Oral Answers to Questions
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
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Fabian Hamilton (Leeds North East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr David Lammy)
We welcome the provisions made in the constitutional declaration on freedom of expression, freedom of belief and women’s rights. We also welcome the announcement on the formation of the new Syrian Government. The UK stands ready to support an inclusive, stable and prosperous future for the people of Syria. We will continue to encourage inclusive governance and will work with the Syrian Government to that end.
Fabian Hamilton
I thank the Foreign Secretary for that reply. The fall of Assad was rightly welcomed by all Members of this House, but reports of mass killings of Christians and Alawites, which have now resulted in more than 1,500 civilian deaths, show that Syria is still a very unstable country. Will the Secretary of State therefore outline what support is being given to the new Syrian Government to prevent further violence and another appalling refugee crisis?
Mr Lammy
I can assure my hon. Friend that we are following steps closely. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer), will be meeting civil society groups today. My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) will know that we have allocated £160 million to support recovery and stability through lifesaving and other such assistance. Clearly, the recent violence was incredibly horrific and alarming. We will continue to work with the new Government as best we can to ensure that we get the inclusive political transition that we all want to see.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
The Foreign Secretary will know that this is a five-year draft constitution. Does he share my concern that the legislative, Executive and judicial separation of powers in it need to be beefed up? The appointment of the new Government appears, prima facie, to be inclusive, but does he agree that the people’s committee also needs to be inclusive given that it will be mostly appointed by the President?
Mr Lammy
Clearly, it is welcome that the new Government have moved in this direction. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that we recognise our skills in governance and in working with allies and partners, and we will use that strength to help to support the new Government. We are aware of his concerns and we will work with the new Government to get that better separation that he wants.
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
The UK-Mauritius treaty, which enables the continued operation of the base on Diego Garcia, is still subject to finalisation and signature. Financial obligations arising from the agreement, including departmental budgetary responsibilities, will be managed responsibly within the Government’s fiscal framework, including through the upcoming spending review.
Joe Robertson
Oh dear, Madam Deputy Speaker, that is not the answer to the question that I asked. Perhaps the Minister has brought the wrong file with him. My question was very simple and it is one to which the British people deserve an answer. The Government are planning to give away sovereign British territory along with billions of pounds to Mauritius. The money was not referred to in the spring statement or in the Budget. Where is it coming from?
Stephen Doughty
I have answered questions on that matter a number of times in this House. This Government will not scrimp on security. The base on Diego Garcia will be secured for ourselves and our allies. Protecting the British people and our allies is our No. 1 priority, and full details will be provided in due course.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
The Government have finally admitted to front-loading payments to Mauritius for their surrender deal, caving in to Prime Minister Ramgoolam’s demands since he took office in November. Yet they still refuse to disclose the amount or clarify which budgets will cover the lease, economic partnership and Chagossian trust fund. Why the secrecy? Will the Minister disclose the details now? Will he also confirm whether the statement from the Prime Minister of Mauritius is correct in saying that concessions have been made, including the loss of sovereign rights on Diego Garcia and of unilateral lease renewal provisions? When will this horrific deal finally come to Parliament, and what time will be provided to debate it? Or, better still, why does the Minister not dump the deal completely and keep Chagos British?
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Member neglects to remind the House that it was his Government who started negotiations on this matter, because they recognised that our national security interests and those of our allies were under threat. A financial element was crucial to protecting the operation of that crucial base. Once the treaty is signed, and after ratification in the usual way, it will be put before both Houses for scrutiny, and it will of course include costs. The Government will not scrimp on our security. Protecting the British people is our No. 1 priority.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Catherine West)
The UK’s diplomatic estate directly supports the delivery of this Government’s missions. Maintenance of the diplomatic estate, with an emphasis on safety and security for staff and visitors, has been a core priority for the Department during ongoing discussions with the Treasury about the spending review.
Edward Morello
The maintenance and upkeep of the 6,000 properties that constitute the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s overseas estate is estimated to cost £250 million a year. In recent years, that has been funded through the sale of assets. Drawdown on the receipts of those sales is due to run out either this year or next, and the Department has previously made it clear that there is no more family silver to sell. My question to the Minister is this: what conversations have been had with the Treasury about a long-term sustainable funding model for the estate, and if the Treasury is not forthcoming with the money, what cuts does the Department intend to make?
Catherine West
After the fire sale of assets by the former Government in 2010, the FCDO has been focusing on how to make good its estate. Now that that money is exhausted, the FCDO has developed a new estates prioritisation tool to ensure that finite resources are targeted at places of greatest need and weighted towards mitigating health and safety and security risks.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
The European Union Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina is key to maintaining peace and security there. Although the UK does not contribute to the mission, we are committed to supporting Bosnia and Herzegovina through NATO and our bilateral defence co-operation, and we are open to exploring enhanced co-operation with the EU, including through operations and missions as we strengthen the UK-EU security and defence relationship, including in the western Balkans.
James MacCleary
I thank the Minister for his answer. He will be aware that the Conservative Government previously withdrew from the EUFOR peacekeeping force—Operation Althea—in 2020, following their botched Brexit deal, letting our allies down. Will the Minister consider recommitting British troops to Operation Althea, as other third countries have, such as Turkey, to show our European allies that we want to work together and to demonstrate our continued focus on the region?
Stephen Doughty
I think the hon. Member heard what I said a moment ago. We regularly engage with EUFOR and the EU delegation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Indeed, I co-convened a call with Quint members and EU institutions on Friday with my French counterpart, and we are working closely on these very serious matters. We are also supporting security in Bosnia through our bilateral contributions, including our staff officers in the NATO HQ in Sarajevo.
Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr David Lammy)
Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and harm the prospects of a two-state solution. On 21 March, the UN Security Council made clear that we oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the west bank. I have been very clear with Israeli Ministers that they must clamp down on settler violence and end settler expansion.
Lewis Atkinson
On Saturday night, the Israeli Government announced the approval of an expanded road network in the E1 corridor of the west bank with the stated aim of supporting the development of illegal Israeli settlements in the area. That area is critical to the territorial integrity of a future Palestinian state. Previously, unified international pressure has restrained the Israeli Government, so can the Foreign Secretary say how the Government are working with their allies to exert maximum influence on Israel in this matter?
Mr Lammy
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I condemn categorically the development of settlements that are illegal under international law. Settlements do not offer security to Israel or to Palestinians. I also condemn calls to annex the west bank, which would lead only to violence and jeopardise prospects for a Palestinian state. I am clear with Israeli counterparts that settlement expansion must stop. We will continue to work with our partners to ensure prospects for a Palestinian state.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
We have heard Secretary of State after Secretary of State condemn the increase in settlements and settler violence in the west bank over the last 30 or 40 years and it has made not the slightest bit of difference to their expansion. When will the Foreign Secretary accept that the only thing that the Israelis will respond to—we should not forget that these settlements are sponsored by the Israeli state—is action? When can we expect more sanctions, particularly on violent settlers and their organisations? When can we expect a full trade ban on settlement produce? In particular, will the Secretary of State consider proscribing those settler organisations that are perpetrating terrorism on an innocent Palestinian population?
Mr Lammy
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. It is important that there is a cross-party position, and successive Ministers of both political parties have condemned expansion and condemned violence. We continue to work with partners across Europe and beyond on these issues. I do not say that it is easy. He will know that I announced sanctions back in October, and we continue to keep these issues under review, but the culture of impunity for those engaged in violence is intolerable. I remember just a few months ago sitting with Bedouins who had experienced that violence and were being subjected to that expansion—it is horrendous. That is why in both the UN and our dialogue with the Israeli Government we are clear that that harms the prospects of peace and security for Israel; it does not further its ambitions.
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
The scenes coming out of Palestine recently have been nothing short of shocking. Hundreds have been killed in settler violence in the west bank, the brutal torture of Palestinians in Israeli custody is commonplace and the collapse of the ceasefire means that the devastation and human suffering in Gaza has simply continued. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether his Department has received any evidence showing that international law has been violated? Will he share such evidence and his assessment openly?
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. She will know that, in a sober and measured way, the Government had to make our own decision on the exports licensing regime, which was put in place by the last Government, and we assessed that there was a clear risk of a breach of international humanitarian law. Therefore, we have suspended arms that could be used in Gaza. That is a decision that Ministers have made from this Dispatch Box under different Governments.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
Earlier this year, I visited the west bank with colleagues in the Chamber as part of a parliamentary delegation, where I saw the awful Israeli illegal violence in Hebron and Susya. We ran into two Israeli settlers who clearly wanted us off the area that they had burned down. Will the Foreign Secretary go further than he has in condemning that violence by agreeing to full sanctions and an embargo on all Israeli illegal settlements? Owing to the position of the City of London, that could have a profound impact and stop the violence.
Mr Lammy
I should make it clear that settlement goods do not benefit from any free trade arrangements that we have with Israel. Obviously, on 15 October, I announced new sanctions targeting three illegal settler outposts and four organisations that have supported the sponsored violence against communities in the west bank.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
The Government are tackling the asylum backlog at record pace so that we can work towards ending the use of hotels and ensure that more of our ODA budget is spent on our development priorities globally. Detailed decisions on how the ODA budget will be allocated are being worked through as part of the ongoing spending review.
Noah Law
The British public increasingly feel that development aid has sadly lost its clarity of purpose. While I accept that there are multiple objectives behind aid, and that of course lifting the world’s poorest out of poverty has long been at the heart of the FCDO’s mission, a reset in the social contract around development aid is clearly needed. What consideration has the Minister given to shaping development policy that explicitly addresses the upstream determinants of mass migration?
Stephen Doughty
I agree with much of what my hon. Friend has said. Our development efforts, as the Foreign Secretary has said, have never just been about the aid budget. Peace and security, effective governance, access to private investment, remittance flows, efficient tax systems and access to trade opportunities are all essential foundations for development. That requires us to mobilise the full force of different resources and expertise across Government, our businesses and in universities, science and beyond.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
Does the Minister agree that rather than being used to meet in-donor refugee costs, the official development assistance budget should prioritise tackling extreme poverty? It is now a year since the OECD development assistance committee’s mid-term review, which showed that the UK had only made good progress on two of the 10 recommendations since the 2020 peer review. What progress has the FCDO made over the last 12 months in better meeting the committee’s guidance?
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Lady asks about important matters around spending on in-donor refugee costs. Thanks to the measures taken by the Home Secretary to reduce the asylum backlog and work towards exiting costly asylum hotels, we expect overall ODA spending on asylum to have been lower in 2024 than in 2023. There will always be some unpredictability, but we expect the actions to continue reducing in-donor refugee costs in this Parliament.
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. Decisions on how ODA will be used will be considered as part of the ongoing spending review. Reducing the overall size of the budget will necessarily have an impact on the scale and shape of our work. I can say, however, that our important work and support for Gavi is immunising 300 million children and saving up to 8 million lives, and our £1 billion pledge to the Global Fund for 2023-25 is supporting prevention and treatment for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and will help to save over 1 million lives.
David Davis
I agree with the Minister on what he just said, but Gavi says that the changing policy will mean that 37.9 million fewer children will be immunised, which means that over five years, 600,000 will die. How on earth does he live with himself with that policy?
Stephen Doughty
With the greatest of respect, the right hon. Gentleman will know my record on these important issues, having advocated for them over many years in this place and outside. I do not accept his characterisation. Decisions have not yet been taken; they are being taken as part of the spending review. He will know that the UK is one of the largest donors to Gavi. We have committed £1.65 billion in the current strategic period up to 2025 and that will make an important impact on children’s lives around the world.
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
Gavi was created very much with the UK as a driving force. It is one of the proudest achievements of the previous Labour Government. It has immunised almost 2 billion people in the world, and not only is it saving lives but it is important for jobs and work here in the UK in our fantastic life sciences sector. Will the Minister give a commitment that we will continue to be a leading force in Gavi at the replenishment in June?
Stephen Doughty
The Foreign Secretary has been discussing these important issues with the Health and Social Care Secretary. My hon. Friend is right to point out the important role of Gavi, as well as our role in that. The decisions will be set out in due course, but I hear what she and, indeed, other hon. and right hon. Members are saying on this important issue.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
It is very clear from Ministers’ answers that we still have no indication about which programmes and where will be affected by the planned reductions to ODA and from when exactly the cuts will be effective. We are told to wait for the spending review, but many organisations, including those tackling infectious diseases, are left to face uncertainty and to work at risk. Will the Minister tell us what instructions have been issued to his Department’s humanitarian aid programmes about what they are expected to do between now and the spending review in June?
Stephen Doughty
We clearly have difficult decisions to make, but the FCDO is not pausing all ODA programming and not creating a cliff edge in this year. We are focusing on ensuring that every pound will be spent in the most impactful way in the new context. That is a very difficult decision, as the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and I have set out. We will set out the details in due course, but we are listening closely to Members in this House and, indeed, to the many partners and stakeholders we work with on these important issues.
Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Catherine West)
The memorandum of understanding—as you are aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, having signed off on it in 2024—is an agreement to create a policy framework that promotes good environmental, social and governance practices in critical minerals, mining and processing. I was able to visit Indonesia in January specifically to raise concerns about human rights in Papua with the senior Minister for human rights.
Alex Sobel
In 2018, President Joko Widodo promised the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that he would be allowed to visit West Papua. No visit has yet been facilitated by Indonesia, although two High Commissioners have been and gone. Without such a visit, it is impossible to assess the real human rights situation. Will the Minister ensure that the UK does not engage in critical minerals extraction in West Papua before such a visit takes place?
Catherine West
The UK continues to support the visit by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and, through initiatives such as the voluntary principles on security and human rights, and the UK-Indonesia critical minerals MOU—signed off by you, Madam Deputy Speaker—the Government promote best practice on sustainability and respect for human rights.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)
I am delighted to hear that the Minister has been raising human rights concerns with the Government of Indonesia about critical minerals. Would she perhaps have a word with her colleague the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero about the human rights concerns over other critical minerals conversions in China? It is going into a green energy economy that is supposed to have environmental, social and governance accords, yet somehow or other it fails on all of those: it fails because of its coal-powered production, it fails because its products are made by socially undesirable slave labour—I hope she agrees about that—and it fails on governance because there is no oversight. Will she have those same conversations within her own Government?
Catherine West
The right hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise those pressing concerns, and all will be revealed when the China audit comes forward with the specifics on his question.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
Dr Zubir Ahmed (Glasgow South West) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr Hamish Falconer)
I am deeply concerned about the resumption of hostilities in Gaza. The Foreign Secretary and I are pressing all parties to return urgently to dialogue and to implement the ceasefire agreement in full. Since the renewed outbreak of hostilities, the Foreign Secretary has spoken to Secretary Rubio, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, EU High Representative Kallas and the UN emergency relief co-ordinator, Tom Fletcher. We have also been working with our French, German and Italian partners in support of the Arab plan for the reconstruction of Gaza as part of wider peace building efforts.
Ellie Chowns
It is often said that actions speak louder than words. The Government have repeatedly condemned what is happening in Gaza and the west bank, yet Israeli settler violence, Israeli settlement expansion, the unlawful demolition of Palestinian homes and violence in Gaza are continuing. Given that UK diplomatic efforts and condemnations are being so roundly ignored, will the UK now take action and ban the importation of products from illegal settlements on illegally occupied land, to give the signal that Israel cannot break international law with complete impunity?
Mr Falconer
The hon. Lady will know the importance that we have placed on international law since we came to power in July. We have been clear throughout this period that we want to see a ceasefire in Gaza. We regret that, at this point, we are still in disagreement with the Israeli Government, and we regret the scenes of the last few weeks in relation to the west bank and to Gaza. In relation to settlement goods, as the Foreign Secretary said earlier and as I have said before, different provisions exist for illegal settlements, which we consider to be illegal and which do not benefit from any of the provisions that would otherwise cover goods from Israel.
Dr Ahmed
Over the past week, I have been in touch with medical colleagues on the ground in Gaza and also with representatives of hostage families in Israel. In Gaza, they corroborate the worrying UN reports of a shallow grave containing the bodies of 15 paramedics and rescue workers, seemingly shot one by one by the Israeli army, some of them still wearing the surgical gloves that they were using to save the lives of others. In Israel, hostage families feel increasingly distant from their own Government and abandoned by them. Hamas is a terrorist organisation, but Israel is an ally. As a critical friend and ally, what further steps can we take to reinforce our message that the Israeli Government’s current trajectory is destructive for peace and, indeed, for their own interests?
Mr Falconer
My hon. Friend is right to ask this question. I know that he, himself a surgeon, has been closely engaged with the medical situation in Gaza and the incredible bravery of those who provide that assistance. As I said in answer to the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Ellie Chowns), the scenes in Gaza in relation to aid workers and, of course, the Gazan civilians themselves are absolutely horrific. It is why with France we called a special session of the UN Security Council on Friday, and we will continue to press with all diplomatic levers to see an improvement.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
What assessment have the Government made of reports that Iran is considering pre-emptive strikes against American B-2 Spirit bombers that have recently been forward-located in Diego Garcia?
Mr Falconer
As the House will understand, I will not provide a detailed commentary on that reporting, but we remain deeply conscious of the potential threats from Iran, both in this country and in the region. We continue to have dialogue with the Iranian Government—the Foreign Secretary spoke to his equivalent just last week. We treat these matters with the utmost seriousness, as the right hon. Member would expect.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
Like many, I was extremely alarmed to hear the Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, threaten the “total destruction” of Gaza. The UK and its allies are committed to a two-state solution, but that only works if there is a state left standing for Palestinians. Will that Minister ever be sanctioned, and will our Minister set out what role he sees the UK playing in the long-term reconstruction of Gaza?
Mr Falconer
I thank my hon. Friend for her question; I know how attentive to these issues she has been. The Foreign Secretary has condemned in this Chamber the comments of Defence Minister Katz, and this Government are clear what the path to reconstruction in Gaza must be. We have engaged closely with our partners in the Arab world, we welcome their plan for reconstructing Gaza, and we will continue to do all we can to see that as the path to reconstruction, with dignity for the Palestinian people of Gaza.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
Today is the anniversary of the killing of the 33-year-old ex-Royal Marine James Henderson, who was killed by the Israelis among seven aid workers with the World Central Kitchen. A year later, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Dr Ahmed) has mentioned, mass graves have been found with eight bodies of those who worked for the Red Crescent and the Red Cross. That comes two weeks after eight aid workers from the Al-Khair Foundation were killed. It is believed that 1,500 aid workers have been killed. Does the Minister believe that it is illegal under international law to kill aid workers and, if so, what is he prepared to do about it?
