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Oral Answers to Questions
(1 day, 11 hours ago)
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Chris Law (Dundee Central) (SNP)
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
The previous Government’s record on fuel poverty was absolutely woeful, and we have had to inherit an incredibly challenging trajectory. We are doing everything we can to shift that by upgrading homes for families in fuel poverty, driving up standards in the rental sector so that we lift 1 million people out of fuel poverty and supporting over 3 million households with our warm homes discount, all while running with our mission for clean power.
Chris Law
Despite Scotland being one of the most energy-rich nations in Europe, decades of mismanagement by different colours of UK Government—whether Labour or Conservative—have led to a shocking one third of households in Scotland living in fuel poverty. That number is set to rise, along with energy bills. The Government were elected on Labour’s pledge to cut energy bills by £300, but yesterday the chair of GB Energy admitted that that was “not in its remit” and was completely unable to say when bills would come down, alleviating fuel poverty. If this is not another broken promise from the Prime Minister, can the Secretary of State confirm exactly when in this parliamentary term consumers in Scotland will see that reduction?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Fuel poverty is devolved in Scotland. The Scottish Government have had the opportunity to make a dent in this problem for almost 20 years and they have not. Even now, as we are ramping up upgrades to help people with fuel poverty, the Scottish Government are raiding more than £200 million from retrofitting funds that could help families today. I will take no lectures from the hon. Gentleman on how we tackle this problem.
Mr Speaker
I call Wendy Chamberlain. She is not here. I call Frank McNally.
Frank McNally (Coatbridge and Bellshill) (Lab)
I commend the Minister for the announcement of support for those in most need this winter. Given Scotland’s colder climate, does the Minister share my view that, as she has just expressed, the Scottish Government’s decision to cut £200 million from the retrofitting budget is failing people in Coatbridge and Bellshill and across Scotland, and that with record funding from this UK Government in the Budget, they should reverse that cut?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
My hon. Friend is completely right. There is no justification for raiding retrofitting budgets, because we know that is the route by which we upgrade people’s homes to deliver homes that are warmer and cheaper to run. We are doing our bit to drive down energy bills and deliver clean power, which is the route to energy security and financial security. The Scottish Government need to crack on and do their bit.
Chris Webb (Blackpool South) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Sarah Jones)
The Government came into office six months ago and are determined to ensure that clean energy jobs are high quality, well paid and secure, with strong trade unions. I want to take this opportunity to commend EDF Renewables for its recent recognition agreements with three trade unions. Through the Office for Clean Energy Jobs, we are working with industry and trades unions to support fair pay and workers’ rights, and ensuring that workers across the country can benefit from the economic opportunities of the net zero transition.
Chris Webb
Data centres at Blackpool’s proposed high-performance data centre campus Silicon Sands will be powered by renewable energy and cooled by liquid immersion techniques, with the excess heat repurposed into neighbourhood buildings and homes. Silicon Sands could lead the way in an environmentally friendly approach to data centres, while creating thousands of well-paid jobs for my home town. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how the Department can support my vision to build a better Blackpool?
Sarah Jones
I would of course be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to talk about this great project, Silicon Sands, which will bring jobs and be really innovative for his area. The wider point is really important—for too long, our coastal and industrial communities have not had the job opportunities they deserve. We are determined to change that.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Can the Minister assure the House that her ambitions for renewable energy can be achieved without Chinese slave labour?
Sarah Jones
Yes—of course, we ensure that the highest standards are kept in all these things. The Government’s position is to make sure that we are very careful about them. The right hon. Gentleman may be referring to solar, which is a particular issue that people have raised. We have a solar taskforce, which has been set up exactly to look at those points.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I know that Members will find it unusual that Mr Speaker has left the Chair during questions. It is because he is going to attend the memorial service for Lord Hoyle, so I am sure that the whole House wants to send our best wishes to him.
David Williams (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
Michael Wheeler (Worsley and Eccles) (Lab)
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)
Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
We know that this winter has been difficult for many people who are struggling with high energy bills. We agreed the winter support package with industry and Energy UK to get support to the people who need it, and £500 million is being provided through industry. When combined with the support that we are providing through the warm home discount, that amounts to £1 billion for the families who we know need help this winter.
David Williams
As well as residents, businesses in the ceramics sector struggle with high energy bills and face many other pressures. Sadly, only yesterday more than 80 workers in my constituency lost their jobs when Royal Stafford, a historic ceramics manufacturer for nearly 200 years, went into liquidation—a devastating blow for the workers and their families. Will the Secretary of State meet GMB officials, Ceramics UK and me as a matter of urgency to explain how the Government will support the ceramics sector, protect jobs, and tackle the serious difficulties that energy-intensive industries face in decarbonising?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
My hon. Friend is right to point out that we need to reduce energy bills for businesses, including those in energy-intensive industries. I was sorry to hear about the job losses in his constituency, and one of the ministerial team will be happy to meet him. I must add, however, that this is exactly why we are running our clean power mission. We see that the route through which we can drive down bills is breaking our dependence on global fossil fuel markets over which we have no control, in order to take ourselves off the rollercoaster of price rises and price hikes that is so damaging to businesses. While we do that, we are working with Ofgem and industry to ensure that businesses are not being locked into expensive contracts, and to ensure that they have much stronger redress when things go wrong.
Michael Wheeler
I thank the Minister for all her work in this area. I know from conversations with my constituents that energy costs are a large part of the cost of living crisis for them. Following the Conservative party’s failure to protect our energy system and invest in home-grown clean power, can the Minister give us an update on what steps are being taken to tackle my constituents’ high energy bills?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
My hon. Friend is 100% right. The reason we are so exposed as a country to global fossil fuel markets and the rollercoaster that is damaging business and hurting consumers is the Conservative party’s failure to invest in home-grown clean power and to upgrade people's homes to insulate them from high prices. That is a record of which the Conservatives should be ashamed, and it is a record that we are determined to change.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)
Many households in my constituency are struggling with high energy bills because the last Government left us exposed to the unpredictable fossil fuel market. Does the Minister agree that the only way in which to protect residents in my constituency and across the country permanently is to unlock clean power that we control here in the UK?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
My hon. Friend is completely right. Every solar panel and every wind turbine that we put up takes us closer to delivering the energy security that we need to achieve financial security for families. That, combined with our drive to upgrade people’s homes, is what will protect households in the long term. It is the central mission of this team, this Department and this Government, and it is why we are running at clean power by 2030.
Ms Billington
In anticipation of the energy market reform that the last Government neglected to carry out, I look forward to hearing confirmation from my colleagues on the Front Bench that we may be able to find a way of insulating people in the long term—for the transition to decarbonising heat, for example. Can my hon. Friend confirm that, in future, we may be able to have a social tariff that protects the most vulnerable from the excesses of energy prices?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I agree with my hon. Friend that we urgently need to tackle the challenge of affordability. Energy is not a luxury good; it is foundational, and for too many people, this essential good is not affordable. A social tariff is one mechanism of responding to this, and there are different ways in which that can be implemented. We are looking at all the options, to ensure that families can get this essential good at more affordable prices.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
People living in rural locations disproportionately live in housing stock that is older and colder and does not have gas. In the Minister’s discussions with energy suppliers, will she please not forget to talk to the suppliers of liquefied petroleum gas and oil, since many of our constituents—particularly with the withdrawal of the winter fuel payment—are suffering a great deal?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We are very alive to the issues in rural communities, and we are working to ensure that there are solutions for all types of homes. We had record applications to our boiler upgrade scheme for heat pumps, a large number of which were from rural households. We are very clear as we roll out our plan that there will be a solution for every single household, so that everyone can benefit from homes that are warmer and cheaper to run.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
This winter, many of my constituents are concerned about energy outages. Last Thursday, the Cooper school and Glory Farm school had to close for the entire day when they lost all electricity supply. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can ensure the grid has the capacity to avoid these outages, which are so damaging to homes, businesses and critical public services?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Yes, we will meet the hon. Gentleman. We are working to ensure that outages are not the norm. This is obviously linked to weather issues that we are having to respond to, but the team has been working to ensure that households are not put in a difficult situation, and when they are, that we are responding as quickly as possible.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
What would help bill payers is the £300 cut to energy bills that the Labour party promised in its manifesto. Instead, bills went up £149 in October, they went up £21 in January, and they are going up again by £99 in April. Can the Minister explain where the source of this departmental ineptitude lies, and would she like to apologise to the people of these islands for writing cheques that her party cannot cash?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The hon. Member explains exactly why we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuel markets. That is why it is critical that we deliver clean power by 2030—that is the central mission of this team, and we are running at it. The Scottish Government do have the levers to protect households in fuel poverty. Before the hon. Member criticises us, they should get their house in order and get on with the job.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Prior to the election, the Secretary of State promised to cut my constituents’ energy bills by £300. Would the Minister repeat that promise at the Dispatch Box?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We have a manifesto commitment to reduce energy bills by £300. We are doing everything we can. We have a legacy of record high energy bills. We are running at clean power because we think that is the route to delivering lower energy costs. We are upgrading people’s homes because we know that is the route to delivering homes that are warmer and cleaner to run. We are doing everything we can. The Conservative party oversaw a crisis for households, so before its Members start lecturing us on what we should do, they should be hanging their heads in shame.
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
The national wealth fund is an essential part of our clean energy and growth missions. Recent investments include £20 million of investment into XLCC, a subsea cable manufacturer, to develop a new facility in Scotland, creating 900 jobs; £28 million of investment into Cornish Metals to finance lithium production, supporting more than 300 local jobs; and £1 billion, working with Barclays and Lloyds, to upgrade social housing, giving people warmer homes and lower bills.
Patrick Hurley
I thank the Secretary of State for his answer. In the Liverpool bay area, just off the coast of my Southport constituency, we already have a number of wind farms, including the Burbo Bank scheme. Can he outline to the House what more his Department is doing to ensure that, as we put up these wind farms, jobs are created in constituencies like mine?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks a really important question, which Members from right across this House will agree with. The situation we have inherited from the last Government is that Germany has almost twice as many renewables jobs per capita as Britain, Sweden almost three times as many, and Denmark almost four times as many. Through a combination of Great British Energy, the national wealth fund and a clean industry bonus, we are making sure that we do not just build offshore wind in this country, but reap the huge industrial opportunity from it.
Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that the Court of Session’s judgment on Rosebank and Jackdaw was to do with their consents, not their licences? When he comes to consider his decisions on those consents, he should do so on the basis that these are existing, not new, licences.
Ed Miliband
That is an individual planning case, so I will be careful about what I say. What I will say to the hon. Lady is that the last Government made an unlawful decision, according to the court. We are going to follow due process.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield Heeley) (Lab)
GB Nuclear is about to make two decisions on small modular reactors, and I know my right hon. Friend will agree that those SMRs and their supply chains should be built here in the UK. Although we have the capability in Sheffield, we do not necessarily have the capacity, so will he work with me, my colleagues and businesses in Sheffield to look at proposals for a nuclear manufacturing centre of excellence?
Ed Miliband
I welcome that question from my right hon. Friend, who is a fantastic champion of these issues. We will look at any proposal in detail, but she makes such an important point, which I would make to all Members of this House. People will have different views on this issue, but clean energy is the economic opportunity of the 21st century—whether it is small modular reactors, offshore wind, hydrogen or carbon capture. In our first six months, this Government have shown what it means to deliver at pace on the investments that this country needs.
Alex Easton (North Down) (Ind)
Has the Secretary of State engaged in any discussions with Northern Ireland industries on the strategic use of the sovereign wealth fund?
Ed Miliband
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I discussed this issue in detail in advance of the preparation of the Great British Energy Bill, and it is also relevant to the national wealth fund. We want our institutions to serve all countries in our United Kingdom, and I encourage him and industries in his constituency to make applications to the national wealth fund, which is there to support people and industries across the UK.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
The Government policy to decarbonise the grid by 2030 rests on the National Energy System Operator’s assumption of a £147 per tonne carbon price, but manufacturers are lining up to tell the Energy Secretary that it would destroy British industry. Will he guarantee today that for the remainder of this Parliament, we will have a lower carbon price than Europe?
Ed Miliband
NESO made that assumption, but it does not reflect our assumption that the carbon price will be significantly lower. I will not start predicting market prices. What I will say to the hon. Gentleman is that the difference between him and us is that he believes that we should double down on fossil fuels as the answer to the problems facing the country, whereas we know that clean energy is the way forward.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
Since this Government came into office, we have taken a series of steps to deliver clean, home-grown power for Britain, including lifting the onshore wind ban, consenting to nearly 3 GW of solar and overseeing the most successful renewables auction in history. In December, we published our clean power action plan, which has been widely welcomed by business as providing the route map that simply did not exist under the previous Government.
Peter Prinsley
Energy projects in East Anglia will be crucial for generating the clean, cheap power that this country needs to grow, from wind and solar farms to nuclear power stations, including the much-needed Sizewell C. These projects will bring high-skilled jobs to East Anglia, including in my constituency of Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket. What action are the Government taking to ensure that the infrastructure improvements to connect these projects to the grid will not be hamstrung by the planning process?
Ed Miliband
I thank my hon. Friend for his question and congratulate him on his advocacy. Members across the House have a decision to make here. As the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh), said earlier, we are exposed to fossil fuels and we see what is happening in global markets with prices going up. If we want to change that and have clean home-grown power that we can control, we have to build the infrastructure we need. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) on supporting it and on supporting our planning reforms, and I urge Members across this House to do the same.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
Given that the British taxpayer is paying billions of pounds in subsidies to fell trees in Canada and ship the wood across the Atlantic to burn in the Drax power station, can the Secretary of State tell the House where the clean energy lies within that? Has he read the KPMG report? If he has, will he come to the House and make a statement on his assessment of it?
Ed Miliband
The last Government consulted on what, if any, future support there should be for biomass power stations. We are studying that consultation and we will make a statement in due course.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
Community energy projects can help us achieve clean energy by 2030. Darley Abbey Community Energy is surging ahead with plans for 100 kW Archimedes screw on the River Derwent—the same river that powered the world’s first factory 200 years ago. The project could generate enough hydroelectricity to power all the businesses at Darley Abbey Mills, but there are hurdles in place, including planning permission, insurance costs and the need for up-front capital. What can the Government do to support local renewable community projects such as these to succeed?
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend makes a fantastically important point, which is that we often think about planning reform as being about the large-scale projects, but it is also about unblocking the smaller-scale projects. Having a national energy policy statement that includes 2030, working with local authorities and making sure there are enough planners to make the decisions—all those things can all make a difference. I congratulate my hon. Friend on her advocacy for this work, and I congratulate the local community on this project.
Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
Experts are clear that the savings from the Government’s clean power action plan will be wiped out by 2050 if airport expansion at Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton goes ahead, and that relying on so-called sustainable aviation fuels would use up to half the UK’s agricultural land. Does the Secretary of State agree with the scientists that, while ambitious clean power plans are hugely welcome, if this Government also back airport expansion, they are not going to meet their climate obligations?
Ed Miliband
As the Chancellor said last week, any aviation expansion has to take place within carbon budgets and environmental limits. I would also point out that this Government have achieved more in six months than the last Government did in 14 years. We have lifted the onshore wind ban, consented nearly 3 GW of solar, set up GB Energy and the national wealth fund and held the most successful renewables auction in history. This Government are delivering on clean power.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
To achieve his clean power plan, can the Secretary of State say exactly what local communities need to do to convince him that solar farms on agricultural lands are not appropriate in their area?
Ed Miliband
It is quite extraordinary. We are absolutely exposed as a country, yet the Conservatives oppose clean power. They have a blanket opposition to clean power, so let every person in the country know that when energy bills remain high, they are opposing the things that will bring them down. It is quite extraordinary. This is the Conservative party that lost the last general election—its worst defeat in 200 years—yet if anything, since the election, Conservative Members have got worse and learned nothing.
Joy Morrissey
The Secretary of State recently approved a 524-hectare solar farm in Lincolnshire—a farm linked to Dale Vince, a £5.4 million donor to the Labour party. The public have a right to be certain that this decision was carried out properly, so will the Secretary of State refer his conduct of this application to the independent adviser on ministerial standards? Yes or no?
Ed Miliband
I am glad the hon. Lady asks, because I took no part in this decision—I recused myself. [Interruption.] Here we go. They have nothing to say about the country, just desperate scraping of the barrel. Let the whole House hear that they oppose a solar plan that will put up solar panels throughout the country and give clean power to the British people. The state of the Conservative party is something to behold.
Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)
Our commitment to make Britain a clean energy superpower is the only way to protect bill payers permanently. The Government are determined to support all households with their energy costs, including those that are off grid, and eligible low-income households are being supported with the warm home discount. I urge households off the gas grid to contact their electricity supplier, if they have one, to see what support they can receive.
Charlotte Cane
Many of my constituents, as well as being off grid, have homes built of non-standard materials—clunch or wattle and daub—and those homes are also often listed. What support will the Minister provide to my constituents who are looking to retrofit their homes to move away from oil and improve insulation?
Michael Shanks
The hon. Lady is right that, particularly in rural areas, certain house types are often much more difficult to heat due to much older building materials and a lack of insulation. The Minister for Consumers, my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh), is working to make sure our warm homes plan can reach all communities and all types of households, and I encourage the hon. Member for Ely and East Cambridgeshire (Charlotte Cane) to feed in any ideas for how we can do that for these rural and off-grid households.
Jamie Stone
Every winter, Altnaharra in my constituency is the coldest place in the UK. I can think of lots of pensioners who are faced with the invidious decision of whether to switch off and shiver or to run into debt. It occurs to me that the Department for Work and Pensions may well have a database of these people, so will His Majesty’s Government get the DWP to work with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to identify them and give a helping hand?
Michael Shanks
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful point. Where we can co-ordinate information and data across Government to identify people who need more support, we will do so. My Department is currently working with the Department for Work and Pensions to release as much of that information as possible, and we hope that we will be able to make progress in due course.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that new oil and gas developments will not give us energy security? As the fossil fuels they produce will be sold internationally, they will not lower bills and they will undermine our climate commitments.
Michael Shanks
My hon. Friend is, of course, right to say that, even if oil and gas are extracted from the continental shelf, they are sold on the international markets. The companies that extract the oil and gas are in the business of trying to make as much profit as possible and will sell to the highest bidder, so it does not protect prices for consumers in this country. We were clear in our manifesto that we will not issue licences for new exploration and new fields, but that we will continue to support those licences that have already been issued. Our future does not lie in more oil and gas; it lies in clean power, which is why we are moving at pace to deliver that.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
The warm homes plan will upgrade up to 5 million homes with low-carbon solutions such as heat pumps, solar and insulation to deliver homes that are warmer and cheaper to run. We have already kick-started delivery, with up to 300,000 homes being upgraded this year alone. We will set out our plans in the spring on how we will ramp this up.
Anna Dixon
In 2023, it emerged that a number of substandard retrofitting works were carried out as part of Government schemes. In some cases, properties were left with structural damage. When households sought redress, they found that many of the authorised contractors had folded, and they have been left to pick up the bill. Will the Minister assure me and my constituents in Shipley that, under the warm homes plan, sufficient safeguards will be put in place to protect households from rogue companies?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We are aware of too many cases where home upgrades have not been done to the required standard. We are very clear that the ad hoc, fragmented system of regulating home upgrades that we inherited from the last Government is in dire need of reform. We will overhaul that system so that when people have home upgrades, they can be confident that they will be of the highest standard and that when things go wrong, they will have as much protection as possible and redress within the system.
Deirdre Costigan
The previous Government were content to sit back and allow developers to build homes that have locked people into years of expensive and dirty gas heating. How will the Minister ensure that the 1.5 million new homes the Government will deliver will not keep people dependent on outdated and costly gas heating systems?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
My hon. Friend is absolutely right; the new homes we build must be fit for the future and must be decent homes that comply with our carbon standards. We are working with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to bring forward the future homes standard, and we will set out our plans for that in due course.
