobile phones in most lessons without permission. Up and down the country, safeguarding leads ask for more robust support to manage harmful behaviours and phone-fuelled conflicts.
Optional guidance is not fair to children whose learning experiences are interrupted or to teachers trying to enforce voluntary policies with little support. Putting the guidance on a statutory footing would mean that all schools are subject to restrictions that are flexible enough for educators, who understand the context and circumstances on the ground, to be the final arbiters of when and if having a smartphone is in the best interests of teacher, class or child. It would also place a duty on the Government to ensure that every school was supported and resourced to implement the policy, and to ensure that the impacts were monitored and reported.
Since Pavlov’s conditioning response experiments with dogs in the 1890s, we have understood that the brain can be trained to respond to small increments of dopamine that fuel a craving for more. The tech sector sinks billions of dollars into creating persuasive design strategies that keep children seeking the next opportunity to text, swipe, post or respond. Their distraction is neither an act of wilful disobedience nor an unforeseen consequence but a direct result of the priorities of a sector that openly exploits human psychology and cognitive function to grab attention.
It does not matter whether it is the toxic views of Andrew Tate or the seemingly innocent act of filling a shopping basket and leaving it full at the checkout. The real cost of the attention economy, set out starkly in the briefing from Health Professionals for Safer Screens, is being paid by children who have poorer eyesight, inhibited speech and language development, interrupted sleep and rising rates of anxiety and other mental health issues. Smartphone restrictions do not just protect the sanctity of schools as places of learning and personal development but offer kids a much-needed break.
That brings me to the broader question of tech in our schools. Despite academics, campaigners and even UNESCO raising the alarm, the DfE increasingly allows edtech designed on the same reward-loop principles with unproven pedagogical values and poor privacy practices into the classroom. In one case, a parent refused to consent to her son’s use of Google Classroom and found, to her horror, that he had been consigned to a separate room with a teaching assistant while his classmates, headphones on, were busy researching things on YouTube. In short order, she reversed her decision so that he could be a full member of a class taught by a trained teacher, but her choice was between having an eight year-old on Google Classroom, with its extractive personal data practices and direct links to commercial and age-restricted services, and her child being, in effect, sent to detention.
The DfE has been very unresponsive to concerns about technology for learning, for school management and for safety, including attempts to tell it that many of the monitoring and filtering products in our schools are unable to monitor generative AI. This lack of responsiveness is exacerbated by DSIT’s determination that digital protections do not apply in school settings, ironically giving a child more protections on the bus to school than when they arrive in the building.
The lack of coherence across home and school has created a palpable increase in tensions between teachers and parents. Teachers are exasperated that children come to school tired and wired after nights spent scrolling and gaming, often on products and services that outstrip a child’s capacity to understand or navigate them, while parents are frustrated that homework must be uploaded and that services they do not understand or would rather their children did not use are required to complete teacher-directed tasks. Many feel that children spend far too much time online during the school day.
A recent letter from the Early Years for Digital Standards Action Group to the DfE raised the alarm on how little departmental and regulatory focus is on nursery-age children, citing the routine use of YouTube and passive screen time, the rising cases of inhibited development, access to harmful content and the lack of digital literacy for teachers and parents in early years settings. I am talking about children aged nought to five.
We need clearer standards on how all tech in educational settings is designed and used. It is time for the Department for Education and DSIT to concede that the digital world is seamless and that children of all ages in all settings need equal consideration.
Before I conclude, I will briefly raise the banning of social media altogether for under-16s, as the Australians have proposed and, indeed, passed today. There are practical issues about what falls into that definition. It is unclear whether it means anything with social elements, which would include Google Classroom and many e-commerce and entertainment sites. Should it include services with persuasive design features or gaming? Will it push children into darker, worse parts of the digital world? Of course, what happens when the full force of the tech sector’s offer floods in on a child’s 16th birthday? If I had a school-age child, I might well be among the 58% of UK parents who support a social media ban for under-16s, and I would certainly be among the 69% who say it would make their lives easier, but we are living in a time when you cannot apply for a university, a job or a benefit without being online, when the spectre of living alongside intelligent machines is more likely than not and when, whatever your profession or vocation, you will need digital understanding.
The only reason we would ban children from accessing this new world is that we in Parliament and in government, and our regulators, have spectacularly failed to deliver on the promise that tech would be held to account. It is both inequitable and impractical to ask parents and children to supervise a ban if we continue to allow companies to create deliberately addictive and toxic products in their race for children’s attention. I believe we will look back on this time and regret the generations of children whom we failed to protect on our watch. The least we can do is give some effective respite at school.
I look forward to the Minister’s response, but I must say that the Government failing to send a Minister from DfE is disrespectful to the anguish that so many parents feel and to the lack of support expressed by teachers and safeguarding leads. I hope the Minister will not restrict her comments to existing guidance but will address each of the issues I have raised and undertake to bring Ministers from both DSIT and DfE to the House to discuss a path forward on each. I beg to move.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure, as it was last week, to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and I too look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Cass.
Smartphones are addictive by design, with the messaging, the notifications and the social media likes. We get trapped into behaviours that produce dopamine, which gives us short-term pleasure hits, and thereby the behaviour patterns become addictive. This shift in behaviour is especially distracting and potentially damaging for children. But we as adults are as addicted as our children. I can look around this Chamber every day and see up to half of your Lordships looking at their phone. I cannot therefore look a young person in the eye and tell them we are banning their phones when we are just as addicted as they are.
My 13 year-old has learned to be an independent traveller, commuting 45 minutes each way to school on the P4 bus or taking a train on her own to see Auntie Sandi in Cardiff. None of that would be possible without the messaging and travel information on her phone. Her homework is set on her phone, as is her music and as is the information on the web to support learning and the app to help her calm down when she becomes overwrought. So how should we protect children as parents and policymakers, while teaching and modelling positive smartphone behaviour?
I do not think it is appropriate for primary school-age children to have phones, and parents should be encouraged to limit their phone use around young children as much as possible. This is an important time for children to learn positive social and emotional behaviour and not be constantly babysat by screens. Ofcom should robustly use its powers under the Online Safety Act to ensure that social media companies abide by their own terms and conditions, keep under-13s off their platforms and protect children from porn and the range of harms we legislated against. Ideally it should be easier for parents to restrict content on their children’s devices using their wifi router settings and local device management. I do that at home, but I recognise that not everyone is as tech curious or capable of doing the same. There is a need for the connectivity providers and for Apple and Google to make that easier for parents.
In our home, we have also agreed a digital code of conduct as a family—back when Coco was just eight. No phones in bedrooms at night, no tech at meals, no sharing pictures online without consent. We all have to comply. As parents we also limit her to one social media app at any given time—her current choice is Pinterest to help her with her art at school—and all apps are downloaded with my approval. Incidentally, WhatsApp counts as social media and she therefore has to navigate her social life without the traumas meted out on that platform by other users.
What about schools? My preference would be for a ban on phones in primary schools, but for secondaries I am attracted to the technology used by the John Wallis Academy in Ashford as an example. Children place their phones in lockable pouches and lock them as they enter school, where they are welcomed and checked by teachers. The pouches block the phone signal and can be unlocked only using a similar device to that used to remove security tags from clothes in shops.
This is an elegant solution. The distraction of phones is eliminated. It is relatively straightforward for the school to do but also allows for phones to be unlocked for learning if that is what a teacher wants to do—because we also need to find room in the timetable for media literacy, perhaps by teaching journalism; teaching how to create good audio, video and text using phones; teaching how to research and critically think, and how algorithms are manipulated and manipulate you in turn; and teaching how the business models of free services work on your phone and what you are giving away in exchange. This is learning that we all need as teachers, parents and children.
This is a shared responsibility between home and school. Our digital consumption, like sugar, is addictive. We need to consider what is healthy. As a family, we choose the rules to ensure that we do not become digitally obese, that we consume the right things and that we treat one another with respect, trust, individuality, collaboration and kindness in a digital world. It is on all of us.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, I was genuinely in two minds about contributing to this important debate due to the expertise that exists in our Chamber, not least from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, whose work on online harms is renowned and her reputation well deserved. I am particularly looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, whose recent authoritative report I publicly applaud.