Mr Falconer
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to comment. Today is indeed the one-year anniversary of the appalling strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy, which killed seven people, including British citizens John Chapman, James Henderson and James Kirby. I would like to pay tribute to their bravery and remember again the appalling tragedy of that day. I, alongside the Foreign Secretary, met their families in November. They are determined to see justice for their family members, and I know that the whole Chamber will be united in that determination. Israel’s Military Advocate General must quickly and thoroughly conclude their consideration of the strike, including determining whether criminal proceedings should be initiated. As the hon. Gentleman has said, Gaza is now the most dangerous place in the world to be an aid worker. This cannot continue.
Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)
As others have said, today is the anniversary of the deaths of James Kirby, John Chapman and James Henderson—three former servicemen. We further heard about the 15 aid workers who were killed last week. UN Under-Secretary-General Tom Fletcher has described them as having been killed one by one and buried in shallow graves alongside their clearly marked ambulances, fire trucks and UN vehicles. I thank the Government for calling a UN Security Council meeting on the protection of aid workers. Will the Minister update us on the outcome of that meeting and the further steps we will take to protect aid workers in Gaza?
Mr Falconer
The meeting on Friday considered those questions. There was agreement across the Security Council on the importance of preserving the space for humanitarian action. As I have said this morning, we regret deeply that there have not yet been further improvements, and we will continue to use all available diplomatic steps to ensure that aid gets into Gaza, aid workers are protected, and the horrific scenes described by the emergency relief co-ordinator are not repeated.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Our thoughts continue to be with the hostages held in Hamas captivity in Gaza and with their families. What recent contact has the Minister had with counterparts in Israel, America and our partners in the region to secure their release and broker a way through this impasse? What steps are being taken across Government to address the threats to stability posed by Iran? How does the Minister envisage the removal of Hamas from the governance of Gaza?
Mr Falconer
On the shadow Foreign Secretary’s important first point, we are, as she would expect, in regular contact with all those involved in negotiations. The Foreign Secretary spoke to the Israeli Foreign Minister last week. I have been in regular contact with the Qataris, who are doing important work in this file. As she would expect, we continue to be in touch with the hostage families, whose concern I know the Chamber continues to share.
On the threats posed by Iran, we speak to the relevant players in the region and to the E3. As I said in response to an earlier question, the Foreign Secretary spoke to the Iranian Foreign Minister last week and underlined that we continue to support a diplomatic resolution to the tensions with Iran. We do not want to see Iran secure a nuclear weapon. We believe that a diplomatic solution is the best way to achieve that, but we will hold the snap-back of sanctions, and indeed many other measures, under review until we are satisfied.
Andrew Ranger (Wrexham) (Lab)
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr David Lammy)
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is leading international efforts to keep up the pressure on Russia through more than 2,200 sanctions, which have helped to reduce Russia’s oil revenue by 25% between January and November 2024 compared with two years prior. We are of course also working hard to co-ordinate allies. Just yesterday I was in Madrid discussing these issues with European counterparts, and later this week I will be at the NATO Foreign Ministers conference, where the Ukrainians will be as well.
Andrew Ranger
I am incredibly proud that, since the onset of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Wrexham has welcomed many Ukrainian families. Among them are Yaroslav and Oksana, who had long dreamed of opening a café in their home town of Chortkiv. Despite the war preventing them from realising that dream at home, they now own a thriving business on Wrexham High Street. How are the Government continuing to support Ukrainian families who play a big part in communities across Britain, as well as those who, at some point in the future, may wish to return to Ukraine when the situation allows?
Mr Lammy
I am proud that the British people across our country have opened their homes and their hearts to Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s brutal war. The Homes for Ukraine scheme has helped more than 160,000 Ukrainians to find refuge here, and since 4 February, Ukrainian refugees can apply to remain for an additional 18 months while continuing to receive vital support.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
As the Foreign Secretary knows, we have substantial engagement with, and deployment to, Estonia. Talk of peace in Ukraine is of course welcome and Britain should play its role in supporting that peace, but does he accept that any deployment of British troops to Ukraine increases the risk to the UK and its forces in Estonia?
Mr Lammy
The hon. Gentleman should know that the UK’s commitment to the security of Estonia is iron-clad, and made real by our NATO forward land forces deployment. Discussions regarding how our military can support Ukraine’s future security arrangements are ongoing, including with NATO allies and Secretary-General Rutte. Part of the discussion for countries committed to the coalition of the willing is about ensuring that those countries on the frontline are not left without adequate support. The hon. Gentleman raises a very important issue.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
The whole House continues to stand united with the people of Ukraine in their existential struggle. Although there has been much coverage of tentative steps towards a Black sea ceasefire, does the Foreign Secretary agree that, with the brutal war raging on land, we must continue to constrain Putin’s war machine with every tool at our disposal? Could he update us on his plans for doing so beyond sanctions? Does he agree that the onus remains squarely on Putin to prove whether he is in any way serious about the kind of lasting and just peace that President Zelensky wants to see?
Mr Lammy
The right hon. Lady should know that, with EU colleagues yesterday, at the G7 a few weeks ago and, I am sure, with colleagues as I head to NATO, we are discussing an oil cap in particular and how that would limit Putin’s reserves. We continue to discuss not just the freezing of assets but the seizing of assets. We recognise that some European colleagues are more exposed than we in the UK are. Nevertheless, why should we use taxpayers’ money? We should use Russian money that has caused so much damage in Ukraine. Of course, we continue to look at the arsenal of sanctions that we can use, and I am sure that I will have more to say on that in the coming weeks.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
Of all the horrors that Vladimir Putin has inflicted on Ukraine, the abduction of more than 20,000 Ukrainian children is one of the most vile. It threatens to rob Ukraine of its future, which is surely Putin’s ultimate goal. The Prime Minister praised the work of Kyiv’s Bring Kids Back initiative last week. Will the Foreign Secretary now commit to the UK filling the funding gap left by the Trump Administration’s withdrawal of funding for Yale’s humanitarian research lab, so that it can continue to research Russia’s war crimes, especially to track the whereabouts of these children, so that they can be brought back home?
Mr Lammy
It was important for me to meet Madam Zelensky to discuss this issue when I was last in Ukraine. The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), also met the relevant Minister in Ukraine to discuss this issue just a few days ago. I can absolutely give an undertaking to continue to support the group. It is not our assessment that we can meet the shortfall left by the withdrawal of USAID—United States Agency for International Development—funding, but we will continue to work with partners across Europe on this important issue, which is very personal to me.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr Hamish Falconer)
Aid should never be used as a political tool. As the Foreign Secretary made clear to the House on 20 March, blocking humanitarian aid into Gaza is appalling and unacceptable. Israel must allow aid into Gaza immediately. The Foreign Secretary made that clear to Israeli Foreign Minister Sa’ar on 21 March and issued a joint statement with his French and German counterparts on 5 March. Gaza is the deadliest place in the world to be an aid worker. More than 400 aid workers have been killed in the conflict. Restoring the ceasefire remains the best chance to see hostages released, allow a surge of humanitarian aid and bring this bloodshed to an end.
Wendy Chamberlain
It is clear from the Chamber this morning that we all despair at the recent breakdown of the ceasefire agreement, the resumption of hostilities and the blockade of aid into Gaza. We now have warnings of an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in the Gaza strip, which is hard to imagine after what we have already seen there. The Minister mentioned the conversations that have been had with Israel. First, can he assure me that we are making it clear that the only way we will achieve a lasting peace is through a two-state solution, which will not achieved by subjecting people to such hardship? Secondly, what conversations are ongoing with allies about restoring aid drops directly into Gaza?
Mr Falconer
I can confirm that we say regularly to our Israeli counterparts, and indeed to all others in the region, that the only route out of these horrors is a two-state solution, an outcome that provides for the safety, security and dignity of both peoples. We are talking with our partners about what might be done to try to ensure aid gets into Gaza through whatever means are at our disposal, but at the core, Israel must relax the restrictions and allow aid into Gaza. That is the way to get the scale of aid that is required into the strip. During the ceasefire, we saw a massive increase in aid, and that is what we want to do.
Brian Leishman (Alloa and Grangemouth) (Lab)
With continued aerial bombardments impacting the flow of aid into Gaza, will the Foreign Secretary confirm whether UK-made F-35 parts have been used to enable air strikes in Gaza since 18 March?
Mr Falconer
To clarify my previous answer, the Foreign Secretary spoke to Foreign Minister Sa’ar on 5 March, not 21 March.
In response to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Alloa and Grangemouth (Brian Leishman), we will continue to press these issues with the Israeli Government. It is clear to the House that we have not succeeded, over these long months, in ensuring the level of aid into Gaza that we would like to see, or had the protections for humanitarian workers that we want to see. Deconfliction, with humanitarian aid workers, is a vital part of ensuring their security, and we are pressing the Israelis to do so.
Alex Mayer (Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
The United Kingdom is committed to promoting and protecting human rights and the rule of law, and the right to self-determination is set out in the international covenant on civil and political rights.
Alex Mayer
Some 700,000 people in Washington DC are currently disenfranchised because their representatives in the Senate and the House of Representatives do not have voting rights or full control of local government affairs. It is the equivalent of everyone in Bedfordshire voting for MPs who have no chance of going through the voting Lobby. Does the Minister agree that that is a particularly strange anomaly?
Stephen Doughty
This is not a matter for us. The United States is a sovereign, democratic nation, and the issue of voting rights in the District of Columbia is a matter for the United States.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
In the interests of self-determination, will the Foreign Secretary take the earliest opportunity to remind his opposite number in the United States that Canada has chosen to be a member state of the Commonwealth, that the Head of the Commonwealth and the Head of State of Canada is His Majesty King Charles, and that there is no prospect whatsoever of Canada being annexed by the United States?
Stephen Doughty
Canada is a strong friend and Commonwealth ally. It is a NATO ally and a fellow G7 member. I have strong ties with Canada myself, as the right hon. Gentleman might know. I was delighted to reiterate our friendship when I met my ministerial counterpart the other week; Prime Minister Carney, the new Canadian Prime Minister, was welcomed by the Prime Minister; and in recent weeks, the Foreign Secretary has been meeting with his counterpart. We continue to work strongly with Canada on many global issues.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr David Lammy)
We are concerned at the expansion of the Government of Israel’s war aims and operations in the west bank. I made clear my serious concerns on the continuing Israeli operations when I spoke to the Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on 5 March, as the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr Falconer), said, but also on 21 March. We are clear that civilians must be protected and the destruction of civilian infrastructure minimised.
Vikki Slade
It emerged today that a 17-year-old Palestinian boy who had been taken from the west bank has died in Israeli detention, having been held for 6 months without charge. Israel has been striking inside the west bank, and in doing so emboldening illegal settlers in their own violence. Given that Israel claims that it is targeting Hamas and not the people of Palestine itself, what specific actions is the Foreign Secretary taking to protect Palestinians in the west bank from both settler violence and Israeli forces?
Mr Lammy
The hon. Lady will know that we are giving considerable support to the Palestinian Authority in the west bank. We are in regular contact with President Abbas and Prime Minister Mustafa in relation to the west bank. She has heard our concerns about both the violence and the expansion that is taking place in the west bank. In my conversations with Ministers, I have heard legitimate concerns about security on the Israeli side and the way that Iran, sitting behind the scenes, is equipping some terrorist groups with guns and ammunition. We have to do our best to support Israel in standing up to that.
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
The Prime Minister’s commitment to host an international meeting this year in support of an international fund for Israeli-Palestinian peace has never been more timely. Given the upcoming June summit in Paris in support of a two-state solution, can the Foreign Secretary provide for the House an update on progress towards meeting the Prime Minister’s pledge?
Mr Lammy
We are very grateful for the work that our French colleagues are doing in this regard, and we are working closely with them. We are putting together a plan, and I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln, will be able to update the House in the coming weeks.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
I thank my hon. Friend for that important question. The Foreign Secretary spoke with his Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts on 19 and 21 March respectively, and I have also been in contact with representatives of both countries. We warmly welcome the progress made by both sides on concluding negotiations on the text of a peace agreement, and we urge them both to sign that agreement as soon as possible. We encourage all sides to refrain from rhetoric or actions that undermine the prospects for peace.
Jessica Morden
This is clearly a critical time for peace in the region. The offensive by Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh resulted in the forced displacement of up to 120,000 Armenians and the continued detention of 23 officials and civilians. There is much concern about the conduct of the trials, their welfare and their access to legal support, so what more can the Minister do to put pressure on the Government of Azerbaijan to look for their release and to get access to the prisoners?
Stephen Doughty
I thank my hon. Friend for her important work on these issues. The UK has consistently called for the release of all the remaining prisoners of war. We continue to urge the Azerbaijani authorities to ensure that those detained during the long-standing conflict with Armenia are afforded a fair trial and provided safe conditions. I raised that specifically with the Azerbaijani President’s special representative in October, and we continue to engage with them on this issue.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Yesterday was the anniversary of the attempted genocide of the Azerbaijani people by the Armenians, and I am sure the whole House will issue its condolences for that purpose. In the newly liberated territories of Nagorno-Karabakh, hundreds of mines are still being cleared by hand. What action will the Government offer to support Azerbaijan in removing those mines so that the land can be used for beneficial purposes?
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Gentleman rightly raises the issue of mines. He will know the important role that this country has played in de-mining efforts around the world. I am very happy to write to him with the details of where we are on that in relation to Azerbaijan, and we have discussed that with them on a number of occasions. The most important thing is that we continue to work towards the signing of that peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia so that the people of those two countries, with which we have strong relationships, can live in peace and harmony alongside one another.
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
As we and Mauritius have repeatedly said, including in joint statements on 20 December and 13 January, both sides remain committed to concluding a deal on the future of the Chagos archipelago that protects the long-term effective operation of the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia. Once the treaty is signed, it will be put to Parliament for scrutiny before ratification in the usual way.
Mr Bedford
Given that there is no binding legal basis for the ceding of the Chagos islands and that the deal will cost the hard-pressed British taxpayer north of £9 billion, £18 billion or possibly £50 billion a year, will the Secretary of State confirm what total financial liabilities will be brought to the UK and whether they will be funded from the uplift in the defence budget announced in the spring statement?
Stephen Doughty
I have answered those questions on a number of occasions, including earlier. I have been very clear that a financial element is crucial to protect the operation of such a vital base for our security and for the security of our allies. Once the treaty is signed, it will be put before the Houses for scrutiny before ratification in the usual way, and that will include costs. We will not scrimp on security: protecting our interests and those of our allies is the most important thing.
Dr Spencer
Politics is about choices, and the speculation about how much the Government want to hand over to Mauritius starts at £9 billion. That money would go a long way as official development assistance, so does the Minister regret that choice?
Stephen Doughty
As I have said, a financial element—let us remember that this is over 99 years—was crucial to protect the operation of the base. If we do not pay for our security, somebody else might attempt to get in there. That is one crucial reason we have worked closely with Mauritius, the United States and other allies and partners, including India, to protect our base on Diego Garcia.
Stephen Doughty
I can hear the chuntering from the shadow Minister, but it is simply not correct—we are protecting Diego Garcia, our interests there and our national security. I am afraid that I simply do not accept what he is saying, and of course, if there was not a problem, why did his Government start the negotiations in the first place?
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr David Lammy)
Yesterday in Madrid, I discussed with counterparts strengthening Ukraine’s hand. With Mr Speaker in Kyiv yesterday, the House is united on Ukraine.
One year on from the appalling Israel Defence Forces strike on the World Central Kitchen convoy that killed James Kirby, John Chapman and James Henderson, I am sure that the whole House mourns their loss and calls for accountability. We will keep demanding protection for all civilians and aid workers in Gaza, and will strive to restore the ceasefire, free hostages and end the war.
Munira Wilson
Research published by UNICEF shows that last time the overseas aid budget was cut, support for children—for their education and nutrition—was cut the deepest. Will the Foreign Secretary give assurances to this House that this time, children will not bear the brunt of his cuts, and will he commit to protect child-focused development programmes?
Mr Lammy
The last time that the development budget was cut, it was cut overnight. The Government abolished the Department for International Development, leading to terrible cliff edges and badly damaging our reputation in the world. We are not throwing the money that we have had to withdraw from development into a black hole, as the last Government did; we are investing in hard power. The hon. Lady will recognise that the war in Ukraine has cost the continent of Africa upwards of £7 billion. For that reason, it is important that we invest in hard power and diplomacy, and that we continue to invest in development. We will still be the sixth biggest development partner.
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend and his colleagues, not least as a Co-operative MP. I have seen the important work that co-operatives do around the world, and we continue to support them, including by funding the global agriculture and food security programme, which has a dedicated support facility for smallholder producer organisations. We regularly meet those who are involved in co-operative solutions on a range of matters, so I would be delighted to discuss those matters with my hon. Friend and other colleagues.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the shadow Foreign Secretary.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Last month, the Foreign Secretary gave a speech on trade, but could not explain how much growth would follow the measures he announced, if any. What role is the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office actually playing in supporting the trade negotiations with the United States? What discussions has the Foreign Secretary personally undertaken about the trade agreement, and can he confirm that this will be the comprehensive trade deal that the Conservative Government were negotiating?
Mr Lammy
No, because the Conservative Government badly failed in their negotiations with the US. We are engaged in intense conversations at this time to strike an economic agreement, and we are also continuing discussions with our Indian counterparts about a trade deal and with the Gulf, picking up from the last Government’s failure to land the trade deals that will deliver growth to this country. In coming into the Foreign Office, it has been essential that I position it as the international delivery arm for growth—all our missions recognise this. I have announced measures that include working much more closely with business—measures that should have been introduced under the last Government.
Priti Patel
We know that the Labour Government continue to cosy up to the Chinese Communist party because they are desperately seeking growth. [Interruption.] Labour Members might want to listen. The Government are unwilling to stop solar panels made by Uyghur slave labour coming into the UK; they are unable to stop China putting bounties on the heads of Hongkongers living here; and they are failing to put China on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme. Can the Foreign Secretary explain how our economic and security interests are being served by the Labour Government’s alleged reset with the CCP Government?