Jessica Toale
I have been shocked by the number of mouldy and damp homes that I have visited in my constituency. No one should be forced to live in such conditions. We have some of the leakiest homes in Europe as a result of the last Government’s failure to deal with the problem. Will the Minister tell me how our warm homes plan will improve housing conditions and bring down bills for my constituents in Bournemouth West?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
Cold, damp homes that are hard to heat are the reality for too many households in this country. That is the legacy of the party opposite and a legacy that we are absolutely determined to turn around. We are committed to upgrading homes in the rental sectors with our minimum energy efficiency standard so that we can make cold, draughty homes a thing of the past. We will ramp up our warm homes plan so that my hon. Friend’s constituents and constituents across the country will benefit from homes that are warmer and bills that are lower.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will the Minister acknowledge the amazing contributions of groups such as New Forest Friends of the Earth, which this very morning have been lobbying their MPs in Parliament Square on warm homes initiatives? They will be coming to the Government with some possibly costly proposals, but I hope that the Government, despite the economic legacy that they allegedly inherited, will give them a sympathetic hearing.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for reminding us about our economic inheritance. We are reaching out to organisations and stakeholders across the country—industry, charities and third sector organisations—to feed into our warm homes plan, so we are keen to hear ideas. We are conscious that we have an ambitious programme and we need to do a big scaling-up of home upgrades across the country, so we are definitely in the market for hearing from and reaching out to organisations that can come up with ideas.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Is it not a fact that, regardless of how much money is put into a warm homes scheme, social tariffs or whatever, consumers can never be insulated against the massive cost of the mad net zero policy that will require thousands of new turbines, acres of solar farms and miles of new transmission lines, all at a cost to the consumer? How on earth does the Minister believe that we will deal with the issue of fuel poverty in this country with that cost?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I will say to the right hon. Gentleman that at the moment, families are not insulated from fossil fuel markets. We have seen one of the worst energy crises, which has had a huge impact on the cost of living. The status quo is not tenable. We already have record-high energy prices and the only way that we are going to bear down on that is through clean power. The alternative is to do nothing—but we have seen the impact of doing nothing over the last 14 years and consumers and constituents across the country are the ones being impacted. We will absolutely drive forward with clean power by 2030 because that is our route to providing an energy system that delivers energy security and that can deliver financial security.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister came to the House previously and gave us some encouragement about the warm homes scheme and how it has been discussed with the regions, the Northern Ireland Assembly in particular. Since that statement, has she had the opportunity to speak to the relevant Minister in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in Northern Ireland to ensure that we can all gain from the warm homes scheme, which the Minister is proposing in a positive fashion?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
We are speaking to all the devolved Administrations. We are constantly engaging with them, including in our inter-ministerial group. On this specific issue of home upgrades and how we drive up standards, we are working with the Scottish, the Welsh and the Northern Ireland Administrations.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
Home insulation delivers warm homes and lower bills. I have visited Government-backed schemes across the country and seen their impact on households and consumers, but we also know that there are too many examples of homes not being upgraded to the required standard. We are not happy or comfortable with that. We are committed to overhauling system so that when people have home upgrades, they can be confident that they will be of the highest standard and that, if things go wrong, they will have redress so that we can take them on this journey with us.
Andrew George
Further to the questions raised by the hon. Member for Shipley (Anna Dixon) and several other hon. Members, I, too, have picked up numerous cases in my constituency of Government-sponsored defective home insulation work and of extortionate, poor-quality and defective work of unscrupulous cowboy contractors who masquerade as operating under Government schemes. This includes Mrs King in Helston in my constituency who has paid out £19,000 to have insulation installed and then removed. I am pleased with the Minister’s response, but surely the Government need to do more to give householders confidence that these projects are both cost-effective and provide proper redress.
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The hon. Gentleman is right: it is just not good enough for any householder to get a home upgrade that is not up to standard. I am sorry to hear about the example of Mrs King. We are working with Members across the House on supporting a number of individual cases. If it is a Government-backed scheme that is at fault, mechanisms are in place for the work to be remediated at low cost. But, at the end of the day, we have acknowledged that the system requires root and branch reform so that when consumers opt for upgrades they can have the confidence of knowing that they will deliver what we are saying: warm homes that are cheaper to run.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Chair of the Energy Security and Net Zero Committee.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Next week, the Select Committee will be hearing from some of the victims of the botched solid wall insulation installed under the previous Government’s energy company obligation and GB insulation scheme. That includes people whose homes may well have to be rebuilt, as the cost of repairing the damage may be higher. Will the Minister tell us how such a thing could have happened, and will she confirm that she is happy to come back to the Select Committee to add to the comments that she has already made about rebuilding consumer confidence after the disaster under the previous Government?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
What is clear to us as a new Government is that the system of regulating home upgrades was too ad hoc and too fragmented. Accountability was not clear enough and consumers were not at the heart of the system. We are committed to turning around that system. Put simply, when someone has a home upgrade, they need to have the confidence that it will work for them and that, when things go wrong, redress will be put in place. I am committed to update the Select Committee on the progress that we are making on getting a grip of what we have inherited and on making sure that such a thing never happens again for consumers.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
As we have been hearing, Dickensian conditions of cold, damp and mouldy homes are shamefully on the increase. In my constituency, more than 4,000 households are having to make that difficult decision between eating and heating because of the previous Government’s dither and delay on insulation. However, even now, local authorities and families are in limbo, anxiously awaiting confirmation of the 2025-26 funding for ECO4 and the Great British Insulation scheme through a ministerial statement. Will the Minister act with the urgency that is needed to bring those schemes and the warm home scheme forward to tackle fuel poverty?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I thank the hon. Member for pointing out the inheritance and the legacy. That is material, because it is the backdrop to everything we are trying to do. We are clear that we need to drive forward with momentum and pace. That is why we are already upgrading up to 300,000 homes this year alone. It is also why we are working with local authorities and social housing providers to deliver warm homes that are cheaper to run for communities across the country. We are absolutely moving at pace with our warm homes plan. We will be setting out that plan, and at its heart is an ambition to ramp up the number of upgrades massively, so that more families across the country can benefit from what we know works: warm homes and lower bills.
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
We know that people are frustrated with standing charges, and we are committed as a Government to reducing them. As an initial step, the regulator Ofgem is consulting on giving people the option of no standing charge tariffs within the price cap, and we will continue to work with the regulator to ensure that we lower standing charges in the fairest way possible.
Victoria Collins
Lesley from Tring is one of my constituents who just missed out on the winter fuel allowance. She said she will be
“spending most of the winter in bed”
because she is struggling with energy costs. While so many are struggling with the cost of energy, standing charges disproportionately affect those on lower incomes such as Lesley. Will the Government meet Ofgem to discuss those disparities and prepare detailed action to review standing charges for a fairer system?
Miatta Fahnbulleh
I am sorry to hear about the case of Lesley, and I know there are people across the country who have this frustration with standing charges. I reassure the House that we have a commitment to reducing them. We are working with Ofgem on a set of options. Our challenge is to ensure that standing charges do not penalise some households and that they are as fair as possible. That is what we are committed to doing, and that is what we are working every day to deliver.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman not just on this question, but on securing an Adjournment debate last night on exactly the same subject. As I stated last night, clean power projects in his constituency and across the country are vital to achieving our clean power mission, which will give us energy security and bring down bills for families. Of course, all proposals are assessed on their individual merit through the planning system, and where communities host infrastructure, the Government believe they should directly benefit from it.
Greg Smith
In answering my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) earlier, the Secretary of State completely dismissed the legitimate concerns of rural communities and farmers who are being asked to take on energy projects. Yet last night in the Adjournment debate, the Under-Secretary found a more reasonable tone, accepting the point on cumulative impact in constituencies such as mine that are being asked to take up to 3,000 acres of projects. Will the Under-Secretary go into more detail about how the Government will put in mitigations on cumulative impact to protect communities such as mine?
Michael Shanks
I would be testing the patience of the Deputy Speaker if I were to go into more detail than I could in an Adjournment debate. The point I made clearly to the hon. Gentleman was that it is not a credible position for him to take that there should be absolutely no infrastructure built anywhere in his constituency. The reality is we need to build new infrastructure, not just energy infrastructure but right across the public sector. I have said clearly that the work we are taking forward on the strategic spatial energy plan and on the land use framework by colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is about trying to ensure that we manage the best use of land, but we will have to build new infrastructure, and communities will have to host it.
Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)
We announced that Great British Energy’s headquarters will be in Aberdeen, recognising the decades of experience in that city as the energy capital of Europe and our determination to invest in good, well-paid jobs in the city. With £8.3 billion-worth of investment behind Great British Energy, it will deliver economic value and jobs right across the supply chain across all parts of the country, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency. Great British Energy is the right idea for our time: public ownership, investment in supply chains and the reindustrialisation of our nation.
Mr Alaba
I commend the Minister on the progress he has made on setting up Great British Energy. Can he outline to the House what opportunities our publicly owned champion will bring to Southend East and Rochford and the wider south-east region?
Michael Shanks
My hon. Friend is right. Of course, the Great British Energy legislation is still going through Parliament at the moment; we hope that process will conclude soon, but in the meantime, hard work has been taking place to identify all the opportunities for Great British Energy to invest. Both Opposition parties—the SNP and the Conservatives—seem to oppose Great British Energy. Every single investment that it makes, every job that it creates, and every part of the supply chain that it incentivises will be delivered by Great British Energy against the SNP and the Conservatives, who have opposed it at every single stage. I ask them to rethink their position on what is a publicly owned champion to deliver for communities, create good, well-paid jobs, and deliver the clean power future that we need as a country.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
We heard from the chief executive officer of Great British Energy the other day. He said that it was not in his brief to cut bills by £300. What is Great British Energy for, then? It turned out that the jobs were not going to materialise either, so how will the Government make sure that we do not have some bureaucrat job-creation scheme in every region of the country, as the Minister’s Back Benchers are calling for, but actually have a company that invests in things that otherwise would not be invested in? Technologies such as wind and solar are already investable, so will Great British Energy focus on those things that need to be brought closer to market?
Michael Shanks
The right hon. Gentleman strongly makes the case for the importance of a publicly owned energy champion investing in parts of the energy system that are not currently getting that investment; I appreciate his recognition of that. What the interim chair of Great British Energy said very clearly—of course, it has not appointed a CEO yet—and what we have said consistently is that Great British Energy’s headquarters in Aberdeen will of course create jobs, but the majority of the jobs that will be created by that investment will come from the investment that Great British Energy makes in supply chains, in projects, and in developing the clean power that we need. Great British Energy will champion the industries that the right hon. Gentleman speaks about and deliver jobs in this country to reindustrialise communities, and Conservative Members will have to explain why they are against those jobs when they are created, including if they are created in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
It was refreshing yesterday to have some clarity on Great British Energy’s plans, not from the Secretary of State or from Ministers—that would be asking far too much—but from the Manchester-based chairman of the Aberdeen-based company, Juergen Maier. He stated that cutting energy bills is a “very long-term project”—not £300 by the next election, then—and that the Aberdeen headquarters, if we can call it that, will employ only 200 to 300 people, far from the 1,000 initially promised, although that may come in 20 years’ time. On behalf of the tens of thousands of energy workers worried for their future, and indeed the millions watching their energy bills rise yet again, can I ask the Minister whether he agrees with the now very interim chairman?
Michael Shanks
The shadow Minister must be the only Member of Parliament representing Aberdeenshire who is against investment in Aberdeenshire. He will have to explain to his constituents and businesses right across his community why he stands up and opposes investment in his constituency. Of course, in doing so, he misunderstands the role that Great British Energy will play; the key point of it is that it will invest £8.3 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament in clean power projects right across the country, helping to unlock private sector investment and create supply chains in this country. The shadow Minister has now turned his face against all of those jobs that will be created in Aberdeen, which is a question he will have to answer for his constituents.
Andrew Bowie
The Minister has a right cheek to come to this Chamber and talk about protecting jobs in Aberdeenshire, when tens of thousands of energy workers are going to lose their jobs because of this Government’s decisions on the North sea. The British people were promised lower bills by the next election; now, they have been given a vague assurance that in the very long term bills might come down, and they are meant to be grateful for that.
The arrogance of this Government is staggering, if not surprising. They are so driven by ideology that they will not even allow Government lawyers to defend licences issued for Rosebank and Jackdaw, and are willing to see imports of fracked gas increase as long as they go down in history as the Government who shut down the North sea. While pensioners freeze as the Minister’s Government strip them of the winter fuel allowance, and as people are made unemployed due to his Government’s position on the North sea, can the Minister see why people across this country are quite miffed that the Government get to waste £8 billion of their money on the GB Energy white elephant?
Michael Shanks
First, let us be absolutely clear that Great British Energy will invest in clean power projects right across the country, including in the shadow Minister’s constituency. Secondly, he has an absolute cheek to come to this Chamber and talk about jobs in oil and gas, when more than 70,000 jobs were lost in North sea industries over the past decade—the shadow Minister was in the Energy Department for at least a chunk of that time. The truth is that a transition is under way in the North sea. Conservative Members were quite happy to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that it was not happening as thousands of people lost their jobs. This Government are determined to build what comes next; the shadow Minister stands opposed to that, and he will have to explain to his constituents and the people of Scotland why he does not support that investment.
Madam Deputy Speaker
That brings us to topicals, and questions and answers will have to be very brief.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)
In recent weeks, we have seen continuing rises in prices in global fossil fuel markets, with wholesale gas prices last month 60% higher than a year ago, which is caused by a number of factors. I want to be clear with the House: as long as Britain remains so dependent on fossil fuels, we will be in the grip of these global markets controlled by petrostates and dictators, with direct impacts here at home. The only way to get off this rollercoaster is with clean, home-grown power that we control, and that is what the Government’s clean energy mission is all about.
John Lamont
The Scottish Borders has some of the most beautiful countryside in the whole of the United Kingdom, but it is going to be destroyed by the massive pylons being built by ScottishPower Energy Networks in pursuit of Scottish Government and UK Government policy. Does the Secretary of State think it is right to charge ahead with these plans, which are firmly opposed by local communities?
Ed Miliband
I say to the hon. Gentleman, and I have said it throughout this Question Time, that local communities should have a say, but we have a decision to make as a country. Do we build the clean energy infrastructure to protect us from volatile fossil fuel markets, or do businesses, families and the public finances—£94 billion was spent during the energy bills crisis—remain exposed? I know what I would choose: we protect ourselves.
Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Lab/Co-op)
Ed Miliband
My hon. Friend asks a really important question. The whole point of our clean industry bonus is to incentivise British manufacturing. That is so important for the country, and it was not done by the last Government. We are determined that his constituents and constituents across the country will benefit.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
This Government’s ideological obsession with intermittent renewables at the expense of stable, clean, baseload nuclear power will, we think, be their greatest mistake. They have delayed the small modular reactor down-selection competition, and we have not heard a peep about the final investment decision on Sizewell C. However, none of that comes close to the monumental act of self-harm of deciding to throw away and bury—out of reach, underground—20 years of nuclear-grade plutonium, which could be used to drive forward a nuclear revolution in this country. How does the Secretary of State think this will play with the pro-growth, pro-nuclear MPs in his own party who are already worried about him being a drag on growth?
Ed Miliband
First, may I take this opportunity—I know we are short of time, Madam Deputy Speaker—to congratulate the permanent shadow Energy Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho), on the birth of her baby boy? I am sure the whole House will want to join me in congratulating her. I also congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his temporary elevation.
On the issue of plutonium disposition and the decisions I and my hon. Friends have made, we are acting on the best advice we have inside Government. It has the potential to create thousands of jobs—thousands of long-term jobs—and it is the right thing to do not just for jobs, but for nuclear safety.
Dr Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Sarah Jones)
South Yorkshire has a proud history of steelmaking, as I saw for myself when I was at Sheffield Forgemasters last week. We saw a huge reduction in steel production in this country on the last Government’s watch, and we want to turn that around, which is why we are delivering a steel strategy. As ever, I would of course be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to talk about how we can make this work.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
While we eagerly await progress on bringing community energy into the Great British Energy Bill when it comes back to this House, will Ministers reassure community groups around the country that they will enlarge and expand the community energy fund of £10 million, which is so successful that it is currently oversubscribed?
Ed Miliband
I know that the hon. Lady has had long discussions with the Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen (Michael Shanks), on these issues. We are absolutely determined that, as part of Great British Energy, community energy will be massively expanded. That was our manifesto commitment, and that is what we will deliver. Hon. Members around the Chamber have asked how their community can benefit, and community energy will be an essential part.
Ruth Jones (Newport West and Islwyn) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Although we are clearly on the sprint to deliver clean power by 2030, demand for electricity in this country is likely to double by 2050. Our reforms around connection to the grid are important —they will make sure that there is space for demand projects, such as data centres, to connect—but so is building the grid for the future, so that we have capacity in our network to deliver on our growth aspirations.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
Ed Miliband
We are absolutely determined to build the manufacturing base in this country. I mentioned the investment in XLCC. That is a crucial part of building the supply chains. The supply chains have been eroded over a decade or two; we are determined to build them up.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
Michael Shanks
I cannot speak on behalf of the House of Commons authorities, but under the building regulations of 2021, all new non-residential buildings and those undergoing major renovations must install charging infrastructure. In government, along with colleagues in the Department for Transport, I hosted roundtables yesterday, and I will host another today, on how we can unlock much more investment in charging infrastructure, because that is critical in supporting the transition to electric vehicles.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
Ed Miliband
I have huge respect for the right hon. Gentleman and completely concur with him on this issue. Nuclear is an essential part of our clean energy future. The demand for electricity in the years ahead—there will be a 50% increase by 2035, and demand will probably be double, if not more, by 2050—means that we need all the technologies at our disposal: renewables, nuclear and others. The SNP is 100% in the wrong place on this, but I am glad to say that Scottish Labour is in the right place.
Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)
When I visited Birkby junior school, I saw that tackling climate change and pollution is one of its key priorities. Does the Minister agree that setting a strong nationally determined contribution at COP29 and committing to an ambitious clean power target is important in demonstrating that the Government are intent on tackling climate change, especially at a time when other global leaders are not?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Kerry McCarthy)
Last week, the UK formally submitted its NDC to the United Nations framework convention on climate change. It is a world-leading, ambitious target that we hope will demonstrate ambition to other countries. In that NDC, we have a youth clause for the first time, and I am very keen to talk to Members across the House about how we can better engage with schools, communities and young people to bring them on board with us as we seek to achieve our ambitions.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman. We know that we have a job to do to ensure that all insulation is up to standard and that we have the right measures for every type of household. I am keen to engage with him and Members across the House.
Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)
The UK has a fantastic £26 billion clean tech sector, leading the way in innovation and carbon reduction for everything from clean power to sustainable agriculture. However, all too often, red tape and bureaucracy are locking in dependency on fossil fuels and foreign oil and gas. How can we work across Government to cut back on this unnecessary red tape, and ensure that our schemes support the leading tech and innovation that our best-of-British producers are bringing forward?
Ed Miliband
There is huge potential, and with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, I will chair an artificial intelligence energy council, looking at not only how we can meet the future demands of AI, but how AI and technology can help us deliver the infrastructure and energy system of the future. My hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) makes an important point, which we will take away.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Ed Miliband
Let us be frank: the big prize that has eluded past Governments for a long time is a proper plan to upgrade all types of buildings, not just residential properties. The Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Peckham (Miatta Fahnbulleh), and I are working on that closely with colleagues from across Government. It is part of a bigger version of the warm homes plan, which is also about buildings. We will definitely take away the experience that the hon. Lady raises.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
What engagement has the Minister had with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities council leaders on local power plans? Does he agree that a partnership approach by Government, councils and community organisations, such as the West Lothian Climate Action Network, is key to the success of local power plans?
Michael Shanks
I agree with my hon. Friend. The local power plan is a key part of what Great British Energy will deliver. It will give communities the power to develop local power projects wherever possible, and to achieve the social and economic benefits of doing so. We are engaging with a number of stakeholders across the UK. Because of the devolution settlement, our main contact will be with the Scottish Government, who have their relationship with COSLA, but we are determined that local government across the UK will help drive this forward, and will have the capacity to support communities in doing so.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Miatta Fahnbulleh
The right hon. Member is right to raise this issue. We have to deliver on the teleswitching transition. We are behind where we need to be, but we are working with industry and Ofgem to make sure that households are not left in the dark, and that everyone can upgrade to smart meters, which will be much better for them. I am keen to work with him and Members from all parts of the House to make sure that we get this right for his community and other communities that are affected.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
The Government procurement budget is around £300 billion. Can the Minister please tell us what percentage of his allocation will go to British businesses? Will he confirm that where we have to import, no modern slavery will be imported into this country?