As a grandma of three grandchildren, I am already concerned about their screen time. Before diving into the murky pool of politics, I was the pastoral head of a large comprehensive school, where I was responsible for child protection and safeguarding. To me, this is a safeguarding issue. Even then, I had begun to notice increases in mental health issues; things that were rare were becoming common. My son recommended that I read The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. His main tenet was that two factors within Generation Z have created this anxious generation: the overprotection of young people in the real world and the underprotection of them in the virtual world. That was the lightbulb moment when everything fell into place.
There is now a significant body of authoritative data showing that depression, anxiety and other mental health issues are on the increase in young people. There also seems to be a growing consensus that the use of smartphones has been and continues to be a major contributing factor to this. The kids are definitely not all right.
Health Professionals for Safer Screens is very clear that the risks are overwhelming and increasing and outweigh any benefits. That is a sit-up-and-take-notice statement—and, to be fair, some parents are doing just that. Parentkind, in its informative briefing, told us that eight in 10 parents say that smartphones are harmful to young people, while seven in 10 say that limiting children’s access to smartphones would make life easier for them as parents.
We are now faced with having accepted this wonderful new technology that we all love, to which I confess to being addicted, with its many positives, but without concrete knowledge about the impact on our children—until now. Apparently, older teens spend at least eight hours a day in front of a screen, teenage boys more than girls, and even eight to 10 year-olds spend at least six hours a day. Eight hours in a day is an enormous amount of time that could, and in my view should, be spent on personal and social development in the real world. Instead, they become passive consumers of other people’s curated worlds, giving them a very poor representation of reality.
I believe that allowing children several hours a day without phone distractions is a good thing in itself, and it would break the addictive cycle that is associated with excessive use. It is no surprise to me that there has been a rise in the number of youngsters with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder—ADHD—an inability to keep focused. Clear restrictions on phones in schools would send a very clear message to parents that the excessive use of phones causes demonstrable harms—harms that in the real world they are seeking to protect their children from. Schools are best placed to take on that educative role for students and to empower parents to take back control in the home. The evidence shows that many schools are doing that.
I feel that a school’s leadership team should be able to decide how to make such restrictions work and make exceptions. The key question we are asking is whether it should be mandated, and I believe that it should be seriously considered. It is illegal for youngsters to buy alcohol or other drugs and to gamble. Most parents would not be happy if their child had a bottle of vodka or a bag of weed in their school bag, but the phone sits there capable of creating the same cravings, desires and subsequent addiction. That bothers me greatly.
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
I briefly remind noble Lords that the speaking time is four minutes. I ask noble Lords to please stick to it so that we can finish the debate on time.
Lord Hampton (CB)
My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Kidron for securing this important debate and I look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Cass. In case anybody has not met me and does not know, I am a state secondary school teacher in Hackney.
I thank all the organisations that sent briefings, but most of them were about online safety and I will confine my remarks to smartphones in schools. As we have heard, the Parentkind survey found that 83% of parents say that smartphones are harmful to young people. I disagree—I love smartphones.
Due to some rather complex arrangements, I have three 13 year-olds in my household. They use smartphones to keep in touch, play games, organise their sporting activities, do homework, talk to friends and, equally importantly, talk to relatives at home and abroad. To take a smartphone away from a secondary school pupil would be to isolate them almost totally and to stigmatise them.
I think smartphones are great, but not in schools. In 10 years of teaching, I have never taught in a school that allows mobile phones and I hope that I never do. The school where I trained, St George’s in Westminster, was one of the first state schools to ban mobile phones in school because in December 1995 a mobile phone call from the school summoned a gang that ended up killing the head teacher, Philip Lawrence.
The school where I presently teach, Mossbourne Community Academy, does not allow phones for students under 16 for all the obvious reasons. One of the most important is that our students wear distinctive uniforms. They are not allowed to carry cash either. It makes them not worth mugging, always a risk in our part of Hackney. Students who are seen with a phone or in a shop in school uniform are severely punished. It is amazing how a cashless and phoneless walk home can reduce the desire for a little light shoplifting or to take revenge on social media.
The worry that we hear from parents is about the journey home. Our pupils have to go the most direct route home after school, so parents know when to expect them. Any detentions, sports fixtures or clubs are written in advance in a pupil’s planner, an A5 diary that they will have with them at all times. If their public transport is delayed, pupils are told to seek a responsible-looking adult and politely ask whether they could send a message home, saying what has happened.
The Carers Trust talks of the importance of young carers needing a phone to stay in contact. As we have already said, it is much more important to give young carers time and space for their education, safe in the knowledge that, if there is an emergency, they can be contacted. Any school wanting to ban phones must have an efficient system to get a message through to students when it is needed. Plans change. We all know that.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said, the only exception should be for medical conditions. Diabetes UK makes a very sensible point that diabetes management is now mainly through an app. All this should be part of an individual healthcare plan. I agree that it is vital that children should use the latest technology to manage serious medical conditions.
We have survived many thousands of years without smartphones in schools. Why do we need them now?
The Lord Bishop of Oxford
My Lords, it is an honour to take part in this debate. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on her excellent introduction. I too look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Cass.
The diocese of Oxford, where I serve, has 285 church schools. We share in the education of over 60,000 children through these schools and the network of multi-academy trusts. There is a broad consensus on the importance of this issue and in favour of smartphone-free schools. However, there is not yet a final consensus on the next steps to be taken to bring this about. The consensus arises from our commitment to follow the Christian values of wisdom, respect, community and hope in all our schools.
Nine days ago, I visited the Chiltern Hills Academy secondary school in Buckinghamshire to meet some sixth-formers and the principal. The school had just introduced and enforced a rigorous ban on smartphones below sixth-form level, which the sixth-formers seemed quite happy about. Outside the sixth-form study centre, the sixth-formers use lockable pouches, such as those referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. This genuinely seemed to be working well for the students and brought them relief. I asked the principal about the effects of the policy in the first term. His first answer surprised me: there were fewer fights; in fact, there were no fights. I asked why that should be. He said it was because they could not be filmed and put online. The ban has translated into better behaviour overall, less bullying and higher levels of concentration, which are in turn translating into more learning, better relationships, healthier communities and higher attainment. These outcomes are all supported by the extensive research summarised in the briefings we have received, including the report Disconnect from Policy Exchange. The case for smartphone-free schools seems very strong.
A few weeks ago, I had another piece of evidence. I visited a primary school in Oxford, where I had a sobering conversation with the excellent head teacher. It concerned the effects of the unchecked use of smartphones and social media on those who are now in their 20s and the parents of the children in her school. The head described the challenges of communicating with this TikTok generation of parents. The school now has to prepare a short, TikTok-style video of one or two minutes on such simple subjects as how to prepare a healthy lunchbox because the concentration levels among the parents have become so low and their ways of receiving information so restricted. The head described as well how much of her staff’s time was taken up with responding to parent group WhatsApp messages for similar reasons.
All the evidence presented by Jonathan Haidt and others suggests that smartphones need to be regulated through a combination of legislation, industry good design, and intermediate institutions such as workplaces, schools, families and individuals. Addictive technology needs communities of resistance to be formed by schools and parents. Very senior colleagues agree on the need for these restrictions but differ somewhat on the means. I would welcome further government leadership and legislation which set an enforced benchmark for schools and brought the best research to bear, but which left the means of implementation in the hands of schools and the educators themselves. The mental health and attention span of our children and the whole of our society are at stake.