Mr Lammy
The right hon. Lady uses the phrase CCP almost as if to suggest that I am some sort of communist. The last Government had 17 different approaches to China. They bounced around so much—there was the Iain Duncan Smith position, the Rishi Sunak position and the Liz Truss position—that we lost count of how many positions they took. We have been clear that there are areas where we will co-operate with China, areas where we will challenge China and areas where we must necessarily compete. It is right that we engage with China. Closing our ears and pretending they are not there is no strategy. That is why the Government have changed from the strategy of the last Government.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. The Foreign Secretary does not need to be reminded that we reference sitting Members not by their names, but by their constituencies.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
Mr Lammy
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. Last month, I pressed Foreign Minister Sa’ar to conclude the Military Advocate General’s consideration of the World Central Kitchen incident, including determining whether criminal proceedings should be initiated. I have met the families of those killed in the attacks and assured them that this Government will continue to support their calls for justice. Gaza is the most dangerous place in the world to be an aid worker, with more than 400 killed since the start of this conflict. We need to see lasting safety improvements for aid workers on the ground, and that would be a fitting legacy for those British individuals who have lost their lives.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
My constituents who work at the BMW Mini plant in Cowley are deeply concerned by the impact of Donald Trump’s global tariff war. The uncertainty the plant faces is made much worse by the red tape that now inhibits integrated car production with suppliers in the EU. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that, in addition to a robust response to the White House, the best step that the Government could take to support British businesses would be to start talks on a bespoke UK-EU customs union without delay?
Mr Lammy
We are an open trading nation, as we have been under successive Governments. It is hugely important at this time that we continue the intense conversations we are having with the US Administration on getting an economic agreement. Of course we prepare for the worst—all options remain on the table, as the Prime Minister indicated again just yesterday—but it is also right that the Business Secretary and I, and others across Government, continue to engage with business and industry so that we can give them the best support in what will be a turbulent economic time, not just for our own country, but across much of the world.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. Topical questions must be kept short, otherwise there will be many disappointed colleagues.
Chris Kane (Stirling and Strathallan) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Catherine West)
Our strong knowledge economy is one of our best exports, and each Minister on the Front Bench makes sure to promote learning in the UK and learning in people’s home cities, when our universities have a presence, and we will continue to do so.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Father of the House, Sir Edward Leigh.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
Mr Lammy
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the British pint is safe under this Government, but I will write to him about the detail in the coming days.
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Mr Lammy
I have regular conversations with the Business Secretary. As the Minister for Industry made clear on Thursday, this Government believe in the UK steel sector. We have prioritised engagement with British Steel, and have made a generous conditional offer of financial support. We remain in negotiations with the company and trade unions to secure the best possible outcome.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
Mr Lammy
The hon. Gentleman must have missed the letter that the Home Secretary and I, quite properly, wrote to the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, who, acting in her quasi-judicial capacity, has a decision to make. We were clear about the fact that security interests are paramount, and we made our views very plain so that they could be considered.
Katrina Murray (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr Hamish Falconer)
Whether in Gaza, Turkey or elsewhere, it is essential for journalists to be able to do their job. We are incredibly proud of the BBC and all the other UK outlets overseas that play a vital role in holding power to account, and we will continue to support them.
Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)
Mr Lammy
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising this important issue. All those hostages need to come home, which is why we need to get back to the ceasefire and why we must continue to stand with hostage families. Let me reassure the hon. Lady: I spoke to the United States envoy, Steve Witkoff, on Friday evening to obtain an update on the conversations that are taking place, and Egypt and Qatar are playing an important role in getting back to that ceasefire and getting Hamas to do what they should do. It was interesting to see Palestinians taking to the streets to campaign against Hamas and the way in which that they are holding the Palestinian people ransom at this time.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
HIV/AIDS has killed 40 million people across the world and remains a major threat to public health, but over the weekend the House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority account posted a gloating, sickening tweet including an image of the coffin representing the closure of USAID, which, according to experts, will lead to a tenfold increase in the number of deaths from HIV/AIDS. Will the Minister reaffirm that notwithstanding the recklessness of the Trump Administration, this Government remain committed to working to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030?
Stephen Doughty
Obviously, USAID is a matter for the US Government. However, I absolutely assure my hon. Friend that we are committed to the 2030 target. He will know, from my long time campaigning on these issues, of the importance that I, and indeed the Foreign Secretary, place on this issue.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Gentleman makes important points. He will know that we make important contributions to the Global Fund and other bodies on global health. We remain committed to global health as part of our development spending, even despite the difficult decisions we are having to make, and I hear what he has to say.
John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales) (Lab)
More than half the countries that have submitted UN biodiversity plans have not yet released plans for how they will protect 30% of land and sea for nature, despite agreeing to do so at COP15. What steps are the Government taking to ensure more countries develop plans to protect at least 30% of land and sea?
Catherine West
The Government remain strongly committed to tackling the international climate and nature crises. The UK played a key role at the COP16 biodiversity conference, and we are working closely with a wide range of partners to build global ambition on nature ahead of London Climate Action Week in June and COP30 in Brazil.
Mr James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
In February, the Foreign Secretary rightly criticised America’s aid cuts. Two weeks later, he was humiliated by his own Prime Minister when his departmental budget was smashed to bits. What is he doing to re-establish his and his Department’s credibility on the world stage, so we can once again have genuine influence internationally?
Mr Lammy
I say to the right hon. Gentleman that this Government have not made an ideological decision to cut aid, and he knows that. There are other Governments around the world making ideological decisions to cut aid. This Government did not make the decision that the last Government made to switch off aid overnight. We are ensuring that there are no cliff edges. He will know—and I know he knows this—that investing in hard power also saves lives and acts as a deterrence in our own country and across much of the world.
Kate Osamor (Edmonton and Winchmore Hill) (Lab/Co-op)
Last week, BBC reporter Mark Lowen was arrested and deported from Turkey after covering the ongoing protest movement, as part of a broader crackdown on journalists. This followed the arrest of President Erdoğan’s leading political rival. Will the Foreign Secretary commit to conveying the concerns of this House to his Turkish counterpart at the earliest opportunity?
Mr Lammy
The UK is a staunch supporter of democracy, the rule of law and media freedom. The Government have raised recent events in Turkey with our counterparts at a number of levels. Most recently, on 29 March I spoke to my Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, to raise our expectation that Turkey upholds its international commitments and the rule of law, and that it protects the fundamental rights to free speech, peaceful assembly and media freedom, including in the treatment of British journalists reporting there.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
Are the British Government going to act, as the French and American Governments have done, to support Morocco’s autonomy plan for Western Sahara?
Mr Lammy
We continue to have discussions with our Moroccan friends. This is a complex issue. The position remains the position we had under the last Government. Of course, we keep that under review as we continue to discuss these issues in the region.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
The Foreign Secretary has said repeatedly that the UK should move from freezing to seizing Russian state assets, although I am still waiting to hear what proportion of those are in the UK. Meanwhile, €300 billion sits in the EU. When peace eventually comes, the rebuilding of Ukraine will need to be paid for by the Russians, so those frozen billions will be key. When I was at a security conference in Poland last week, everyone seemed to agree that these assets need to be seized. I ask the Foreign Secretary again: what are the remaining barriers to seizing those assets, and what concrete steps is he taking to ensure that he can bring our allies with us?
Mr Lammy
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising this issue. It is a complex issue, and one on which it is best to act in concert with our closest allies, recognising that allies in Belgium, Germany and other countries in Europe are more exposed than we are. We continue to work at pace with our allies. This was an item I discussed yesterday in Madrid with the Weimar+ group, particularly with our Polish, French and Spanish colleagues, and I am sure it will be an item discussed at the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting later this week.
Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)
In the light of the Prime Minister’s announcement of the impending official development assistance cuts, how will the UK Government be a global leader on water security and climate-affected communities, to adapt and build WASH—water, sanitation and hygiene—systems that are resilient to climate change?
Stephen Doughty
I thank the hon. Member for pointing out the importance of those issues; he knows the UK has a strong record on them. Obviously, all decisions on future ODA spending will be discussed as part of the ongoing resource allocations in the spending review, but I note what he says.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Chair of the International Development Committee.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
On 23 March in Gaza, eight medics in the Palestinian Red Crescent, five responders from the civil defence and a UN staff member were killed by the IDF while responding to casualties. Their bodies have been returned today. International humanitarian law is clear: medical personnel, ambulances, humanitarian relief workers and civil defence organisations must be respected and protected. International humanitarian law is not something for debate. The Foreign Secretary understands the importance of upholding the law and holding to account all who breach it, including our friends, so why is Israel seemingly allowed to act with impunity when it comes to the protection of medics, humanitarian workers and civilians?
Mr Falconer
On this day, the one-year anniversary of the World Central Kitchen incident, I want to be clear that nobody has impunity and that we expect full legal processes to be followed, including in Israel. The Foreign Secretary and I have both spoken about the important role the Military Advocate General will play in that. On my hon. Friend’s wider question, it is clearly deeply problematic that deconfliction does not exist in Gaza and that aid workers continue to be in such peril, as she described. We will continue to use all methods at our disposal to try to improve the situation.
Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)
On 17 March, the Foreign Secretary told the House that there had been
“a breach of international law”
by Israel in blockading aid getting into Gaza.—[Official Report, 17 March 2025; Vol. 764, c. 41.] If he takes international law seriously, will he tell us what sanctions are in place as a result of that?
Mr Falconer
We have announced to this House a series of sanctions in relation to the risk of breaches in relation to the attacks on aid workers, which I have covered a number of times in this session. [Interruption.]
Point of Order
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. After much chasing in October last year, the Foreign Secretary committed to give oral evidence to my International Development Committee early in the new year. He has not done so to date and we do not have a date in the diary, despite repeated requests from my Committee team. Can you advise me on how I can encourage the Foreign Secretary to give evidence? Much is going on in the world that we need to discuss.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving notice of her point of order. The Chair is not responsible for ministerial appearances before Select Committees, but I can see that the Foreign Secretary is keen to respond. No doubt he will have a positive response to her point of order right now.
The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr David Lammy)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I just remind the House that I appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee on 4 December and I will be appearing in front of the House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee on 30 May. We have made changes to development, as has been discussed in the House this afternoon. My right hon. Friend Baroness Chapman will be appearing before the International Development Committee on 13 May. Of course I will appear again before the Foreign Affairs Committee and in front of my hon. Friend’s Committee in due course. I hope to do that by the end of the summer or in the September recess period.
NHS Pensions
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
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Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care if he will make a statement on NHS pensions in the light of the statutory deadline for both remediable service statements and remediable pension savings statements being missed.
The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
I thank the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) for asking this question, which gives me the opportunity to provide further information following the written parliamentary statement that I issued yesterday to update the House on the delivery of remediable service statements to affected members.
I have extended the deadlines for the NHS Business Services Authority to issue statements to ensure that members have enough time to make informed decisions. Once members have received statements, they will be able to use a tool provided by His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to retrospectively adjust their annual allowance between 2015-16 and 2022-23.
Separately, the original deadline to issue the 137,000 remediable pension savings statements was 6 October. The NHS Business Services Authority issued statements to 57,000 members by this deadline, of which 23,000 were found to contain incorrect information; these have since been recalculated and reissued. The NHS Business Services Authority is working to issue outstanding statements as quickly as possible.
A revised delivery timetable has been developed and shared with trade unions and employer representatives. By the end of March, 106,000 statements had been issued. Statements for 11,000 members will be produced once further information has been received from their employers. The remaining 20,000 statements require additional manual input from the NHS Business Services Authority before they can be produced, and will be issued in July. There have been delays on all sides, which we have been aware of since last July. In fact, the Department had escalated issues of design with the previous Government, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands.
We know that this matter is really important and that there are high numbers of high earners in the NHS, which is why we have taken the decision to be open and transparent about the timeline that we can now commit to, having worked tirelessly to reduce the delays. Although these delays will cause inconvenience to some members, I have been crystal clear that no one will face any financial detriment as a consequence. Compensation arrangements are in place for direct financial losses, certain HMRC interest charges, and the costs of financial and accountancy advice.
The Government do acknowledge the impact of the delays on affected members. We are working hard to issue outstanding statements and to protect members from any financial detriment the delays may cause.
Dr Evans
What is going on with NHS pensions administration under this Government? I declare an interest as someone with an NHS pension. Today, the Government have missed the statutory deadline for issuing remediable service statements to doctors, and they are now pushing the deadlines back to December 2026. In mid-March, the Government confirmed that just 21 statements had been issued out of 380,000; as of yesterday’s written statement, there are still more than 370,000 outstanding. This creates huge tax liability uncertainties.
We and the British Medical Association have been raising concerns for months. Why has it taken the Government so long to act? Ministers have announced a revised delivery plan, but how will it work in practice? Will there be more staff to help with the backlog? What changes are being put in place to ensure that the deadline is not missed again?
What was most concerning, however, was the complete absence of any mention of the remediable pension savings statements in the written statement. This issue really matters, as doctors who are taking on overtime or who work privately rely on these statements to be able to track their contributions and avoid excessive tax bills. According to Dr Sharma from the BMA,
“There’s no doubt that without up-to-date information, doctors will be pre-emptively reducing or turning down extra work to avoid additional pension…bills that they might not even be due.”
The statutory deadline for the 137,000 statements was, as we heard, 6 October 2024. In February, Ministers confirmed that 60,000 were outstanding and that the majority would be issued by the end of February; by March, however, the backlog had actually grown to 70,000. Can the Minister explain how two legal deadlines have been missed? Will the Government be following up with the regulator to ensure that this does not happen again? Do the Government have confidence in the NHS Business Services Authority? With the Secretary of State abolishing NHS England, what does this mean for the future of this vital organisation?
We all want to see waiting lists fall, but as one newspaper put it today,
“Labour’s pledge to slash NHS waiting lists is being sabotaged by a litany of administrative errors, pension delays and punitive tax rules.”
I urge the Government to take swift action.
Karin Smyth
As I outlined in my response and in the written ministerial statement, we have taken action. We were made aware of some of these problems when we came into office in July, and we have pushed the NHS Business Services Authority to move faster than it would have done under the hon. Gentleman’s Government, so that action is happening quicker than it would have done before. We do have faith in the NHS Business Services Authority to get on with this and ensure that there is no financial detriment, in line with the timetable outlined yesterday, and as I have further made clear today.
Madam Deputy Speaker, the hon. Gentleman could have asked me more about waiting lists, which have fallen for the last five months in a row. He could have asked me about the 2 million more appointments that have been provided to deliver for patients seven months early. He could have asked me about the hundreds more GPs who are now working in the health service, or the impact of cancelling the strikes on services for people, or the record funding. In fact, last week in the Chamber he spoke on behalf of the National Pharmacy Association; this week, he could have congratulated the Minister for Care, who is sitting next to me, on the agreement to produce more pharmacy services.
We are making improvements to the NHS every day. The Darzi report reported not only the breadth but the depth of the decline that we inherited. We are resolving that, and fixing the fundamentals of the NHS.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for coming to the House and giving her response. We all know the issues she is talking about when she mentions the state of the NHS that we inherited, and I echo that with the issues I hear about from patients and staff at Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow. On pensions, can she outline what the Government have done to mitigate the delays in the process?
Karin Smyth
It is important that people have confidence in the pension system. That is why we took action in July on coming into office to understand the depth of the problems that occurred under the previous Government. This is a complicated issue, which is why we want to be clear with people that there will be no financial detriment to them. We will continue to work with employers and trade unions to ensure that the issue is resolved as quickly as possible, in line with the timelines I have outlined.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
The delays will be deeply worrying and will make financial planning very difficult for those affected, all of whom are people who have dedicated their working lives to supporting the NHS and tirelessly saving lives. NHS workers and their families are being left in the dark by Government delays and may as a result miss out on using their full allowances, which is unacceptable—they deserve better.
The revised delivery plan prioritises members based on their likelihood of facing financial detriment, so clearly some financial detriment is expected for those who are impacted. Can the Minister estimate what the likely financial detriment is of missing the statutory deadline, or how much compensation, as she just mentioned, is likely to be paid? Can she tell us why the NHS Business Services Authority has failed to meet the deadlines? In response to a written question from my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), the Minister said that there are 112 people working on it. Will she confirm whether that is likely to be sufficient to ensure that future deadlines are met?
Karin Smyth
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I do not have to hand the exact number of people working on this, but I will make sure that I respond to her on that point in writing. We are ensuring that individuals do not face detriment as a result of these delays. The NHS cost claim back compensation scheme provides resources for direct financial losses incurred by the NHS pension scheme members impacted by the McCloud remedy, including professional service fees and certain HMRC interest charges that may arise, as I outlined in my statement. HMRC has also confirmed that self-assessment late filing penalties will be waived on appeal in certain circumstances where a member receives a delayed pension savings statement as a consequence of the implementation of the McCloud remedy.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister agree that it is important that the affected members receive those statements to allow informed decision making? The Government have worked to minimise financial detriment to those affected, but this issue is part of the mess we have been clearing up. We have had record investments into pharmacies and more GPs, and we have cut waiting lists and stopped the junior doctors’ strikes. We are on the road to recovery.
Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we are on the road to recovery—and that, of course, is what the Opposition cannot stand. This is a complicated issue, as they well know. As I said, we inherited this complication in July, when we were made well aware of it. The Conservatives could have done more about it while they were in government, but it is yet another issue on which they have let people down—this time, it is staff.
We will ensure that we remedy that. The timelines are available in the written ministerial statement that I issued yesterday. We will continue to work with trade unions and employers to ensure that people understand. As my hon. Friend said, it is important that people do understand their own personal positions.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee.
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
I have to say that I am none the wiser about what exactly has happened. If we are to ensure that this will not happen again—that these deadlines will be met—we need to know how we got into this position. It may well be the fault of the previous Government. Will this Government commit to a full review of exactly how we got here, so that we can ensure that the published deadlines are met this time?
Karin Smyth
The Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee makes a good point, as she so often does, about what went on previously. This is an issue from the McCloud judgment that runs across many Departments. It was a problem under previous Governments, starting with the coalition Government. I know that the Public Accounts Committee, on which I served, and the Treasury Committee have looked at the matter over time. The Department will certainly co-operate with any inquiry and investigate what happened across Government. I am happy to get back to the hon. Lady on that point.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
This issue appears to be yet another example of the hangover left by the previous Conservative Government. Does the Minister agree that part of getting the NHS back on its feet includes cleaning up this mess and cutting waiting lists, which have already dropped for five months in a row?
Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend makes absolutely the right point. As I have said, Lord Darzi has helpfully outlined the breadth of the mess that we inherited back in July, and it makes for stark reading. We have still not had an apology from the Conservative party, so I am happy to take an intervention now if anybody decides to provide one. In these issues, we are seeing the depth of the destruction that the Conservatives have caused widely across Government. We will continue to fix that on behalf of the British people.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I declare my interest as a practising doctor and a public sector pensioner who has been through the McCloud process. Does the Minister understand that we will not improve productivity in the NHS as far as doctors are concerned if they continue to retire routinely in their mid-50s—in their prime? They do so because their accountants tell them that they would be foolish not to, given the fiscal environment and the structure of the NHS pension scheme.
Karin Smyth
I understand that point. Obviously, it is a source of much discussion. The change came about during the pandemic to encourage people to return to work, and it is a complex issue. We want to continue to use the skills of doctors at all stages of their careers, and we shall continue to work with them, the British Medical Association and others to make sure that there is no detriment to their returning to service in the NHS.
Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
I declare an interest as a member of the NHS pension scheme. Can the Minister confirm that this issue arose only because the previous Government carried out their NHS pension reforms in a way that was found to be age discriminatory? More widely, does she agree that giving NHS staff the terms and conditions and the reward and recognition that they deserve also requires prompt action each year on agreeing the NHS pay award, which the Conservative party routinely failed to do when in Government?
Karin Smyth
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point on our commitment to staff to be clear on their terms and conditions, and our commitment to honouring that reward. That is why we acted promptly when we came into office. We have issued statements and provided answers to parliamentary questions to make sure that people are clear about the system and that we are transparent.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
It takes rather a long time to train a doctor—up to six years—so it is a good job that the previous Government had the opportunity to train more doctors. Will the Minister look at one aspect of concern, which is that if doctors start reducing their overtime hours because of fiscal aspects, it will hamper the opportunity to get more patients treated and to shorten the length of waiting lists?
Karin Smyth
As I said in response to the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), we understand that, and we will continue to work with all staff in the NHS to make sure that we deliver on our commitment to reduce waiting lists, which were left at a shocking level by the previous Government.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
I have a constituent who is suffering both financial and emotional distress as a result of these circumstances. I wrote to the NHS Business Services Authority, and it took four months to get a response. In written questions to the Government, I have asked how I might make representations about my constituent being affected by financial distress. The response that I received from Ministers simply said that NHSBSA has all the evidence that it needs, and there is no need for anyone to provide extra evidence. There is a very real risk that some people who are affected by this are suffering financial distress but have not been identified by NHSBSA. For those people, can the Minister please outline what mechanism we as Members can use to make those people known to NHSBSA, so that they can access their pension choice earlier?
Karin Smyth
I am sorry to hear about the emotional and financial distress of the hon. Lady’s constituent. If there is a gap, I am happy to go back to the NHSBSA on her behalf and make sure that I update the House.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Does the Minister have full confidence in the chair of the NHS Business Services Authority?
Karin Smyth
As I said in my statement, we have confidence in the business authority to undertake the actions that I have outlined.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for her answers to the questions. Waiting lists are clearly beyond the pale. If the Government were able to address the remedial pension savings statement, we might be in better position to entice our doctors to take on additional hours. Will the Minister confirm that this is a Government priority, and that there is an understanding that a functioning NHS requires straightforward paths to working overtime, and payment at every level?
Karin Smyth
One of our major priorities is ensuring that the entire NHS workforce are doing the work that they are trained and committed to do, so that they can get down those waiting lists and deliver an NHS that is fit for the future. The staff, as Lord Darzi has outlined, have felt very severely the detriment caused by the previous Government. They are working under really difficult conditions, and we want to make sure that, through the 10-year plan and the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, we offer them hope, so that they are ready to deliver the services that they have been trained to deliver.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I thank the Minister for her responses this afternoon. I will allow a moment for the Front Benchers to swap over.
Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
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Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State to make a statement on whether the Adoption and Special Guardianship Support Fund will continue.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Janet Daby)
I welcome the opportunity to respond to this urgent question. The adoption and special guardianship support fund has for many years provided valuable therapeutic support to adopted children and special guardianship children who were previously in care.
I very much recognise that funding over that period has supported many children and families and helped them towards a stable family life. I have in recent weeks heard many more stories of how important the adoption and special guardianship support fund has been to many, and I pay tribute to the Members from all parts of the House who have been advocates and champions for adopted children and children in special guardianship placements in their constituencies.
I very much appreciate that the delay in confirming the continuation of this fund has been a very difficult time for many. I am especially concerned about children and families, because many of those whom the adoption and special guardianship support fund supports are in great need of continued help.
I also recognise that there has been an impact on providers of therapy, who have not been able to plan and prepare for the year ahead in the way they would have liked. However, the Department has been clear with local authorities and regional adoption agencies about transitional funding arrangements, which means that therapy that started in the last financial year can continue into 2025-26, even ahead of full 2025-26 budget announcements.
Appropriate transitional funding has been agreed for a significant number of children. I regret the delay in making this announcement, but I am happy to confirm today that £50 million has been allocated for the adoption and special guardianship support fund this year. We will be announcing further details to the House in the coming days and opening applications to families and children across our country as soon as we can.
Munira Wilson
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for granting this urgent question; I thank you especially on behalf of the thousands of vulnerable children, their adoptive parents and kinship carers who rely on the adoption and special guardianship support fund. I declare an interest as vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care and co-chair of the APPG on children.
I welcome the Minister’s announcement, which none of us were expecting, because many Members on all sides of the Chamber have spent the last few months asking question after question only to be being batted away time after time and told that answers would be forthcoming. This vital fund is there to help the most vulnerable children who have experienced the deepest trauma. Those who have been looking to renew applications for this coming financial year, like the constituent I mentioned in my question to the Prime Minister last week, have been left hanging in limbo. While I am grateful for today’s announcement, has the Minister considered what impact there has been on those families?
In the case I mentioned of my constituent Sarah, she said that her daughter has started to regress in the period between finishing her last lot of therapy and being able to secure the next lot of therapy. Another woman contacted me to tell me that she is special guardian for a child who at the age of just two witnessed her mother being murdered by her father, and she has been unable to access the right level of support.
The Minister mentioned the impact on providers. The Purple Elephant Project in my constituency of Twickenham is desperately fundraising to continue providing support, while others are taking their support elsewhere. Therefore, there are concerns about whether there will be sufficient provision. While I am grateful for the announcement, can the Minister confirm how long the £50 million will last, and whether Ministers are considering expanding the eligibility criteria for the support fund to include all kinship carers, not just special guardians? It is the least we can do for these most vulnerable children.
Janet Daby
I thank the hon. Member for her points. I very much appreciate the concern caused by the delay in this announcement, and I recognise the potential impact on children and families, as well as local authorities, regional adoption agencies and providers of therapy. Under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, there is a statutory duty for local authorities to have support services in place for adopted children. The Government very much support that. To her questions about kinship carers, the plan is for the support fund to open to kinship carers as well, and that £50 million is for the year. Further information will be provided shortly about those arrangements.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I clearly welcome today’s announcement, but it is a tragedy that many services have closed and people’s therapy has been stopped as a result of this funding hiatus. Will the Minister ensure that those impacted by the gap in funding will have additional support for the trauma that it could have caused to those young people? Will she ensure that the Treasury signs off funding ahead of deadlines when the funding ends?
Janet Daby
The Government remain committed to adopted children and children who are in kinship placements or have special guardianships. The Government will continue to work together to make sure that sufficient funding is in place and is more timely.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Laura Trott (Sevenoaks) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing this important UQ.
It is utterly extraordinary that we have had to summon the Government to the Chamber to provide clarity on whether they have axed a programme that ended yesterday—or so we thought—which supports 20,000 of our most vulnerable young people. The Government have been given lots of opportunities to clarify the funding situation. The Prime Minister was asked about it in the Chamber just last week. Either they did not know at that stage, or they just did not want to tell us—or, more importantly, the thousands of young people using the programme. Even by current Department for Education standards, this is utterly chaotic.
I do welcome the decision today, but can the Minister tell us when it was made? She recognises the impact that it has had on children and families up and down the country, but that impact is the result of her decisions and her delay. Can she please explain to us why this has happened and why the Government could not confirm the future of a £50,000-a-year programme sooner?
Janet Daby
As I have already said, I am delighted that we are now able to confirm that there will be £50 million for the adoption and special guardianship support fund for ’25-26. We will announce further details to the House in coming days, and we will open up the fund for applications as soon as possible.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I congratulate my neighbouring MP and the Liberal Democrat leader on education, the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), on being granted this urgent question. Her constituents and mine benefit from the Purple Elephant Project, through which more than 50 families get much-needed therapy that ensures that children stay out of higher-cost services. Like other groups that MPs have been hearing from in their constituencies, those families have been devastated by the delay; not knowing whether this important therapy would continue was already having an impact on them. I therefore also thank my hon. Friend the Minister for listening—I know this issue is close to her heart, too—and for the work she has been doing with Treasury Ministers, which I assume has enabled her to make this announcement.
How can we ensure that this does not happen again? It became the norm that groups serving vulnerable constituents would not know until right at the end of the financial year whether they would get continuation funding. How can we guarantee that that does not happen again for these groups and others serving vulnerable constituents?
Janet Daby
I thank my hon. Friend for her concern and her lobbying. Many Members and organisations have lobbied me on this matter. I appreciate all of the therapeutic providers up and down our country, especially the one in her constituency. Under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, local authorities have a statutory duty to have support services in place for adopted children. As a Government, we will continue to support local authorities to do that.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
On Friday in my surgery, a constituent came to talk to me about her eight-year-old adopted son who was born withdrawing from the drugs that his birth mother took during pregnancy as well as from alcohol abuse. The birth mother also suffered significant physical and emotional abuse. That has left this poor boy with many needs; he has foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, developmental trauma, attachment disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dyspraxia, dyslexia and a damaged nervous system. The therapy, play therapy and occupational therapy funded by the adoption and special guardianship support fund is essential for that boy. If there is one thing the Government should do, it is to prioritise children who have those needs. While I welcome the £50 million for the financial year we are just starting, boys like him and thousands of children around the country need not only certainty for the upcoming financial year but long-term certainty that they will get the care and support they need. Will the Minister work with the Treasury to find a long-term settlement, so that the most vulnerable in our society are not in this year in, year out funding trap?
Janet Daby
I absolutely hear and recognise the concerns the hon. Member has raised regarding the eight-year-old adopted child. As I said in my statement, the Department has been clear with local authorities and regional adoption agencies about transitional funding arrangements, and that should apply to many of the children our constituents have been contacting us about. That means that therapy that started in the last financial year can continue into ’25-26, even ahead of full ’25-26 budget announcements. However, I would say to the hon. Member that the Conservative party had a decade in which to ask Ministers those types of questions, so perhaps he should be turning his attention to his own Front Benchers.
Grahame Morris (Easington) (Lab)
I also congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing the UQ and thank my hon. Friend the Minister for her response. I will ask a question on behalf of the 340 kinship families in east Durham who are living in a constant state of anxiety. They are worried each month about how they will make ends meet, worried about whether their local authority would be among the 10 included in the pilot scheme and, until the Minister’s announcement, they were worried about losing access to the adoption and special guardianship support fund, which provides vital funding for therapeutic services to many families. The Minister has ended uncertainty with the announcement, but will she ensure that all kinship families receive stable, long-term financial and emotional support that is tailored to their unique needs, regardless of their kinship arrangement?
Janet Daby
I thank my hon. Friend for his question about kinship carers. They are essential and provide invaluable support and care to kinship children. The Department announced a £40 million package to trial a new kinship allowance, to test whether an allowance to cover the additional costs of supporting the child could help to increase the number of children taken in by kinship carers. That is still being worked up, but I hear what my hon. Friend is saying about the uncertainty around some of that. In October, we appointed a national kinship care ambassador and the Department for Education published new kinship care statutory guidance for local authorities. We have 140 peer support groups across England, and there are various other areas of support and training for kinship carers. I would be happy to speak to him further on this matter.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
I rise as a proud adoptive auntie who has seen for herself the impact of the fund on the most vulnerable children and their families. I also rise as the MP for Christine, a child therapist who lives in Hazel Grove, who wrote to me about the impact that the uncertainty around the fund was having on the families she works with. Children who have been through trauma, who have been neglected and who have ended up moving into a new family need safety, security and certainty. Does the Minister agree that we should be encouraging more people to be adoptive parents and not put off those who cannot afford it? Does she also agree that those who are self-employed and currently do not get any financial support from the Government should get that support in line with the biological cohort?
Janet Daby
The hon. Member has given me something to think about, so I thank her for that. I congratulate her on being an adoptive auntie. Since 2015, over £400 million has helped support nearly 53,000 children who have received therapeutic support. I agree that more people should consider being adopters and that their financial situation should not prevent them from being able to adopt.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on securing this really important UQ. I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on kinship care. I welcome the Minister’s confirmation that £50 million will be allocated this year to this incredibly important fund. That will end the limbo that families have found themselves in while they have experienced this unfortunate delay.
It is essential that we give all kinship children the same opportunities to heal, to achieve and to thrive. This is the second service affecting kinship families that has received late confirmation in the past few months. I know that the Minister, as a former social worker, cares for and has a particular interest in this group of young people. Will she work with the APPG to support longer-term planning for funding for kinship families?
Janet Daby
I thank my hon. Friend for all her comments. I assure her that I remain committed to working with the APPG on kinship care.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
This fund is really important to so many vulnerable children and their families. Although it is disappointing that many families and children have been left in limbo for a good few months, I welcome the Government’s announcement of the extension of funding. I would like to raise two points. First, will the Minister outline what steps are being taken to speed up applications and reduce any potential logjam in the system while funding is being released? Secondly, will she commit to the House and to families and children that she will meet Treasury Ministers and look at the potential for a longer-term funding settlement to reduce such uncertainty in future?
Janet Daby
I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the fund. We will announce further details to the House in coming days and open the fund for applications as soon as possible. I will continue to work closely with my Treasury colleagues.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for coming to the House to answer the urgent question. I know from her visit to Harlow last week how much she cares about supporting young people. Having worked in the charity sector before I came to this place, I recognise that short-termism in funding for services to support vulnerable people is not a new problem. Will she confirm that the Government are committed to ensuring that adopted children are given the support they deserve?
Janet Daby
We believe that children need to be secure in a long-term home, whether that is with kinship families, adoptive families or various others. Our commitment and our endeavour is to make sure that we provide the best home for a child so that they can grow, learn, play and thrive.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
John, my constituent in Chichester, is 12. He sent an email to Beacon House, a therapy provider in Chichester, which said:
“I’m really sad and worried that I won’t be able to see Becky any more.”—
Becky is his therapist. The email continued:
“Can someone please tell me how to not feel so sad?”
John will be delighted that his support from Becky will continue, but the lack of clarity has been felt acutely by vulnerable families, who find uncertainty incredibly triggering. Will the Minister please provide clarity on the Floor of the House today—that we will not be back here next year having the same discussion?
Janet Daby
I thank the hon. Member for sharing that information regarding John. I would like to think that many children are being protected from certain information so that it does not cause them further anxiety. I am delighted that we have been able to confirm that there will be £50 million for the adoption and special guardianship support fund for 2025-26, and I absolutely understand the need to ensure that such funding is ongoing and delivered in a timely manner.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
Last week, I had the honour of speaking to a parent who had cause to use the special guardianship service in Calder Valley. I know the anxiety that that has caused. Will the Minister confirm that the spending review will seek to provide more assurance that we will properly fund both children’s social care and the special guardianship service?
Janet Daby
We are always keenly working across Departments and within our Department with the Treasury to ensure that we can have enough funds to do the things that we would like to do in government.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) on obtaining the urgent question and dragging this information from the Minister, whether kicking and screaming or not. First, I thank Tim and Rachel and Matt and Kelly from my constituency: two families who have adopted youngsters and benefited from the fund. I was adopted some 55 years ago, but the world is now a much more complex place, so children are much more likely to have had adverse childhood experiences and therefore need this funding.
One had hoped that, following the general election, the adults were back in the room. Will the Minister assure the House that the funding will continue year after year?
Janet Daby
I thank the hon. Member for his question and pay tribute to his constituents. This Government have no plans at this time to prevent the funding from continuing. As I have said, under the Adoption and Children Act 2002, local authorities have a statutory duty to have support services in place for adopted children.
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
Like many colleagues, I wrote to the Minister recently regarding the fund, so I welcome today’s news. The adoption and special guardianship fund was described to me as a lifeline. I know that the Minister has touched on the timelines for funding allocations, but will she confirm that it will be up to county councils to apply for the funding, and will she give any indication of when the extra funding will reach councils and, therefore, families and children?
Janet Daby
I have sort of already answered my hon. Friend’s question. We will ensure that we look at the matter straightaway and that the roll-out takes place straightaway.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for her clarity. She will know only too well the distress that this has caused to many children and young adults, particularly those from vulnerable households and families. Will she confirm that Northern Ireland kinship children and adoptees who have been adopted to England will benefit from the fund? Will she also clarify whether any ongoing conversations about best practice and learning on the issue are being shared with the Northern Ireland Executive?
Janet Daby
Good practice is always being shared across our devolved nations. On the other point that the hon. Lady mentions, I will endeavour to get back to her.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for the confirmation that she has given today and, in particular, I congratulate the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) and my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes (Melanie Onn) on their championing of this issue in the House. I think I heard the Minister say that there might be a slight expansion of the fund’s remit so that it can help more people in kinship care. Will she say more on what the Government’s thinking is about whether the children who can access this fund have to have experienced care directly? There are many children who grow up in a kinship setting, as I did, and who never actually see care, but for whom this fund would be hugely valuable.
Janet Daby
For clarity, I have not said that we are looking to expand the fund—that is important. However, we are delighted to confirm £50 million for the fund, and it is available to kinship carers as well. I am sure my hon. Friend is aware that there is a lot of focus from this Government on kinship care, and I would be happy to fill him in on further details on that.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
In Mid Sussex, Beacon House provides help to so many children. It was led to believe that only a small minority of families were eligible for continued ASGSF funding, but it appears that, in fact, more than half of its service users were eligible. It would have known that had timely and detailed advice from the Government been forthcoming.
We must not forget that at the heart of this are the children and families affected. My constituent Joe has had to explain to their distraught child why their therapy would not continue. As Joe rightly says, this is “cruel”. This is the fourth time I have raised the matter and the urgent need to continue the funding. I welcome today’s decision, but given that the Minister is clearly unable to answer my colleagues’ questions about whether the funding will continue in future years, would she like to apologise on behalf of the Government for the distress caused to those children and families?