Ed Miliband
On the second question, I completely agree with my hon. Friend, who is an eloquent champion for tackling modern slavery. I know Members from all parts of the House share her view. We need to do better as a Government, in terms of the guidelines inherited from the last Government, and the solar taskforce is looking at those issues. Her first question relates to something that we are discussing with our colleagues in government. The economic and social value we can get as a country from the procurement budget is huge and untapped, and we need to do something about it.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
The £80 million swimming pool support fund to help make pools more energy-efficient is facing a significant underspend before it expires in a few months’ time. Will the Minister urgently meet Eastbourne borough council, Better, and me to discuss unlocking this national underspend to help fund solar panels and pool covers at Eastbourne Sovereign centre, where I learned to swim?
Ed Miliband
I am massively in favour of solar panels on swimming pools and lidos—I am an occasional lido user myself—so I am fully on board with the hon. Gentleman’s point. I will pass it on to colleagues in government.
Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)
Southampton Itchen has many Victorian and inter-war homes that are poorly insulated and therefore expensiveto heat, especially as the Conservative party dragged its feet and did not invest in clean or affordable energy. What steps is the Minister taking to improve the insulation and energy efficiency of my constituents’ homes?
Ed Miliband
This is hard, partly because of the fiscal backdrop, but we are working on a comprehensive plan so that we can help not just the poorest—we want to help those in fuel poverty—but people across the income spectrum through a more universal offer. If we can get funding for up-front investments, there will be massive paybacks; that is the chance. We all know that. It is a hard nut to crack, but we are doing our best to do so.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
Energy suppliers are now forecasting that the energy price cap will go up in April by another 5%, making for some 16% since last summer. Will the Secretary of State tell the House when bills will come down—or will net stupid zero mean that they will only ever go up?
Ed Miliband
It is a particular pleasure to end with the hon. Gentleman. Here it is: a decision for all Members of the House to make. We are on the rollercoaster of the fossil fuel markets; we have no control over them. The mission of this Government is to take back control with clean, home-grown power. I urge him and Members across the House to support taking back control.
National Cancer Plan
(1 day, 11 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Andrew Gwynne)
With permission, I wish to make a statement on the national cancer plan. Today is World Cancer Day. Almost everyone in our country has been affected by cancer, either themselves or through a friend or relative. Having lost both my parents to cancer, I am so grateful to the Prime Minister for giving me this job. He has given me the chance of a lifetime to do my parents proud by creating the kind of compassionate and humane healthcare that all our constituents deserve.
I am also pleased to be led by a survivor of kidney cancer, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. His experience as a patient will be invaluable to us in the months ahead. I pay tribute to the amazing cancer charities who do fantastic work to help people live with cancer, support bereaved families and drive vital research in this area—Macmillan, Cancer Research UK, Cancer52 and Marie Curie to name just a few.
Lord Darzi’s investigation set out the scale of the challenges that we face in fixing the NHS, and how desperately we need to improve cancer diagnosis rates, waits and outcomes. He found that
“the UK has substantially higher rates than our European neighbours, Nordic countries, and countries that predominantly speak English”.
There were close to 100,000 more cases of cancer in 2019 than in 2001. While survival rates at one year, five years and 10 years have all improved, the rate of improvement slowed substantially during the 2010s.
Lord Darzi also noted important inequalities in the provision of cancer care; people in the most underserved areas are more likely to present as an emergency. As Cancer Research UK pointed out in its submission to the investigation, the 62-day target for referral to treatment has not been met for almost 10 years. Last May, performance was at just under 66%, with more than 30% of patients waiting longer than 31 days to start radical radiotherapy.
For all those reasons and more, we do not have a second to waste. That is why the Prime Minister kicked off this year with our elective reform plan, setting out how we will cut the longest waiting times from 18 months to 18 weeks. From March next year, around 100,000 more people every year will be told if they have cancer or not within 28 days, and around 17,000 more people will begin treatment within two months of diagnosis. That is why this year, we will spend £70 million on replacing older radiotherapy machines with newer, more efficient models. That is why in the King’s Speech we put forward an improved Tobacco and Vapes Bill, helping to reduce around 80,000 preventable deaths and putting us on track to a smoke-free UK.
While around 40% of cancers are caused by avoidable factors such as smoking, the backdrop is one of an ageing society. Cancer Research UK has forecast half a million cancer cases each year by 2040. We are preparing for the future now, with our 10-year health plan for the NHS. The plan will set out the framework of reforms that we need to ensure better outcomes and to meet the growing challenges that we face in the fight against this dreadful disease. The plan will play to Britain’s strengths as a global leader in the development of advanced therapies, using our strong academic and life sciences industry.
We should remember that the NHS was the first health service in Europe to commission CAR-T cellular therapy for blood cancer patients. On this World Cancer Day, I can announce that we will build on that legacy by investing in a cutting-edge, world-leading trial to transform breast cancer care through artificial intelligence. Nearly 700,000 women will take part in this trial, testing how cutting-edge AI tools can be used to catch breast cancer cases earlier. Thirty testing sites across the country will be enhanced with the latest digital AI technologies, ready to invite women already booked in for routine screenings on the NHS to take part.
The technology will assist radiologists by screening patients to identify changes in breast tissue that show possible signs of cancer, with referral for further investigations if required. If the trial is successful, it has immense potential to free up hundreds of radiologists and other specialists across the country to see more patients, tackle rising cancer rates and save more lives. It is just one example of how British scientists are at the forefront of transforming cancer care, and of the promising potential of cutting-edge innovations to tackle one of the UK’s biggest killers.
This Government know that unless we do things differently, our NHS will remain in the dire state in which we inherited it. That means proper reform, from doing away with burdensome process that holds back frontline staff to handing more power to local leaders so that they can deliver for the communities they know best. It also means embracing new technologies, including AI, to transform the way we deliver care and to improve patient outcomes. Today’s trial is yet more evidence of this Government taking action to bring in the reform that is desperately needed. As the Prime Minister set out last month, our plan for change will put the UK on the front foot, unleashing AI to drive up health services and shift the NHS from analogue to digital, as part of our 10-year plan.
Our 10-year plan will ensure that the NHS is there for our grandchildren and future generations, but we believe that the increasing number of cancer cases and the complexity of cancer care mean that we need a specific approach to cancer. We are determined both to bring down the number of lives cut short by cancer and to ensure that many more people go on to lead a full life after their treatment. That is why I am today announcing a call for evidence for our new national cancer plan that we will publish following the 10-year plan in the second half of this year. We will look at the full range of factors and tools that will allow us to transform outcomes for cancer patients while improving their experiences of treatment and care. We will make the United Kingdom a world leader in cancer survival by fighting the disease on all fronts—through better research, diagnosis, screening, treatment and prevention. However, we cannot do this alone, and that is why we are launching this call for evidence from patients, doctors, nurses, scientists, our key partners and other members of the public on what should be included.
To support that work, we will relaunch the children and young people’s cancer taskforce, co-chaired by the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and Professor Darren Hargrave, with Dr Sharna Shanmugavadivel as vice-chair. I’ve put my teeth in—apologies if I pronounced that wrong. The taskforce will bring together the country’s top experts to set out plans to improve treatment, detection and research for cancer in children, which will feed into the plan. At every stage, we will ensure that patient voices are heard. I look forward to updating the House on the progress of the plan, the taskforce and the trial throughout the year.
Many of us on the Government Benches remember with pride the previous Labour Government’s record in the fight against cancer. We introduced landmark legislation to ban smoking in public places, protecting a generation of children from the harms of second-hand smoke, while putting record sums into smoking cessation programmes. At the dawn of the millennium, we launched a national cancer plan, which led to faster cancer diagnosis and treatment times, increased funding for cancer services, equipped the national health service with radiotherapy machines—many of which are still there—and expanded cancer research funding, so that a new generation of scientists could answer the call. What did that plan lead to? Survival rates went up. The number of patients diagnosed and treated on time went up. The number of lives lived well after cancer went up. That was our record in government, and we will do it again. I commend this statement to the House.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement, and I thank all the NHS workers, charities, scientists and others working to help those with cancer.
We can all agree that tackling cancer should be a top priority for the NHS. From diagnosing people quickly to starting treatment quickly and using the latest technology and drugs, we all want to see improvements. The recent trends in cancer survival rates are positive. The one-year survival rate for cancer increased by 5.9% between 2010 and 2020, and the five-year survival rate increased by 4.3% in the same period. Despite those improvements, we are not yet where we want to be, and we will be up front about that.
In government, we took action to catch cancer sooner and boost survival rates, with initiatives such as lung cancer screening and prostate cancer trials, and we welcome that Labour is continuing with that mission. We will work constructively with the Government on that, as we all want to achieve the same positive outcomes. However, the statement as a whole is rather disappointing. The Minister has told us that this is a cancer plan, but it is not; it is a statement that there is to be one. The Government saying that they want cancer survival rates to increase and that they are going to have a plan does not make it so—we need the plan itself.
The announcement of the AI trial in breast cancer is a welcome approach. Artificial intelligence has the capacity to revolutionise the way we diagnose disease, and I am delighted that the Government wish to explore those opportunities. We also very much welcome the relaunch of the children and young people’s cancer taskforce, and are pleased it will be able to continue its valuable work under the co-chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and Professor Darren Hargrave. It is just a shame that the Labour Government wasted seven months by suspending the Conservative taskforce, only to reinstate it now.
I note the Minister’s comments about waiting times to start treatment, and we agree that these must improve. I am sure it will not have escaped his notice that NHS Wales, which has been under a Labour Administration for 25 years, has a poorer performance, and I am certain he would not want party politics to affect such an issue. Can he tell the House what conversations he is having with his Welsh counterparts to improve cancer care there?
I am also concerned that last month, the Government appeared to quietly abandon the target of ensuring that patients receive treatment a maximum of 62 days from an urgent referral of suspected cancer, despite the Health Secretary having said before the election that a Labour Government would meet that target within the first term. Will the Minister clarify his commitment to the 62-day target?
More scanners are, of course, welcome, but what are the Government doing to ensure that there are enough trained professionals to interpret the results of the scans effectively?
With charities such as Macmillan and Marie Curie being hit with devastating increases in national insurance contributions, what help will be provided so that they do not have to cut back the vital support and guidance services they provide to cancer patients?
Anyone who has faced cancer will know that time is of the essence. The second half of the year—if it is not until December—could be quite a long time from now. Will the Minister therefore be more clear about when he intends to publish the plan? May I recommend using the evidence collected in our 2022 call for evidence, as well as the policies of the interim major conditions strategy, published in 2023, to speed up the plan? The quicker the Government act, the more lives they will be able to save.
Andrew Gwynne
I start by genuinely thanking the shadow Minister for the co-operation she has pledged as we seek to improve the outcomes for people with cancer. This is not a party political issue. We all want people to be diagnosed more quickly and to be put on the effective treatment pathways as quickly as possible, and we all want people to have better outcomes. I would just remind her, however, that while progress was made over the past decade, as I referred to in the statement, Lord Darzi clearly set out that the rate of progress was much slower than in comparator countries, and that we could and should have been on a much better trajectory.
That is why we are committed to a new national cancer plan—something for which the sector has been calling for some time. We are going to consult on that plan. I hope the shadow Minister is not suggesting that we should just pull a plan out of thin air without any consultation with the sector, patients or anybody with any interest in cancer.
Of course, things have changed over recent years. New technology has advanced and scientific progress is advancing, although there are still some areas where, stubbornly, there is not enough research. We need to build up the case for research and get the funding in; I think especially of brain tumours, where, quite frankly, things have not progressed at all. We need to ensure that in the 10-year cancer plan, we really drive forward in some of those areas, using the latest technology and scientific advances.
The shadow Minister asked about targets. I just say to her that we have actually strengthened targets, rather than setting new ones for cancer. Currently, the NHS is on track to deliver against its cancer targets for this year. Yes, we should be ambitious where we can, and that is exactly what this Labour Government are going to do.
Dame Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I am delighted to announce to the House that we will be opening a drug trial for glioblastoma brain tumours in May, in memory of my late sister, Margaret. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] But for how long will progress on this depend on people baking cakes, running marathons and organising dinners? When will the NHS and the National Institute for Health and Care Research get their act together and do something for the 3,200 people who will be diagnosed with this dreadful illness this year?
Andrew Gwynne
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. Those of us who knew Margaret miss her very much; she was such a towering figure in the Labour party for so many years, and we on the Labour Benches have a lot to thank her—and, indeed, my hon. Friend—for.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right on research. This is one area where, quite frankly, we have not done well enough. We have not made any progress. I know she will continue to champion more research. With our new national cancer plan, I hope that she will be pushing on an open door, because this is one area we absolutely have to do much better in.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
Nearly every family has a cancer story, whether it is a personal fight or that of a loved one. A 10-year plan from the Government is a welcome step, as the previous Government broke their promise to implement a 10-year cancer strategy that would have made a real difference to patients. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches are very proud that our cancer campaigner, my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), secured from the Government a commitment to introduce such a plan.
Testing for cancer, diagnosing and starting treatment quickly reduces stress and anxiety. Also, if the cancer is caught early, it is more likely to be treated successfully. Yet the target of 85% of people receiving their diagnosis and starting treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral has not been met since December 2015. In my constituency, one third of cases fall short of that target and 1,000 families lose a loved one every year to this cruel disease.
Lord Darzi’s review laid out very clearly that the UK has appreciably higher cancer mortality rates than other countries and that more than 30% of patients are waiting longer than 31 days for radical radiotherapy. A quarter of England’s 280 radiotherapy machines are now operating beyond their recommended 10-year lifespan, and in some areas, such as West Sussex, there is no access to radiotherapy at all. That is why we welcomed the £70 million investment announced in October to start to replace the older radiotherapy machines.
Will the Minister confirm whether there will be further rounds of funding to keep pace with available radiotherapy technology? Will he look to support those at the mercy of a postcode lottery by ensuring that radiotherapy is available in all areas? What is the expected timeline for reversing the damage done by the previous Government, and when can all patients expect to start their treatment within the 62-day urgent referral target?
Andrew Gwynne
One reason we think a national cancer plan is so important is precisely to get the investment in the areas we need so that we can tackle those health inequalities. There are very real inequalities when it comes to the diagnosis of cancer and, more importantly, the treatment and therefore the outcomes. I am really keen that we focus on that in the plan, to ensure that all parts of the country achieve the best outcomes for people who have been diagnosed with cancer.
Part of the plan is the roll-out of community diagnostic centres so that we can get diagnosis much earlier. That then puts greater pressure on getting people through the front door for treatment, so that is why, as part of the recovery plan that the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary announced, we are seeking to get more people treated more quickly on those treatment pathways. Hopefully, that will get the desired outcomes we want. It is a commitment that we will seek to restore the national health service to its constitutional standards. That is a priority of this Government.
On radiotherapy machines, the £70 million investment will fund about 25 or so machines. The criteria for evaluating bids are the age of the machine, the proportion of machines aged over seven years, and the performance against the 31-day standard for radiotherapy, with poorer performers prioritised. On future rounds of funding, the cancer plan will feed into spending reviews and future Budgets. It is our priority to ensure that we reach the cancer targets, so hopefully we can make the case to the Treasury for future investment in further years.
Derek Twigg (Widnes and Halewood) (Lab)
As someone who lost his wife to cancer, I know the dire circumstances that a cancer diagnosis can bring. It is right that cancer plans should focus on the best outcomes: improving the amount of time that people live for, or having a cure. I would like to raise with the Minister the specific issue of pain relief management. As part of the plan, will he ensure that there is an investigation into how pain relief management can be improved for cancer patients, and that it is given not just during the week but at weekends too?
Andrew Gwynne
Absolutely. My hon. Friend raises a really important point about how people receive pain relief and how that is managed. There are some really good examples out there of how it is done really well and, shockingly, there are some that are less good. We want to learn from the best. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State says, it is about taking the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS. Absolutely, that should form part of the plan.
Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
Like many people in this House, I have seen up close and personal the devastating impact that a cancer diagnosis can have on people and families. I have also seen the difference between an early diagnosis and a later diagnosis, which is why I very much welcome the use of AI in early diagnosis. One positive by-product of having a long-standing national health service is that we have in the UK a very large database of historical tissue samples. Will the Minister consider using AI to do a retrospective analysis of those historical tissue samples to try to spot patterns that could inform future speedy diagnosis across a whole range of cancers?
Andrew Gwynne
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that suggestion and will ask my officials to look into it. I am very keen that we maximise the latest advances in technology, genomics, life sciences and research to ensure that we identify people who are at risk of cancer, preferably before they develop cancer, so that we can get them on appropriate treatments where necessary and they avoid the pain and misery that cancer can bring.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)
On this World Cancer Day, will my hon. Friend the public health Minister tell me what efforts he is making to raise awareness of the signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer, such as a bloated tummy, lack of appetite or feeling full, tummy pain or needing to pee more often, in order to increase lifesaving early diagnosis?
Andrew Gwynne
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for all the work that she has done on ovarian cancer since becoming an MP. She knows—the rest of the House might not—that I lost my mum to ovarian cancer. I was 19 when my mum died and she was only 50—my age today. She had a late diagnosis. They basically opened her up to perform a hysterectomy and the cancer had spread all the way through her body. They sewed her back up and she died at the end of a hospital ward two days later in pain and agony. Having awareness of those symptoms is so important. My mum was fobbed off by her GP, because she worked in a shop and lifted boxes. She had a bad back and was bloated and so on. The GP said it was down to her work, rather than erring on the side of caution and getting her checked out. We must ensure that women today are heard by GPs and, more importantly, that we err on the side of caution and get people on to treatment.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
The Minister is absolutely right to focus on this. I warmly welcome the reinstatement of the children and young people’s cancer taskforce. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to my constituent Charlotte Fairall, who was pivotal in the work to bring the taskforce together in the first place. Charlotte’s daughter Sophie died of rhabdomyosarcoma when she was just 10 years old. I know the Minister met Charlotte to discuss this issue. Unfortunately, Sophie is not alone—around 500 children and young people die of cancer every year in the UK. It is the biggest cause of death by illness of children under the age of 14. Sophie had a wish list of things that she wanted to achieve before she died, including cooking with Gordon Ramsay and wearing high-heeled shoes, but she also wanted to meaningfully change the way we detect, treat and care for children with cancer. Does the Minister agree that the taskforce is a great step in that direction?
Andrew Gwynne
It absolutely is, and I thank the hon. Lady for agreeing to co-chair the re-formed taskforce. I know that she cares passionately about this issue, and it was lovely to meet Charlotte some time before Christmas.
Cancer is terrible, and cancer affecting children even more so. As the hon. Lady knows, we paused the taskforce because the general election got in the way. We wanted to carry out a real-time stocktake to establish whether we needed all these different taskforces, but, along with Charlotte, she convinced me, and convinced the Secretary of State, that the work of this taskforce will be crucial to informing our national cancer plan, and I wish her all the best in securing the outcomes that both she and I want to see.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that the move from analogue to digital will be key to cancer research, especially in the field of rare cancers such as the brain tumours that we have been hearing about?
Andrew Gwynne
I absolutely do. That shift to analogue to digital, and the use of the latest advantages in technology, science and research, will push the boundaries of what is possible when it comes to diagnosing and treating some of the rarer cancers, on which we have made virtually zero progress in recent years. I think that, with the right direction, the right commitment and the right drive, we can really start to make inroads in this area.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
May I invite the Minister, and indeed everyone here, to join us in Room M after these exchanges, when Radiotherapy UK will have a drop-in session with—most important—our patron Bryan Robson, England’s Captain Fantastic? I thank him for mentioning radiotherapy in his statement, which is crucial step forward, but may I suggest that he and the Government need to show exponentially greater ambition to get this right? The UK spends 5% of its cancer budget on radiotherapy, while the OECD average is 9%, which is why the UK is at the bottom of the survival league for so many cancers. Will the Minister commit himself to putting that right?
Andrew Gwynne
I am not sure that I will be able to attend the hon. Gentleman’s meeting, but I will certainly be in Westminster Hall for his debate later this afternoon. I understand exactly the concerns of people who are championing the need for increased access to radiotherapy treatments. My dad benefited from radiotherapy at the Christie, which probably gave him an extra couple of years of life with his family—I will be forever grateful for that. I get it; I understand it; we need to make the case.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Ind)
I thank the Minister for his welcome statement, and join him in thanking all the organisations that do the vital work of helping and supporting those with cancer and their families. He is right to talk about health inequalities, which, as he will know, continue to worsen in constituencies such as mine, where, on average, people live 10 years less than others in more affluent areas; and last year more than 13,000 were waiting for diagnostic tests. Will he join me in commending the work of Eccleshill community diagnostic centre in Bradford— essential, and the first of its kind—which is speeding up the detection of life-threatening conditions such as cancer, and will he assure me that, as part of his national action plan, more support will be given to places such as Bradford and the Eccleshill community diagnostic centre, so that no one is left behind when it comes to their treatment?
