House of Lords

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Thursday 28 November 2024

11:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Winchester.

Royal Assent

Royal Assent
Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

11:06

Royal Assent was notified for the following Act:

Passenger Railway Services (Public Ownership) Act.

Retirement of a Member: Lord Levene of Portsoken

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Announcement

11:07

[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

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Question

11:07

Asked by

[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—

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[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

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Question

11:18

Asked by

[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

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Question

11:24

Asked by

[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

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Question

11:35

Asked by

[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]

1st reading
Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

First Reading

11:47

A Bill to establish a close season, from the start of February to the end of September, during which the killing or taking of hares is prohibited; repeal the seasonal prohibition of the sale of hares in the Hares Preservation Act 1892; and for connected purposes.

The Bill was introduced by Baroness Helic, read a first time and ordered to be printed.

COP 29

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Tuesday 26 November.

“With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a Statement about COP 29.

I start by extending my sympathy to all those affected by Storm Bert. It has been a devastating event for people in different parts of our country, particularly in Wales, and my heart goes out to the families of those who have lost their lives and to all those whose lives have been disrupted.

I also want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Lord Prescott. He was a fighter for social justice and a champion of the environment. He rightfully has global recognition for his role in negotiating the Kyoto Protocol, and he showed how politics can change lives for the better. I send my deepest condolences to Pauline and his family.

The UK attended COP 29 to fight for our national interest—speeding up the clean energy transition in the interests of jobs, energy security and economic growth, and tackling the climate crisis for today’s and future generations. In Baku, our message was clear: Britain is back in the business of global climate leadership.

We know that the impacts of the climate crisis know no borders. We have already seen the extreme impacts we can face here in Britain, and we know that if we do not act those impacts will get much worse. That is why, as the Prime Minister said at COP 29, there is no national security without climate security. It is precisely because Britain represents only around 1% of annual global emissions that we have to work with others to ensure that the remaining 99% of emissions are addressed to protect the British people.

The focus of this COP was on finance for developing countries, because the reality is that unless we persuade developing countries to go down the path of clean energy development, we cannot hope to reduce emissions and prevent climate disaster. Those countries face the triple challenges of needing to invest in the clean energy transition, coping with the costs of climate vulnerability and needing to develop to take their population out of poverty. At the same time, developed countries, including Britain, face extreme pressure on our public finances.

The COP talks are always complex, but those circumstances made this set of talks particularly so. I put on record my thanks to our outstanding team of civil servants who supported me at COP. I was repeatedly struck by the enormous respect they have from so many countries around the world. The UK’s negotiating team was led by Alison Campbell, who is leaving to work with the UN Secretary-General. I want to put on record my special thanks to her in helping us to reach an agreement.

The agreement reached is to provide and mobilise at least $300 billion of climate finance by 2035 for developing countries. Much of that will come from the multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, which have stepped up to set a target to substantially increase the climate finance they provide. Importantly, for the first time, the agreement reflects a new global landscape, where traditional donors will be joined by big emitters such as China to help finance the transition. That is fair and right.

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. I can inform the House that, if delivered with the same impact as UK climate finance, the $300 billion deal could lead to emissions reductions equivalent to more than 15 times the UK’s annual emissions, as well as helping to protect up to 1 billion people in developing countries from the effects of floods, heatwaves and droughts. Crucially, the agreement will accelerate the global clean energy transition, which offers the prospect of export and economic opportunities here in Britain. Let nobody be in any doubt: this agreement is absolutely in our national interest.

In other respects, the talks were more disappointing. At COP 28, the world made a historic agreement to transition away from fossil fuels. That agreement stands, but we did not reach agreement this year on how to take the commitment forward, not because the text put forward was too ambitious, but because it was not ambitious enough. In particular, many developing countries, including the small island states, felt that the text was inadequate given the scale of the climate emergency. Developed countries, including Britain, agreed with that view. That offers an important lesson. Under this Government, Britain is part of a global coalition for ambitious climate action that spans global North and global South—it is at the global centre ground of climate politics. We will seek to build on the agreement at COP 30 next year, in Brazil.

At COP 29, the UK also made important announcements on countering deforestation, scaling up private finance and nuclear co-operation as part of the clean energy transition. The Prime Minister also announced our nationally determined contribution to reducing emissions by at least 81% by 2035, compared with 1990 levels, following the advice that we received from the independent Climate Change Committee. Let me be clear: that target is right for Britain—for energy security, good jobs and growth.