Janet Daby
We have no intention of ending the funding. What I will say is that we are pleased that we can announce the funding for 2025-26.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
I, too, thank the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for raising this matter. I declare that I am an adoptive parent and a foster carer. My family is currently accessing post-adoption support, with a view to potentially applying for therapy. I have also had fellow adoptive parents in my constituency get in touch about the delay in the announcement and the concern that that has caused. Will the Minister acknowledge the need for timely decision making when it comes to support for vulnerable children and young people, so that there is continuity of support and a gradual stepping down rather than abrupt cut-offs? Will she also assure the House that officials in her Department are working at pace to ensure that the very welcome £50 million for adoptive parents and kinship care placements is made available as quickly as possible?
Janet Daby
I absolutely agree that such decisions need to be made in a timely fashion. The Department and my officials are working at pace with the new information, and I very much appreciate the concern that the delay in this announcement has caused. We need to get on with the job to make sure that we can start ensuring the children’s therapies can continue and begin.
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
Due to the funding uncertainty, my Havering constituent has not been able to access sensory therapy for her adopted son from the adoption and special guardianship support fund. She asked me in her utter frustration:
“why is this government trying to give my two biological children—raised in a good home—free breakfast while denying therapy for my adopted child, who desperately needs the support?”
I very much welcome today’s rushed announcement, but will the Minister provide assurance that resources will be put into processing any backlog in applications so that adopted children do not miss out on critical support?
Janet Daby
I understand the political points being made here. What I will say is that we are really pleased about the £50 million announcement. We are working and further information will come out as soon as possible regarding the funding.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for her advocacy on this issue, as well as the Minister for her announcement. I, too, have received many emails from desperately worried constituents as we approached and then crossed the cliff edge in adoption support funding. They will struggle to square that with reports that the Government are willing to scrap the tax on US social media giants. Can the Minister please assure me that any future difficult decisions needed in this area will benefit vulnerable children more than they benefit Elon Musk?
Janet Daby
We will continue to support adopted children. According to the Adoption and Children Act 2002, there is a statutory duty for local authorities to do that and we will continue to ensure that we carry through with our children’s social care reforms.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) for securing this urgent question. Zach and Iesha were placed in the care of my amazing caseworker, Sammie, nine years ago. They had a really hard start in life and were shortly due to start receiving trauma therapy and life story work. I am really pleased that it seems that work and their journey can continue. However, does the Minister recognise the burden for families of being put on hold for so long? Will she confirm that support will go forward, beyond this year?
Janet Daby
As I have already said, this Government have no intention of getting rid of the funding in future years. It is down there in law that support needs to be given to adoptive families and, indeed, we are giving that support to children placed in special guardianships and to kinship carers.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
I am talking to a family in my constituency who adopted a young boy and a girl in 2021. They understood at the time that the children were likely to have special needs because of their upbringing, but they were prepared to take on the challenge. The boy in particular requires therapy to keep him in mainstream school. They have been very distressed over recent months at the possibility of losing the funding. Does the Minister not appreciate that this damages our great need to recruit more people to be adoptive parents, which does the state a great service and the children themselves the best possible service?
Janet Daby
There are many families, people or couples who wish to adopt, and I encourage them still to consider including a child in their family and in their life. I will also say, as I have said before, that local authorities have a duty to support adopted children, and no adoptive person or couple should ever not adopt for financial reasons. Obviously, they also undertake an assessment to make sure they are suitable.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
The Sensory Smart Child in my constituency does fantastic work providing vital therapies for 115 adopted children and their parents, but 77 of those children were unable to secure a temporary extension in support while the Government considered the future of the adoption fund, and that caused huge trauma for the families. I welcome today’s announcement, but can the Minister guarantee future funding? Will she also acknowledge that such therapies fill huge gaps but barely touch the sides in mental health and special educational needs provision in schools, which is not funded properly? I hope that the comprehensive spending review will look at this properly and fund it better.
Janet Daby
I think I have already answered that question, but I say again that there are many excellent therapies out there that are absolutely necessary for children, and that children from all backgrounds and lifestyles benefit from. I absolutely appreciate the work that is done for children in our country.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
I would like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham for securing this urgent question and the Minister for her commitment on the £50 million. I have secured an Adjournment debate on Thursday on adoption breakdown, and over the past few days I have been asking people to tell me their stories. I have heard that things such as the adoption and special guardianship fund are crucial to preventing it. With that in mind, what assessment has the Minister made of the impact of the fund on ensuring that adoptions can continue, and will she make that information publicly available, if possible?
Janet Daby
I look forward to speaking to the hon. Member during his Adjournment debate—I am sure that he will ask me many more questions, as is absolutely appropriate. I would say that this should not prevent people from coming forward to adopt children, and that children will still get the support they need and so rightly deserve.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham on securing this urgent question and this commitment from the Government. I recently received the following email from a constituent:
“Since adopting my children I have received absolutely no support at all. After 15 years of caring for a severely traumatised child, I heard about the post adoption support team… They applied to the fund and my son has just had his first assessment session and we are awaiting the report… He has been failed at every step of his life—please don’t fail him again.”
My constituent will be pleased to hear today’s announcement, but on their behalf I want to ask the Minister two questions. First, will she do everything in her power to ensure that local authorities are signposting adoptive parents to the support of this fund and the eligibility for it? Secondly, taking into account her comment that she has “no plans” to prevent the fund continuing, will she and her Department ensure that the announcement is made no later than September on the funding of the scheme in future financial years, given that the spending review is due before the summer?
Janet Daby
This Government absolutely support this fund and this funding being made available. If the hon. Member would like to share any more information regarding the 15-year-old and the family’s experience of lack of support, I would welcome him to do so.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for her answers to the urgent question—no one can doubt her compassion or understanding, given the way she has answered. I am mindful of the fact that children are our future—as a grandfather of six, I understand only too well what it means to have them there—but 18,000 children are left in limbo throughout every region of the United Kingdom, and to get to the point where there is no confirmation of whether essential therapy can continue is terribly disheartening, to say the least. These children feel abandoned. How will the Minister ensure that the lack of a decision, and the hesitation, will not add to their sense of abandonment?
Janet Daby
I congratulate the hon. Member on being a grandfather of six, and I hear the concerns he has raised. I share those concerns, and the Government will continue to work to ensure that the support services are in place for all children who need it, including those who are involved with this funding.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I thank the Minister for her answers this afternoon. I will allow a few moments for the Front Benchers to swap over.
Sentencing Council Guidelines
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood)
With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on sentencing in England and Wales. As the House will be aware, new guidelines from the Sentencing Council on pre-sentence reports have come under scrutiny in recent weeks, specifically on whether an offender’s faith or the colour of their skin should be a factor in their use. This is a question of huge import: whether we all stand equal before the law. That is an ideal that has underpinned justice in this country for centuries and an ancient right that each of us in this House has a responsibility to uphold. The new guidelines on the use of pre-sentence reports were due to come into force from today, but in recent weeks I have had constructive talks with the Sentencing Council and I am grateful to its chair, Lord Justice William Davis, for that engagement. As a result, I am pleased to tell the House that the guidelines have been put on pause while Parliament rightly has its say.
It is important to first understand how we got into this position. Under the previous Government, the Sentencing Council proposed changes to its imposition of community and custodial sentences guidelines, which are concerned with whether a judge should make a community or custodial order when sentencing an offender, and the thresholds for these disposals. When the courts are deciding whether the community order threshold is met, or the custody threshold is met, they are required by law to obtain a pre-sentence report unless they consider it unnecessary to do so. These reports provide more information to the court, helping to provide a greater understanding of the background and context of the offending behaviour. They are a tool at the disposal of judges. The guidelines provide further guidance to courts on how to approach the decision whether to request a pre-sentence report. In this instance, they help them to determine what sentence might best be handed down.
In general, I should be clear, I welcome the use of pre-sentence reports. In the last few months, I have created capacity within the Probation Service to ensure that it has more time for vital work such as this. But the new guidance, if it came into force, would encourage judges to request them for some cohorts of offenders and not others. Specifically, it notes that it would “normally be considered necessary” to request pre-sentence reports for ethnic, cultural or faith minorities. It is important to be clear about the impact that a pre-sentence report is likely to have in this instance: it is more likely to discourage a judge from sending an offender to jail. It is this that creates the perception of differential treatment before the law and risks undermining public confidence in the justice system.
A repeated theme of my engagement with the Sentencing Council over the guidelines has been the intention behind them. It was attempting to address very real inequalities that exist in our justice system—inequalities that are evident in the sentences that offenders receive. It is unclear why this happens, as the Sentencing Council acknowledges. There is no doubt that more must be done to understand the problem we face and to address it. Some measures are already taking place across our justice system to make it more representative of the public that it serves, such that it can deliver outcomes in which we can all have confidence, and I note that the proportion of ethnic minorities within the judiciary has risen from just 7% 10 years ago to 11% today.
While change can feel slow and must accelerate, my view is that despite the noble intentions behind these guidelines, in attempting to address inequalities in our justice system they sacrifice too much. They raise a serious question of policy: in the pursuit of equality of outcome for different religions and races, should we treat them differently before the eyes of the law and move so far away from an ideal that has underpinned justice in this country for centuries? On this, I am clear: all must be equal before the law.
I know there will be disagreement in this House with regard to the correct policy to pursue. There have been, as I have noted, differences of opinion among the Opposition. I expect that the shadow Secretary of State for Justice, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who opposes these guidelines, and the now shadow Transport Secretary, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon), who welcomed them while in office, have been having some robust conversations in recent days.
I doubt, however, that there is any disagreement that this is a question of policy. How the state addresses a systemic and complex issue is clearly the domain of policymakers. It is right that questions like these are discussed and debated here. It is right that the public can hold us to account for the decisions we take and that they can ultimately reward or punish us at the ballot box.
The role of judges is entirely different. They are concerned not with how policy is made but how it is applied. The independence of our judges to make those determinations is fundamental to our justice system. Over centuries they have built a reputation for fairness, making them world-renowned and respected. They are the embodiment of the rule of law in our country. To play that role, they must be able to make decisions on the facts without any outside influence. They must know they have the Government behind them, protecting them as they do that vital work. When I swore my oath as Lord Chancellor, I made a solemn pledge to protect and defend the independence of the judiciary, and I always will. But to do so, it is essential that the boundaries between what is policy and what is judicial decision making are clear. For that reason, the Government will today introduce the Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill. It is a tightly focused Bill. It does not interfere with the vital work of the council providing guidance to judges on how to sentence offenders. It addresses the issue of when a pre-sentence report should be ordered.
The Bill adopts a targeted approach. It does not prevent council guidance from advising in general terms that pre-sentence reports should be requested when judges need more information about an offender’s personal circumstances. It will remain the case, for example, that where an offender is a victim of domestic abuse, a judge can consider it in deciding whether to order a pre-sentence report. But it prohibits the council from making guidelines about pre-sentence reports with specific reference to the offender’s personal characteristics, such as their race, religion or belief, or cultural background.
The Bill will not affect the court’s existing duties to obtain a pre-sentence report in appropriate cases, nor does it change court precedent around them—like the recent case of Thompson, in which the Court of Appeal noted the importance of obtaining a pre-sentence report in cases involving pregnant women or women who have recently given birth; like the case of Meanley, where the court referred to the importance of pre-sentence reports in serious cases involving young defendants; or like the case of Kurmekaj, where the court emphasised the defendant’s traumatic upbringing, vulnerability and the fact they had been a victim of modern slavery as reasons why a pre-sentence report should be ordered. Judges will continue to request pre-sentence reports in cases where they ordinarily would—for example, those involving pregnant women or young people.
I accept that the Bill will, however, raise wider questions about the role of the Sentencing Council. The council does important work bringing greater consistency to judicial decision making, but we are here discussing a question of policy—a difficult, disputed and uncertain one at that. If the Government cannot determine national policy on the question of equality of treatment before the law, we have uncovered a democratic deficit. The Bill exposes that question but does not address it. The proper role of the Sentencing Council, and the process for making guidelines of this type, must be considered further, and I will do so in the coming months. It is right that this question is considered in greater depth, and should further legislation be required, I shall propose it as part of the upcoming sentencing Bill.
The Sentencing Council, although only 15 years old, holds an important position within the firmament of our justice system, and any changes must be made carefully and with due consideration. I am sure they will be discussed more in this House in the months ahead. The Government will today introduce the Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill. The issues it contains are of great consequence because the path to a more equal society can only be paved by equality before the law. Again, I thank the Sentencing Council for putting a pause on its guidelines while Parliament has its say. I believe that we must reverse them and reassert that no race or religion should receive preferential treatment before the law. The Bill we will introduce today will achieve that, and I commend this statement to the House.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor must be living in a parallel universe if she is giving herself a pat on the back today. The truth is she has completely lost control of the justice system. She sat on her hands for weeks and took seven days to gather her thoughts and put her views in writing to the Sentencing Council. Her incompetence took this down to the wire.
Magistrates and judges were updated by the press office of the Sentencing Council only at midday that the guidelines due to come into force had in effect been suspended. That raises the very real prospect that magistrates and judges sitting from 10am this morning were unaware of this chaotic last-minute change and sentenced people under guidelines that the Justice Secretary herself has conceded are two-tier. But it gets worse. In that very email to thousands of judges and magistrates sent just 90 minutes ago, the Sentencing Council states:
“we remain of the view that the guidelines are necessary and appropriate”.
Confusion reigns. They are being told one thing by the Lord Chancellor and another by the Sentencing Council. Who really is in charge here? Yet again, the Justice Secretary has been humiliated and undermined by activist judges seeking to undermine the will of this place—our Parliament. Her authority has been shredded—she is being treated as a two-tier, second-tier Justice Secretary.
This situation was entirely preventable if the Justice Secretary had simply put party politics to one side and backed our Bill weeks ago to restore accountability and empower her to actually control justice policy, but the Labour party blocked it. If the Prime Minister has been tricked into sitting at the front of the docklands light railway thinking that he is in charge, as his chief of staff mocked him for the other day, the Lord Chancellor has chosen to sit there in the passenger seat allowing the judiciary to take charge. She decided to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, all-powerful to be impotent.
Even after this complete shambles, the Lord Chancellor will not even re-establish ministerial oversight. We are told via frantic press briefings that her Bill, which we have not even seen yet, will surgically remove these two-tier sentencing guidelines. That does not tackle the root cause of the problem at all, which is an activist legal quango that holds views completely divergent to the public, to Parliament and—now we are told—to the Government. Unless she follows the formula of the Bill produced by Conservative MPs, we will be back here time and again to unwind the next piece of madness coming out of the council.
Take the Sentencing Council’s immigration guidelines that water down sentences for immigration offences below the 12-month threshold for automatic deportation: if published, it will mean hundreds of illegal migrants and foreign national offenders will avoid deportation every single year. It will blow a hole in border security. It even waters down the maximum life sentence for people smugglers that was legislated for just under a year ago. It completely disregards parliamentary sovereignty.
At our last exchange, the Justice Secretary said there would be no two-tier justice on her watch. Well, there it is—and it is worse than that. On 2 January, her own Department—not the Sentencing Council—published guidance ordering the prioritisation of bail for ethnic minorities and transgender people, continuing a practice introduced under Gordon Brown. Contrary to the misinformation peddled by her press office, the Department produced new guidance on pre-sentencing reports that have been in force for months, which state that probation officers should consider the “culture” of an offender and whether they have suffered “intergenerational trauma” from “historical events”. Well, that is cultural relativism, which violates the rule of law and puts the British public at risk. This time, nobody is to blame other than her. It is her Department; it is black and white; it is two-tier justice.
I have some questions. Will the Justice Secretary reassure the House that nobody was sentenced this morning under guidelines that she concedes are two tier? Can she honestly say at the Dispatch Box that she has confidence in the head of the Sentencing Council, Lord Justice Davies, given that he has brought it into total disrepute—yes or no? If she can, is she aware that he took to the airwaves yesterday, in an astonishing departure from the expected standards of judicial conduct, to advocate for abolishing short sentences, especially for hyper-prolific offenders, effectively instructing lower courts to follow suit? It is time for him to go, and if she will not sack him for that, what will it take?
Does the Justice Secretary have confidence in Johanna Robinson, another member of the Sentencing Council, who took a moral objection to border control and described the Illegal Migration Act 2023 as appalling? Lastly, will the Justice Secretary change the guidance that her own Department is producing and which has created a two-tier Probation Service? Or is it, once again on her watch, two-tier justice under two-tier Keir?
Shabana Mahmood
Dear, dear, dear me. It seems that the right hon. Gentleman’s amnesia is as bad as ever: 14 whole years appear to have disappeared entirely from his memory. He talks about parliamentary sovereignty, but when his party was in government and he was a Secretary of State or a Minister, he appeared never to know what on earth parliamentary sovereignty was or how to exercise power.
I think the right hon. Gentleman is rather distressed that my approach has led to a pause in the guidelines, that I will introduce a Bill that will deal with the offending bit of this guideline, and that I will consider the wider role and powers of the Sentencing Council ahead of the sentencing Bill later this year. I understand that it must be very disappointing for him that he has been exposed as someone who is all talk and no action, and that I get the job done. I can see that that annoys him greatly.
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would like to begin by apologising to the country, as I often invite him to do when we have our exchanges across the Dispatch Box. In 14 years, he never appeared to discover any of the things that he now discusses regularly from the Opposition Benches. He did nothing about those matters when he was a member of the Government that ran the country. Perhaps that is the problem: the Conservatives never really ran the country; they gave up on the job. He never rolled up his sleeves and put in the hard work to get the job done. That is why we inherited prisons on the brink of collapse, and why I am now unwinding all the mistakes that his party made and the guidance that he and his party welcomed.
The right hon. Gentleman did not tell me what discussions he has had with the shadow Transport Secretary, the hon. Member for Orpington (Gareth Bacon). Before the Conservatives explain why they are so het up about things now, they should explain why they welcomed those things when they were in office. There was no answer to those questions. I do not believe that there were many questions in that diatribe from the shadow Justice Secretary.
On sentencing, the pause in the guideline was communicated—that is a matter for the Sentencing Council. I will, of course, engage with the judiciary to ensure that all is understood regarding the pause. Nothing has changed in relation to the ordering of pre-sentencing reports by judges in all the circumstances in which they would ordinarily do so. The guideline is what has been paused, and it will now not come into effect until Parliament has had its say. The right hon. Gentleman references two individuals. That is the difference between me and him: I do not make it personal. I just focus on the job, and I get the job done.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
I realise that this is not a popular view in the House, but the Justice Secretary will be aware that some of us are astonished that she thinks our judges are so weak-minded as to be affected by what are guidelines in relation to how they sentence black and brown defendants.