Andrew Gwynne
As my hon. Friend says, tackling health inequalities is a key priority for this Government, in relation to our health mission but also more generally, when it comes to some of the big conditions such as cancer. In areas such as his and mine, the prevalence of cancer is greater, because of the industrial legacy, and also because the prevalence of smoking is still much higher than the national average. I commend the work of his local diagnostics team, and we need much more of that best practice to be spread across the areas that need it the most.
Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)
I welcome the Minister's statement. He will be aware that a routine prostate cancer screening programme would save many lives. Can he give any indication of when it will be introduced?
Andrew Gwynne
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that question, and also for the written parliamentary questions about prostate cancer that he and a number of other Members have tabled. According to the current guidance, screening for prostate cancer is not recommended in the UK because of the inaccuracy of the current best test for prostate-specific antigen. Indeed, it could actually harm men, as some might be diagnosed with a cancer that would not have caused them problems during their lives. However, I am looking at this carefully, and I know that further information has gone to the National Institute for Health and Care Research so that it can, perhaps, reach a different conclusion. Obviously, as technology and other mechanisms advance, this may well be an area where we can make inroads, but I am happy to work with the hon. Gentleman to ensure that every opportunity is met.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
I welcome this plan. I note that it was a recommendation from the Health and Social Care Committee in the last Parliament, and, as a member of that Committee, I hope that it sets a precedent.
Two weeks ago I lost my brother, Alex English, to high-grade acinic cell carcinoma. While I pay tribute to all those who gave him care, can the Minister confirm that we will look at rare cancers and make sure that we research some of them and find treatments?
Andrew Gwynne
First, may I send my condolences to my hon. Friend and his family on the loss of his brother Alex?
Of course rarer cancers are important, and they are a crucial part of what will be in the national cancer plan. It is in these areas that we must focus our efforts on diagnosis, treatment and, more importantly, getting the research done, so that we can find ways of tackling some of the very rare but deadly cancers that affect many families, including my hon. Friend’s.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
In 2013, the number of breast cancer cases in women under 50 topped 10,000 for the first time, but routine breast cancer screenings are given only to women aged 40 and over. Will the Department review that and ensure that, when appropriate, initial appointments can be given to younger women? While I am at it, although the Minister might not have time to attend, may I invite everyone else to swing by my drop-in event this afternoon to discuss local health inequalities in breast cancer?
Andrew Gwynne
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the work that she does in this regard. The decisions on whom to screen are made by the UK national screening committee and their advice comes to Ministers, but I am aware of the case that she has made. Screening women earlier for breast cancer should perhaps be looked at, and I will ensure that my officials look into whether we can make some progress on that for her.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I know that some of these contributions are quite emotional, and if people need to leave the Chamber after they have spoken, that is okay by me.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
Ethan was just 15 and studying for his GCSEs when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Sadly, he passed away two years later. I had the privilege of meeting his mum, Nikki, this weekend at two events organised to raise money for brain tumour research. In Ethan’s memory, will the Minister commit himself to improving outcomes for people with brain tumours through the national cancer plan?
Andrew Gwynne
Through my hon. Friend, I would like to pass my condolences on to Nikki for the loss of Ethan. As I have said, we have not made anything like the progress we would want to make on treatment and survival rates for brain tumours. That will form an integral part of our national cancer plan, and we will utilise all the latest advances in technology and science to try to get the better outcomes that we so desperately want.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
I genuinely welcome the Minister’s commitment to the upgrading of radiotherapy machines, but I share the concerns of the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on radiotherapy, the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), about the scale of the ambition. In defeating this horrible disease, technology and innovation is our friend. What is the Minister’s ambition for minimally invasive cancer therapies in the national cancer plan? These technologies are coming along every day, but awareness of them and the ability to get them rolled out on the frontline is slapdash at best. Will he commit to looking at those emerging therapies and getting them rolled out as soon as possible?
Andrew Gwynne
Absolutely. Things are advancing so quickly in technology and innovation. It is quite remarkable that science fiction is becoming science fact. We are obviously interested in minimally invasive therapies, and they will form part of the plan. That is why we are consulting. That is the purpose of this exercise: so that we can look at what technologies are here today, what the emerging technologies are and how they will shift the dial on some cancers.
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
The House will know that my family, like many others in Newcastle-under-Lyme, has been impacted by cancer in recent times, so I thank the Minister for his statement and his personal commitment to getting this right. On World Cancer Day, I join him in paying tribute to the charities he mentioned in his statement, and particularly my constituents Mary and Colin, who raise so much money every year for Macmillan. Health inequalities in some of our poorest communities and our ethnic minority communities play a big role in cancer being diagnosed. Can the Minister tell me and my constituents in Newcastle-under-Lyme how we will tackle those health inequalities alongside this national cancer plan?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and it relates to not just cancer but a whole range of conditions, including cardiovascular disease, strokes and so many others—it is the same areas that have the worst outcomes, because there are endemic health inequalities that we have not shifted the dial on for decades. Life expectancy is much lower, and healthy life expectancy is much worse, than in less deprived areas. It is part of our health mission to drive forward better health outcomes for people living in the poorest areas, and our national cancer plan will be a key part of that.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
In his remarks yesterday, the Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), implied that he was discussing the future with AstraZeneca, which has had some bad news this week. AstraZeneca makes immunotherapies, among other things, and therefore is very important in allowing people to live better for longer. What discussion will the Minister be having as part of his plan with the pharmaceutical sector, since plainly the national health service cannot do this alone?
Andrew Gwynne
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I have certainly had a number of roundtables with the pharmaceutical sector in the UK about how we can support it, how we can grow our life sciences sector and how Britain can be at the cutting edge of new treatments and clinical trials. Indeed, we had a Delegated Legislation Committee yesterday on regulations to make it easier to carry out clinical trials in this country. Some of the latest advances in pharma are quite remarkable; I think particularly of the work being done on mRNA technology to look at having specific cancer treatments pertinent to a person’s genomics—it could be a game changer.
Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)
Hyndburn is home to the incredible woman Lorraine Hargreaves. She established the charity Milly’s Smiles after her daughter Milly died of leukaemia, and each year she supports thousands of families whose children have cancer. Can the Minister reassure her that this plan will also improve outcomes for children? I know that Lorraine will welcome the announcement on the re-establishment of the taskforce, but would the Minister consider meeting her to discuss the lack of support and grief groups for families who go through the unimaginable tragedy of losing a child to cancer?
Andrew Gwynne
I cannot even begin to think what it would be like to lose a child full stop, but to lose them to cancer would be horrific for their parents. I pay tribute to Lorraine for all the campaigning she has done on this. I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend and Lorraine to talk about this, but the whole reason for putting the taskforce back on an operational footing is so that we can make the changes that she and Lorraine want to see.
Freddie van Mierlo (Henley and Thame) (LD)
Members across the House will be all too familiar with constituents reaching out to let them know that safe, effective new medicines are not approved by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. The Minister speaks of research and the need for access. Will he commit to being a critical friend of NICE, to ensure both good value for the taxpayer and good access for patients?
Andrew Gwynne
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. NICE is there for a particular reason: to ensure that the drugs being developed are available on the NHS when they meet the required threshold. Of course, we want to ensure that as new treatments become available, they are available for British patients. The work that is being done with Moderna and other pharmaceutical companies will ensure that British patients have access to some of the latest treatments as they come through the pipeline.
Katrina Murray (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch) (Lab)
One of my earliest memories is being in a hospital room as my grandfather was dying of cancer. Ten days ago, I was in the same hospital as my father died with the same cancer—50 years in between, almost to the week, but no significant change in prognosis. Can the Minister assure me that what are termed the less survivable cancers, which are not necessarily rare cancers, are included as part of this work?
Andrew Gwynne
My heart goes out to my hon. Friend. I lost both my parents to cancer, and it does not matter when it happens in your life; it is just heartbreaking. As the children of those parents, you never get over it. Of course, we will have a concerted effort on less survivable cancers. In part, they are less survivable because the research has not been done, or not to the extent that we can develop better treatments for them. That is where we really have to shift the dial in the next decade. We have to make sure that people who have a cancer diagnosis have the best opportunities to live a long and fulfilling life after cancer.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
I declare an interest, in that I have now been smoke-free for 34 days using the NHS Quit Smoking app, even though my waistline and the Government have tested my resolve in recent weeks.
Eighteen months ago we lost my office manager, Susan Hall, to lymphoma. The Minister will know that parliamentary employees are not just employees; they are part of our family. Part of her treatment was community care provided by an excellent hospice in my constituency called Mountbatten hospice. This is not meant to be a political point, but what progress has been made on looking at a fairer, Government-led mechanism to fund our hospices across the United Kingdom on an even footing and with more money?
Andrew Gwynne
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on being smoke-free. Hopefully, he is the first of many as we move towards a smoke-free UK by 2030. He makes a real and serious point about not just community care—one of the big shifts in the health mission is from hospital to community—but how we approach the hospice sector. Last weekend I was at my local hospice, Willow Wood in Ashton-under-Lyne, where staff made exactly the same point. That will be fed into the national cancer plan.
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his statement, and particularly for his deep understanding of women’s health issues and the difficulty that many women face in getting their GP to understand what they are going through. The Women and Equalities Committee has spent some time looking at that this year.
The George Eliot hospital in my constituency serves many of my constituents, who often complain about the length of time it takes to get scan results. Between June 2023 and 2024, almost 12% of people waited more than 28 days to receive MRI results, compared with 6.5% nationally. I know that the team there are working very hard to bring the time down, but can the Minister reassure my constituents that the use of AI will speed up the time it takes for them to get their scan results and the treatment they need?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend makes some really important points. The need to get people scanned more quickly, and to get results to consultants, is in part why we now have extra capacity through community diagnostic centres, where there are extra facilities for scans. She is absolutely right to raise the issue of where AI and emerging technologies may take us, which will almost certainly lead to faster identification of cancers.
Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)
I thank the Minister for making his statement on World Cancer Day, and I do not doubt his sincerity on this issue. On 22 March 2022, the then Northern Ireland Health Minister launched a 10-year cancer strategy and funding plan. It was co-designed, co-produced and co-chaired by Professor Charlotte McArdle, the then chief nursing officer, and Ivan McMinn, the then chair of Cancer Focus NI. The strategy looked to adopt a regional approach, to create smoother pathways and to adopt successful innovations. It had 58 action points and was costed at £145 million per year for 10 years, but it has not really made any progress since the fall of the Northern Ireland Executive. The Minister has said that he is developing a national cancer plan. Will he meet me and the current Northern Ireland Health Minister to ensure that the work that was developed is not lost but is built into what can be a truly successful national cancer plan if we do it right?
Andrew Gwynne
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the work that he did in this area in a previous guise. I am more than happy to meet him and Mike Nesbitt, with whom I had a meeting on drug strategy and drugs as a public health issue before this statement, to drive forward how we can improve outcomes in Northern Ireland and get that plan working again, as it should never have stalled.
Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)
People talk about the politics of hope and, goodness me, this statement can give the country some hope that cancer survival rates will be driven up. However, the Shrewsbury and Telford hospital NHS trust has remained challenged over the last 14 years. Will my hon. Friend the Minister confirm that the areas that are most challenged will be given support to catch up and push on?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend makes a really important point, which is not lost on those of us on the Government Front Bench. There are real challenges across the healthcare system, and some of the areas with some of the worst outcomes also happen to have some of the worst health inequalities. Those issues are exacerbated by the pressure on the healthcare system. He can have my reassurance that the Government will make it a priority to drive down health inequalities and ensure that healthcare systems get the support they need.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I hope the Minister will join me in thanking the team at Dorset cancer centre in Poole, who enabled my step-mum, Sally Walls, to ring the bell this morning following the end of her radiotherapy treatment. Her treatment has been exceptional and swift, but the situation is inconsistent. Nikki from Horton was told that she needed a two-week appointment for gynaecological problems. When she called, she was told that it would be six weeks. She could not bear to wait, so she borrowed £650 to find out that she was all clear. Can the Minister offer reassurance that he will end the postcode lottery?
Andrew Gwynne
I congratulate the hon. Lady’s step-mum on ringing that bell, which is great news. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise the issue of inconsistency when it comes to the levels of service that different patients get. That will obviously be a major factor in the national cancer plan going forward, to ensure that all people diagnosed with cancer have the same levels of treatment and the same opportunities to survive.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
I warmly welcome the Minister’s statement. He will know as well as anybody else in this Chamber that smoking causes one in four cancers in this country, and that two out of three people who smoke will die as a result. He is assiduously moving the Tobacco and Vapes Bill through Parliament. Can he set out the likely effect that the Bill will have on those shocking statistics?
Andrew Gwynne
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for being a member of the Committee for that Bill, which ended its business last Thursday. The hon. Members for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), and for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford), who are sitting on the Opposition Front Bench, were also members of that Committee. My hon. Friend is absolutely right, because the Bill will stop the conveyor belt that the tobacco industry has used to its advantage for decades. We are saying that we will not allow any more children and young people to become addicted to nicotine and tobacco, which, as he says, kills two out of every three users. It is uniquely the most harmful product, and we are making the next generation smoke-free for a reason.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
One of my constituents waited two years from the onset of severe symptoms to receive a cancer diagnosis, and another 10 weeks to have the type of cancer identified, at which point it was incurable. One of the key failings in this case seems to be the disconnect between her reporting the symptoms to her GP and getting the right referral to the hospital, despite her having a previous history of breast cancer. What promises can the Minister make on improving the co-ordination between different parts of the NHS to make sure that people like my constituent do not fall through the cracks in the future?
Andrew Gwynne
That kind of experience is unacceptable, and the purpose of our plan is to demand better of the NHS and the system more widely when it comes to cancer outcomes. Nobody should have the kind of experience that the hon. Lady’s constituent had, which is why we will drive better outcomes through better treatment and earlier diagnosis, and make sure that the whole NHS is joined up in the process—a key part of the national cancer plan.
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
Given that today is World Cancer Day, this statement is extremely welcome. Half of all leukaemia patients will not survive beyond five years, and the outlook is even bleaker for those diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. If no action is taken, 80% of those diagnosed with AML today will not survive this Parliament. Early diagnosis and greater research are key to improving people’s chances. Will the Minister consider introducing measures to ensure that they are included in the national cancer plan?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend has my assurance on all fronts there. Early diagnosis, more and better research, and identifying how we improve outcomes for people with a variety of cancers are all crucial. His points about leukaemia are well rehearsed in the Department and will be a key part of the national cancer plan.
Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)
Some 3.4 million people in England live further than 45 minutes away from a radiotherapy centre. We all want to see that changed, but one of the challenges will be the fact that eight out of 10 radiotherapists have considered leaving the profession. Could the Minister outline what work the Government are doing to retain and recruit the radiotherapists that we need?
Andrew Gwynne
The hon. Member makes a reasonable point, and part of the reason that we are having a refreshed workforce plan alongside the 10-year NHS plan is precisely to address some of the concerns that he has raised. We need to make sure that we have the right workforce in the right place, and to future-proof it for the kinds of treatments that will come on stream in the coming decade.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his statement and also for the time he has spent with me discussing my private Member’s Bill, the Rare Cancers Bill. Yesterday, I met representatives of the Brain Tumour Charity, Brain Tumour Research and Pancreatic Cancer UK, and we did in part discuss the national cancer plan. I do not speak on those charities’ behalf, but one of the conclusions I drew from the discussion was that there is a real need to have the voices of rare cancer patients and survivors at the heart of this consultation. Does the Minister agree with that point? Secondly, on World Cancer Day, will he join me in wishing my daughter Ruth good luck as she trains to run a marathon in aid of the Brain Tumour Charity?
Andrew Gwynne
Good luck, Ruth! I hope she succeeds and raises lots of money for such a good cause. I want to thank my hon. Friend as well for his crucial work in this area. He has my assurances that at the heart of the first step, which is the call for evidence I have announced today, and of the development of the national cancer plan, those with lived experience—patients or loved ones of people who have had cancer and those who have either survived or are now bereaved—absolutely have to be at the heart of what we are doing. We will take their views, their opinions and their thoughts fully on board as we develop this plan.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
I lost my father to lymphoma and my wife is an ovarian cancer survivor, so I warmly welcome this statement. In Gloucestershire, we are a designated regional cancer centre, but unfortunately the buildings at Cheltenham general are just not up to scratch any more. Fundraising was mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Dame Siobhain McDonagh), and we are in that situation. We need £17.5 million and we have £9 million to go. Will the Minister warmly congratulate the Big Space Cancer Appeal fundraisers, particularly Dr Charles Candish and Dr Sam Guglani, who are leading the charge on that? Would he like to meet those consultants to discuss how we might move this fundraising effort along so that the whole project does not rest on the back of charity?
Andrew Gwynne
I am more than happy to meet the hon. Member and the team to look at precisely those points and I wish them all the very best in their fundraising efforts, but look, as a country we are better than this. I want to see the national cancer plan really start to address how we can get that research, that treatment, those diagnoses and those better outcomes for people with the NHS at the heart of it, doing what the NHS does best and ensuring that we get those outcomes from publicly funded improvements.
Sojan Joseph (Ashford) (Lab)
I welcome all the efforts this Government are making to improve cancer services. Early diagnosis is just as important as prevention, but we all know that patients are currently waiting several months for scan procedures. A recent visit to the GP surgeries in my constituency showed that they have spare capacity for scanning, but it is not actively offered to patients at the moment. This is due to a lack of collaborative working and communication in the health system, so will the Minister tell the House how we can improve the existing systems so that they work effectively and people can get timely procedures?
Andrew Gwynne
Part of our recovery plan is to ensure that we return the national health service to constitutional standards, not just in respect of cancer but across the board. We inherited a broken national health service and it is incumbent on this Government to fix it and make it fit for the future. Clearly, in areas such as my hon. Friend’s, the NHS needs to be doing much better when it comes to cancer outcomes and cancer treatments, and this plan and this Government will ensure that his local system gets all the support it needs.
Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
I declare an interest, as I have a family member who has shares in a medical company.
I pay tribute to the Minister for following through with his promise for a national cancer plan. It is clearly very important to him, and it is to me as well. Shaun Walsh of Cancer Research UK first raised with me the need for a dedicated cancer plan, and it has been an important part of my work in Parliament since then. Will the Minister meet me and Shaun to discuss the next steps for the national cancer plan?
Andrew Gwynne
I am more than happy to do so. My diary secretary, who will be watching this from the Department of Health, is probably having kittens at the amount of meetings. I meet Shaun and the cancer charities frequently anyway, and as I said at the start of the statement, I commend the work that they do in this area. This national cancer plan is important to me, to the Secretary of State, to the Prime Minister and to the sector, and that is why we are doing the right thing and having a plan.
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
I welcome today’s statement and I know that my wife, Julia, who is a consultant radiographer in mammography at King’s Mill hospital, will also welcome it. One of my earliest childhood memories is of watching my grandfather, William Yemm, die of lung cancer. William was a lifelong coalminer at Blidworth colliery. I think he drank and smoked rather more than was good for him throughout his life, so does the Minister agree that prevention is every bit as important as diagnosis, treatment and research in the fight against cancer? Can he reassure me that this welcome national cancer plan will consider what action we can take to prevent people from developing cancer?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend raises such an important point. This Government have three shifts and I have mentioned two of them already: the shifts from hospital to community and from analogue to digital. The third shift is from sickness to prevention. We absolutely have to shift the dial, whether it is on alcohol harms, smoking, obesity, inactivity or the air we breathe. These are the five-point plan priorities when it comes to prevention. My hon. Friend is so right to focus on this, and we hope to cut the instances of a whole range of preventable illnesses, including cancer.
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
Many of my constituents have to travel to England to access cancer treatment. This presents many problems, one of which is a lack of data sharing between NHS England and NHS Wales. Will the Minister assure Welsh patients that if they are treated in an English hospital, their data will follow them home and that it will be accessible to NHS Wales?