Baroness Cass (CB) (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is a great honour to be making my maiden speech in your Lordships’ House. It certainly was not a future I could have envisaged when I started my career as a doctor in 1982. In those days, induction was simple; I was handed a bleep and a list of patients and was pointed in the general direction of the ward—although, to allay any panic in the House, I should say that hospital inductions have improved considerably since then. My arrival here was quite different. The induction process organised by the Clerk of the Parliaments and his team has been superb, and Black Rod’s reassurance that time is on my side, and that this is a marathon and not a sprint, did much to calm my nerves. The kind welcome from Members on all sides of the House has been truly heartwarming, and I want particularly to thank my supporters, the noble Baronesses, Lady Hollins and Lady Neuberger, who have been an ongoing source of wise counsel, as has my staff contact, James Galbraith.
One of my early memories from my houseman years was running for a cardiac arrest just days into a new job. I was well ahead of the pack as I rounded a corner, opened what I took to be the ward door and found myself in a broom cupboard. With the rest of the team hard behind me, I laid low until they had passed, before emerging and arriving last at the scene. Since arriving here, I have spent even more time lost, and I fear that the endlessly kind and patient doorkeepers will be rescuing me from broom cupboards for some time to come.
At medical school, adult medicine occupied 95% of my training so, like most young doctors, when I started my first paediatric post I was terrified. My registrar told me not to worry: children were just like adults, only smaller. Of course it was not true, but it got me through my first night. Indeed, many years later when I was moonlighting on an adult ward, I prayed that they were just like children, only bigger.
Everyone in this House knows that children are not like adults, only smaller. They are in a dynamic state of physical, personal and emotional development, so I am delighted to give my maiden speech as part of this important debate moved by my noble friend Lady Kidron, to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for her tireless work in advocating for children’s rights and safety in the online world.
My noble friend has already told us about the impact of smartphones on attention, learning and culture. Some people have questioned the research, suggesting that an association between smartphone use and learning problems does not prove causation. However, if we imagine a deliberate social experiment where we exposed children to several hours of screen time a day, including potentially harmful content, some negative effects would surely be inevitable—and that is what we have done.
With schools already taking positive action to restrict smartphone use, I would like to make three points. First, we need young people’s voices in the national debate. Two recent studies of 13 to 18 year-olds found that 15% to 20% reported addictive-like smartphone use. This was linked to higher rates of anxiety, depression and insomnia. The good news is that a majority recognised the problem and were already taking active steps to reduce their smartphone use.
Young people are worried about this issue. It will doubtless be a hot topic among many active youth groups such as those at the National Children’s Bureau, 5Rights and the UK Youth Parliament, which even now has a Select Committee taking evidence on the links between social media and youth violence. If we do not engage these young advocates to be partners in our deliberations and actions, imposing restrictions in school may just produce behaviours akin to smoking behind the bike shed.
Secondly, we know that some young children are at particular risk in the online world; for example, those who are struggling with mental health or have a history of being bullied. Reducing exposure in school may be one strand of a strategy to address this, but more research and action are needed to protect this vulnerable group.
Finally, we need to take a public health-style approach to this issue. Parents and teachers need support and information to help them work together rather than pulling in different directions. We need a broad education programme aimed at helping everyone to understand both the risks and benefits of smartphones, and how to use them wisely, safely and in ways which do not compromise learning, mental health and social development.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, and to warmly welcome her here. Five years ago, the noble Baroness was anticipating retirement, after an immensely distinguished career as a paediatrician, specialising in autism, and having served as president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. She was looking forward to learning the saxophone. Instead, she agreed to chair the Cass review, taking immense care to study all the evidence and taking nearly four years to complete it.
Informed by meetings with more than 1,000 people, seven new evidence reviews and a survey of 15 gender clinics across Europe, she achieved what many thought was impossible, to bring about something close to a consensus on one of the more difficult issues of our time: how best to care for children who are gender questioning or gender distressed. She did so with calm, compassionate and evidence-based writing and reasoning in the publication of the most comprehensive review ever undertaken into youth gender care.
This willingness to follow the evidence and not to follow the herd, is what makes the noble Baroness such a welcome addition to our Chamber. She is just what we need. As we come to grapple with issues such as assisted dying, her experience with disability and palliative care in children’s medicine will be invaluable—no time for that saxophone, I am afraid. We look forward to her contributions to our debate.
It is also a tradition to thank the noble Baroness for moving today’s debate, but I do so with genuine enthusiastic gratitude. Childhood has changed beyond imagination, and not for the better, from the change in children’s food intake, now an average 80% ultra-processed diet, the teaching of contested ideology in schools as fact, lack of traditional play to aid development and, worst of all, the addictive nature of smartphones. We should all be focusing on what we can do to protect the next generation from the repercussions of constant unrestricted access to the internet.
Almost daily, new reports indicate that banning smartphones in schools leads to beneficial impacts on educational attainment, social skills, student behaviour and educational inequality. Stopping their use in schools goes a long way to aiding the development of children. It is increasingly clear that smartphones stifle the cognitive skills vital for academic success. A study involving 150,000 students across 16 countries has demonstrated that the proliferation of smartphone usage in the classroom has significantly damaged the process of learning and academic achievement.
The recent Policy Exchange report mentioned by other noble Lords found that children in schools that have an effective ban on smartphones achieve GCSE results one to two grades higher than those that do not. It also found that only around 11 % of secondary schools have an effective smartphone ban, although those numbers are rapidly increasing as more and more schools recognise the dangers and harms. It found direct correlations to other positive outcomes, including noticeable reductions in bullying and an increase in amounts of healthy physical activity by pupils. A legal ban on smartphones for schools across the UK would provide protection for teachers when parents push back, although most parents I speak to are worried sick about the impact that constant access to phones is having on their children and would welcome such a ban.
The unions are increasingly concerned, too. In response to the NASUWT “Big Question” survey, asking what pupil behaviour problems cause the most concern on a day-to-day basis, the percentage of teachers who think distraction of mobile phones is a major issue has risen from 20% just four years ago to 32% today. They comment that
“social media has encouraged poor behaviours and has been the catalyst for poor behaviour in general. Social media is affecting how students form relationships. Students use phones and social media almost constantly. They are unaware of the world, each other, anything”.
That comes from one of our leading teaching unions.
Now, as a mother of two, thankfully born and raised in a world before smartphones, I of course recognise the value that smartphones can bring to a child’s security—but while they are in school, they are secure. Relentless consumption of internet content provides a threat not only to learning but to mental health. Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation and an expert social psychologist, cites
“social deprivation, sleep deprivation, attention fragmentation, and addiction”
as the symptoms of smartphone overusage by young people. Only last week, health professionals were here in Parliament giving powerful evidence about the damage caused to developmental issues, including language and communication, as well as physical changes in the brain and to eyesight, leading to eating disorders, obesity and musculoskeletal changes as well as issues with sleep.
It is worth looking at evidence of children themselves. After the John Wallis Academy imposed a complete ban on smartphones, a set of year 7 pupils were asked as part of a survey how they felt about the ban. Only 11 % wished they had more access to their devices, while 52% of pupils felt that the policy had an extremely positive impact, citing more human interactions, better concentration and increased learning. The evidence is clear: without regulation, our children face a dystopian future. I urge the Minister and her colleagues to act without delay.
Baroness Goudie (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, and welcome her to the House. I am looking forward to discussing these and other matters with her. I thank my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for securing this debate this afternoon. It is vital that we discuss this. I also thank those in the House of Lords Library and many organisations and individuals outside who sent me many links and much advice—too much to be able to mention this afternoon.
I am pleased to address the crucial issue of mandating mobile phone-free schools. As the Motion from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, rightly highlights, there is a growing interest in restricting mobile phone use within educational settings. While such a measure holds great promise for fostering positive learning environments, we must also recognise the disproportionate impact that mobile phones, and especially social media, have on adolescent mental health, particularly among young girls.
Research from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, alongside similar international findings, reveals a clear gender disparity in how social media influences mental health. Girls, on average, spend more time on social media than boys, which correlates with higher rates of depression, anxiety and body dissatisfaction. Young women face particular vulnerability to the pressures of idealised online content and the risks of online harassment. For those who engage with social media for five or more hours each day, depressive symptoms can increase by as much as 50%. This stark statistic highlights the emotional toll experienced by many young women. Further, bullying increasingly occurs online, with mobile phones enabling harmful behaviours that may lead to severe disciplinary actions, including suspensions or expulsions from school in extreme cases, which none of us wish to see. Mobile phones become a weapon of choice in bullying, exacerbating the mental health and well-being crises facing our students.