The Justice Secretary will be aware that report after report and repeated statistical analysis have demonstrated what some of us consider to be unfairness in relation to black and brown people and the criminal justice system. She will also be aware that the reason the Sentencing Council was made a statutory independent body was to avoid even the appearance of ministerial interference in sentencing. This is not the United States; our political and judicial systems are entirely separate. Can she explain why she is so triumphant about not just interfering in sentencing, but passing a piece of legislation to cut across what the Sentencing Council is saying?
Shabana Mahmood
I thank my right hon. Friend for her questions—at least she asks some proper questions. She says that her view on the policy might be an unpopular one, but this is the place where views on policy, popular or unpopular, can and should be debated. That is at the heart of my disagreement with the Sentencing Council on the guideline.
I think that the matters that my right hon. Friend raises in relation to race and the disparities in the criminal justice system are the proper preserve of politicians. The answer to how we deal with those issues will be a policy answer, and it is for the Government, the Opposition and other Members to debate that policy answer and pursue it through Parliament. That is why I reject entirely the suggestion that anything I have done impinges upon the independence of the judiciary or calls into question the separation of powers in this country.
The Sentencing Council is itself a creature of statute; it is only 15 years old. It is entirely proper for a politician—a Government Minister, the Lord Chancellor—to assert that there is a boundary between that which is policy and a matter for Parliament and that which is judicial practice and consistency in judicial cases. I have sought to reassert that boundary. I look forward to working with Members with differing views from across the House in considering the wider role and powers of the Sentencing Council. As I have said, I will return to those matters in the coming months.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
There is only one group in this House that lost control of our justice system: the decimated former Government on the Opposition Benches. Overcrowded prisons, reoffending through the roof, victims waiting for justice—what a disgrace. That disgrace continues today through the downplaying of the impact of intergenerational trauma—of which child abuse is a form—by the shadow Justice Secretary.
I thank the Lord Chancellor for engaging with me on this issue in advance of her statement. Our criminal justice system’s ability to take someone’s freedom away is one of the most humbling powers that it holds, which is why sentencing decisions must include all available information. Pre-sentence reports are a critical part of that process. She mentioned pregnant women, survivors of domestic abuse and survivors of modern slavery as important examples of where that is considered. However, because everybody has a context, the Liberal Democrats believe that such reports should consistently be made available whenever anyone’s liberty is at stake. We will therefore scrutinise the legislation through that lens of equality before the law.
It is rich of the Conservatives to complain about inequality in our justice system when it was they who presided over a state of affairs in which someone from one our country’s most deprived areas is 10 times more likely to be in prison than someone from the least deprived, someone who looks like me is four times more likely to be stopped and searched than others, and people with special educational needs represent half the prison population compared to a fifth of the general population. Will the Justice Secretary outline how she will fairly tackle those disparities to restore confidence in the justice system, which was so shattered by the Conservative party?
Shabana Mahmood
I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesman for his questions. He is right: as I said in my statement, pre-sentence reports are an incredibly vital tool for judges. In fact, the requirement is that they should ask for a pre-sentence report unless the court considers it unnecessary to do so. There is a strong push towards obtaining pre-sentence reports in the vast majority of cases. The Probation Service that I inherited from the previous Administration has struggled under increased workloads. It was a service that the Conservative party privatised and then partly renationalised—our Probation Service officers, who do vital work every single day, have been through the mill.
I have been making changes to the focus of the Probation Service in the last few months to pivot its work to focus on high and medium-risk offenders and free up probation capacity, so that more time can be spent doing vital work such as the preparation of pre-sentence reports. I will carry on working with the Probation Service to ensure it is ready to do what is asked of it, to a very high and consistent standard, which I know will be important to all Members. I have already announced 1,300 extra probation officers in the financial year that has just passed and another 1,000 in the coming financial year. Probation remains vital to the preparation of pre-sentence reports, and we will ensure it is in a position to meet the asks that are made of it.
On the hon. Gentleman’s wider points about disparities across the criminal justice system, I thank him for the spirit in which he has engaged with me on those matters. I have the same concerns as him, but I believe we should understand what the latest data is showing us. That is why I have asked for a review of all the current data, and we should test any solutions we come up with. They are policy solutions, so they would have to be debated and passed in this House, and politicians are ultimately responsible at the ballot box for the choices they make, but those solutions have to work—they have to yield a change in these disparities. That is what I want to test.
In my engagement with the Sentencing Council on this particular guideline, it has accepted that the causes of the disparities are unclear, and no one is sure whether the changes to pre-sentence reports would make a difference anyway. I am not willing to sacrifice public confidence in the criminal justice system or chip away at the idea of equality before the law for solutions that are appropriate for debate in this place and that we are not even sure would work. I look forward to working with the hon. Gentleman closely in the coming weeks and months on these issues.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Chair of the Justice Committee.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
The Sentencing Council is a judicial body whose president is the Lady Chief Justice and whose chair is a distinguished Court of Appeal judge. Its function was previously executed by the Court of Appeal. It is fully independent but is linked to Parliament, not least because the Justice Committee is a statutory consultee for all its guidelines, including those under discussion today. Its judicial leadership, independence and democratic accountability are its strength and a primary reason it is held in high esteem in the criminal justice system. Will the Lord Chancellor reassure me that those attributes will remain integral to the council, whatever changes are proposed in the current legislation, sentencing review and sentencing Bill?
Shabana Mahmood
I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for his question. Of course, I respect the independence of the judiciary. I think I was very clear in my statement and the remarks I have made that I not only stand behind that principle, but have taken an oath that I fulfil and consider my duty to do so. Where I consider to be in disagreement with the Sentencing Council is that this is properly an area of policy, rather than a mere tool for the consistency of judicial practice when it comes to sentencing. That is the point of principle on which we have a disagreement, and it is why I will be considering a further review of the wider role and powers of the Sentencing Council. I simply repeat to my hon. Friend that ensuring that a creature of statute is operating in the way that was intended when that statute was put in place is the proper preserve of politicians and Parliament. I hope we can all agree on that.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
I thank the Lord Chancellor for her rather belated statement. I particularly welcome her observation that recent events have uncovered a democratic deficit. Is she not concerned that it was the shadow Justice Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who uncovered this deficit, and not herself, her ministerial team or her Department? It was my right hon. Friend who first raised the issue of two-tier sentencing guidelines in this Chamber on 5 March, four weeks ago. Could the Lord Chancellor tell us why she has waited until the eve of their introduction to bring forward her emergency legislation?
Shabana Mahmood
If the hon. Gentleman is concerned about the guidelines and what was brought to his attention when, perhaps people in his party should not have waved them through before the general election and welcomed them, as the shadow Transport Secretary did. I notice that none of them is engaging on the substance of that point. I am the one who is dealing with the democratic deficit. They had 14 years in power and did nothing about it, and now they just carp from the sidelines.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
Does the Lord Chancellor agree that the previous Government were consulted on and, indeed, welcomed the Sentencing Council’s new guidelines, and therefore it is totally unfair of Conservative Members to accuse this Government of having a two-tier system? Does she agree that it is yet another example of this Government having to clear up the previous Government’s mess?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is right: many Conservative Members appear to have a very loose relationship with their own track record.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
The Lord Chancellor is right that equality before the law lies at the heart of popular respect for justice. However, I must say to her that it is not this House that endangers the separation of powers, but judicial activists, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) has made palpably clear, who are more interested in making laws than applying them. Will she, as my right hon. Friend requested, let this House know whether she retains faith in the Sentencing Council and its members or whether, like me, she believes that having been exposed, they should now do the honest and right thing and resign?
Shabana Mahmood
I have already said that I am not interested in making a personal attack on anybody. I have a disagreement on a point of principle with members of the Sentencing Council about what is the proper preserve of policy and what is the proper role they should play. We have tried to resolve it. They have agreed to pause their guideline. We will move forward constructively.
I will not stand back and let people attack the independence of the judiciary. I have sworn a solemn oath; I will fulfil that oath. We are very lucky in this country to have the sort of legal system that we do and a judiciary that is held in high regard. These are public servants of the highest order. It is easy for politicians to attack on matters of policy or politics they do not like, but as I have just shown, if politicians or parliamentarians disagree with something, we have the power to change it.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
The juridification of law should worry us all, and we should make sure that primacy remains with this House; the Lord Chancellor has taken an important step towards that today. What is worrying is that for 14 years, no action was taken by the Conservative party. Does my right hon. Friend believe that that was because of incompetence or just a lack of understanding of what it meant for the country?
Shabana Mahmood
Who can say? I suggest asking any of the Conservative Members here whether they have an answer to that, but they appear to still wish to live on another planet and never reckon with their own track record in government.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Black people in Wales were the most over-represented ethnic group in prison in 2023, followed by those from a mixed background and people belonging to an Asian ethnic group. That over-representation is worse in Wales than in England. Pre-sentencing reports can help us to understand why people of black and minority ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be sent to prison. Even if she disagrees with the method, surely the Secretary of State agrees that action is necessary to tackle evidenced inequality within the criminal justice system, so what solutions is she bringing forward?
Shabana Mahmood
The proper role of a pre-sentence report is to give a judge who is about to pass down a sentence vital information about the context of that offender—for example, whether there has been domestic abuse, their age and other vital factors relevant to the offending behaviour—so that the judge can make a decision about the best sentence to pass. The pre-sentence report is not about setting right any other wrongs that exist, however legitimate they are—that is not the point of the pre-sentence report—but about giving the sentencer in every single individual case the information that they need, such as whether a woman is pregnant or has recently given birth, as the Court of Appeal upheld recently. Those circumstances should be properly understood by judges. The position in law is that a pre-sentence report should be sought by judges in all cases, unless the court considers it unnecessary to do so. That covers the majority of cases where a pre-sentence report should be sought, but we should not confuse the proper role of what the pre-sentence report is there to do.
To the extent that there are over-representations, I see them too. Over 70% of my constituents are non-white and, as the right hon. Lady can see, I am from an ethnic minority background myself, and I am also from a faith minority. I see those disparities—they are a lived reality of my own life—but I am not prepared to sacrifice the principle of equality before the law to put those disparities right. I wish to be more curious than anybody else has been in previous years about what lies behind those disparities, and about what are the proper levers that have to be pulled to put them right. We often discuss judicial diversity, but I am not sure that increases in diversity have necessarily led to a change in what the underlying data shows. Clearly, there is more going on. Any solutions that politicians come up with have to be tested in the House, because they are properly the domain of policy and Parliament.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)
May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on a victory over the Sentencing Council on the fundamental principle of equality before the law? The independence of the Sentencing Council does not entitle its members to go over its boundaries, into the area of policy and politics into which they have strayed. That is such a fundamental issue that having made those fundamental errors of judgment, those members of the Sentencing Council should no longer be able to carry on in the job, whether it is by their own decision or that of the Secretary of State.
Shabana Mahmood
In fairness to the Sentencing Council, it sought views from the previous Government and was told that the Government welcomed its findings, both in the consultation and the guideline. The Sentencing Council did not do anything wrong in the process that it followed. I invited it to consider that there had been a change of Government and a change of policy since it began work on the guideline, and asked it to consider reopening the consultation. I was disappointed that it chose not to do so, but I am not interested in making this a personal debate about individuals. I am grateful to the Sentencing Council for pausing the guideline, which has not come into effect. All our previous arrangements in relation to pre-sentence reports remain in place. As I say, I am considering the wider role and powers of the Sentencing Council, and I will return to the House with further proposals in due course.
Julia Lopez (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
The cherished idea of equal treatment before the law is fundamental to my constituents’ understanding of British justice, so why did the Justice Secretary not act immediately to stop the imposition of two-tier sentencing, rather than the last minute scramble we saw yesterday? In her statement today, she says:
“The proportion of ethnic minorities within the judiciary has risen from just 7% 10 years ago to 11% today.”
To what extent does she consider that that simply reflects a wider demographic change, rather than discrimination in the judiciary?
Shabana Mahmood
On diversity in the judiciary, there has been consensus in this House on that point. A lot of effort has gone into encouraging applications from people who may want to consider leaving private practice and becoming judges, which has started to have an effect. Having institutions that are more representative of the country that they represent is an important principle. I hope that there is cross-party consensus that it is important for Parliament to look, at least a little bit, like the people that it seeks to represent. However, I am not sure whether an increase in the diversity of judges is necessarily going to be the fix for the disparity issues that we see in the criminal justice system. That is why I have asked for a review of what the current data is telling us, to tease out whether there is a relationship between those two things. If there is not, then we will need to think more carefully about the other policy levers that might be needed. I think those are proper matters for this House to discuss.
On the hon. Lady’s broader point about the Sentencing Council, I used a power that has never been used before, in the 15 years of the Sentencing Council’s existence, to ask it to think again. I have done everything the proper way: I asked it to think again and I engaged with the Sentencing Council. At the end of last week, it told me that it was going to stick with and publish the guideline, and that it would come into force today, 1 April, which is why I said I would legislate. I brought forward a Bill, which has been published today, and thankfully the Sentencing Council has chosen to pause the guideline until Parliament has had its say. I have done everything exactly as I should have done, instead of rushing to rhetoric, which I do not believe solves anything.
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)
Pregnant women and new mothers are at high risk in custody. They are seven times more likely to experience a stillbirth and at least two baby deaths have taken place in recent years. Among other important measures, the Sentencing Council has issued guidance on the use of prison sentences for pregnant women and new mothers, which were supposed to come into effect today. Any delay to that risks causing untold, preventable harm. I am relieved that the Lord Chancellor has committed to protecting that guidance, but how quickly will it be implemented, because women cannot wait any longer?
Shabana Mahmood
I can offer my hon. Friend immediate reassurance. The Bill that we have published today is a very targeted Bill on the ability of the Sentencing Council to bring forward guidelines relating only to pre-sentence reports and personal characteristics. It is a very tightly focused Bill and nothing in that Bill affects any Court of Appeal precedent, and there is already strong Court of Appeal precedent on the desirability of a court obtaining pre-sentence reports before it passes sentence in cases involving pregnant women and women who have recently given birth.
More widely, on the issues of policy relating to women in the criminal justice system, I hope my hon. Friend will welcome the fact that I have set up the women’s justice board specifically to look at the needs of female offenders across the whole criminal justice system. I am determined—it is a position of policy for this Government—that we will send fewer women to prison and ultimately have fewer women’s prisons. That is properly a matter for policy. I am sure it will be contested in this House, but that is the realm of politics, Parliament and ultimately the ballot box.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I welcome the news today that the Sentencing Council had a last-minute change of heart on pre-sentencing reports. To go back to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), why did it take the efforts of the shadow Justice Secretary to get the Lord Chancellor to have a change of heart on that important matter? We did not get an answer on that before.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
Whatever their ethnic background, my constituents in Rochdale are united in supporting the ancient British principle of equality under the law. I welcome what the Justice Secretary has produced today, in stark contrast to the Opposition, who welcomed the previous attempts at two-tier justice. Does she agree with me that pre-sentence reports should be available for all offenders and should never be linked to ethnicity, culture or faith?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is right. I wish to see the widest possible use of pre-sentencing reports. It is my job to ensure that the Probation Service is in a position to provide pre-sentencing reports whenever they are required by the court, and that courts have confidence in the reports that they are getting. I will ensure that that is the case.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Has the Lady Chief Justice been rebuked for the impertinence of her letter to the Prime Minister following Prime Minister’s questions on 12 February, when he perfectly properly questioned another absurd judicial decision?
Shabana Mahmood
No. I have very positive conversations with the Lady Chief Justice. She has an important constitutional function and obligations, as do I. Our conversations are collaborative and constructive. On that matter, the Government made their view clear that the exchange at Prime Minister’s questions turned on a question of policy, which is the proper realm of politicians and ultimately Parliament.
Dan Tomlinson (Chipping Barnet) (Lab)
I thank the Justice Secretary for her decisive action on this issue and note that this Government are not ducking political decisions, farming them out to quangos like the last lot did with bodies like NHS England, or blaming the blob for crashing the economy when it was Liz Truss’s mini-Budget that did that. Does the Justice Secretary agree that politics and policy are the domain of this House and its Ministers, and can she reassure me that this Government will continue to make sure that we in this House can make the decisions that the public expect us to make?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is right. The business of government is difficult and requires lots of effort. The contrast between this Government’s approach and the approach taken by the Tory party over its 14 years in government is stark. We are getting on with the job.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
While the Sentencing Council guidelines do not apply in Northern Ireland, does the Lord Chancellor accept that controversial changes in England, such as a reduced likelihood of custodial sentences for certain groups, risk undermining confidence in the justice system across the entire UK? Can she outline what steps she is taking to ensure fairness and consistency in sentencing across all jurisdictions, regardless of ethnicity, culture or faith?
Shabana Mahmood
In Wales, these are reserved matters, and the guidelines would impact only on England and Wales. There are devolved arrangements here as well, which I do not propose to upend in any way, but I am always happy to have constructive conversations with colleagues in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales on any such matters. In the end, we are a UK system, even where some matters are devolved, and I really appreciate and value that collaboration.
Jonathan Hinder (Pendle and Clitheroe) (Lab)
I join colleagues in paying tribute to the Lord Chancellor for her decisive leadership and for the thoughtful way in which she has answered questions today. [Laughter.] I welcome, as will my constituents in Pendle and Clitheroe, her confirmation that equality before the law will remain, and I look forward to seeing the Bill that she proposes. I can see the Tories railing against the justice system that they left us, but we on the Government Benches really are mad about it: we had a backlog of 70,000 Crown court cases, there were no prison places left and neighbourhood policing was hollowed out. Is it any wonder that voters so comprehensively rejected the Tories?
Shabana Mahmood
I think the country had its say on 14 years of the Tories in charge. To be honest, given their legacy in the criminal justice system, I would not take the same approach, but I am not surprised that they are laughing; the only other thing they could do is to cry.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
Why does the Lord Chancellor propose to take only a very narrow power in respect of the two-tier pre-sentencing reports rather than a general power, given that other guidelines and draft guidelines, including for immigration offences, are far below the levels agreed to by this Parliament? The Sentencing Council is ignoring policy determined by this House. What more evidence does she need to act, and to act now?