Andrew Gwynne
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. I also have regular meetings with ministerial colleagues in the Welsh Government, and this is an area of interest to both Governments. We need to make sure there is better sharing of data and information for patients from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland when accessing NHS services in England, so that there is joined-up, smarter use of the data held on patients by our respective NHS systems in order to get better outcomes. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am already taking this up with ministerial colleagues across the devolved Administrations.
Paul Davies (Colne Valley) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his statement. Since my election, I have met a wide range of cancer charities, especially those representing rare and less common cancers. As the Minister knows, 55% of UK cancer deaths are a result of those types of cancers, such as blood, ovarian and kidney cancers. Will he ensure that rare and less common cancers are not forgotten in the national cancer plan?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend has my full assurance that all cancers—all tumour types—will be an integral part of the national cancer plan. On rarer cancers, it is important that we use the call for evidence and the discussions we will have in the coming weeks and months to ensure that those voices are heard as we drive forward our plan.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his statement. His words always display the compassion and comfort that these types of statements should convey.
Does the Minister agree that it is time for the Government to do more to fund cancer research, rather than leaving charities to bear the burden? Cancer Research UK alone has invested more than £4 billion in research over the last 10 years. Will this plan ensure that groundbreaking research, such as that carried out at Queen’s University Belfast, will have enhanced funding for a world-class breakthrough in finding a cure for cancer? Will Northern Ireland be one of the UK’s 30 testing sites for women?
Andrew Gwynne
I thank my hon. Friend. I always call him my hon. Friend because I see more of him than I see of my wife. [Laughter.] Usually because we are in the same debates.
The hon. Member makes an important point about research, which will be a crucial aspect of the national cancer plan. Advances in technology, science and pharmaceuticals do not happen by accident; they happen because we fund the research to get to that point. We need to do much better in researching some of the rarer and less survivable cancers. Those scientists and charities must have access to the funds that are available so they can carry out the research we need.
As for where the 30 sites will be, that is above my pay grade. There are criteria, but I will take it back to my officials and see what we can do.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for his statement, and I thank every Member on both sides of the Chamber who has shared their personal stories.
I was nine years old when I lost my grandmother, Grace, to cancer. That was a long time ago, but it still has a profound effect on me. Does the Minister agree that early detection is vital for survival rates? In particular, I emphasise the point about the importance of ensuring that women are taken seriously when they visit their GP.
I thank my constituent Sir Rod Stewart for the support he gave to the radiography department at Princess Alexandra hospital. Does the Minister agree that this national cancer plan will mean that we do not have to rely on the good will of rock legends such as Rod Stewart to support everyone in our society?
Andrew Gwynne
Talk about name-dropping; if only I had such famous constituents. Burnage was once home to the Gallagher brothers, and Denton was home to Mick Hucknall—I do not think any of them live there any more.
My hon. Friend makes an important point that women, in particular, have to be taken seriously by their GPs. The symptoms of some of these cancers could indicate a multitude of different things but, knowing from my mum’s bitter experience, I would sooner that GPs erred on the side of caution and got people diagnosed. If the diagnosis turns out not to be cancer, what a wonderful result that is. If it is cancer, we can get them on the treatment pathway sooner rather than later.
Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
I also commend the Minister for his great announcement, which is welcome and needed.
The Minister has often spoken about the importance of shifting from sickness to prevention, from hospital to community, and from analogue to digital. Residents of Southend East and Rochford deserve an NHS that is there when they need it. What impact does he think the plan will have on the issues he has outlined today?
Andrew Gwynne
My hon. Friend raises an important point, and it is a good one on which to end. Each of those three shifts—from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention—could be taken in isolation. However, by putting them together, we can shift how we deliver health and care in this country. We will make it fit for purpose, we will drive up standards across the system, we will get the NHS back to constitutional standards—which means lower waiting times, shorter waiting lists and better outcomes—and, when it comes to cancer, we will save lives. It is as simple as that.
Bill Presented
Statutory Adoption Pay (Report on Extension to the Self-Employed) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Lisa Smart presented a Bill to require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the merits of extending eligibility for statutory adoption pay to persons who are self-employed or contractors; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 7 March, and to be printed (Bill 175).
Road Traffic (Unlicensed Drivers)
(1 day, 11 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide that an unlicensed driver who has never held a valid driving licence and who causes the death of another person by driving commits the offence of careless driving under section 3 of the Road Traffic Act 1988; and for connected purposes.
I thank Members for being present as I introduce the Harry Parker Bill. Before I speak to the aim of the Bill, I will give some context. This is not just a policy matter; it is about justice, accountability and preventing future tragedies.
Who was Harry? What happened to him? And how can we change the law to prevent anyone from going through what his parents Adam and Kelly, who are sitting in the Gallery, have gone through? Harry was a 14-year-old boy. He loved football, taking home a trophy or two in his time. Those who knew him said he was a very popular and charming young man. To his parents, he was their world. Adam says:
“He had the biggest heart and loved to make people laugh. He could light up the room with just his presence.”
However, on 25 November 2022, the unspeakable happened—an event that truly rocked our community. Harry was struck by a car outside his school, which sadly resulted in his death. This, in itself, is a tragedy. Harry was a young, 14-year-old boy with his whole life ahead of him. I ask the House to join me in expressing our deepest condolences to the family, and to recognise them and their remarkable strength in facing this unimaginable loss.
Losing Harry was tragic enough, but what followed made it even worse. The person who struck Harry was driving without a licence and without insurance and failed to stop at the scene. Given the circumstances, one might assume that justice would be served and that the individual would face serious criminal charges, yet in November 2024, all charges were dropped.
Let me be absolutely clear: this is not an attack on the Crown Prosecution Service or the police. They followed the law as it stands, but that is precisely the problem. The law in its current form is failing. We must ask ourselves how it can be that a person can drive illegally and take a life, yet face no legal consequences. How can it be that knowingly operating a vehicle without a licence is not automatically deemed careless or dangerous driving? The answer is simple: our system is flawed. A person who does not hold a valid licence has no business being behind the wheel of a car, and when they are, they put lives at risk.
I cannot bring Harry back, nor can I give Adam and Kelly the justice they deserve. No legislation, no speech and no court ruling will ever ease their pain. What we can do—what we must do—is ensure that no other family has to endure what they have been through. The Harry Parker Bill seeks to close the dangerous gaps in our legal system and impose real-world consequences on those who choose to drive without a licence; under the Bill, those who drive without a valid licence are deemed careless. I urge the House to join me in honouring Harry’s memory not just with words, but with action. Let us commit to making our roads safer for all. I urge the Government to consider this Bill in their road safety strategy.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Will Stone, Mr Bayo Alaba, Dan Aldridge, Alex McIntyre, Luke Myer, Chris Vince, Alex Ballinger, Tom Hayes, Henry Tufnell, Dr Roz Savage, Deidre Costigan and
Frank McNally present the Bill.
Will Stone accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 13 June, and to be printed (Bill 174).
Business of the House
Social Security Benefits
(1 day, 11 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
I beg to move,
That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2025, which was laid before this House on 15 January, be approved.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following motion:
That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2025, which was laid before this House on 16 January, be approved.
Sir Stephen Timms
In my view, the instruments are compatible with the European convention on human rights.
The draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2025 will increase relevant state pension rates by 4.1%, in line with the growth in average earnings in the year to May to July 2024. It will increase most other benefit rates by 1.7%, in line with the rise in the consumer prices index in the year to September 2024. The Government’s commitment to the triple lock means that the basic and full rate of the new state pension will be uprated by whichever is highest out of the growth in earnings, the growth in prices, or 2.5%. That will mean 4.1% for 2025-26. From April this year, the basic state pension will increase from £169.50 per week to £176.45, and the full rate of the new state pension will increase from £221.20 to £230.25.
We are fully committed to maintaining the pension triple lock. There is some confusion about the position of the Conservative party, and I hope that the shadow Minister will clarify the position when he speaks.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
On clarification, can the Minister clarify for how much longer the state pension will be taxed? The Conservative Government stood for election on a commitment to the triple lock plus. We lost the election, but we were going to take out that fiscal drag. Can the Minister explain how long that tax will stay in place?
Sir Stephen Timms
My understanding, from what the Leader of the Opposition has said, is that the Conservative party is no longer committed to the triple lock, let alone the triple lock plus. I can tell the hon. Member that we do not have any plans to do what he suggests.
Sir Stephen Timms
I simply point out to the hon. Gentleman that his party appears to no longer be committed to the triple lock. We look forward to clarification on that point from the shadow Minister.
Other components of state pension awards, such as those previously built up under earnings-related state pension schemes, including the additional state pension, will increase by 1.7% in line with prices. The Government are committed to supporting pensioners on the lowest incomes, so the safety net provided by the pension credit standard minimum guarantee will increase by 4.1%. For single pensioners, that means an increase from £218.15 to £227.10 per week; for couples, the increase is from £332.95 to £346.60 per week. We want everybody entitled to that support to receive it, which is why we launched the national pension credit campaign. We received around 150,000 pension credit applications in the 16 weeks after the winter fuel payment announcement.
Dr Evans
I am very grateful. We do indeed want more people to take up pension credit. However, one of the biggest problems is the processing time. The response to a written question that I tabled before Christmas showed that there was a 75% success rate in getting that done within 50 days, which means that that did not happen for one in four. I later re-tabled the same question, and it turned out that the standard had got worse. What work are the Government doing to make sure that applications are processed within 50 days? Especially when it is cold and people have had their winter fuel payment taken away, it is important that those who need that support get it as soon as they can.
Sir Stephen Timms
The hon. Gentleman is quite right; it is important that applications are processed speedily, and I am pleased with the number of applications. I can confirm—I think he knows this—that everybody who applied before 21 December will receive, if they are successful, their winter fuel payment. We have also moved extra staff on to pension credit processing. However, the hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise that point.
Universal credit and the legacy means-tested benefits that it replaces provide support for people of working age. We have committed in our manifesto to reviewing universal credit, so that it makes work pay and tackles poverty, and we will set out shortly how we plan to fulfil that commitment. For those below state pension age, the order increases the personal and standard allowances of working-age benefits, including universal credit, by 1.7%, in line with the increase in prices in the year to September 2024. In the Budget last November, the Chancellor announced that the maximum repayment deduction from universal credit payments will be reduced from April, from 25% of the universal credit standard allowance to 15%—the fair repayment rate—and 1.2 million households are expected to benefit from that change by an average of £420 per year.
In addition, the order increases statutory payments by 1.7%. That includes statutory maternity pay, statutory paternity pay, statutory shared parental pay and statutory sick pay. Benefits for those who have additional costs as a result of disability or health impairments will also increase by 1.7%. That includes disability living allowance, attendance allowance and personal independence payment. The order will also increase carer’s allowance by 1.7%. The Chancellor announced in the Budget that, from April, the weekly carer’s allowance earnings threshold will be pegged to the level of 16 hours’ work at the national living wage. That means that, from April, unpaid carers will be able to earn up to £196 per week net earnings and still receive carer’s allowance, compared with £151 now. I am pleased to say that that move has been very widely welcomed, and we expect it to bring an additional 60,000 unpaid carers into eligibility for the benefit, and, crucially, to reduce the likelihood that carers who manage to combine some work with their caring responsibilities will inadvertently fall foul of the earnings limit, because, in future, that threshold will keep up with changes in the national living wage.
On disability and carer’s benefits, we will continue to ensure that carers, and people who face additional costs because of disability or health impairment, get the support that they need, and we will set out proposals for reform of health and disability benefits in a Green Paper in the spring.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
In my constituency of Horsham, food bank usage increased by 25% last year, and it has increased by 700% over six years. In the light of that evidence of the pressures, will the Government consider putting a minimum level on universal credit?
Sir Stephen Timms
I have seen representations along those lines. It is not something that we are considering at the moment, but we are, as I have mentioned, committed to reviewing universal credit, and we will do so over the course of this year. I imagine that we will be looking at a very wide variety of representations, and the hon. Gentleman and others will be very welcome to make submissions to us along those lines. Lastly, let me say a word about the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2025.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
Before the Minister gets on to the pension issue, may I just say that the order requires the Secretary of State to examine the effects of benefit uprating and the effects of the existing payment of benefits? What studies has he done on the effect of the two-child benefit cap? Secondly, last week we passed a welfare spending cap—a cap that, obviously, could be breached in the future. Will the Government revisit the whole idea of the welfare cap, with a view to abolishing it, so that we ensure that the motive force in deciding on benefits is the level of need, rather than an arbitrary figure decided by the Treasury?
Sir Stephen Timms
On the two-child limit, as the right hon. Member knows, we very quickly set up after the general election the child poverty taskforce, which is looking in a very ambitious way at the whole range of levers that the Government have at their disposal for tackling the problem of child poverty. We would very much like to repeat the success of the last Labour Government in reducing child poverty so dramatically in when in office. I say that with particularly strong feeling, having taken the Child Poverty Act 2010 through the House towards the end of that Government’s term. Under consideration certainly will be social security changes—we will look at what changes might be appropriate. We are not able to say whether the two-child limit will be removed, but all those things will be considered carefully during production of the report, which the taskforce will bring forward.
We are not looking, I do not think, at changing the arrangements around the overall welfare cap. Of course, there is always some confusion between the individual benefit cap and the overall welfare cap. As the right hon. Member said, there was a debate last week on the overall cap. There is certainly scope for debate about that and, indeed, the benefit cap as well, but we are not proposing any changes to those arrangements in the short term.
The draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order sets out the yearly amount by which the GMP part of an individual’s contracted-out occupational pension earned between April 1988 and April 1997 must be increased if it is in payment. The increases paid by occupational pension schemes help to provide a measure of inflation protection to people who are in receipt of GMPs earned between those two years. Legislation requires that GMPs earned between those two dates must be increased by the percentage increase in the general level of prices, as measured the previous September, capped at 3%. This year, it means that the order will increase the relevant part of the GMP by the September 2024 consumer prices index figure, which is 1.7%.
The draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order, if Parliament approves it this afternoon, commits the Government to increased expenditure of £6.9 billion in 2025-26. The changes will mainly come into effect from 7 April and will apply for the tax year 2025-26. The order maintains the triple lock, benefiting pensioners who are in receipt of the basic and new state pensions; raises the level of the safety net in pension credit beyond the increase in prices; increases the rate of benefits for people in the labour market; and increases the rate of carer’s benefits and support to help with additional costs arising from disability or health impairment.
The draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order requires formerly contracted-out occupational pension schemes to pay an increase of 1.7% on GMPs in payment earned between April 1988 and April 1997, providing people with a measure of protection against inflation, paid for by their scheme. I commend to the House the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2025 and the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2025.
Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Con)
Let me state at the outset that the Opposition support the measures to uprate pensions in line with earnings and benefits in line with inflation. I am honoured, personally, to take part in this important annual ritual, which is never well attended but is always a high-quality debate. The traditional star of this debate is, of course, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), who this year has descended from the clouds of the Work and Pensions Committee to the sweaty arena of ministerial office. No one is more qualified than he to take the office that he now has. No one has more genuine expertise and compassion for the people that we all want to support than he, so I am very pleased that he is in this role. I just note in passing how much the House misses the expertise of departed Members. Paul Maynard, David Linden and Nigel Mills all used to take part in this debate to great value. I welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), who is taking up his position as a new star of this annual debate.
Despite the formality, it is an important debate, because it is an opportunity for us to take stock of the welfare and pensions system as a whole. As pensions and the triple lock were mentioned, I am happy to provide some clarification for the right hon. Gentleman. I think he has misunderstood, or our leader’s position has been misquoted, because we are not looking at cancelling the triple lock. It is his colleague, the new Pensions Minister, who has been very clearly quoted saying that the triple lock is a silly system and indefensible. I look forward to further clarification from Government Members.
Dan Tomlinson
As I understand it, the shadow Chancellor said that the triple lock is unsustainable. Do you agree with him on that point?
Danny Kruger
Clearly, there are questions about the long-term sustainability of our pensions system and our national insurance fund, but I think the shadow Chancellor was talking about the very long term, rather than the immediate situation that we are in. There is no intention, on the Conservative Benches anyway, to review the triple lock at this stage.
Sir Stephen Timms
To clarify the position further, what happened was that the leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party was asked on LBC whether she would look at the triple lock, and her reply was,
“we’re going to look at means testing. Means testing is something which we don’t do properly here.”
What did she mean by that?
Danny Kruger
My right hon. Friend replied, “No”, to the interviewer. We are not looking at means-testing the triple lock. She was talking more generally about the challenge of means-testing in our social security system, which is a legitimate question for us all to consider, as I shall go on to discuss.
I did not want to get too partisan in this debate, but—[Interruption.] Here we go! No, I won’t, genuinely, because the challenge of our welfare system is a shared problem that we face across the House. I will note in passing that our party’s record on welfare is a good one. We introduced universal credit, rationalising the spaghetti web of benefits that we inherited from the right hon. Gentleman when he was last in office. We made work pay and helped people off welfare and into work, and we succeeded in that, with 4 million more people in employment in 2024 than in 2010.
Let me point out that we had another mess to sort out in the public finances. When we took office, the Government were running a deficit of 9% and the Treasury was spending way more than it was earning. By the time the pandemic struck, the deficit was down to less than 1%. We were living within our means and were able to afford the generous uplifts made to benefits and pensions in the last Parliament, as well as the huge package of support that we provided during the pandemic.
I want to be fair and admit that, as the Minister suggested, the welfare system is not working properly at the moment. Too many people are being consigned to a life of inactivity and dependency, especially via the categories of sickness benefit. It is bad for those people, their communities and the country as a whole, including the taxpayer, who spends £65 billion a year on incapacity and disability benefits, rising to £100 billion a year unless reforms are made by the end of this Parliament.
So what is going on? Those terrible figures reflect the fact that we have bad rates of physical ill health, including obesity and, as is strongly evidenced in the statistics, bad backs because we simply do not move around enough in the day. The figures also reflect a rise in mental ill health, which we see in alarming rates in schools and among young people. We have to do more on those issues through all sorts of interventions that lie more with the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care than with the Department for Work and Pensions. However, as the Lords Economic Affairs Committee reported last week, the rise in welfare claims cannot be attributed to worsening health or longer NHS waiting lists; the problem is growing far faster than that.
Perhaps the problem is low wages that do not attract people into employment, and that is certainly a reality. Low wages have driven demand for the immigration that we have seen get so out of control in recent years. Profound changes are under way in the world of work, away from secure employment towards a more precarious jobs market. Labour is destroying jobs, taxing employment and discouraging new hires with its new Employment Rights Bill. However, the fact is that wages have risen sharply above inflation in recent years, which is why pensions are going up by earnings this year. Employers are offering good wages but are not filling vacancies.
The issue is not health, although we have problems in health; the issue is not work, although we have big problems there—the issue is welfare. People are not being incentivised to take jobs because the offer from the welfare system is better. When I say welfare, I do not mean unemployment support. Thanks to universal credit and the last Government’s reforms, we saw record numbers of people move off unemployment benefit and into work. That is because we offered support to people to find work and imposed strict conditions that meant people had to actively look for a job. If they did not, they lost the benefit. That worked for a lot of people, but we found—here is the issue—that for a lot of other people, the incentives made them go the other way, further away from work into the sickness category, because that is where the good money is. In some cases, the money is double what they can get on unemployment benefit, and sometimes £3,000 more than the minimum wage. People almost certainly get it because the approval rates are high at over 90% for the limited capacity for work category.
This is big and unconditional money. There is no expectation to do anything about the health conditions that mean someone is signed off sick. There is no expectation of being reassessed any time soon or, indeed, ever. That is the challenge, and I hope the Government will rise to it in the same way that we rose to the crisis in unemployment benefit in the last decade.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
One of the ways the last Government helped to deal with this issue was by dealing with the taper. It was at 63% and it went down to 55%, so people who were working got more of their own money back. Does my hon. Friend believe that this is one way we could incentivise people to step back into the workplace—by having more of their money as they earn it?
Danny Kruger
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That was a key part of the reforms brought in towards the last part of the last decade, enabled by universal credit—a much simpler system. I am glad to say that we managed to reduce that taper significantly and to incentivise work.
Dan Tomlinson
Madam Deputy Speaker, I will try not to say “you” this time—I am sorry.
I would be genuinely interested to know what the Opposition’s position is on reform of the incapacity benefit system. It is a knotty problem. I know that when Opposition Members were in government, it was considered, but I am not clear what their position is at the moment. I know the Government are coming forward with proposals soon, so I would be genuinely interested to hear.