The frequent use of smartphones is linked to negative effects on both physical and mental health. Prolonged screen time has been shown to impair impulse control, encourage addictive behaviours and hinder concentration. Social media use is also associated with lower self-esteem and heightened levels of depression and anxiety, as I mentioned. Additionally, the blue light emitted by smartphones can damage eyesight, disrupt sleep and contribute to other health issues. Clearly, time away from smartphones would be beneficial for students’ overall well-being.
A mobile phone-free policy in schools could mitigate these risks, but we must also consider its potential to deepen inequalities, particularly for children from less stable family backgrounds. We must acknowledge the needs of students with caring responsibilities or those from split families. For some, being reachable by phone is essential; for instance, those who care for siblings or other family members may need to respond quickly in an emergency. Similarly, children who have to move between homes due to shared custody arrangements rely on phones to stay connected with both parents. A blanket mobile phone ban could inadvertently place additional stress on those students who depend on their devices for emotional support and stability.
In the light of these challenges, I advocate for a balanced, nuanced approach to mobile phone use in schools. We should consider structured policies that limit distractions while recognising the legitimate need for occasional communication. For instance, media use should be prohibited during school hours, although I acknowledge that enforcing this would be difficult.
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Kidron on her insight, expertise and unflagging focus on this issue. I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, to our Benches. The move towards mobile-free schools is gathering momentum around the world—interestingly, particularly in Asia—and the guidance this February from the DfE is very welcome.
I decided to use a real school as an example, so I spent some time yesterday with David Smith, headmaster of Fulham Boys School, to get his insights into the mobile phone policies for his 800 pupils: 97% of seniors and 56% of 10 to 11 year-olds have a smartphone; 42% of his boys reported receiving about 50 notifications per day and 11% reported receiving over 200; and 38% of the boys reported that they are allowed unrestricted access to their smartphone at home by their parents. The boys are happy with the new policy, unlike some of the parents of the older boys, and the parents of the younger boys are ecstatic about it. The parents who are concerned either feel that their children should have unrestricted access or are anxious to be able to be in almost constant contact with them. It is interesting that the parents are far more anxious than their children.
David commented that a smartphone-free school is not the answer, since it will be continuously damaging for children if they are able to use smartphones outside the school. To illustrate that point, many of the 10 or 11 year-olds who arrive there have already been exposed online to pornography, violence and misogyny. He said it is a shame that we have to teach these boys about these elements in society after they have learned about them, rather than before. He and other headmasters are working with smartphone manufacturers to encourage them to develop a scaled-down smartphone which can access some services, such as transport and mapping apps, but not others.
I make three requests of the DfE. I do not necessarily expect an answer at the Dispatch Box, so if the Minister follows up in writing, that would be fine. First, I urge it to work with schools and the mobile phone industry to develop safe intermediate phones that could, for example, be used by child carers or those who have diabetes and other things but will not allow them to access the darker reaches of the online world.
Secondly, the DfE needs to work very closely with Ofsted. I am conscious that, during the passage of the Online Safety Bill, we poured more and more responsibility on to Ofcom. I suspect that in this world we will put more responsibility on to Ofsted. We need to ensure it understands what it is looking for and measuring.
Thirdly, robust, reliable and understandable data is key. I was looking at a major Australian scoping review this year by the Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools, which managed to find only 22 different studies in the entire world which met the threshold of rigour required. The review says there is a severe lack of really reliable evidence and data on which to judge what should be done and the effectiveness of what has been done. Will the Government prioritise working with appropriate institutions and other Governments to develop high-quality, robust evidence and interpretation of outcomes? We know why we are doing this, but we do not know enough about what really works.
Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for securing this debate and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, on her maiden speech.
I still remember the excitement from the day I purchased my first mobile, at the age of 10, from the Argos catalogue. Roll on just over 20 years and mobiles have very much changed. One of the biggest differences is the access to apps and sites that seek to elongate the time children spend on their devices, in order to expose them to advertising content. While restricting phones in schools seems a sensible start, I have concerns that it would simply be a temporary sticking plaster, masking the much wider problems of how younger generations interact with tech and the addictive nature of the content fed to them via algorithms, designed with the specific intent of keeping them online.
While smartphones can do wonderful things, such as teach children new languages or help their parents or guardians track their location, they also have the potential to cause isolation, anxiety and low self-esteem. Bullying no longer stops at the school gate; it continues when children are at home. Internet Matters found that 71% of children had experienced harm online. Ofcom’s Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes report in 2023 found that among three to 17-year olds, 53% were on TikTok, 46% were on Snapchat and 88% use YouTube. This has undoubtedly had a huge impact on the views and aspirations of our younger generations. A poll by Lego of children aged eight to 12 found that British and American children were nearly three times more likely to want to be YouTube influencers than astronauts when they grew up.
The influence of social media does not stop at career aspiration, with the British Association of Dermatologists recently warning of irreversible skin problems due to the growing trend of children as young as eight using anti-ageing skincare products they had seen on TikTok and YouTube. Vodafone found that, following innocent and unrelated searches, algorithms are pushing content to boys relating to misogyny and violence. If we do not break from this status quo, we will have a generation of children whose thoughts and opinions have been shaped by algorithms designed to maximise engagement, hold their attention for ever-increasing periods of time and sell advertising revenue, with the consequence of pushing more and more extreme content to them. One article I read suggested that 99% of Snapchat’s revenue is from advertising.
In South Korea, we recently saw the distressing report of an outbreak of sexually explicit deepfake content, with forums dedicated to specific schools. Here in the UK, Internet Matters found that 13% of children have experience with a nude deepfake. My Private Member’s Bill would create further offences around the non-consensual creation of sexually explicit content.
However, the problem is not just deepfakes. One woman I spoke to recalled that she was 11 years old when she first received a sexually explicit image on Snapchat. Furthermore, we have recently seen hugely distressing cases of children taking their own lives due to so-called sextortion, in which they are blackmailed with intimate images. While it is always illegal for children to share or create intimate images, we must face up to the reality that this is happening, and remove the shame and stigma so that no child feels they have no other option but to take their own life.
We must remember that there is a very simple choice here. Tech companies can provide phones and apps that are safe by design. It is becoming increasingly clear that they are choosing not to.
Lord Chartres (CB)
My Lords, speaking on this subject after the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, is rather like Ruth gleaning after a combine harvester. I agree with absolutely everything she said in her masterful summary of the subject.
The statistic that haunts me at night is one about people who have just left our schools. It is from the Office for National Statistics; we are told that this year there are 872,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 not in work, employment or training. We are also told that a large part of that has to do with technologies and the sort of dangers and pressures that other noble Lords have described.
I quote Jonathan Haidt again, but a different phrase:
“Gen Z became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, and unstable”.
This has had devastating effects. Perhaps, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, suggested, it is wake-up time for public authorities and parents to regain our courage after a period in which there has been a great deal of hesitancy about positively teaching and reinforcing healthful ways of life as established truths, rather than as merely interesting topics for classroom discussion. There is a crisis of authority involved in what we have been discussing; it has left the field empty, to some extent, to be filled by people with repellent views such as Andrew Tate.
I was very impressed by the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, in particular her appeal that the voices of young people should be represented in this debate. We cannot uninvent social media; we must learn how to live with it fruitfully. I have been particularly inspired, in the spirit of what the noble Baroness said, by a campaign launched by a 17 year-old from Glasgow, Lewis Swire. He is a remarkable young man who won the Diana Award in 2023 for social activism. He has launched Reel It In, a youth-led campaign to end social media addiction. He cites the 2019 special report from the Science and Technology Committee in another place, which said:
“Strategies to prolong user engagement should be prohibited”.