Shabana Mahmood
On the immigration guideline, I will correct something that the shadow Justice Secretary said earlier. Nothing in that guideline prevents the deportation of any foreign national offenders, and this Government have been getting on with the job, having deported more than 24,000 foreign nationals. Our record on foreign national offenders is one of a 20% increase in removals this year compared with the same period last year. I wanted to ensure that the guideline did not come into effect, and that is why I published the targeted Bill. I have acknowledged that there is a debate to be had about the wider role and powers of the Sentencing Council, which I will return to in the weeks and months ahead.
Jake Richards (Rother Valley) (Lab)
The Sentencing Council was created in April 2010; a month later, the Conservatives came to power. If, as so many on the Conservative Benches seem to think, the Sentencing Council is a shadowy, revolutionary group of activist judges dangerously undermining the British way of life, why on earth did they not do anything about it?
Jake Richards
I think they agree with that now—interesting. Does the Lord Chancellor agree that this episode shows that our constitution is working? Parliament is sovereign, and if Parliament seeks to change this guidance, under this Government it will.
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is exactly right. At no point has anybody on the Conservative Benches shown any humility or tried to answer the question of why they did nothing about it. As I say, the case of amnesia from which the shadow Justice Secretary is suffering seems to be as bad as ever.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
I certainly welcome the fact that the Sentencing Council has been forced to back down on its woke proposal. As the new legislation progresses, can the Lord Chancellor assure the House that there will be no dilution of the robust principles of the separation of powers and the independence of our judiciary; and that the right approach will continue to be that Parliament sets the maximum sentence for any criminal offence, and our judges decide on a case-by-case basis what the sentence should be?
Shabana Mahmood
The hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely right. It is for Parliament to set the overall sentencing framework, but every single judge has to see the case in front of them and make their own decisions. As I made very clear in my statement, I will always defend the independence of our judiciary; they do vital work and are a crucial part of the separation of powers. Everything that I have sought to do, given this recent episode, has been to respect that separation of powers and assert what we properly consider to be the realm of policy, politicians and Parliament, and what is the realm of the judges.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Lord Chancellor for her statement. Does she agree that we should all hold closely the ideal of equality before the law, and that the biggest cause of two-tier justice was the mess that the Conservative party made of our Probation Service?
Shabana Mahmood
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because he gives me an opportunity at the conclusion of my statement to support the Probation Service. In all of the Tory party’s terrible legacy in the criminal justice system, including prisons on the point of collapse, what it did to the Probation Service was unconscionable. This Government are putting things right. I have already made changes to the Probation Service, and I will ensure that it is on the strongest possible footing going into the future.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I thank the Lord Chancellor for her statement.
Foreign Influence Registration Scheme
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)
With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement on the foreign influence registration scheme. FIRS is a fundamental component of the National Security Act 2023, which was a response to the evolving threat of hostile activity from states targeting the UK. Parts 1 to 3 of the Act came into force in December 2023 and have been transformative for our operational partners, with six charges already brought against those conducting activity for or on behalf of foreign states acting in the UK. A further five individuals involved in those cases have been charged with other offences.
FIRS provides crucial additional powers to protect our democracy, economy and society. It does three things: provides transparency on foreign state influence in the UK; gives the police and MI5 a critical new disruptive tool, with criminal offences for those who fail to comply; and deters those who seek to harm the UK. They will face a choice to either tell the Government about their actions or face arrest and imprisonment.
Given the benefits of the scheme, I can tell the House that FIRS will go live on 1 July. The political influence tier of the scheme, which applies to all states, will allow the UK to be better informed about the nature, scale and extent of foreign influence in the UK’s political system. It will strengthen our resilience against covert foreign influence. The political tier requires the registration of arrangements to carry out political influence activities in the UK at the direction of any foreign power. In most cases, registrations under this tier will be made available on a public register. For the first time, Members of this House will now be able to check whether anyone who seeks to influence them is doing so at the direction of a foreign power, a move that I am sure will be welcomed right across this House.
The enhanced tier of the scheme has been specifically designed to shed light on activities directed by foreign powers or entities whose activities pose a threat to the safety and interests of the UK. It enables the Government to specify those foreign powers that pose the greatest threat to our society, to ensure transparency over a much broader range of activities than just the political tier. It will provide an important tool for the detection and disruption of harmful activity against our country. Last month, I set out our intention to specify Iran under this tier of the scheme. I can announce today that we will also specify Russia under the scheme.
Russia presents an acute threat to UK national security. In recent years, its hostile acts have ranged from the use of a deadly nerve agent in Salisbury to espionage, arson and cyber-attacks, including the targeting of UK parliamentarians through spear-phishing campaigns. Clearly, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has also highlighted its intent to undermine European and global security. To ensure we are responding to the whole-of-state threat that Russia poses, the Government intend to specify the Head of State of Russia and its Government, agencies and authorities, which will include its armed forces, intelligence services and police force as well as its parliaments and judiciaries. We also intend to specify several political parties that are controlled by Russia, including the United Russia party. This means that any person—either an individual or an entity, such as a company—that carries out activity as part of any arrangement with those Russian entities will have to register with FIRS. Should any of these foreign power-controlled entities, such as political parties, carry out activity in the UK directly, they would also have to register with FIRS. I hope it will be clear what a powerful tool this is.
It is clear that FIRS has the potential to provide greater protection for our security, our democracy and our economy, but we must get the implementation right. In support of the scheme, the Government have today laid before Parliament draft regulations specifying Russia and Iran, introducing new exemptions from the scheme and making provision for the publication of information. Both this House and the other place will have the opportunity to consider and debate these regulations under the affirmative procedure. The Government have also laid a further set of regulations relating to the collection and disclosure of information under the scheme. To support the consideration of the regulations, and to assist potential registrants and others to better understand their responsibilities under the scheme, the Government have published comprehensive guidance online.
By bringing the scheme into force on 1 July, the Government will be giving sectors three months’ notice to help them to prepare for it. During that time, the Government will work closely with the relevant sectors, including academia and business, to ensure that they understand their obligations. Taken together, this package will ensure strong compliance with the scheme from day one. There will also be a three-month grace period to register existing arrangements. I know that right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber recognise the challenges posed to the UK by foreign interference, and I hope that all Members can support these further steps to keep our country safe. Of course, as with all national security issues, we must stay agile, and, as I have said, FIRS will be kept under review. Any new announcements will be made to the House in the usual way.
It is our duty to defend the safety and interests of the UK. That is why we are commencing FIRS; it is why we are introducing greater protections for our democracy; and it is why we are clamping down on the threat from states that conduct hostile activities in, and against, the UK. I commend this statement to the House.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I start by thanking the Security Minister for advance sight of his statement, which he provided with his customary professionalism and courtesy. We on the Conservative Benches welcome the commencement of the FIRS regime, legislated for in the last Parliament, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friends the Members for Witham (Priti Patel), for Braintree (Mr Cleverly), for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) and for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman), for their work in bringing that legislation forward. I also welcome the announcement that Iran and now Russia will be included on the enhanced list, meaning that all activity undertaken in the UK by those countries or those acting for those countries must be registered.
However, I will address the bulk of my remarks to the elephant in the room, which the Security Minister did not mention at all in his statement: China. MI5’s director general, Ken McCallum, said in July 2022, almost three years ago:
“The most game-changing challenge we face comes from the Chinese Communist Party. It’s covertly applying pressure across the globe.”
In October 2023 he added:
“We have seen a sustained campaign”
of Chinese espionage on an “epic scale”. In January 2024 the director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, said that China is
“the defining threat of our generation”.
As such, I have a very simple question for the Security Minister this afternoon. He had plenty to say about Iran and Russia, quite rightly, but why is he silent on China? We know that China engages in industrial-scale espionage, seeking to steal technology from Governments, universities and industry. It represses Chinese citizens in this country and has sought to infiltrate our political system. In 2022, MI5 exposed that China sought to infiltrate this very Parliament via its agent Christine Lee. It has set up undeclared and illegal police stations in the UK, and in December last year it placed a bounty on the head of three Hong Kong dissidents living in the UK. I would like to ask again a question that was not answered last time: why has the Chinese ambassador not been summoned to explain that?
There is no question in my mind that China should be in the enhanced tier of FIRS, and it is an astonishing omission that it has not been listed as such already. Why are the Government silent on this issue? In the past, Governments have prioritised economic growth in their relations with China, but we now know a lot more about how China operates than we did 10 or 15 years ago—we know what it is up to. Is the truth not that, in their desperation to get economic growth going after the Chancellor’s rather unfortunate autumn Budget, the Government seem to be prioritising economic links over national security when it comes to China? I imagine that is why the Government appear to be intending to grant planning permission to China for its super-embassy, which we all know will be a base for espionage activity.
The Minister has rightly spoken about the threat posed by Iran and Russia. He is right to take action, and we support him in doing so. However, MI5 and the FBI have both warned about the epic threat posed by China, so will he please answer this simple question: will he place China in the enhanced tier?
Dan Jarvis
To begin on what I hope will be a point of consensus, I am grateful to the shadow Home Secretary for the gratitude he expressed in general terms for the progression of this scheme. I certainly hope that there is cross-party agreement about the importance of this new tool, and I am very grateful for his support. I am also grateful for the work done by the previous Government on the development and subsequent implementation of the National Security Act 2023.
Before I turn to the question that the shadow Home Secretary posed, I just say to him that we are trying, through the use of FIRS and other means and mechanisms, to ensure that the UK is as hard a target as possible, and to make it the most challenging operating environment for those who would do us harm. The Government take these matters incredibly seriously, and I hope he would acknowledge that we have progressed the process of FIRS at pace, despite some accusations from one or two Opposition Members that that was not the case.
I hope that the shadow Home Secretary would acknowledge that the main geographical focus today was on Russia. We covered Iran a number of weeks ago, but in addition to the other remarks I have made about FIRS, the focus has been on Russia. He did not have very much to say about Russia, but I welcome him welcoming the fact that we have specified Russia on the enhanced tier.
For reasons that I completely understand, the shadow Home Secretary asked about China. He will recall the remarks I made to this House on 4 March, where I was very clear that countries will be considered separately and decisions will be taken by this Government based on the evidence. I said then, as I say again now, that I will not speculate on which countries may or may not be specified in future. That is the right way to proceed, and I hope he understands that.
I hope that the shadow Home Secretary recognises that the Government, with the wider strategy we are pursuing on China, are taking a consistent, long-term and strategic approach to managing the UK’s relationship with China. I did not agree—this will come as no surprise to him—with how he characterised the nature of the relationship with that country. The Government’s policy is clear: we will co-operate where we can, compete where we need to and challenge where we must, including on issues of national security.
Katie White (Leeds North West) (Lab)
I welcome the Minister’s statement and his trademark constructive and authoritative tone. Often it is frontline police officers who deal with the consequences of aggressive action by hostile states on Britain’s streets. I specifically welcome the Minister’s announcement that training on state threats activity will be offered by counter-terrorism police to all 45 territorial police forces. Can he provide a further update on the roll-out of that training?
Dan Jarvis
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Often where the rubber hits the road is the incredibly important work done by police officers on the beat, and I pay tribute to them and their service. It is important that we ensure as a Government that all police forces are ensuring that those police officers out and about in the course of their duties get the training they require to be able to identify and appropriately respond to matters that may constitute either transnational repression or state-directed activities. I can give her an assurance that we are working with police forces to ensure that that training is taking place at pace. Along with the Policing Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), I am liaising with chief constables and police and crime commissioners to ensure that that work is under way. That will provide a valuable tool for those policing our streets, ensuring that they have the requisite skills, training, knowledge and experience, should they encounter the kinds of issues we are discussing today.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
I thank the Minister, as always, for advance sight of his statement. We on the Lib Dem Benches welcome the further implementation by the Government of the foreign influence registration scheme, but I find myself in the rather unusual position of agreeing with a lot of what the shadow Home Secretary has said—very dangerous territory. Last year, Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee issued the excoriating China report, which said that the Government do not have a clear strategy on China and have not devoted sufficient resources to tackling the threat it poses. I will therefore ask the Minister some new questions that the shadow Home Secretary did not.
Will the Minister confirm whether the Government have plans to generate a human rights and democracy report, to conduct the audit on China that they have promised, and to ensure that China is fully considered in the strategic defence review? As has been mentioned, many are severely concerned by the proposed Chinese mega-embassy, for which the Government have indicated their support. Does the Minister believe that the building of this embassy will encourage the Chinese Communist party to carry on its attempts to subvert our democracy? What conversations has the Minister had with colleagues across Government about blocking this plan and making protecting our democracy a key national security priority?
Can the Minister say more about how the political influence tier will be administered? How do we ensure that every relevant foreign individual signs up to the register? It is right, if there is a top tier of the scheme, that Russia and Iran are on it, but will the Government now go further by proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation?
Finally, the Liberal Democrats have long called for reforms to funding to prevent foreign interference and to increase transparency in political donations. What plans do the Government have to close loopholes that allow opaque and potentially corrupt funding of political parties, enabling foreign and dark money to influence British politics?
Dan Jarvis
The hon. Lady asked a number of questions, and I will endeavour to respond to all of them, but if I do not, I will certainly come back to her outside of the Chamber. She asked a number of questions about ongoing activity across Government, and she referenced the China audit, as well as the strategic defence review. I know she would acknowledge that those matters are not within the bailiwick of the Home Office, but sit with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Ministry of Defence. I can give her a categoric assurance that we address these matters across Government, and we work closely as different Departments. She will know that the Prime Minister made an announcement just recently about the publication of a national security strategy. The Prime Minister has committed to publishing the national security strategy in advance of the NATO summit in June. That document is being worked on across Government, and it will provide, I hope, some of the answers to the questions that the hon. Lady has rightly raised.
The hon. Lady asked about the embassy. I say to her and to all Members across the House that national security has been our core priority throughout that process, which is why the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary jointly submitted written representations to the Planning Inspectorate to reflect those considerations. I hope she will understand that I am limited in what I can say, not least because a final decision on the case will be made in due course by the Deputy Prime Minister, acting in her capacity as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. It will be done in an independent, quasi-judicial role, so I am unable, for legal reasons, to say anything further on that particular matter at this moment.
The hon. Lady helpfully asked about the political influence tier, which will strengthen the resilience of our democratic institutions against covert foreign influence. It will require those in arrangements with foreign powers who conduct, or arrange for others to conduct, political influence activities in the UK to register those activities within 28 days. Most registrations made under the political influence tier will be included on a public register, and I am sure she will recognise the transparency associated with that.
The hon. Lady also asked me about proscribing the IRGC. She will remember, because she responded to it, the statement I made on Iran last month, during which I confirmed that the Government have asked Mr Jonathan Hall to conduct an independent review into the legislative framework around proscription. He is making good progress with that work, and I hope we will be able to update the House further in the near future.
Finally, the hon. Lady asked about funding, and she will have seen the comments from the Electoral Commission in the past day or two. There is separate electoral law specifically relating to funding, but we look carefully at these issues and we are working across Government, not least with the work I lead on through the defending democracy taskforce, working with colleagues in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and in other Departments.
Melanie Ward (Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his statement, which is of real significance given the increasing external threats that our country faces. Given those threats from hostile state actors, it is more important than ever that we take effective action to protect our critical national infrastructure from cyber-attacks and ransomware attacks. Can the Minister update us on the plans announced in the King’s Speech for a new Bill on cyber-resilience and the other actions being taken to improve our protections in this area?
Dan Jarvis
My hon. Friend has raised an important point, albeit one that is not often the source of much debate. This Government take our critical national infrastructure extremely seriously, and we work with all colleagues in all Departments, not least those in the Cabinet Office. I can assure my hon. Friend that we in the Government are absolutely committed to using all our levers to disrupt cyber-threats to that critical national infrastructure, and we welcome the plan announced today by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to introduce a cyber security and resilience Bill. We work closely with the Department on these matters, and we know that that important Bill will help the UK’s digital economy to be one of the most secure in the world, giving us the power to protect our services, our supply chains and our citizens, which is the first and most important job of any Government.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
It was good to hear the Minister confirm that the scheme will be kept under review. Two definitional matters will certainly need to be kept under review: first, what counts as being “at the direction” of a foreign power or specified entity, and secondly, in respect of the political tier, what is the extent of the definition of “political influence”? Up until now we have tended to think in terms of influence over elections, parliamentarians or Government decisions, but given the continuing development of technology and new media we can also see the potential for more direct action—direct to the public—which could conceivably have very high-impact effects. Will the Minister keep both those matters under review?
Dan Jarvis
It is good to see the right hon. Gentleman in his place. There is a relatively small band of former Security Ministers left in the House, and I think he is the only one in the Chamber at present. I always appreciate his constructive, sensible and reasonable contributions. He is absolutely right: definitions do matter, and we have taken a long time to think very carefully about how best to do this in order to ensure that we define it in the most effective and appropriate way. As he will recall from my opening remarks, we have published today regulations and guidance providing substantial detail, but I look forward to discussing these matters further when we debate them through the affirmative procedure, and I hope very much that the right hon. Gentleman will contribute to that process.
Sally Jameson (Doncaster Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Border security is national security. What steps is the Minister taking, along with other Home Office Ministers, to strengthen the enforcement of the UK immigration law against those who seek to promote hostile state threats here in Britain?
Dan Jarvis
My right hon. Friend is right: border security is national security. She will know that the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill has now completed its Committee stage, and she and other Members will have noted that yesterday the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary hosted an organised immigration summit in London, which was attended by countless international partners and was a very constructive and worthwhile gathering. She will also know of the important work that is now being done by the Border Security Commander, who is working closely with our international allies. We are making good progress with these matters, which we take extremely seriously, and although we will have more to do, I am pleased with the progress that we have made to date.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Two of the four ugly totalitarian sisters have been included in the list so far, and I trust that China and North Korea will both be added to the enhanced tier in the fullness of time; but will the Minister take back to the Government the message that the House is concerned about the building of the biggest Chinese communist embassy in western Europe—in fact, the biggest embassy—in London? It is not clear why the Government needed to call it in on security grounds, given that the local authority wanted to refuse permission completely. Will the Minister also explain the differential between the penalty that people will face when exposed for acting on behalf of a foreign power if they have registered and the penalty that they will face if they have not registered?
Dan Jarvis
The right hon. Gentleman speaks with great experience and authority on these matters, and I know he will agree that the implementation of FIRS gives us a critical capability that we have not had previously. It also provides a very clear choice for those who are considering whether they want to engage in this kind of nefarious activity or not. They can declare their activities to the Government, and that is what we want them to do, but if they do not, they will face arrest and imprisonment over a protracted period. That will provide a significant deterrent that we do not currently possess, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman and others will welcome it.