On the same day as the announcement, ScottishPower and Siemens announced a £1 billion deal to invest in wind manufacturing in Hull. That will boost British manufacturing and support 1,300 good jobs in our industrial heartlands. It shows what the clean energy mission can do for Britain, and builds on the steps that the Government have already taken, which include: lifting the onshore wind ban; giving consent for nearly 2 gigawatts of solar; setting up Great British Energy; delivering a record-breaking renewables auction; kick-starting our carbon capture and hydrogen industries; and driving towards cheaper, cleaner heating through our warm homes plan.

It is in our national interest to use the power of our example to work with others to speed up the clean energy transition globally, just as the Climate Change Act 2008, which was supported by Members from across this House, inspired others to follow our lead. That is why at the G20 in Brazil, the Prime Minister launched the Global Clean Power Alliance, along with a number of other countries, to drive forward the transition.

That is just the start of the work that we need to do in the run-up to COP 30 to make next year’s talks a success, because the truth is that despite progress over the last two weeks, we are halfway through the decisive decade for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Centigrade, and the world is way off-track. Other countries, such as Brazil, have also announced ambitious NDCs, and in the months ahead, we will continue to push others to go further, faster, on raising ambition, scaling up finance, protecting nature and forests, and driving forward the clean energy transition.

The COP process is tortuous and progress is too slow. However, this Government believe that while multilateralism—in other words, co-operating with others—is hard, it is truly the only way to fight for Britain. Those who say that we should disengage from the negotiations and step off the stage would let down our country, deprive us of a voice and leave future generations paying the price. Despite all the difficulties, at COP 29, one truth was overwhelmingly clear: the global transition away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy is happening, and it is unstoppable because clean energy is the route to energy security, unstoppable because it is the economic opportunity of our time, and unstoppable because people in Britain and around the world can see that the climate crisis is here, and that unless we act, things will only get worse.

In less than five months, this Government have shown that we will seize the opportunities of speeding up at home, and have demonstrated climate leadership abroad, in order to deliver energy independence, lower bills, good jobs, economic growth and the security of a stable climate. We are doing all we can to keep the British people safe, now and for generations to come. I commend this Statement to the House”.

11:48

[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.

12:02

[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

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Wednesday 27 November.

“With permission, Mr Speaker, I wish to make a Statement on the announcement by Stellantis yesterday on the future of its manufacturing sites in the United Kingdom.

I know that yesterday was a dark day for Luton. This is an iconic plant powered by a talented workforce. There are very few people in the town who do not know someone who works at the site. I wish to outline the steps that the Government have taken to try to prevent this outcome, and how we are going to support the industry and the area going forward.

The Transport Secretary and I found out about the challenges of this site just 10 days after the election. The global chief executive officer told us that he felt extremely frustrated by the lack of action from the previous Government, which meant that his desire was to close the Luton plant. Since then, we have been involved in intense negotiations with the company to try to find a way to keep the site open. Following these initial meetings, in July of this year the company announced its intention to conduct a review of its operations in response to the significant pressures that it was facing in key markets. Following the review, the company set out plans on Tuesday, which will see manufacturing at the two current Stellantis plants consolidated into a single location.

We were, and are, aware that Stellantis has significant excess capacity across Europe. The company’s talk of efficiency and investment elsewhere will of course be positive for its bottom line, but that will come as no comfort to the workers affected.

For more than a century, Vauxhall as a brand has been synonymous with Luton, and we are bitterly disappointed to hear that this relationship looks likely to end. Our number one priority is the people of Luton, who will of course be devastated by this decision. News such as this rips through the heart of communities, sending shockwaves beyond those immediately impacted—through their families, their communities and the businesses that they support. I grew up in a car community and know what it is like when half the street work at the same site.

We have asked the company to urgently share its full plans with us and to work with the Government, so that every single worker who is impacted receives the support they deserve. The Department for Work and Pensions stands ready to help anyone affected with a rapid response service designed exactly for these kinds of scenarios. It provides vital support and advice to both employers and their employees facing redundancy.

I want the House to be aware that we have done everything we possibly can to prevent this closure. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Transport and I met Stellantis many times over the summer and again on Tuesday morning to discuss the situation and the acute pressures that the company is facing. We have worked hard to find a solution that would support the business and ensure that people kept their jobs, and we confirmed in writing that we were willing to consider any solution put forward.

However, despite our best efforts, we have been forced to accept that this is ultimately a commercial decision by Stellantis as it responds to wider challenges within the sector. I will be frank with honourable Members: these challenges are not confined to any one company. Car manufacturers around the world are battling with increased costs, supply chain issues and changing consumer demand in a highly competitive, fast-evolving market. Honourable Members will know that last week Ford also announced 800 job losses in the UK over the next three years as part of a major restructuring programme across the whole of Europe. Many of the challenges faced by our car manufacturers are global in nature and they cannot be resolved by UK Government intervention alone.