How far have the Government got with devising ways of doing precisely that?
We are exposing people to some very dangerous material. My last words are that the inquest into the death of Molly Russell, aged 14 and from Harrow, concluded that she ended her life while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online contact.
The Earl of Effingham (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for securing this debate, which I believe is incredibly important for the future well-being and success of our younger generations. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, on her maiden speech.
I start with some alarming statistics. One out of every two teenagers feel addicted to their smartphones; 60% of parents feel that their children are addicted to them; and 77% of parents feel that their child gets distracted by his or her devices, and does not pay attention when they are together, at least a few times per week. In a recent school assembly on smartphones and social media, 240 year 7 students were asked, “Who has a smartphone?” Almost every hand went up. They were then asked, “Who here was awoken last night by a notification on their smartphone?” Sadly, half of them raised their hands. Around one in five adolescents in England has been cyberbullied.
When we check our smartphones, our brains release a small amount of dopamine, and that dopamine motivates us to take action. Each time we hear a notification, we check our device. The huge issue is that the dopamine boost is temporary and leads to a letdown. Our brains want more dopamine, which triggers the habit of checking our phones constantly throughout the day. We should listen to Josh MacAlister, a former teacher who now resides in the other place. He is clear that there is a growing body of evidence showing that smartphones—and social media in particular—are negatively impacting children’s mental health, sleep and learning.
It was confirmed only a few hours ago that Australia will ban children under 16 years old from using social media, after its Senate approved the world’s strictest laws in this area. Some Los Angeles schools are banning smartphones, as the leaders of the schools believe that it will unlock creativity and connection. I know first hand from two large independent schools in the UK, both of which now have a policy of banning smartphones for certain year groups at certain parts of the day, that it works. The results show that the students talk to each, interact socially and want to do more drama, art and sport.
I am not suggesting that there are no benefits to children having smartphones—the world has changed dramatically in the past 20 years and social norms have changed with it—but why would you allow a child to have an addictive device in a classroom, when that child should be learning and building on the foundations of knowledge that will empower them for the rest of their lives? I have a simple question for the Minister: given all the evidence available, why would the Government not want to ban smartphones in the classroom?
Lord Mitchell (Lab)
My Lords, it was joy to listen to the excellent maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, and we look forward to her future contributions.
In thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for securing this debate, I will not go through the usual pleasantries. Simply put, I cannot think of anyone else in this country who has done more to influence policy and legislation to protect children from the ravages of the internet than the noble Baroness. We all owe her a great debt of thanks. She never gives up.
I first bought a mobile phone in 1985—I guess a few years before the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, first bought hers. In those days, you had to have the strength of Hercules to lift it to your ear. That was almost 40 years ago, which means that for nearly half of my life I have possessed a mobile phone. Like many of us, it is an essential part of my being, and I do not know how I could live without it.
Today, we have the terminology wrong, because the word “phone” is a misnomer. This debate has the word “phone” in its title, but when was the last time you saw a child using a mobile as a phone? They do not talk; they text, they use FaceTime and they use social media. The mobile today is a very powerful communications tool that just happens to have a phone and camera attached. It is a window to the world that provides access to most of human knowledge and activity—for better and for worse.
This story is nowhere near over. Shortly, new iPhones will have powerful AI built into them—Apple Intelligence—and Google will follow just behind. Where is that going? I have no idea. I sense that much of it will not be good. Today, Meta and Apple sell virtual-reality goggles. They are expensive and cumbersome, but they point to the direction of travel. Devices that look like normal reading glasses, but with the same capability as mobile phones, are just around the corner. All these developments will pose challenges to the school environment. How will they be detected and controlled?
The noble Baroness is the joint author of an outstanding report produced by the LSE. It states that more evidence is needed on whether to have mobile phones in schools. My instinct is that we should not. I believe that children or teenagers should not be permitted to use their devices on school premises. Why? First, the smart devices have value; they cost several hundred pounds each. London is the world centre of iPhone theft, so it is all too tempting and dangerous.
Secondly, there is device envy. Most children can spot an up-to-date phone immediately. Is it healthy to have children putting pressure on parents for the latest model?
Thirdly, there is content. Can this be controlled by schools and parents? In theory yes, but we all know that it is easy to circumvent. Do we really want children looking at unsuitable content at school?
Many schools are subjected to intense pressure to allow mobiles to be used on their premises. It is often hard for a school to resist. Making it mandatory would resolve the problem.
Lord Strathcarron (Con)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for securing this debate. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, on her wonderful maiden speech, which was inspirational, as is her work as Dr Cass.
I have learned a lot from being part of our Learn with the Lords education outreach programme. For noble Lords not familiar with it, the format is that we visit the school in question, make a PowerPoint presentation and then have an extended question and answer session, followed by lunch with the head and/or senior staff. I always take the opportunity to turn the question and answer session around, and two particularly topical subjects with both students and teachers are smartphones in schools and the voting age. These students are usually in years 10 to 13—so they are mid-teens.
My findings are therefore derived from the strawest of straw polls, based on random visits to half a dozen schools in Hampshire. Nevertheless, the feedback from the students and teachers left a strong impression of a wider consensus. About the use of smartphones in schools there are two aspects: smartphones on the school premises as a whole, and smartphones in classrooms. The overwhelming opinion of teachers was that they should be banned from the school premises in total, while pupils could see the point of banning them in classrooms but were against them being banned in, for instance, playgrounds and common areas.
The arguments for having smartphones banned throughout the school are that teachers observe students becoming addicted to social media and arcade games in particular. Among teachers, there is an unprovable suspicion that their pupils’ young minds are being manipulated by cynically written software to increase their addiction. Teachers also noticed an increase in sleep deprivation, with many students falling asleep during class time or playtime. Their assumption was that this was caused by them having screen time, rather than sleep time, at night. An equal objection is the lack of social interaction, with children and teenagers no longer learning directly from each other but learning remotely from whomever or whatever is on the other end of their smartphones. All of this has been made much worse by the terrible decision to close schools during the lockdowns. During that time, their only same-age company was via a smartphone at home.
I visited one special educational needs school that had a variation on this theme: students felt the need to be able to contact their parents at any time, and not being able to do so could easily cause anxiety and distress. The solution here is obvious: have a phone that just makes phone calls and sends texts—in other words, phones but not smartphones. This, in fact, could be a wider solution to the problem at hand.
Two weeks ago, I gave a guided tour of your Lordships’ House to a teacher and half a dozen overseas teenagers from the Philippines, the Congo, Morocco, China, Ukraine and Argentina. Later, we repaired for tea in the River Restaurant. In light of the debate today, I asked them about smartphones in schools. It seems this is a worldwide discussion. The consensus was clear: a ban was the only way for students to be able to give their full attention to their teachers and each other. I know that this is all anecdotal evidence, but it is evidence nevertheless in support of a ban on smartphones but not necessarily on ordinary text and call phones.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, not just on this debate but on her tireless advocacy for online safety for all children. She has my lasting gratitude, especially as a current parent of a teenager. My interest as a recent chair of governors is in the register. I fear that we will look back on this particular cohort of children, who have grown up with all the challenges of the social media age, and ask ourselves what on earth we were thinking. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, on her thoughtful maiden speech. I look forward to hearing more from her in the future.
As any parent of a child in this digital age will be aware, parents feel as if they are constantly judged and endlessly failing when this issue is discussed, so the care and kindness in this debate has been extremely welcome. If you have ever been involved in a losing battle, while food is ready and on the table, for the end of FIFA, Minecraft, Roblox or my personal nemesis, Fortnite, you will understand. It is not easy. But our role here is to help, support and reinforce parents and teachers alike in their efforts to grow a future generation filled with joy and confidence. As all the speakers have made clear today, we are in serious peril right now of doing the exact opposite.
Only today, we heard the news from Ofcom that nearly a quarter of teenagers are lying about their age to access social media apps, which is a sharp reminder of just how important the Online Safety Act is and how much tech firms need to do to protect children from harmful content. It is a sharp reminder too of the urgent need to find the solution to the much-vexed issue of age assurance.