Danny Kruger
I am grateful for the opportunity. We had a whole series of plans that were sadly interrupted by the general election result, and I will come on in a moment to some of the suggestions I have for where the Government might go.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman was talking about incentivising people into work. In my surgeries in Torbay, I find that an awful lot of people are off sick with hip problems or mental health challenges, and the challenge people have in getting back into work is the broken health system that was left by the previous Conservative Government. I hope the new Government will drive harder on fixing the system, because many people on benefits are keen to get back into work; they are just unfit for work.
Danny Kruger
The hon. Gentleman reflects the experience that many of us have had in our surgeries. Nevertheless, I do not think that health reform on its own will do the job. As I mentioned, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee has looked into the matter and reported last week, pointing out that the increase in welfare claims cannot be attributed to longer waiting lists or, indeed, to worsening health conditions. The welfare problem is outstripping the problems we see in the nation’s health, so we have to do more in the DWP. We wait with bated breath to see some movement on that front.
In fact, it was in this debate last year when we were uprating benefits that the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Alison McGovern), now a ministerial colleague of the right hon. Member for East Ham, said that, “Labour has a plan”. That was a year ago. Seven months ago, Labour won the election. She did not say that the plan was oven-ready, but she implied it. I know the Minister says that the delay is because of a court case that happened two weeks ago, but I do not quite understand how that explains the delay that has been going on for seven months.
Here we are approving a measure that will increase expenditure by nearly £7 billion, as the right hon. Gentleman said, and we have no idea how the bill will be brought down over time. But after much head scratching in the DWP—and, we are told, people pulling their hair out in No. 10—we are getting closer to the big reveal. We hear exciting hints in the media that the Government might scrap the limited capacity for work category altogether, scrap the work capability assessment, merge employment and support allowance into the personal independence payment system, or require people on sickness benefits to engage with work coaches. I am encouraged by all that pitch-rolling.
If the Government are softening up their Back Benchers for serious reform, I applaud them for it, but I will believe it when I see it, because Labour opposed every step towards tougher conditions, more assessments and more incentives to work. They opposed reforms that we were introducing to the fit note system. In fact, I see from a written answer to a question in the other place that the Government say they have no plans to reform the fit note system, which I regret. I wonder whether the Minister could help clarify if that is the case.
On universal credit, it appears that the sinner repenteth, or sort of repenteth. The Government are on some kind of journey. In the last Parliament, they said they would scrap universal credit, then they said they would replace it, and now, as we have heard, they are reviewing it. I am glad to hear that, although the right hon. Gentleman just said that they are reviewing it over the course of this year, so that seems to be unrelated to the Green Paper process, which we are expecting in the spring. I would like to understand how those two processes are aligned.
Rather than scrapping, replacing or reviewing universal credit, I invite the Government simply to use it. It is a flexible system, as we saw during the pandemic, and it works; it just needs to be adapted to the new challenge. In conclusion, let me make a few suggestions for the right hon. Gentleman to consider as he prepares his Green Paper and his universal credit review.
The back to work plan that we announced before the general election would have got 1.1 million people into work, using more support and tougher conditions—“more support” meaning more of the WorkWell pilots that my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately) introduced. I was glad to hear the Secretary of State praising those pilots yesterday, although sadly without attribution. In our view, the work capability assessment should be face to face, and it should be asset-based, not deficit-based; it should be asking what a claimant can do, not what they cannot do. The claimant should begin the journey of recovery—the journey back towards work—then and there. Rather than budgeting for ever higher welfare, as we are doing today, we should be investing in a universal support system to run alongside universal credit.
We also need tougher conditions. We simply cannot have people with a bad back or anxiety being signed off sick for the rest of their lives; they need to know that we believe in them, and that believing in them means having high expectations of them. In exchange for benefits paid for by working people, claimants should take active steps, when they can, to address their physical and mental health needs, and they should work meaningfully on their own health and wellbeing. That will not look the same for everyone and it must not be a tick-box exercise. That is why we need the help of civil society, not just coaches and therapists, providing the human touch and the range of help and opportunities that people need.
Most of all, we need a clear message to go out from the Government that unless a person is so severely disabled or ill that they genuinely can never work at all, they will not have a life on benefits. That clear message, enacted through reform that the right hon. Gentleman’s Department must bring forward urgently, is the only way to get our exorbitant welfare bills under control, and to get our workforce and our economy moving again.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the Work and Pensions Committee.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I will start by commenting on the contribution made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger). First, it is really important that in this place we use evidence, to help ensure that we have effective, evidence-based policy. When we are using policy-based evidence, that is quite dangerous. I am referring to his remarks about conditionality. I refer him to the evidence, such as the two-year study undertaken by the University of York, which showed that there was no evidence to support tough sanctions. People have lost their lives because of sanctions, and that study showed that there was no evidence to support stopping somebody’s social security support—their money that they use to live—for up to two years, because that was the period that the Government of the day said benefits could be stopped for. That has real-life consequences.
I can also refer the shadow Minister to his own Cabinet Office reports, which showed that sanctions were not effective in getting people into work. We all need to be very responsible in what we say.
Debbie Abrahams
No, I am sorry but I am not going to give way.
As a former public health consultant, I can also say that the key drivers of ill health are socioeconomic determinants. There is so much evidence for that, going back decades, and I wonder why Conservative Members are not familiar with it—whether it is just not palatable to them, or it is inconvenient. Much more recently, the covid inquiry that we debated a couple of weeks ago showed very clearly that one of the reasons why we had such a poor experience, both in terms of morbidity and mortality—more than any other country in Europe—was our ill health. It does a real disservice to the people who have lost their lives or are enduring long covid at the moment, to their families and their memories, to suggest that it is something else, let alone to the people who are—
Debbie Abrahams
No, I am not going to give way. [Interruption.] I am not going to give way.
I welcome the social security order and, in particular, what my right hon. Friend the Minister has said about it. It was an absolute pleasure to serve on the Select Committee when he was its Chair, and in this respect I agree with the shadow Minister: my right hon. Friend’s transfer from the Select Committee to his ministerial position is very welcome. We all appreciate his gravitas and experience, but also his common decency in the role.
I want to talk about the context of this uprating order and the importance of our social security system in providing, at the very least, a safety net for people when they need it, and from cradle to grave, like the NHS. Unfortunately, though, over the past 14 to 15 years, the adequacy of support for people on low incomes has been dramatically eroded, particularly for people of working age—again, contrary to what the shadow Minister has said. Between 2010 and 2012, the uprating was about 1.5%; between 2012 and 2016, it was 1%; and between 2016 and 2020, it was zero. The average annual consumer prices index increase for each of those years was about 3%.
There has been a steady and consistent erosion in the value of social security support, which has affected the value of universal credit, jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance, income support, housing benefit, child tax credit, working tax credit and child benefit. The Resolution Foundation has estimated that this erosion was equivalent to a cut of £20 billion a year from social security support for working-age people. That is clearly not well understood by the Conservative party.
Something else that is not well understood is that these are predominantly people in low-paid work. The vast majority of people in receipt of working-age social security support are, or have been, working people—that is something for us all to consider. Only a tiny proportion of DWP spending is spent on jobseeker’s allowance, for example—it is 0.001% of the current budget. As is evidenced in the Work and Pensions Committee’s report from last year, which I invite shadow Ministers to read, out-of-work support is at the lowest level in real terms since 1912. This is not a generous system; according to OECD comparisons, we are not supporting people in the way that a civilised society as well off as we are should do.
The consequences of inadequate social security are clear. Last week’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation poverty report made for bleak reading—again, I invite people to read it. Over one in five people in the UK are in poverty; that is 21%, or 14.3 million people. Of those, 8.1 million are working-age adults. Some 4.3 million children are in poverty—three in 10 among the population as a whole, while in my constituency the figure is one in two—and 1.9 million of those in poverty are pensioners.
Disabled people are at greater risk of poverty, partly by virtue of the additional costs that they face due to their disability and ill health, and partly due to the barriers to work that disabled people face. Disability employment has flatlined; when it comes to being in work, the gap between people who are not disabled and those who are has been about 30% for the past 14 years or so. It went down by about 1%. Some 16 million people in the UK are disabled—nearly one in four—and almost four in 10 families have at least one person who is disabled. The poverty rate for disabled people, which is 30%, is 10 percentage points higher than it is for non-disabled people. The rate is even higher—50%—for those living with a long-term, limiting mental health condition, compared with 29% for people with a physical disability or another type of disability.
Other groups of people are also disproportionately more likely to live in poverty, including former carers, people from ethnic minority communities and lone parents, but given the media speculation there has been about the future of disability support, I want to focus on that. Last year’s Select Committee report on benefit levels set out a wide range of evidence suggesting that benefit levels are too low and that claimants are often unable to afford daily living costs and extra costs associated with having a health condition or disability. Although the Select Committee supports the Government’s ambition to get Britain working and a social security system that supports work, these ambitions are not achievable within a few months. Meanwhile, people are barely clinging on.
The DWP does not have an expressed objective for how it will support claimants with daily essential living costs. In the Select Committee’s report we recommended building a cross-party consensus to take this forward, and for the Government to outline and benchmark objectives linked to living costs to measure the effectiveness of benefit levels, and to make changes alongside annual uprating. I would welcome my right hon. Friend the Minister revisiting this Select Committee report, particularly our recommendations.
I would like to set out the consequences of our currently inadequate social security system. From peer-reviewed articles, we know that for every 1% increase in child poverty, six babies per 100,000 live births fail to reach their first birthday. That is the consequence of living in poverty for children. The hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans), because of his medical training, will know much of this, but a rewiring of the brain of children living in poverty affects them for the rest of their lives.
In another peer-reviewed piece published in 2016 in a BMJ journal, entitled “First, do no harm”, a metadata analysis of the impacts of the changes to and reassessment of the work capability assessment between 2010 and 2013 in 149 local authority areas in England found that, for each additional 10,000 people who were reassessed, there were an additional six suicides, 2,700 additional cases of mental health problems and over 7,000 more antidepressant scripts. This is evidence.
Many Members will know of my previous campaigns, and I want to refer to the deaths we have seen of social security claimants whose benefits have been stopped. I mention again Errol Graham, a 52-year-old Nottingham man with a severe mental health condition, who basically starved to death after his social security support was stopped. There are so many others I could mention, and I pay tribute to the families who have campaigned on their behalf for justice, because it is quite horrific.
Talking about people surviving our social security system, there is the case of TP—I will use his initials—also a 52-year-old man, who had worked all his life. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and, sadly, his diagnosis was terminal. He was trying to be migrated from his particular incapacity support to universal credit, and he lost all his disability premiums. He was one of the litigants in a case about transitional protections when migrating from ESA and disability premiums to universal credit. This is an example of somebody who has worked all their life, and four out of five disabilities and health conditions are acquired—it could happen to any one of us, and I would just like us to consider that.
In another case, AB was born with congenital cerebral palsy and worked for 25 years, but then could not go on. If I read out the whole story, we would all be in tears, because it is just heartrending, describing the indignity of having to rely on such low-level support.
I will leave it there, but I know my right hon. Friend the Minister takes this very seriously, and I hope all of us here will work towards making the social security system more adequate for those people.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrats spokesperson.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
I would like to acknowledge the very sobering and comprehensive speech given by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). This is disturbing, and one would hope that our DWP, and our Government as a whole, would take a trauma-informed approach to dealing with our communities, as I believe that would stand us in good stead.
I broadly welcome the upratings in the proposals before us for both benefits and pensions, but I will focus first on pensions. Sadly, the Labour Government inherited a system under which, for the last 10 years, we have seen an increase in pensioner poverty. Two million pensioners remain in poverty, and 1 million are on the edge of poverty, and one would have hoped that a Labour Government wanting to cut the number in half and promoting social justice would have driven such an agenda harder in their first seven months in power. The cut to the winter fuel allowance has exacerbated this situation. The hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) highlighted the backlogs and rightly said that they are totally unacceptable. The reality is that we are seeing pensioner poverty.
Again, we know that women are more likely to be victims of poverty, yet the WASPI women have in effect been victims of a decision of this Government. It was really pleasing that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions welcomed the report, acknowledged it and apologised, but, sadly, she did not actually action the report. That gives me great displeasure, as well as many other people across the United Kingdom.
In evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee, the ombudsman suggested that there is usually a bit of a conversation between the ombudsman and the Government about what an acceptable system or approach to compensation would be. Sadly, however, that never happened as far as the WASPI women are concerned, which is disturbing, and I want to understand why. Why was there the breakdown in communication between the ombudsman and the previous Conservative Government? I am looking to explore that with the ombudsman in another way.
On pensions, I would also like to highlight the housing issues. I served my community for 30 years as a councillor, and I am therefore very alive to some of the challenges people face. Housing is a massive issue, and it is disturbing that, when reflecting on pensions, the cost of housing is rarely taken into account. In 1979, 35% of our housing stock was social rented housing. That figure is now down to 17% across the United Kingdom, and in my constituency of Torbay it is as low as 7%. This means that people, whether pensioners or those on other benefits, in constituencies such as mine where there is a lack of social rented housing are particularly hard-hit by that lack of support; they will have to take money away from putting food on the table in order to pay the rent. It is therefore disappointing that the local housing allowance has not been enhanced in this round. Almost 1 million children across the United Kingdom will be living in households that have this gap between their benefits and the cost of their accommodation and they will be driven even further into poverty.
On universal credit, colleagues have already mentioned the recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation report which highlighted that couples face a £55 a week gap between covering the basics and what they actually receive. That is a little over £2,800 a year, so people are being driven even deeper into poverty just around the basics on their universal credit offer.
Finally, on the carer’s allowance scandal, while we Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s engagement and the review that is taking place, unanswered questions remain. We need to make sure this is addressed at pace to support people, because 136,000 people—the equivalent of the population of West Bromwich—are affected, owing £250 million. They fell foul of a system where people only need to earn £1 more a week and they do not then owe £52, they owe £4,200—tapers need to be implemented.
One of the real challenges we face is that the DWP service is, sadly, broken. It is not fit for purpose and needs redesigning. I have nothing but utter respect for the Secretary of State on this issue, and instead of driving new agendas we need to lift the bonnet and redesign the system, get it for purpose and, most importantly, co-design it with people who are disabled or benefit users, so that it can actually support them.
Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about those most in need of benefits and the difference they can make. He spoke about the WASPI women and about children in poverty, but does he agree that veterans could also be helped out more by the DWP, such as by the Government backing the Royal British Legion “Credit their Service” campaign to change legislation so that military compensation is not classed as income when calculating means-tested benefits? Does my hon. Gentleman agree that that group would benefit from such a change?
Steve Darling
My hon. Friend is right to highlight that. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) and I are awaiting a meeting with the Minister to explore that very issue and the RBL’s campaign.
To conclude, I lived through a world of broken children’s services in Torbay, but we rolled our sleeves up, sorted it out and moved from failing to good within two years by getting the right people in place, making sure systems were sorted out and driving culture change. We need that co-design with people who use the system so we can get the DWP sorted as well.
Dan Tomlinson (Chipping Barnet) (Lab)
First, I echo the comments of others in praising the Minister for his work on this issue over decades in this place. I saw it before becoming a Member of Parliament during my time working in the charity sector at the Resolution Foundation and most recently at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. I was working on these issues, and I always knew then that we had a friend in Parliament who cared deeply about the welfare system and about the needs of people receiving benefits and support from the state, and who also, like me, wants to see more people being supported to move into employment. Even though I am not going to focus on that topic today as I want to talk about pensions, I do want to put on record my thanks for his service, and I am glad to see him as a Minister.
I want to start by talking about an institution that is not often discussed in this place but that is crucial to all of our lives and shapes a lot of politics even though we do not remark on it too much: the family. That is the institution that almost all of us are closest to and that shapes so much of the way we see the world. It is important that we as policymakers—as people sitting here in the House of Commons—do not just think of individuals as people on their own who are separate from one another and that we instead remember that we all exist in families. If we look at someone’s biography online, it might say they are a father and a husband, because our families are a big part of our identities. We would do well to remember that.
Sometimes our politics and our media might want to push us into discussing pensions in a way that promotes the salience of a war between the generations, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Mr Dillon
The hon. Gentleman talks about the importance of family and I could not agree more, but does he also agree that a family is a unit designed by that family and an arbitrary limit of a two-child benefit cap does nothing to protect that family unit if they have more than two children?
Dan Tomlinson
I grew up in poverty. We had no money and lived in social housing. I had free school meals throughout my childhood, and the three of us were in emergency and temporary accommodation as well. And I know the benefit system was there for my mum and for us, and I have confidence that this Government will make the decisions that we need to make to ensure that our welfare system is there for families like the one I grew up in. I know a review is looking at universal credit and the welfare system, and I look forward to it reporting in the months ahead. This is a really important issue, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising it.
On families and the state pension, often people want to pit the young and the old against one another, but the evidence shows that young people are one of the most supportive groups for the increase in state pension. That is in part because we—I still call myself young now, in my early 30s—know and have seen throughout our lives how much people who are retired, such as our grandparents or older people we know in the community, have contributed to our lives and our families and also the lives of our communities. Also, to put on my economist’s hat, increases in the state pension and support for the triple lock, which we on this side of the House steadfastly support, will benefit young people the most because an extra few pence on the state pension today means an extra few pounds—or tens of pounds or, depending on which generation we are talking about, hundreds of pounds—in the future because of the way these things compound over time. It is really important we continue to support the state pension and the triple lock.
Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point about the long-term benefits to the economy from treating the benefits system seriously. Does he agree that that applies to the two-child cap as well because if we were to remove that not only would we lift hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, which is inherently a good thing, but we would also improve health and education outcomes and ultimately make a more productive population over the long run?
Dan Tomlinson
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention on the same important topic raised by the hon. Member for Newbury (Mr Dillon). I know that the Government are looking at this issue and at how we can reform the welfare system to support people to get the money they need and have the incentives and the right approach to welfare to help more people get into employment. That is the long-term sustainable route to reducing poverty and I hope we can do more to achieve it.
Dan Tomlinson
I am happy to give way, although I perhaps should make some progress.
Dr Luke Evans
The hon. Member makes a fantastic point about the family unit. The last Government were looking at introducing a measure on household income, particularly with child benefit, to try to make sure that we see people not as individuals, but as a group. That could stop such things as the child benefit cliff edge. However, the new Government took that measure away in the Budget. Would he make the argument to his Front Benchers that looking at household units—the family unit—is a positive way of seeing how we can support people?
Dan Tomlinson
That is important in some respects. One of the challenges with the policy that the hon. Member identifies is that we tax people on an individual basis and the benefits he refers to are often linked to the tax system. He raises an important point, and I am sure it is being considered.
I will make some progress and conclude my remarks. I am supportive of the increase in the state pension and of the triple lock. I know we have already had a little ding-dong about it, but it is the case that the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) said that the triple lock was unsustainable. Perhaps he was referring to the long term, but that still concerns me, not least given what I have said about young people benefiting most from increases in the state pension over time.
I am glad that in April the 20,000 pensioners in my constituency will receive either a £470 uplift if they are on the new state pension or, I believe, a £360 uplift if they are on the basic rate of state pension. That is incredibly important for living standards. I spent many years living with my grandparents part-time. They taught me a lot, and many of my values have come from them. We know how much care older people can provide to family and to their communities, and I see that in Chipping Barnet. At almost every community event, whether that is a local church, an institution or a charity doing good in the community, there are so many retired people giving their time and care, making Barnet—my corner of north London that I have the pleasure of representing—a better place to live. Providing that security in retirement is so very important.
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
I endorse the warm words of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), in paying tribute to the Minister, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) and the work he has done in previous Parliaments. As a recently elected Member, I was not in the House then, but I was aware of the work being done. Some of the contributions we have had in this debate so far have been extremely powerful. The quality of the debate seems to be in inverse proportion to the number of Members present.
I rise not to oppose these orders but to focus specifically on the Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2025, or GMP. The order gives applicable pension schemes the percentage by which they need to uprate GMP entitlement built up between 1988 and 1997. This year the increase is 1.7%. Wow! That was informed by the CPI figure for the year to September 2024. While that increase and the other increases are welcome, they will not even touch the sides. We must remember that the Government have taken away the winter fuel payment. We have seen numerous increases in energy costs, and we are seeing rising food prices because of policies on national insurance contributions and now the family farm tax.