Although this announcement is not what we wanted or what we worked towards, we must not mischaracterise this. It categorically does not signal a retreat by Stellantis from the UK. The plans announced by the company will also see it investing £50 million as it consolidates manufacturing at its Ellesmere Port plant in Cheshire. Honourable Members will know that Ellesmere Port is the UK’s first all-battery electric vehicle plant, and Stellantis’s decision to bring production of the Vivaro electric van there is welcome. We will of course continue to work closely with the company on next steps of the consolidation process, including the proposal to offer affected workers a relocation package to take up roles at Ellesmere Port.

The investments being made at Ellesmere Port and elsewhere demonstrate that there are real opportunities for UK manufacturing as part of the move to zero-emission vehicles, but the transition has to be properly managed. That requires a Government who are on the pitch—something that the car industry finally has in this Government.

The Government are determined to support automotive companies as they revamp their production lines, adjust their business plans, and develop the technology needed for the next generation of zero-emission vehicles. These cars and vans are greener, cleaner and essential to our net-zero ambitions. Roughly 30% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from cars, vans and lorries. To tackle that, and wean our country off imported fossil fuels, we need zero-emission vehicles, but the Government are resolute that the transition must be done in partnership between government, industry and, of course, consumers. That is why the Secretary of State for Transport and I are listening closely to the concerns of the automotive industry and the wider sector about the transition to electric vehicles and about the Conservative Party’s zero-emission vehicle mandate.

We held a round table earlier this month to hear directly from major automotive companies, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, and the charging sector, and in response we will shortly fast-track a consultation on our manifesto commitment to ending the sales of new pure petrol and diesel cars by 2030. We will use that consultation to engage with industry on the previous Government’s ZEV transition mandate, and the flexibilities in it, and we will welcome the industry’s feedback as we move forwards. We want to do everything that we can, together with industry, to secure further investment in the British automotive sector, now and over the long 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 supply chain.

Also, our industrial strategy will give the automotive sector the certainty that it deserves, and will send a clear signal to global boardrooms that the Government are in this for the long term. We want to invest alongside them, create a policy environment that allows them to prosper, and help them do what they do best: bringing good jobs to every part of this country. Through the National Wealth Fund, we are unlocking billions in private investment in new green infrastructure, including gigafactories, and supporting growth and job creation—not just in the automotive sector, but in the wider economy. We are working with investors to build a globally competitive electric vehicle supply chain in the UK, and so are laying the foundations for growth over the long term.

The closure of the Luton plant by Stellantis is a bitter blow to our car industry, to Luton, and to the workers who made Vauxhall a world-class brand, producing world-class cars and vans, but we must not lose sight of the fact that those vehicles will continue to be designed and built here in the UK, at Ellesmere Port. That matters to me, and it matters to the Government. When I say that decarbonisation must not mean deindustrialisation, I mean it. Winning the race to net zero and having a world-leading automotive sector must go hand in hand. We must never undermine the transition, as the previous Government did, but we will be pragmatic in ensuring that regulation and incentives are working as they should. Contrived cultures wars are not what the industry needs; instead, it needs a partner in Government ready to look at the practical solutions that are necessary. We stand ready to do that, and I commend this Statement to the House”.

12:22

[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.

12:43

[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

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Motion to Take Note

13:00

Moved by

[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.

13:13

[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.

13:18

[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.

13:24

[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.

13:28

[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.

13:32

[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.

13:37

[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.

13:41

[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.

13:45

[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.

13:49

[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?

13:53

[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.

13:58

[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.

14:02

[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.

14:06

[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.

14:09

[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.

14:14

[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.

14:17

[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”.

14:21

[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.

14:25

[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.

14:31

[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.

14:34

[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.

14:39

[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.

14:44

[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.

14:48

[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.

14:52

[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.

14:57

[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.

15:07

[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.

15:17

[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.

15:38

[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.

Motion agreed.

Schools: Mobile Phones

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

Motion to Take Note

15:41

Moved by

[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.

15:56

[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.

16:01

[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.

16:06

[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?

16:10

[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.

16:14

[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.

16:19

[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.

16:25

[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.

16:30

[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.

16:34

[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.

16:38

[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.

16:42

[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?

16:45

[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.

16:49

[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.

16:53

[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.

17:03

[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.

17:13

[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.

17:33

[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?”

Motion agreed.

House adjourned at 5.36 pm.