If, as the ONS states, one in five children has experienced online bullying, with nearly three in four having experienced it on school premises, the evidence, including from this debate, is becoming clear that we need to act now, and the direction of travel is pretty clear.
I will be interested to hear from the Minister what liaison there has been with the Australian Government regarding the decision by the Senate today to ban children under the age of 16 from social media sites.
The temptation throughout this debate is of course to go much broader than the issue of the safety of children online, but the question is about the period when they are in the care of our educators—in school. As set out by my noble friend Lady Thornhill and by the many teachers we have on our Benches, we believe ferociously in the right of head teachers and senior leaders in schools to call the shots. We are also fearful of further regulatory burdens being placed on them. At the same time, the lack of clarity for parents and teachers alike has led to the conclusion that more restriction is necessary, so we must now establish how to make it workable.
There are areas where we need to maintain discretion and safeguards, led by head teachers and senior leaders in schools—first, for young carers who need to stay in touch with family. I thank the Carers Trust for its briefing, which makes it clear that
“only 58% of schools and colleges in our survey said that young carers had access to a phone if needed. It is important that all young carers have access to a phone if they need to check on the person they care for, or to be contacted in relation to their caring role. Schools should ensure that sensitive phone calls can be made in a quiet, private space, rather than in the school office or toilet cubicles”.
There are some heartbreaking descriptions in the report of young carers having to make calls from the toilets to check on the people they look after.
As noble Lords will be aware, we Liberal Democrats highlighted the importance of care, both social care and carers, in the general election. Indeed, ours was the only manifesto to have a separate chapter on the issue. Ed Davey himself was a young carer and fully understands the significance of that role.
Secondly, as other Peers have referenced, school leaders need to be able to exercise discretion when it comes to children who need a phone for medical reasons.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, I searched through all the evidence we were sent in preparation for this debate for some information on the inequality issue. I would be grateful if the Minister could elaborate on that. Some nations are moving towards greater restrictions or have had them in place for some time—for instance, France has enshrined such restrictions in law up to the age of 15 on school premises. However, I was interested to read in the Library briefing about the recent lifting of the ban in New York, which happened because it tended to be enforced only in low-income communities. If restrictions are introduced in schools, what measures will be taken or what exploration of that issue there will be? It is vital to ensure that there is no impact on those who suffer already from digital inequality.
If, as legislators, we are to take the step of some form of ban or—as the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, rightly points out—restriction, we need to understand the confusion that already exists, particularly from the perspective of the pupil. As the 5Rights research makes clear, pupils are regularly pushed towards various EdTech products to check their phones with homework apps such as MyEd, Satchel, Mathletics and so many more. In some schools, students are positively encouraged to use their phones to take pictures of what is on the whiteboard. How will that be handled?
As we have heard, the phone is a tiny item burning a hole in the blazer pocket, with updates on social media sites such as Snapchat and TikTok. It can connect to so many great things such as love, friendship and, in my son’s case, sport, but any parent who insists on their child going to secondary school with a “brick phone”—yeah, I definitely tried that—rather than a smartphone ensures that their child is absent from the relevant WhatsApp groups. We need a level playing field. Restrictions at school would fix this.
At the same time, smartphones in schools can be the source of huge pain from bullying, addiction and, in too many cases, blackmail. The recent horrific case in Northern Ireland of Alexander McCartney is still prominent in our minds, with over 3,000 children catfished and hundreds blackmailed into sending intimate images. We need to understand that any victim of a crime of that nature on school premises has to have a social worker assigned. Can the Minister look at this specific issue and see whether the Department for Education can understand just how prolific this is right now? Teaching staff tell me that it is, but what teenager is brave enough to talk within a school when they are a victim of crime within that school? Many of Alexander McCartney’s victims were unable to speak up at all until, tragically, it was too late.
If we are to continue, as the Government intend, with the approach of the previous Government, of guidance only and not regulation, what provisions can be put in place for children to report when they are victims of such crimes on school premises? I suspect that it is far greater than we currently have sight of. How will this be monitored so that we know the extent of the problem? How, within schools, can it be handled with sensitivity and care so that victims feel able to speak up?
From this debate, I think that we are heading in one particular direction, towards some form of regulation beyond guidance. The question is: what form will it take? I look forward to the Minister clarifying when and how.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, this has been an excellent debate. I join the queue of noble Lords thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, not just for securing the debate today but for all her work in this area. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, for her speech and particularly for her courage and integrity in leading her review. I also thank all the organisations that shared their expertise and insight ahead of this debate, particularly those representing parents, including Parentkind and Smartphone Free Childhood, as well as the work of the Children’s Commissioner, in making sure that the voice of children is never absent.
I start where the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, started when she said that this should be straightforward. I could not agree more. It is frustrating that this is not more straightforward. Listening to the debate this afternoon, what came through very strongly was an overwhelming sense that phones are part of a much wider problem with social media and the enforcement of restrictions on its use for children, and the addictive nature of social media apps, as we heard explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and my noble friend Lady Owen.
With very few exceptions, we heard that phones have no place in school, with medical conditions being an obvious exception that requires particular care. We also heard that we do not really understand their impact; that was even without AI. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, rightly raised what phones will look like in a matter of months with the inclusion of powerful AI, which will take us to another level of lack of understanding. That points us to a position where we should default to a safety-first approach in relation to children.
Even if we do not fully understand their impact, all the early indications point in the same direction. We heard this afternoon of the significant impact on mental health, sometimes with the most tragic consequences imaginable, but also, in a more universal sense, on the ability of children to concentrate. We heard—and many of us have read—that this is about not just the child who uses a phone in class, but the impact on other pupils in class and even the impact when the phone is turned off but sitting on their desk.
I had not thought about this ahead of the debate but my noble friend Lord Effingham is absolutely right: it is not just a daytime problem. It is even a night-time problem with children being interrupted by notifications. We know that that increased cognitive load and distraction impacts on attainment and we understand that that is greatest for low-attaining and low-income children—exactly the children whom we need to encourage and support, by taking barriers away from their achievement and learning.
I talked to a couple of head teachers ahead of the debate and got two contrasting reflections. One was exactly the same as the one the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford got, which was the immediate alleviation of bullying when phones were removed from a school. It is not just bullying within the school but the ability to use the phone to spread that bullying online by filming it. The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, was of course right to mention the rising issue of fraud and how phones are used to defraud children. But on a happier note, I also heard from a head teacher who felt that they had been able to expand their curriculum, because by banning phones in school it freed up so much time that they could pack more into the school day. Maybe that will be something for the Government to consider.
Phones also cut across the lines of communication between schools and parents, encouraging children to communicate directly with their parents rather than through the school. Like my noble friend Lady Jenkin, I benefited from the excellent presentation by the group Health Professionals for Safer Screens that set out its concerns about the impact of screens. Although some argue for educational benefits—we heard tentative pointers in that direction in this debate—we can ask: why can a desktop or laptop not perform the same educational function? I was very drawn to the A5 diary mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton. Of course, we should also consider the use of AI on phones for plagiarism and the impact of that on the integrity of schoolwork.
We find ourselves in a situation where, according to the excellent report prepared by Policy Exchange earlier this year, only 11% of schools have truly effective policies to ban phones. Certainly, when I visited schools each week, pupils would tell me how relieved they were about putting their phones in a locker or in one of the pouches to which the noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred. Teachers would tell me how much difference it made to behaviour and concentration, and I had not even thought of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, about a cashless and phoneless child being less vulnerable to being mugged, but that is obviously incredibly important. I also suggest that the removal of phones can help improve attendance because of the calmness in the classroom and—perhaps this is overly optimistic—I think we can all hope that better behaviour will improve teacher retention, which is so important.