These matters are reserved, but all those years ago back in 2014, we were promised in the run-up to the referendum that we would receive maximum devolution. That has not happened. People in Scotland may not know this, but we have had to introduce seven different benefits to mitigate the effects of decisions made here in Westminster. Fair pensions are necessary for ensuring dignity in old age, but we must be aware of the unintended consequences when changes are made to the pension system. During the transition to single-tier pensions in 2016, the DWP was found by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman not to have provided clear and accurate information that some pension holders were worse off under the changes. By the DWP’s own figures, about 50,000 people would lose out. That failure in communication seems emblematic of an outdated approach to social security that saw people unfairly treated when changes were made to their pension provision. We saw that happen again with the WASPI women. The PHSO again found that the DWP had committed maladministration in communicating those pension changes to WASPI women.
Pensions and pension provision are wide-reaching. Last week, I raised the issue of prison officers and changes to their pension scheme that mean some of them will be working until they are 68. I again impress upon the Government the need to consider the unintended consequences of that and all other pension changes. That is perhaps even more pertinent now, as the state pension age is due to rise to 67 for men and women between 2026 and 2028, and to 68 between 2044 and 2046. The DWP failed on previous occasions when it came to communicating these changes to people regarding their pensions. We have a new Government, and if they will not allow the Scottish people to determine their own future in these matters, or they will not devolve these matters to the Scottish Government, all I can ask is that they deliver fairness in pensions, because people need certainty when it comes to their retirement plans.
I agree with the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) when he mentioned the forthcoming review of the welfare system, and I wholeheartedly endorse the quiet words spoken by the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) when she made her powerful intervention talking about the socioeconomic determinants of ill health. That message cannot go unnoticed by the DWP in these matters.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
It is a real honour to participate in this debate. I may not be as illustrious as previous contributors, but I will try my best to make whatever small impact I can. I start by commenting on a point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) about believing in people and wanting the best for them. I wholeheartedly agree with that—we want the best for people and for them to be the best that they can—but simply believing is not enough. Simply believing that my children will achieve great grades at school without sending them to school or giving them the facilities and the tools is not enough. My team are in the relegation zone, and simply wanting them not to be relegated by belief will not be enough without investment in that football team. When we have had under-investment, especially in the mental health sector, we need more than just belief to achieve and to alleviate those problems. The semantics that we use specifically around our GPs, when we are sometimes questioning their credibility when they sign people off, are rather damaging.
I welcome the increase in pensions announced by the Secretary of State, but at this moment in time, as colleagues have mentioned, 1.9 million pensioners in the UK are living in relative poverty. Pensioners are missing meals, having to shelter in libraries and are depressed due to the Government’s cuts to the winter fuel payment. Research conducted by Unite the union has shown that more than two thirds of its retired members are having to turn down their heating. A third are taking fewer baths and showers, and 16% have cut back on hot meals due to the increased costs of trying to stay warm. Heating or eating is a reality for many people; they are not just words that we utter in this Chamber.
In addition, more than 63% of people have said that they have felt more cold, more often and 17% are reporting that the cut has resulted in their becoming ill or their symptoms becoming worse. That is burdening our NHS, which is already overstretched. We must find a way, if possible, to release the statistics for excessive deaths caused by the cold weather.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
You are making a very powerful case. Would you agree with me that—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I am sure the hon. Member is not intervening on me, so the word “you” is not appropriate. Interventions should be brief.
Neil Duncan-Jordan
I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. Does the hon. Member agree that just as the Government are addressing child poverty by setting up a child poverty taskforce, they should set up a pensioner poverty taskforce for pensioner poverty?
Shockat Adam
I could not agree more; that would be vital for pensioners. Ever since I was elected, emails from pensioners on that issue have been in the top three issues—it is a real issue. If alongside increasing pensions we could reverse the cuts to the winter fuel payment, that would save lives.
Madam Deputy Speaker
That concludes the Back-Bench contributions. I believe that the Minister would like to do a short wind-up.
Sir Stephen Timms
With the leave of the House, I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate. There have been some helpful contributions on important issues. I am grateful for the support expressed for the measures in the orders, and for the kind things said about me, which I will enjoy while they last. Let me thank in particular the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger), for drawing attention to the contributions of others who spoke in such debates in the past. He named Paul Maynard, David Linden and Nigel Mills, and he was absolutely right to do so.
I am particularly grateful to Nigel Mills for his help in the work of the Work and Pensions Committee, and I am delighted that the Committee is now in the good hands of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). She made an important contribution to the work of the Committee in the last Parliament, and had an important and positive influence over the whole direction of the Committee. She highlighted, as she often does, the position of vulnerable benefit claimants and how they are looked after. I look forward to giving evidence to her in the Committee next week as work resumes on an inquiry of the Committee from the last Parliament.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), who called for a taper in carer’s allowance. As he will have heard, the Chancellor announced in the Budget in November that we would look at the case for a taper. I hope to be able to update the House on that reasonably soon.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Dan Tomlinson) for what he said. He was right to draw attention to the high level of support among young people for the triple lock policy, which matters right across the age range.
The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) was right to call for certainty about pensions. People need to know what the position will be when they reach retirement age. The last Labour Government reduced the number of pensioners below the poverty line by a million. Sadly, as we have been reminded in this debate, it has gone up again over the last few years. We want to get back on the better track that we were on before. That was picked up in the remarks of the hon. Member for Leicester South (Shockat Adam).
Seamus Logan
Does the Minister agree that two measures that the Government could take that would make a serious impact on the levels of poverty would be to restore the winter fuel payment and abolish the two-child cap?
Sir Stephen Timms
I have already spoken in the debate about the two-child cap, and we will be coming forward with the report and strategy proposed by the child poverty taskforce. On pensioner poverty, I think that substantial measures will be needed, and we will come forward with those in due course.
Dr Luke Evans
I am grateful to the Minister for taking another intervention. He talked about planning for the future and people understanding what is going on with their pensions. We have the WASPI example where that was not seen to be the case. The new Government are making changes to inheritance tax and where pensions fall, but much of the public do not realise that that will have big implications for them as their pensions will be subject to tax and inheritance tax. Would he consider a campaign to let people know that that change is coming in the next year or so?
Sir Stephen Timms
I am not quite sure what change the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but I certainly agree that people need to be confident about what the arrangements will be in the future so that they can plan accordingly. That is the one of the reasons why the pensions triple lock is important, as it gives people confidence about how things will be in the future.
We are: increasing the basic state pension and the new state pension in line with earnings growth by 4.1%, meeting our commitment to the triple lock; increasing the pension credit standard minimum guarantee in line with earnings growth by 4.1%; increasing benefits to meet additional disability needs and carers’ benefits in line with prices; and increasing working-age benefits in line with prices as well, at 1.7%. This year, GMPs accrued between 1988 and 1997 must by law be increased by 1.7%, which is the increase in the consumer prices index in the year up to September 2024. The GMP is important in giving people assurance about a level below which their scheme pension cannot fall. I commend both orders to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order 2025, which was laid before this House on 15 January, be approved.
Pensions
Resolved,
That the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2025, which was laid before this House on 16 January, be approved.—(Martin McCluskey.)
National Insurance Contributions
(1 day, 11 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (James Murray)
I beg to move,
That the draft Social Security (Contributions) (Rates, Limits and Thresholds Amendments, National Insurance Funds Payments and Extension of Veteran’s Relief) Regulations 2025, which were laid before this House on 15 January, be approved.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following motion:
That the draft Child Benefit and Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating Order 2025, which was laid before this House on 15 January, be approved.
James Murray
Regulations are made each year to set various national insurance thresholds, and to uprate child benefit and the guardian’s allowance. In opening the debate, I will give the House details of what the regulations set out to do. First, the Social Security (Contributions) (Rates, Limits and Thresholds Amendments, National Insurance Funds Payments and Extension of Veteran’s Relief) Regulations 2025 set the rates of certain national insurance contribution classes and the level of certain thresholds for the 2025-26 tax year. The lower earnings limit, the small profits threshold and the rates of class 2 and class 3 contributions will all be uprated by the September consumer prices index figure of 1.7%, while the other limits and thresholds covered by the regulations will remain fixed at their existing levels.
The regulations also make provision for a Treasury grant—a transfer of wider Government funds—to be paid into the national insurance fund, if required, for the 2025-26 tax year. The regulations also, importantly, extend the veterans’ employer national insurance contributions relief until April 2026. The scope of the regulations under discussion is limited to the 2025-26 tax year.
As hon. Members will know, national insurance contributions are social security contributions; people make contributions when they are in work to receive contributory benefits when they are not working—for example, after they have retired, or if they become unemployed. National insurance contribution receipts fund those contributory benefits, as well as helping to fund the NHS.
The primary threshold and the lower profits limit are the points at which employees and the self-employed start to pay employee class 1 and self-employed class 4 national insurance contributions respectively. The primary threshold and lower profits limit were frozen by the previous Government at £12,570 until April 2028. However, the level of those thresholds does not affect people’s ability to build up entitlement to contributory benefits such as the state pension. For employees, entitlement is determined by their earnings being above the lower earnings limit, which the regulations will uprate from £123 a week in 2024-25 to £125 a week in 2025-26. That is the equivalent of an uprating from £6,396 to £6,500 a year.
Entitlement for self-employed people is determined by their earnings being above the small profits threshold, which the regulations will uprate from £6,725 in 2024-25 to £6,845 for 2025-26. Uprating the lower earnings limit and the small profits threshold is the usual process, and it maintains the real level of income at which people gain entitlement to contributory benefits. Wage growth is currently higher than inflation, which means that following the uprating by CPI, there will be a reduction in the number of hours that someone who has received a typical wage increase needs to work to gain entitlement compared with last year.
The upper earnings limit, which is the point at which the main rate of employee national insurance contributions drops to 2%, and the upper profits limit, which is the point at which the main rate of self-employed national insurance contributions drops to 2%, are aligned with the higher rate threshold for income tax at £50,270 a year. The previous Government also froze those thresholds until April 2028.
I now turn to the thresholds for employer national insurance contribution reliefs. As hon. Members are aware, the Government have had to make difficult decisions to fix the public finances. One of the toughest decisions that we faced was the decision to increase the rate of employer national insurance contributions and reduce the secondary threshold. Although those changes are the subject of a separate Bill, not these regulations, they are the context for why our decision to maintain other targeted national insurance contributions reliefs is so important. Those employer reliefs include those for under-21-year-olds, under-25 apprentices, veterans, and new employees in freeports and investment zones. The regulations that we are debating set these thresholds in line with other personal tax thresholds.
The regulations also provide for the national insurance contributions relief for employers of veterans to be extended for a year until April 2026. This measure means that next year, businesses will continue to pay no employer national insurance contributions on salaries up to the veterans upper secondary threshold of £50,270 for the first year of a qualifying veteran’s employment in a civilian role.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I welcome the extension of national insurance contributions relief for veterans, but does the Minister agree that we need to do more to ensure that employers across the country know that the relief exists, to incentivise employing veterans?
James Murray
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we want employers to be aware of this important relief, and to encourage them to make use of it to employ veterans. This relief helps to support those who have already given so much to our country, and it also means that the skills and the huge potential of those people who have already given such service to our country can be used to make a further contribution to our country and our economy. We want all employers to know that this relief exists. We can all play a role as local MPs in making sure that all employers in our constituencies are aware of this important relief. I thank my hon. Friend for letting me make that point.
The continuation of the veterans relief is evidence of the Government’s commitment to supporting our veterans. As I explained in response to my hon. Friend’s intervention, it is intended to incentivise employers to take advantage of the wide range of skills and experience that ex-military personnel offer. As I said, it is important that we support those who have given so much to our country by helping to make sure that our country benefits further from the skills and potential of our service leavers.
Let me move on to the national insurance fund, into which the majority of national insurance contributions are paid, and which is used to pay the state pension and other contributory benefits. The Treasury has the ability to transfer funds from wider Government revenues into the national insurance fund. The regulations make provision for a transfer of this kind, known as a Treasury grant, of up to 5% of forecasted annual benefit expenditure to be paid into the national insurance fund, if needed, in 2025-26. A similar provision will be made in respect of the Northern Ireland national insurance fund.
The Government Actuary’s Department report laid alongside these regulations forecasts that a Treasury grant will not be required in 2025-26, but as a precautionary measure, the Government consider it prudent to make provision at this stage for a Treasury grant. That is consistent with what has been done in previous years.
I turn to the draft Child Benefit and Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating Order 2025. As hon. Members will know, the Government are committed to delivering a welfare system that is fair for taxpayers while providing support to those who need it. The order will ensure that the benefits for which Treasury Ministers are responsible, and which His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs delivers, are uprated by inflation in April 2025. Child benefit and the guardian’s allowance will increase in line with the consumer prices index, which had inflation at 1.7% in the year to September 2024. Uprating by the preceding September’s CPI is the Government’s typical approach. Tax credit awards will end on 5 April 2025, so no changes to rates will be required from 2025-26 onwards.
I hope all Members will support the regulations. Rejecting them would mean that HMRC-administered benefits would not rise at all next year, and so would lose value in real terms. The regulations fix most of the rates and thresholds for the national insurance contributions that they cover at the 2024-25 levels for the 2025-26 tax year, except for the lower earnings limit, the small profits threshold, and the rates of class 2 and class 3 contributions, which will all be updated by the September 2024 CPI rate of 1.7%. The regulations also make provision for a Treasury grant. They extend the veterans employer national insurance contributions relief, and increase the rates of child benefit and the guardian’s allowance in line with prices.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
The Minister talked about the Treasury grant being up to 5%. As a matter of curiosity, what figure had Treasury planned to put in?
James Murray
The regulations contain a provision for us, in case it is needed. The expectation is that it will not be. As I mentioned, a Government Actuary’s Department report laid alongside the regulations has forecast that the Treasury grant will not be required in 2025-26. The provision in the regulations is a precautionary measure, and is in line with what has happened in previous years. The Government consider it prudent to continue the practice of previous years, and to make provision for the grant in these regulations. I hope that answers the hon. Gentleman’s question.
The regulations enable an increase in child benefit and the guardian’s allowance in line with prices. Without these regulations, HMRC would be unable to collect national insurance contributions receipts, and child benefit and guardian’s allowance would be frozen at the 2024-25 levels. I hope that colleagues will join me in supporting the regulations.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Before I call the shadow Minister, I inform the Liberal Democrat spokesman that I will call him immediately afterwards.
Gareth Davies (Grantham and Bourne) (Con)
I welcome the opportunity to contribute on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition. As the Minister said, the first statutory instrument sets rates, limits and thresholds for national insurance contributions for the 2025-26 tax year. It covers the rate of class 2 NICs, the small profits threshold, the rate of voluntary class 3 NICs, the zero-rate relief on secondary class 1 NICs for qualifying armed forces veterans—a Conservative Government legacy that we are very proud of—and the various upper secondary thresholds and the upper limits and thresholds that determine class 1 NICs.
These regulations also allow for payments of a Treasury grant not exceeding 5% of the estimated benefit expenditure for the 2025-26 tax year. This is to be made into the national insurance fund, with a corresponding provision for Northern Ireland. We welcome the uprating with CPI of the class 1 lower earnings limit and the class 2 small profits threshold, but the overall picture in these regulations is one of continuity, not of change.
The secondary threshold, however, is the exception. Although the regulations leave it unchanged, that will not last for very long. They will be overridden by the National Insurance Contributions (Secondary Class 1 Contributions) Bill, which is under consideration in the other place. It will cut the secondary threshold from a weekly level of £176 to £96 in the coming tax year, on top of raising the secondary class 1 NICs rate to 15%.
The disastrous, job-destroying consequences of Labour’s £25 billion tax on working people are well known by now, and have been debated in this place many times. They are also widely acknowledged, from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility to the left-wing Resolution Foundation. This time last year, when in opposition, the Minister put on record his concern over the distributional impact of the freezes on allowances, limits and thresholds, which his Government are in large part continuing. We accept that these are difficult decisions, but we took them to return the public finances to a sustainable footing in the aftermath of the double crisis of the pandemic and the energy price shock driven by the disgraceful invasion of Ukraine.
If the Minister was concerned about the distributional impact back then, and in particular about
“the post-tax income for low and middle earners”—[Official Report, Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee, 7 February 2024; c. 6.],
I wonder just how concerned he is now, in the context of his own party’s Budget. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has shown that the largest percentage increases in labour costs will be inflicted on lower-wage workers; meanwhile, as much as 76% of the additional tax burden will be passed on to those same workers in the form of lower real wages, according to the independent OBR. Does the Minister agree with the OBR and the IFS on the distributional impact of the NICs tax hike?
Dr Luke Evans
My hon. Friend has talked about context, which is really important. This is a finance SI, but the wider context is that another Bill is being brought forward—the Employment Rights Bill—that is estimated to cost £5 billion on top of existing tax measures in the Budget. Does he think that that will have a direct impact on people who are trying to find work? There is a chance, surely, that more people will be let go and made unemployed because of this potential cost and impact.
Gareth Davies
I completely agree with the point that my hon. Friend is making, which has also been made to me by several local businesses in my constituency. This is a double whammy. We have a tax increase that will increase the cost of doing business and affect the profitability of businesses and, in some cases, their survival; in addition, they are being hit with additional regulation, which businesses themselves, including the CBI, have made clear will add to the burden of regulation and make it less easy to hire people and, in some cases, to keep them. This double whammy, I am afraid, will result in job freezes at best, and, in some tragic cases, to job losses. I think we should all be very concerned about that.
To be fair to the Minister, he has in the past expressed great concern about the lower-paid in our society across all constituencies. Has he therefore undertaken his own distributional analysis of changes to national insurance rates, limits and thresholds in the round? If he has, does that analysis show anything different from what the OBR and the IFS have shown?
I would like to highlight the fact that the impact note for this specific statutory instrument predates the October Budget. I hope there is an updated impact analysis to consider the new context—surely there is. I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm that and show it to us.
Finally, I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether the Treasury is considering an extension of the veterans zero-rate relief beyond 2026, or whether that will now act as a final sunset date for the relief. He is absolutely right to say that we all have a part to play in highlighting this relief to businesses. We all want to see veterans hired in our country. My constituency has one of the largest populations of veterans, and I, with others on the Opposition Benches, will certainly join the Minister in doing anything we can to better inform businesses of this benefit. However, it would be good if he could confirm whether there are any plans or intentions to extend the relief beyond the 2026 point set out in the regulations.
As the Minister said, the second statutory instrument uprates child benefit and guardian’s allowance in line with CPI for the 2025-26 tax year. These benefits are an important part of our welfare system, and we welcome the vital support that they provide. However, as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has pointed out,
“Work is the most important route out of poverty”,
and we agree. Between 2010 and 2024, Conservative Governments helped to create 4 million jobs. The proportion of children living in workless households fell from 16% to 10%. Even as employment increased, the proportion of all jobs considered low paid declined from 20% in 2010 to just 3.4% in 2024, which I hope the whole House welcomes and recognises.
Labour has never left office with unemployment lower than it found it, and within four months of its first Budget unemployment is on the rise, with the number of workers on payrolls dropping by the most we have seen since the peak of the pandemic. Meanwhile, the OBR says that Labour’s jobs tax will weigh on real wages. With inflation also expected to rise in the near term, and many of the Minister’s Back-Bench Labour colleagues no doubt taking the view that child benefit provision is not generous enough, have the Government prepared an assessment of the impact of their Budget measures on levels of child poverty over the next 12 months, and in particular of the impact their jobs tax may have through higher unemployment and lower pay? Finally, is the Minister confident that this uprating will cancel out any adverse consequences of the Budget, such as those I have raised?
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Minister’s suggestion that today’s proposals are yoked to the national insurance increases going through the other place. Since the general election, we have had doom and gloom from the Labour party until very recently. The uncertainty around the Budget and the national insurance increases that are yet to hit has only put the cold hand around the economic growth that we need to see pumping harder in our economy.
In my own part of the world in the west country, it is having a massive impact on the tourism industry. The fact that the thresholds at which people start to pay national insurance are going down from £9,200 to £5,000 means that businesses in my constituency, such as Paignton pier, Paignton zoo and Splashdown, all have massive increases in seasonal worker costs, through both the threshold hitting harder and the increases in national insurance costs. When I speak to businesses such as Splashdown in Paignton, they tell me that it means they will probably operate for a shorter time and that they may look at reducing the number of staff they take on. Sadly, the national insurance increase is a jobs tax on our tourism industry, as well as on the rest of our economy.