I note that the Children’s Commissioner is undertaking a survey of every school in the country—I thank her for her work in this area—including in relation to the draft children’s online code. In her survey, she goes into detail about a school’s mobile phone policy. I think this will be a source of extremely useful insight for the Government. In that survey, which schools are legally required to complete, she also asks about safeguarding incidents and where they occurred, including specifically asking whether they occurred online, which I think will be very helpful.
I shall close by asking the Minister the following questions. If she does not have the answers today, perhaps she will be good enough to write. What assessment has the department made of the impact of the guidance that was produced for schools earlier this year? Does she think that there are areas that need tightening up? I re-read it—and, obviously, I take my collective responsibility for what is in it—but there is an option “d” in the guidance, which on reflection feels quite optimistic, that is the “never seen, never heard” policy, where children have their phones but do not turn them on and do not look at them; I am not sure where those children are. Does the Minister know how this works in practice?
Is the DfE working with researchers in the field so that they can make sure that schools and trusts have the highest quality information possible? How does the department plan to use the evidence from the Children’s Commissioner’s survey, which will be complete by the end of the year? Given the mounting evidence of the risks that mobile phones pose, combined with wider social media risks, can the Minister explain why the Government are not supporting Josh MacAlister’s Private Member’s Bill? Do the Government have plans for any kind of public health campaign directed at parents to make sure that they are aware of the risks of phones?
The importance of a healthy childhood was captured very simply many years ago by Aristotle, who said:
“The habits formed we form from childhood make no small difference, but rather they make all the difference”.
With that in mind, I look forward to the Minister’s remarks.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for opening this debate on the increasing interest in mobile phones-free schools and the move towards mobile phone-free school environments in recent months and years. Before I move on, I say to noble Lords that the irony of getting updates from the Box on WhatsApp during this debate has not been lost on me.
I am grateful for the many excellent contributions today from Members across your Lordships’ House, but specifically and especially I want to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, on her excellent maiden speech. I welcome her to our House and look forward to hearing from her in the months and years ahead.
Both the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, and the noble Lord, Lord Chartres, emphasised the role of young people’s voices in this debate, and the fact that they are not heard. At this point, I need to put on record my wonderful stepdaughter, who is 13 going on 30, and who has very clear views on this. Her voice is what will drive me today. She is determined that I should not say that TikTok should be banned—so I will not. I invite the noble Baroness, Lady Cass, to work with me to facilitate DfE officials meeting with young advocates, so that we can make sure that their voices are heard at the centre of policy.
This debate has been an education. In preparing for it, what became clear—which was just touched on by noble Lords—is that the majority of academic evidence on this topic was gathered prior to Covid. The bulk of evidence comes from 2019 or before; very little of it has been updated. In this world, 2019 might as well have been 1979. We need to look at the data and move forward; Covid has changed everything, but so has the use of technology in schools, so we do need to consider.
Before I move on to the substance of this debate, I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Strathcarron, for highlighting Learn with the Lords. It is one of the things I miss most from sitting on the Ministerial Benches and it is a joy to participate in—I would urge all noble Lords to engage.
Turning to the debate, I will begin by setting out this Government’s firm belief that every child and young person should know that success can belong to them. This comes from all children achieving and thriving and being able to benefit from the opportunities provided by education. There is a fierce debate happening globally about the impact of mobile phones, or smart devices, as my noble friend Lord Mitchell so passionately highlighted, and social media on children’s well-being and development.
Teachers and school leaders tell us about the negative impact that mobile phones can have on children’s learning, leading to bullying, distraction and disruption, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford so clearly outlined. Indeed, in 2023 almost a third of secondary school pupils reported that in most of their lessons they used a mobile phone when they were not supposed to. Every pupil deserves to learn in a safe, calm classroom, and we will always support our hard-working and dedicated teachers to make this happen.
To reassure noble Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, emphasised, the Government’s Mobile Phones in Schools Guidance is clear that schools should prohibit the use of mobile phones throughout the school day, including in lessons, the time between them, breaktimes and lunchtimes. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, this guidance, as with all guidance, will always be under review and updated, and we will report back if are to be any further changes.
On the questions raised by the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Jenkin, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, on existing government guidance on mobile phones and making it statutory, the guidance already sets clear expectations. The Government believe that this is sufficient at this time and the position is supported by unions, which hold the view that schools already have the ability and accountability to put the guidance into practice. We will continue to monitor this.
We know that, by the age of 12, 97% of children in Britian have their own mobile phone and that almost all children are using these devices to watch videos and use social media. This can lead to them seeing content that they themselves have described as harmful or worrying. Around one-third of children aged from eight to 17 have seen something that they would describe in this way, with many of them also being exposed to hurtful content via cyberbullying and algorithms, as many noble Lords have highlighted.
When it comes to their parents, almost half feel that the risks of social media outweigh the benefits—I regularly feel that way. This is something we must all consider when making decisions on the use of technology, particularly because the most common reason for 62% of children aged between eight and 17 having multiple accounts for the same social network is to prevent family seeing some content. That is 62% of our children who have multiple accounts online. Some of the reasons for having them may be valid, but some may not be.
When it comes to what is happening in schools, last year around a third of pupils reported that most of their lessons were disrupted in some way by a mobile phone. This prevents teachers teaching and prevents pupils benefiting from the opportunities that school provides them with. Not only that but there is some evidence that this has a greater impact on the most disadvantaged pupils, with those eligible for free school meals 6% more likely to have their learning disrupted.
On some of the issues raised in relation to mobile phones in schools, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, specifically referred to the lack of media literacy in early years. The Government have established an independent curriculum and assessment review, which will seek to deliver an excellent foundation in the core subjects of reading, writing and maths. It also includes the key digital skills needed for future life and the critical thinking skills needed to ensure that children are resilient to misinformation and extremist content online. We will look to see how that applies to early years, and I will write to the noble Baroness with an update.
On the current reasons for this policy, this Government do not believe it is necessary to legislate to ban phones entirely from schools. We know that schools are already prohibiting their use, including through outright bans. Even before guidance was published, around 97% of all schools in England had policies restricting mobile phone use in some way. The guidance tightened that up, setting a higher expectation for restricting use through the day and across school sites.
There are a range of ways in which a mobile-free environment can be achieved. We trust head teachers to develop a mobile phone policy. After all, they are the people who know their schools, their pupils and their communities best, as the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, outlined—I thank him for his excellent speech. Each school operates in different communities and has different needs, especially outside the school. As my noble friend Lord Knight described, some schools ban devices from their site, providing a simple boundary that is easy to enforce.
Some schools have established bag-free days when all personal possessions, including mobile phones, are kept in lockers or similar storage. Others choose to collect mobile phones from pupils on arrival and return them at the end of the day, which can be useful for safety when pupils have longer travel times or when it is dark walking home. We encourage all schools to consult with parents and pupils to make sure they can effectively mitigate concerns, and so that all members of the school community share clear expectations.
With regard to some of the specifics that follow from this, I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Russell, who asked about the role of Ofsted. The DfE is already taking steps towards delivering a better accountability system, which will see school report cards introduced from September 2025. A new inspection framework will have greater focus on pupil outcomes to drive higher standards, alongside a range of measures to reduce anxiety for the students and staff being inspected. Consultation on that process will begin in early 2025.
On the impact on disadvantaged children, including those with SEND, which some noble Lords touched on, the Mobile Phones in Schools guidance contains practical advice for schools, including case studies that consider how to ensure that the needs of all children are being met while continuing to remove distractions in lessons. This includes making clear that, even while restricting mobile phone use, schools must comply with their wider legal duties. That includes making reasonable adjustments when necessary for disabled pupils; schools must take reasonable steps to avoid disadvantage to a disabled pupil caused by the school’s policies or practices on mobile phones.
Schools have a duty to have arrangements in place to support pupils with medical conditions, as was touched on—for instance, where children with diabetes can monitor their blood glucose levels from their own mobile phone, or where those with hearing loss can manage their hearing aid via an app. There may be other exceptional circumstances where schools should consider making adaptations to their policy for specific pupils because of their needs or circumstances, including at home.
We want to make clear that the Government’s view on mobile phones in schools should not be construed as anti-technology. As my noble friend Lord Knight made clear, technology is a huge part of modern society so the emphasis needs to be on using it safely to make sure that all pupils continue to access the positive opportunity that tech can afford them. We understand that, for many children, online spaces can be important for developing a sense of self and can provide an opportunity to express oneself and to learn outside the classroom.
Alongside that, when used appropriately, the internet and social media can be places where many young people can engage in political discourse—I would have—and develop a wider knowledge of current affairs. If we restrict access to these spaces, we risk young people losing a key opportunity to grow as people and be better informed about the world around them. The Government are taking the initiative and ensuring that social media companies take responsibility for the safety of young users. Parents should be able to feel confident that the digital world can be a space where the negatives eventually no longer outweigh the benefits.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, emphasised, with the use of mobile phones already prohibited in school, it is outside school that children are using these devices and spending time online. Particularly where use is excessive, displacing other positive activities, there are risks involved. Last year, UNESCO linked increased screen time to adverse effects on young people’s mental and physical health. Worldwide studies show that increased screen time, which is typically both the largest and most impactful on school-age children, can negatively affect diet, sleep, eye health and mental health.
However, this remains a complex issue and, overall, the evidence remains mixed. We cannot say that mobile phones are universally bad. For some young people, particularly some of the most vulnerable who may be struggling with a feeling of belonging, finding an identity and a community online can be hugely beneficial for their mental health. Mobile phones can help to build and maintain relationships that provide a real lifeline. For other young people, online contact can help them to discover their passions, support educational engagement or enrichment and, in turn, promote lifelong interests or career prospects.
To realise these benefits, it is vital that all children and young people can use mobile phones safely. Everyone, including parents, schools and providers, is responsible for making sure that children are aware of the importance of internet safety. That is why the updated Teaching Online Safety in Schools guidance helps schools to deliver a co-ordinated and coherent curriculum on all aspects of internet safety—not just those related to relationships, sex and health—tailored to the students they teach.
As the noble Lord, Lord Russell, highlighted, we want and need to ensure that schools bring parents on board when they implement restrictions on the use of mobile phones. We want to encourage schools to consult with and build support from parents to develop a policy that works in context at home and school. Through schools articulating a clear stance on mobile phone use and the risks posed by social media, many parents may feel prompted to give further consideration to how children and young people are using mobile phones out of school too.
I have a great deal to discuss on tech companies, based on noble Lords’ contributions. Although the existing guidance from the DfE does an effective job in empowering schools to prohibit the use of mobile phones in their own classrooms, protecting children does not stop at the school gates. The Online Safety Act takes a zero- tolerance approach to the protection of children and ensures that platforms are held responsible for the content they host. All companies in scope need to take robust steps to protect children from illegal, inappropriate and harmful content and activity.
Many noble Lords asked about the role of technology. The role of technology for learning is key. I visited two primary schools last week, and iPads were being used in nearly every classroom. They were working and coding games, which was beyond me. It was a Friday afternoon and I understand that, on Friday afternoon, what used to be playtime when I was at school is now coding time. I think I had it easier than children as they are developing. The benefits of technology can be broader than improved learning outcomes. Schools and colleges can use technology to increase the accessibility of the curriculum and increase student and parental engagement, which is what I saw last week.
With regard to safeguarding and improving mental health more widely, although this is often raised in the context of social media, children’s mental health and well-being are shaped by complex range of risks and protective factors. These span individual-level factors, such as those linked to an individual’s overall health and abilities, and, for example, exposure to adverse and traumatic events. Familial and community-level factors also play a part, including the quality of parental and peer relationships, which are influenced through wider experiences at home and in school. There are also overall environmental factors spanning the physical environment—things such as housing and access to green spaces, as well as societal factors including stigma and discrimination. The evidence suggests a longer list of factors than these examples.
The Government are committed to improving mental health support for all children and young people. This is critical to breaking down barriers to opportunity and spans a wide range of public services: health, welfare, education and beyond. We know that children and young people can struggle to access support for their mental health. We have committed to providing access to specialist mental health provision in every school in England. We will also be putting in place open access youth future hubs in every community, including access to mental health support workers, and we will recruit 8,500 new mental health workers to treat children and adults.
I thank my noble friend Lady Goudie and the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, for highlighting the gender division on some of these issues. The Government have a clear mission to halve violence against women and girls, both offline and online. As noble Lords would expect me to say, we are taking this very seriously on a cross-departmental level, working with nations and regions to deliver this mission. I look forward to working with all noble Lords on delivering it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, raised the mental health impact of phones in schools. All state schools and colleges have been offered a grant to train a senior mental health lead by 2025. Up until 31 August 2024, 17,100 schools and colleges had successfully claimed a grant, representing 72% of the total number of settings.
The noble Baroness, Lady Cass, raised the issue of screen time. Through statutory relationship, sex and health education, pupils are taught about the benefits of rationing time spent online, the risks of excessive time spent on electronic devices, and the impact of positive and negative content online on their own and others’ mental and physical well-being.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Owen and Lady Grender, and my noble friend Lady Goudie raised the differing impact on boys and girls. We are focused on building the evidence base to inform any future action and DSIT has launched a research project looking at the links between social media and children’s well-being. I will speak to them for an update on how we are recording the impact on girls.
The noble Lord, Lord Chartres, raised the issue of addictive technology. The child safety duties under the Online Safety Act apply across all areas of a service, including its functionalities and the way in which it is operated and used by children, as well as content present at the service. If a provider’s risk assessment identifies habit-forming or addictive behaviour is an activity which risks causing sufficient harm to an appreciable number of children on its service, it must take appropriate steps to manage and mitigate these risks.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, referenced what has happened today in Australia. We are monitoring the legislative developments and will use the UK-Australia MoU to share evidence and try to learn from each other’s approach towards this issue.
I was asked about victims of crime. Time is short and the answer I have is very long, so I will write to noble Lords.
In conclusion, we can do more to protect children and young people from the risk of harm online and on social media when they walk out of the school gates. We have been clear that the Government’s priority is the effective implementation of the Online Safety Act, so that children can benefit from its wide-ranging protections as soon as possible and be able to safely benefit from technological advances for years to come.
The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, raised the fact that I was responding to this debate. The person with responsibility for this policy area is a Minister in the other place—Stephen Morgan. I will arrange for the noble Baroness to meet with him to discuss the issues in more detail.
In closing, I repeat my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for bringing forward this debate. I appreciate that there are some issues I did not touch on, including the Children’s Commissioner’s survey, but I will write to noble Lords on specific points to which I have not been able to respond.
Baroness Kidron (CB)
My Lords, I thank the Minister, in particular for agreeing to arrange a meeting with the Minister in the other place. I thank all noble Lords, but I am going to use the little bit of time I have to respond on a couple of issues. I hope noble Lords will forgive me for that.
I am rather disappointed, because the Minister set out quite a lot of stats that showed the problem and then said, “but we’ve got it covered”. I think that that is not the feeling of the House and it is not what the evidence shows. It cannot be the case that, on the one hand, a large number of children say the guidance is not working and, on the other, the noble Baroness says that we have the guidance and the guidance is enough.
I felt that there were a number of things of that ilk, and I shall write to the Minister to point them out precisely and not take everybody’s time right now. However, I wanted to make it very clear that the vast majority of noble Lords in the debate were talking about restrictions and not bans, in school and not in general. I know that there are those who go a little wider, but in general that was the mood of the House. I do not think that any noble Lord who spoke—and certainly I say it on my own behalf—is a tech detractor. There is a better world than this: a better world where technology is designed to take care of our children.
The one point of information that I was delighted to hear is that the Minister thinks that the OSA deals with addiction. I have had quite a lot of toing and froing with Ofcom; it does not seem to think so. I would love to interrogate that with her and with Ofcom.
I shall leave my final word for a young child who said, “I don’t get why everyone is so upset. We’re not allowed to take pets or frisbees into class. Why are we allowed to take phones?”