I am only too well aware that the cost to hospitality is £1 billion. That is extremely disturbing. Again, people will not be taken on due to those cost pressures. Therefore, this really is a jobs tax.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I am very interested in what my hon. Friend is saying about the threat to jobs. At the other end of the country, the north of Scotland, we have the same issue. The loss of any jobs in the hospitality industry is disastrous, when we do not have much employment anyway. We would like much more—let us put it that way.
Steve Darling
I am delighted with my hon. Friend’s intervention, because the Liberal Democrats represent the full length of the United Kingdom from Shetland to the Isles of Scilly, and it is important that we hear about that impact from a breadth of colleagues. The Liberal Democrats represent some of the best places to go on holiday across the UK.
There is a significant high-tech industry in Torbay. Again, businesses in that manufacturing industry tells me that their owners abroad may ask them to offshore some of their manufacturing to places such as Taiwan, where taxes on employment are significantly lower. That is another significant impact of the rise in national insurance contributions.
Bay Care is an outstanding social care business, but Kat Hall, one of its senior managers, tells me that this measure will have a significant impact. The business operates within very tight margins, and it will have to reduce services or limit its offer to our communities in South Devon and Torbay. Those reductions will inevitably have an impact on the social care offer.
Finally, let me say something about the voluntary sector. Torbay Communities gives outstanding service to the people of South Devon and Torbay, but the national insurance increases will confront it with considerable challenges. It will have to think about whether to reduce its staff and stop supporting some of the most vulnerable people in the area—people who are in need. With due respect to the Minister, I ask the Government to reflect on these increases and to see how they can alleviate them, particularly in the hospitality, social care and voluntary sectors.
James Murray
With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will respond to the comments of hon. Members.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Grantham and Bourne (Gareth Davies), set out the official Opposition’s response to the regulations and the order that are before us, but his speech related largely to the changes being made by a different piece of legislation—a Bill—so I will be careful not to try your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, by veering into that legislation, and will remain strictly within the confines of the regulations and the order.
Let me say briefly, however, that as the hon. Gentleman knows, we had to take difficult decisions in the Budget last October, and one of the toughest was the decision to increase the rate of employer national insurance contributions and lower the secondary threshold. The reason we had to take those difficult decisions was the fiscal situation that we had inherited from the Government of which he was a member. I note that in his recollection of history, he referred to a double crisis; I think that it was, at the very least, a triple crisis, given Liz Truss’s premiership in the country and leadership of his party, so he may have omitted certain facts from the historical record, although I am sure that the wider British public will make no such mistake.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about some of the impacts of the national insurance changes. Again, he was speaking about a Bill rather than the statutory instruments that we are discussing, and for that separate Bill a tax information and impact note has been published, as is standard practice. I welcomed his support for our extension of veterans relief for a year, until April 2026, to help more ex-service personnel into employment. As the scope of the regulations is limited to the 2025-26 tax year, they could extend it only by one year, but we think it important for that to be done.
The hon. Gentleman also spoke about work being the best way out of poverty, and I entirely agree with him in that regard. When we are creating jobs and ensuring that businesses can invest and provide work opportunities for people throughout the country, it is important for those jobs to be decent jobs with decent pay, and our changes to the national living wage are of course important in that respect. Overall, in relation to all the measures in the Budget, the Office for Budget Responsibility has concluded that the employment level will rise from 33.1 million to 34.3 million between 2024 and 2029.
The spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats, the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling), also spoke about a Bill rather than the regulations that we are debating. I want to reassure him by pointing to the comments that the Chancellor has made since taking office last July. Since her first few days in No. 11 Downing Street, she has been determined to boost growth by getting rid of the ban on onshore wind turbines, reforming the way in which pensions can invest, and ensuring that the planning and regulatory barriers get out of the way of the growth that we are determined to achieve for this country.
The Chancellor’s growth speech last week was just the latest example of her leadership in taking those decisions, which are the right ones for our country, to boost investment and growth. We know that having a stable set of public finances is a prerequisite for that investment and growth. The difficult decisions that both Opposition spokespeople referred to are slightly off the topic of the regulations in front of us, but they none the less drew attention to the fact that those difficult decisions were precisely to restore the public finances, while supporting public services, therefore allowing investment to increase and seeking the growth that we are determined to deliver for this country.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Social Security (Contributions) (Rates, Limits and Thresholds Amendments, National Insurance Funds Payments and Extension of Veteran’s Relief) Regulations 2025, which were laid before this House on 15 January, be approved.
Resolved,
That the draft Child Benefit and Guardian’s Allowance Up-rating Order 2025, which was laid before this House on 15 January, be approved.—(James Murray.)
Business of the House (5 February)
Ordered,
That at the sitting on Wednesday 5 February, notwithstanding the provisions of Standing Order No. 16 (Proceedings under an Act or on European Union documents), the Speaker shall put the Questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on—
(1) the Motion in the name of Secretary Yvette Cooper relating to Police Grant Report not later than three hours after the start of proceedings on that Motion, and
(2) the Motions in the name of Secretary Angela Rayner relating to Local Government Finance not later than three hours after the start of proceedings on the first such Motion or six hours after the commencement of proceedings on the Motion relating to Police Grant Report, whichever is the later; proceedings on those Motions may continue, though opposed, after the moment of interruption; and Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply.—(Lucy Powell.)
Business without Debate
Bereaved Parents: Birth Certificates
(1 day, 11 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
Twenty-two years ago, I became part of a club that no one wants to join: the young widows club. My husband Nick died of oesophageal cancer, and I was left with an 18-month-old baby and a toddler. Over the course of the next couple of years, I met dozens of young widows, including Beth, whose husband Simon had died of bowel cancer just two days before their beautiful baby daughter Elsa was born. Beth and I navigated this strange and unwelcome new reality together, spending time with our three little girls, who were all too young to understand the awfulness of what had happened.
Beth was part of an even smaller, even more unlucky club than me: the one where you have to give birth alone, to a baby you have longed for, while at the same time grieving for the partner you have lost and the future you will never share. For many of those tragically unlucky women, it gets even worse. Every year in the UK, around 200 young bereaved women are drawn into a ridiculous, unnecessary and costly legal battle to have their baby’s father’s name registered on the birth certificate. Incredibly, in 2025, if a woman is pregnant when their partner dies but they are not married, the law says that they cannot automatically name the father on the birth certificate. If ever there was a case of adding insult to injury, that has to be it.
The law seems to think that if a woman is legally married, there is no question but that her baby is her husband’s. But if she has been living in a committed relationship, perhaps for years on end, the fact that she does not have a ring on her finger means that the paternity of her child is in question. Having been through the unimaginable experience of losing her partner while carrying his child, and then giving birth alone, she is then expected to enter into a legal process to prove that he was indeed the father, so that the child does not grow up with a blank space on their birth certificate. This is out of date, out of touch and, frankly, quite traumatic for all those involved. Women have described it as demeaning, insulting and overwhelming.
The reality is that more and more couples are choosing to live together without getting married. In 2022, the number of children born outside marriage in the UK surpassed the number of babies born to parents who were married or in a civil partnership for the first time since records began in 1845, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. It is high time the law was updated to remove this anachronistic insult to unmarried mothers.
Not long after I was widowed, I became involved with a brilliant organisation called WAY—Widowed and Young. It is where I met Beth and made many other lifelong friends. WAY has been running the Blank Space campaign to try to change this out-of-date law, which penalises people for not being married. I commend WAY for its campaigning and am proud to bring this issue before the Minister so that the anomaly can be addressed. The women I will talk about are all members of WAY, and I thank them for sharing their stories.
Nicola and her partner Stewart had been through a successful in vitro fertilisation journey, which was needed because he had had testicular cancer 10 years earlier. Six weeks after a positive pregnancy test, they found out that Stewart’s cancer had returned, and he died seven months into Nicola’s pregnancy, so he never got the chance to meet the son he had so desperately fought for. Nicola booked an appointment with the registrar, knowing that she would be going alone, but she took as much paperwork as possible to show that Stewart was the father. She had a range of hospital documents signed by him, which not only proved that he was the father but detailed his documented wishes for their embryos if he were to die. However, the registrar explained to Nicola that because she and Stewart were not married, he had to be physically present to be named on the birth certificate. Her evidence did not count, and she was sent away with a birth certificate that had a blank space where Stewart’s name should have been. Nicola says:
“We had made this baby together, literally and scientifically, and for him not to be recognised at all was devastating.”
It took a year and over £1,000 to get to court. Stewart’s father went along to attend the hearing with Nicola, and it took just a few minutes for the court to discuss and approve the change, and to add Stewart’s name to the birth certificate. It was almost as if the court could not believe that she had had to go through the process in the first place. Given the overwhelming evidence and the support of blood relatives, it was the obvious decision. She says:
“To have to go through this whilst bringing up a newborn on my own and grieving was utterly humiliating and exhausting.”
I can attest to the fact that no young widow who is learning to be a mum and grieving at the same time should ever have to fight to have their partner listed on a birth certificate, and many of them cannot afford to do so, even if they wanted to.
Paula was 18 weeks pregnant when her partner was killed while cycling to work. Despite having his DNA and a proven 99.9% match, it took three and a half years for her to get a birth certificate with his name on it, and the process cost nearly £3,000.
Eleanor’s partner Robin was killed in a road traffic accident 18 days before his baby daughter was born. Eleanor says:
“If you haven’t been through this situation, you may not understand how demeaning this rule is. It made me feel like I wasn’t to be trusted, as if an unmarried woman has no rights or voice. My partner and I lived together and planned to have a child—we just weren’t married. It wasn’t a one-night stand, and simple tax records would have proven that. While I shouldn’t have had to prove anything beyond my word, I would have willingly provided documentation and statements from both our families to confirm our relationship.”
In the end, the complexity and expense of having to fight the system proved too much for Eleanor, so her daughter’s birth certificate was never changed and the blank space remains.
These examples show just how difficult and cruel this situation is, and they also show that the process can be very different depending on where a woman lives, which court she applies to, and who hears the application. Like so many other things, it can become a bit of a postcode lottery.
Under UK law, a birth needs to be registered within 42 days. If the parents are unmarried, they both have to be present to be named on the birth certificate—one parent cannot add the other. If a parent has died, the surviving parent can amend the birth certificate at a future date to include the deceased parent’s name, but they have to apply first to the family court for a declaration of parentage. This involves a form and a court fee of £365, and the court application takes three to four months to be processed. Then, at an initial court hearing, a senior family judge will consider the application. Many judges have never come across this process, and I have read stories of young widows not only having to go through the process themselves, but having to explain it to judges and court administrators while doing so.
There may be a second hearing some months later, and in between there will be requests for DNA, evidence and witness statements. If the court approves, it will issue a document confirming that the deceased person was the child’s parent, and it then makes a declaration at a court hearing. This will then be sent to the registrar of births, deaths and marriages, and it can then take several more weeks for the re-registering of the birth to be completed.
I am sure I do not need to tell Members that this is a tortuous process—one of those bits of bureaucracy that seems ridiculous when we spell out the whole process, as I have done here. At the best of times it would be frustrating and slow. At the worst of times, it can simply be too much to cope with. The paperwork of death is long, frustrating and sometimes complicated. I remember being told by one organisation that it had to have written confirmation from my husband to close an account, even though I had written to it to say that he had died. I would like to think that things have moved on in the last 23 years, but we seem to have created a system that overcomplicates everything.
Clearly, it would not be right for someone to be able to put someone else’s name down on a birth certificate as the father without reasonable proof; what WAY is campaigning for is a way to resolve this issue so that women whose partners have died during pregnancy can follow a clear and simple process to register their partner on their child’s birth certificate. It should not cost thousands of pounds, and it should not be so complicated that some women just give up through frustration.
In Switzerland, France and Germany, unmarried fathers can declare their parentage early in the pregnancy to protect their rights. We have parental responsibility agreements here for unmarried fathers, so perhaps one answer would be to bring that forward into pregnancy so that if the worst, most unimaginable tragedy happened during pregnancy, there would be one less thing for newly widowed mums to have to worry about. Doctors could make a record of who the father is when the pregnancy is first entered into medical records, and this could be used as a legal document. Advice could be given at antenatal appointments, bringing people’s attention to the issues that can arise for parents who are not married, so that they could be more aware. The executor could be called in as a witness to confirm paternity. There are ways around this if we are creative and clever. In honour of Nicola, Paula, Elanor and their children, I look forward to hearing how the Minister will take this dilemma forward and hopefully find an answer.
When you are widowed young, you lose so much. You lose the partner you love, you lose the life you had built together and you lose the future you had planned. Your children lose their father—or sometimes their mother—their family is never the same again, and their lives will be shaped in many ways by the loss, however young they are when it happened. Being widowed when pregnant is all this and more. The trauma of birthing and grieving at the same time runs deep and lasts a lifetime. I really hope that the Government will move swiftly to make some changes so that one tiny little bit of this awful journey is made easier for those who have to navigate it.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on bringing forward this incredibly important debate and thank her for having the strength to share her experience. She has shone a light on a matter that will resonate with people in every constituency across the country.
I rise to raise a related matter that has been brought to my attention and to the attention of other representatives in Birmingham by one of my constituents, Wunmi Babalola. Last year, she and her partner Charlie lost their infant son, Kayode Babalola-Fellows. Her experience of registering Kayode’s death was much more difficult than it needed to be. They found themselves sitting in Birmingham register office alongside new parents who were registering their own children’s births, and they were required to attend two separate appointments on the same day to register the birth and their son’s passing. Wunmi said:
“I was already feeling the pain of our loss so much and when we arrived we had to sit and wait our turn with everyone else, including with parents with their babies registering their births. I felt my loss so intensely in that moment, it hit me like a ton of bricks… It should be a joyful time for new parents, while obviously for us it was an awful, traumatic one. I just didn’t feel those two worlds should have to collide like they did.”
I also pay tribute to Councillor Carmel Corrigan, who is a representative for Kings Norton North in my constituency. Last week, Birmingham city council carried her motion calling on the authority to work with the register office to secure an appointed officer with seniority and experience to support families through their grief, so that people who experience baby loss do not have to register their baby’s death alongside parents who are registering births, and to explore what additional support the registry service and the NHS can provide to parents in that situation.
Carmel spoke about the loss of her own son, Aodhan Hay, 28 years ago, when she experienced something very similar. If something can come out of this debate, I hope it is attention for the issues raised by the hon. Member for South Devon and for the situation that my constituents faced, because if we can prevent a similar ordeal for other bereaved parents, we will have done some good.
I pay tribute to all the campaigners, including the hon. Lady, who have taken some form of good from the hardest pain and dearest loss to provide some comfort to others. I ask the Minister to look at the good work undertaken in Birmingham and to assess the case for national guidance and support for register offices, so that the circumstances that Wunmi and Charlie faced do not happen again.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Sarah Sackman)
I thank the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for securing this debate on an important and emotive subject. I start by saying how sorry I am for the loss that she and her family suffered, and how much I admire her resilience in coming to this House to share her story. That takes a huge amount of courage.
The circumstances in which the hon. Lady and others have lost co-parents are heartbreaking indeed. The Government are determined to ensure that the justice system is better able to support children and families, and particularly mothers who have lost the father of their child.
The hon. Lady helpfully outlined the current process for registering a parent’s name on a birth certificate when that parent has passed away, but it is important to set out precisely how this works. Under section 55A of the Family Law Act 1986, in situations where a child is born to unmarried parents and the father is deceased prior to birth, a declaration of parentage must be issued by the court for paternity to be established. It is right that a fee is attached to this application, but it is important to say that there are mechanisms in place to support those who cannot afford the fee.
The help with fees scheme considers a range of factors, including an applicant’s income, their savings and whether they receive any benefits, so that the fee can be waived in certain circumstances. Once a declaration is issued, the birth can then be re-registered to include the father’s details or, to put it another way and as we have heard, to fill in that blank space.
To recognise the challenges that mothers face when seeking a declaration of parentage, a key intention of the provisions in family proceedings is to make the process as simple as possible in the most difficult of circumstances, while at the same time ensuring that the court has the means to establish parentage if one parent is deceased and is not, of course, able to convey their views themselves.
That process, while we have to emphasise simplicity and ease for those going through the toughest of circumstances, is an important one. It is important because in some cases the process can bear on significant financial implications for others, such as children from previous relationships, and can bear on issues such as nationality and others that touch on the best interests of the child. While ensuring the process is clear and simple to support bereaved parents, the courts must therefore have a process that instils confidence in the important details that a birth certificate contains.
Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)
I want to add my congratulations to the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this incredibly important debate.
The Minister has spoken well on the process involved. If a couple are married when the father dies while the woman is pregnant, it is a relatively simple process to register that person as the father of the child. It is a much more complicated matter for people where the couple are not married. I suggest, and I hope my hon. Friend agrees, that legislation might not have kept pace with societal change and with the reality of how couples now choose to live when they plan families.
Sarah Sackman
My hon. Friend is right to reflect on the growing number of couples in this country who cohabit and for whom marriage is not something they have chosen. It is right, too, that in general the law keeps up, to reflect that sort of societal change. I will come in due course to discuss more widely what the Government are doing in that space. I return, however, to the essential point that while clarity, simplicity and affordability are important in the registration process, particularly to support bereaved parents, we must have a process that instils confidence in what the birth certificate contains.
I thank the hon. Member for South Devon for drawing attention to Widowed and Young’s campaign. As she rightly points out, it does some absolutely amazing work, particularly for those younger people who have tragically lost a spouse or life partner. I can reassure the hon. Member now that the Government take the matter incredibly seriously and we are working hard to improve the family justice system for children and families.
Widowed and Young advocates for a simplified court process. We know that delays in the court process add to the distress when someone is going through bereavement. That can have a significant impact on children and families. We are committed to improving timeliness and reducing the outstanding caseload in the family court. That is why we have set ambitious targets for reducing delays in 2024-25 and have focused on closing the longest-running cases, not least so that can free up court time to deal with precisely the sorts of processes to which the hon. Member draws attention.
To further support those who use the family court, we are committed to improving digital solutions to support families with exploring various options for resolving child arrangement disputes early and away from court whenever possible. That is an area where digital solutions can be brought to bear on the sorts of issues that have been raised today. The Ministry of Justice is working on testing and developing various digital innovations that aim to support users in the private family justice system to help those families find the right information at the right time for them to reach agreements where that is appropriate, and particularly in the sorts of processes and proceedings under focus, which in the vast majority of cases are entirely non-contentious.
Let me turn to the wider issue of cohabitation reform. The subject that the hon. Member for South Devon raises and that others have raised today speak to the broader issues for cohabiting couples in our society who, under existing law, have only limited financial protections compared with those who are married or in a civil partnership. I know that a number of colleagues across the House have written to my Department about this, and my noble friend Lord Ponsonby was pleased to attend a parliamentary roundtable to discuss it last November.
We know that the limited rights and protections available to cohabitants can affect the most vulnerable in our society who are often affected at the most difficult stages in life, such as when a partner dies, or at the point of separation. We know, too, that those limited rights and protections disproportionately affect women, including victims of domestic and economic abuse, as well as their children. With the number of cohabiting couples in the UK having more than doubled over the past 30 years, it is important, as others have said, that law reflects the society in which we now live. That indeed is why the Government set out in our manifesto a commitment to strengthen the rights and protections available to women in cohabiting couples. We will be setting out the next steps on this manifesto commitment—how we intend to implement it—as soon as possible.
The issue raised by the hon. Member for South Devon speaks directly to those challenges that sometimes face parents who are unmarried. I would like to thank her once again for securing this important debate and pay tribute to her bravery in coming forward to talk about it. I hope that this is the start of a conversation. I hope that she and I can discuss in more depth very soon the sorts of changes that might be necessary to better protect people in law, and I look forward to working with her to that end.
While I am on my feet, let me also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) for the related issue that he raises and let me extend my personal condolences to the family involved. They have been through one of the worst things imaginable in my view. Certainly, processes of administration—of registration—should not be designed to exacerbate that. If he will write to me with that particular case, I would be happy to take a look at it, and I look forward to working with him on how we can address and mitigate the distress of parents of children who die in childbirth.
Once again, let me thank the hon. Member for South Devon for securing this important debate. I look forward to working with her on how we can ameliorate the situation for those for whom she is campaigning.
Question put and agreed to.