As for the right hon. Gentleman’s points about the embassy, I know he will understand that I am very limited in respect of what I can say. The shadow Home Secretary is shaking his head. I am very limited for legal reasons because a process is under way, and if I say anything to undermine that process there will be significant consequences. However, the right hon. Gentleman has made his point constructively, so let me think about whether there is some mechanism whereby, perhaps on a Privy Council basis, there can be a briefing in which we discuss these matters in a way that is not subject to the scrutiny that the House will rightly bring. As I have said, I am very limited in terms of what I can say, but I recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s concern, and will look into whether there is a way in which we can discuss it in another forum.
Cameron Thomas (Tewkesbury) (LD)
While aligning myself with the concerns expressed by the shadow Home Secretary, I am happy to take the Minister at his word. In the last decade, the previous Government badly misjudged Vladimir Putin’s aims regarding the United Kingdom, and his exploitation of our naivety. So that the current Government do not make the same mistake with the Communist party in China, will the Minister commit himself to releasing a full, unredacted Russia report, and an audit and report on the activities of the Conservative Friends of Russia—or, as they were more recently termed, the Westminster Russia Forum?
Dan Jarvis
I think I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his question, although I would probably need to consider it for a while longer to make an authoritative judgment on whether I am grateful to him or not. The Government’s position—certainly on the publication of the report—is clear, but I am happy to discuss it with him further. Mindful of the comments that he made about previous Governments, I can give him an absolute assurance of how seriously we take these matters, with Russia and other countries. I understand why he mentioned China, and I understand why other Members have mentioned it as well. I hope he understands that the focus today is on Russia, as the focus last month was on Iran, but I am happy to discuss these matters further with him and his Liberal Democrat colleagues.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
On the subject of the political tier, can the Minister say how domestic politicians might be affected—those who have foreign interlocutors, as well as those who are simply involved by virtue of all-party parliamentary groups? As for the enhanced tier, while I appreciate that he is reluctant to be drawn on specifics, can he say whether the scope of what he has in mind might include a foreign jurisdiction with a stated intention to annex the territory of a European neighbour and Commonwealth partner?
Dan Jarvis
I am always grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. With great respect to him, I will not go into the specifics of his second point, because I am particularly keen not to do so, but let me respond to his important question about parliamentarians. Hopefully he, along with other Members on both sides of the House and in the other place, will welcome the fact that for the first time, collectively, we will be able to see, and check, whether those who are seeking to influence behaviour or activities in this place are doing so at the behest of a foreign state. We are not able to do that at present. The fact that we will be able to do it in the future represents a significant step forward, and I hope everyone will recognise that.
On the point about the political influence tier, let me reiterate what I said previously. This will require the registration of activities carried out at the direction of a foreign power that seek to influence Members of this House. That will help protect the integrity of Parliament by ensuring that we are all informed of any attempts to influence us where a foreign power is driving the influence. Where a parliamentarian is named on a registration as a potential target of influence and the registration is to be published, the FIRS case management team will be in contact with that parliamentarian. This is a good and positive step forward for parliamentarians, and I hope that will be recognised across the House.
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
I welcome the statement from the Minister, but if the Government are so concerned, and rightly so, about malign foreign interference with national security, what does he make of the statement from the Trump Administration that tariff decisions will be contingent on judicial decisions in the UK, or of the letter sent from the White House to US embassies in Europe last week ordering foreign companies with US contracts to obey Trump’s Executive orders not to promote diversity, equality and inclusion, and would those companies require FIRS registration?
Dan Jarvis
I am reluctant to get into the specifics of the way in which particular arrangements may work, as that is not entirely helpful. However, I hear what the hon. Member has said, I will consider it further and I will come back to him with a considered response.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Although I welcome the Government’s invoking and activation of the FIRS scheme, like a curate’s egg, it is good, but there are missing bits. The elephant in the room—and it is a very big elephant—is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp) and other Conservative Members have said, which is the missing bit about China. The fact is that China is behind all this. We know that China is involved in supporting Russia in the war that is named in this report. It is also behind Iran and the work it has done in destabilising Gaza and so on, and it is behind North Korea.
Therefore, the question for us is: if it is shown that China is a danger and a threat to us internationally, is that the case internally? We know that the United Front Work Department reports directly to President Xi. It is made up of thousands of organisations that set out to disrupt life here in the UK, and it enters into organisations that have influence. We know that it has put a bounty of 1.2 million Hong Kong dollars on the heads of people here who have fled tyranny in China. We know that the illegal police stations still exist that have been dragging in Hong Kong dissidents. We know they have made attacks on dissidents in Manchester, physically and brutally attacking them. We know that China has spies involved inside the House of Commons and outside it as well. We know that slave labour exists in the net zero arrays and the wind farms we are putting up, and we say nothing about that. In fact, we voted to continue with slave labour last time around. The truth is that we have a real problem because China is at the epicentre of everything to disrupt democracy and freedom. Why is China not in the statement today?
Dan Jarvis
I always appreciate the contributions made by the right hon. Gentleman. As I have explained to the House, in addition to announcements about FIRS in a more general sense, the focus today has fundamentally been on Russia. The House will have heard the comments he has made, and I hope he will accept that this Government take these matters incredibly seriously. I hope he has heard the remarks that I made, both earlier and in my previous statement in response to the threat from Iran, about how we will consider countries on an individual basis and take evidence-based decisions about how best to proceed.
I am sorry that I will not be able to speculate on which countries may be specified in the future, but I hope the right hon. Gentleman will accept that the announcement we have made offers real value in three particular areas. There is the point about transparency, and he will have noted the point on the political tier about requiring all countries to register. He will also have noted the point about disruption and the point about deterrence. This policy will introduce a difficult choice for those who are seeking to influence the UK in a way that has not previously been the case. That is the right way to proceed, but as I say, we keep these matters under very close review. I am always happy to discuss them outwith this Chamber should he wish to do so.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I thank the Minister for his statement.
Point of Order
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Very worrying media reports have emerged overnight that the Iranian regime may be contemplating a military strike on our base on Diego Garcia. For instance, The Telegraph has reported:
“A senior Iranian official said military commanders have been asked to target the joint UK-US base, which sits on Britain’s Chagos Islands, in an attempt to deter Donald Trump from striking Iran.”
Moreover, in the last hour or so—with Foreign Office questions conveniently out of the way—there are emerging media reports that the Government may have come to a so-called deal with Mauritius over the future of the Chagos islands themselves. If that is true, the UK Parliament has yet again been kept in the dark about the future of what is still, today, British sovereign territory and a vital strategic installation.
Madam Deputy Speaker, may I ask if you, or indeed Mr Speaker, have been given any indication that the Government intend to come to this House to make a statement tonight, or at the very latest tomorrow, about, first, an implied military threat to the Chagos islands, and secondly, a legal and diplomatic threat to the Chagos islands, which are and should remain fundamentally British?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving notice of his point of order. Of course, the Chamber has just been hearing a statement that was in part about threats posed by Iran to the United Kingdom and its interests. However, I can inform him that the Chair has not received any notification of a statement on the specific matter he raises. He will know that those on the Treasury Bench have been listening to his point carefully. As an experienced Member of this House, he will also be considering other ways in which he can make sure that this matter is raised.
Bills Presented
Transport (Duty to Cooperate)
Tuesday 1st April 2025
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
Commons ChamberTransport (Duty to Cooperate) Bill 2024-26 View all Transport (Duty to Cooperate) Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide for a duty on transport authorities and other specified persons to cooperate to reduce transport disruption and to ensure the effective operation of transport networks; to provide for reporting requirements in connection with that duty; to require the publication of assessments of expected transport disruption resulting from maintenance, construction, and other works related to transport infrastructure and ancillary services; and for connected purposes.
As the Member of Parliament for Runnymede and Weybridge, my mission is to keep them moving. We rely on our transport networks to get to work, school or college and doctor’s appointments, or just to see friends and family, whether by road, rail or even air. We are dependent on our transport networks. Discussions about critical infrastructure often focus on big, apparently unprecedented events, such as the recent power failure at Heathrow, but even the smallest road is critical infrastructure if someone cannot leave their house because of an engineering diversion route.
We all welcome work to improve our roads and transport network, and we of course recognise that this may cause some disruption. We understand that there will be temporary disruption for unexpected emergency works, such as a power cut or a gas leak. However, all too often our transport infrastructure in Runnymede and Weybridge is brought to a halt due to multiple planned works happening at the same time, or planned utility works causing recurrent disruption through multiple providers—gas, electricity, water, broadband—digging up the same road over and over again. Disruption should be avoided and minimised, by authorities and providers talking to each other and co-ordinating works. Ensuring co-ordination when road and rail works take place is the purpose of my Bill.
Sadly, in Runnymede and Weybridge, we have loads of examples where co-ordination has not taken place, despite repeated assurances that authorities do co-ordinate and discuss issues regularly. We have had full M25 closures coinciding with mainline rail engineering work, despite reassurances otherwise. Roads in some areas of Chertsey have been repeatedly dug up, often under the guise of urgent works, from gas to water to electricity. Perhaps most infuriatingly, authorities or utilities sometimes do not adequately staff works or leave them unattended, meaning that when the signals failed at Painshill roundabout, and separately in Weybridge, it took hours to resolve because the right equipment and staff were not on site to fix the problem. We understand and expect there to be some disruption, but I believe better planning and co-ordination can prevent and avoid much of what we have seen locally.
Surrey county council has been working hard to address issues on our local road network. I thank the council, and in particular Councillor Jonathan Hulley for his leadership and work on this issue. Surrey has established a new taskforce to drive better co-ordination and communication of works across our road network. Surrey, along with National Highways and six major utility providers, has called on the Department for Transport to make changes to systems and processes to reduce the negative impact of emergency utility works across the county. It has called for changes to digital services used to manage highways works in England to enable prior notice of urgent works where possible, improving communication and co-ordination. Surrey has also called for, among other things: mandatory onsite signage for emergency works to explain delays, the lead agency to improve information for road users, and of course, a requirement for swift completion of works to reduce disruption and support economic productivity.
I fully support the proposals, which could resolve many local issues, but they alone cannot achieve the co-ordination required across networks to address all the issues I have highlighted. That is why I am bringing forward the Bill, calling for a statutory duty to co-ordinate. Under the duty, National Highways could not have informed me that it was unaware of the impact excess trains on the Chertsey branch line would have on level crossings and the local road network on the same weekend as a motorway closure, because it would have been required to communicate, co-ordinate and assess the likely impact of its actions. Under the duty, Network Rail would not have been able to inform me that while it usually does communicate with other authorities, on “this occasion” it forgot. Combined with the work undertaken by Surrey county council, under the duty, utility companies would not have been able to place repeated and unannounced works alongside major diversion routes with impunity. When utility companies dig up the road, they would need to check if anything else needed to be fixed at the same time.
Our transport links are the lifeblood of our communities and our economy. In 2021, National Highways estimated that total delays on its network alone cost £3 billion each year. Add to that the cost of delays on local road networks—hours missed from work, goods stuck in transit—and the value of addressing the issue is clear, if not just for the benefit to our communities but to the UK economy as a whole. I ask the Government and colleagues across the House to support the Bill and the work of colleagues in Surrey to address these issues, and to ensure our national transport infrastructure operates effectively and efficiently for all. Let us keep Runnymede and Weybridge moving.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered, That Dr Ben Spencer, Rebecca Paul and Gregory Stafford present the Bill.
Dr Ben Spencer accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 25 April, and to be printed (Bill 216).
Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords]
Tuesday 1st April 2025
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
Commons ChamberProduct Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL] 2024-26 View all Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [HL] 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 18-R-II(a) Manuscript Amendment for Report (Supplementary tot he Second Marshalled List) - (5 Mar 2025)
18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 110 / Noes: 302 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:12 - The House divided: - Ayes: 303 / Noes: 110 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
The reasoned amendment in the name of Andrew Griffith has been selected.
The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Jonathan Reynolds)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State give way? [Laughter.]
Sir Desmond Swayne
When did weights and measures become metrology? Is this use of newspeak deliberate to cover an Orwellian attempt to cloak this huge grab for power, and to what end?
Jonathan Reynolds
I am grateful for that intervention very early on in proceedings. I cannot provide a definitive answer to the right hon. Gentleman on the naming of the Bill, but I promise that I will find out and put it to him in writing. But he will know that the Bill was, I believe, originally planned by the previous Government because of the need to repatriate powers to the United Kingdom as a result of our exit from the European Union. It is something we need in our toolkit, so, far from being Orwellian, it is a pragmatic, practical proposal. I look forward to now making the case for it in more detail.
The primary mission of this Government, and the driving force of my Department, is stronger economic growth: not just growth that looks good on paper, but growth that is seen and is felt on our high streets, in our towns and cities, and in the communities we serve; growth that reverses 15 years of stagnation, with all the negative consequences we all felt during that time. To do that, we need an economy in which shops and small businesses can compete on a more level playing field with online marketplaces and the big tech giants. We need an economy that promotes investment and innovation, but at the same time ensures consumers and businesses have real, modern protections. That is why the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill is a small but hugely important piece of legislation, one that will further cement the UK’s status as a world leader in product regulation and safety.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend is giving an important introduction to the Bill. Does he agree that international alignment in the standards we are discussing on scientific matters is essential for the smooth operation of modern advanced manufacturing?
Jonathan Reynolds
I am hugely grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I believe I am correct in saying that he is not only a metrologist, but the first metrologist elected to Parliament. I put no heavy expectations on his speech today, but we are all looking forward to it with interest.
My hon. Friend is right that there are areas where we will choose to work with international standards, and there will be areas where we choose to diverge, but that decision is made possible only by having the powers to begin with. No decisions will be made in this Bill, if it becomes an Act of Parliament, as to how we will do that; however, without it, we would not have the toolkit to make those decisions. The essence of these proposed laws is that we are taking back control for the House of Commons and Parliament to make these kinds of decisions.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The Secretary of State will be aware from the Second Reading debate in the Lords that a number of what I shall gently refer to as Eurosceptic peers have expressed concerns that the Bill is a form of dynamic alignment with the European Union, and that, far from taking back control over which standards are involved and which guidelines are necessary, we will be abdicating control in favour of whatever the European Union decides. Can he set our minds at rest over those concerns? I am sure he would not wish to be diverted along such a dead-end route.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention; he always brings wisdom to these debates. I can absolutely give him the assurance that the Bill makes no decision as to how we should use these powers. The reason we are bringing it forward today is the same reason the previous Conservative Government first proposed a Bill of this kind: having left the European Union, we need the powers to properly regulate these products in this way; without this legislation, we would not necessarily have the ability to do that.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
On that specific point, further to the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), that presumably means that the Government will press for recognition of UK standards where they prevail and where we think we are doing the job better. There will absolutely be occasions where we can learn from others, and other occasions where they can learn from us. Is that the Government’s intention? Will the Secretary of State make that clear now?
Jonathan Reynolds
I am more than happy to make that clear. We see that in a number of areas—it is the case across the whole field of regulation. Let us look at AI, which is topical right now: we have chosen a different regulatory path in the UK from the European Union, which is to our economic advantage. I am very confident in the approach that we are taking. I am sure that when I get to the provisions of the Bill, and in particular when it comes to weights and measures, the whole House will be united in being able to say that we believe that traditional British standards are particularly important to us.
I say again, however, that having the power to set standards in itself makes no decision as to how these powers are used. We can all clearly recognise the need to repatriate these powers to our own statute book.
Jonathan Reynolds
I was going to make a little progress, but I cannot resist the right hon. Gentleman.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I just want to raise a small point. When I was doing some work on this matter for a previous Government, looking at what we could do with our regulations and standards on leaving the EU, it became apparent that the UK is behind only America and China globally in setting standards for the rest of the world. To what degree is the Secretary of State planning to enhance that, rather than returning to any European usage of standards, when we already dominate the field?
Jonathan Reynolds
The right hon. Gentleman will have heard me say just now that our intention is to cement the UK’s status as a world leader in product regulation and safety. I am sure we would all recognise the tremendous benefits for both consumers and businesses that come from being a jurisdiction whose consumer protections are widely recognised and where people have confidence that the goods and services they buy will be to the highest standard possible. Where we see gaps in our provision, because of the substantial change that has occurred with our leaving the European Union, we would surely want to fill those gaps so that we are in a position to continue our success in this area.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
The Minister gives the House the assurance that the idea is not to take us back to EU laws or to have EU laws imposed on the United Kingdom, and yet the Bill heavily references EU laws. How does he explain that?
Jonathan Reynolds
I can explain it very clearly. Colleagues who are interested in this legislation will have followed the proceedings in the other place and the discussions on this area. I put the case very straightforwardly: we do not have the ability without this Bill to regulate product standards in a whole range of areas. There are some cases where there will be a strong consumer or business demand for alignment with other jurisdictions; there will also be cases where we wish to diverge, because we see that as being in our economic interests.
However, we surely all accept that we cannot have a position where we do not have the ability to regulate key products, and in particular products that have come from the new technology that is available and the opportunities that come from that. Once again, I say politely to anyone on the Opposition Benches who is not quite reassured that the previous Conservative Government were planning a similar Bill to fill this exact gap in the statute book.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)
I would like to make two points. First, this House can do what it wants. It does not need this Bill to regulate anything. To say that is does simply is not true. Secondly, on the question of whether the Bill will lead to dynamic realignment with the EU, can the Secretary of State explain what clause 2(7)(a) is for? It seems to me that it could be used to dynamically realign with EU regulations.
Sir John Hayes
I wish to give the Secretary of State time to read the clause. He owes me now, Madam Deputy Speaker.
The key thing is that we must not use EU standards as the default. The hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) is right that we have the authority to make our own standards, and we often do so very well. But the risk is that where we have not yet done that, the EU standard will become the default position. The Minister can make it crystal clear to us today that that is not the case.
Jonathan Reynolds
As ever, I am particularly grateful to the right hon. Member for his courtesy. To my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer), I say that clause 2(7) says:
“Product regulations may provide that a product requirement is to be treated as met if—”.
It clearly says “may” and “if”. Again, I say that there will be times when it is in our economic interest to have a close relationship with the product standards in, for instance, the European Union or another jurisdiction. There will also be times when it is not. That will be our choice. I think we would all recognise the absence of powers without this Bill.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman makes reference to the ability of this House to make regulations. We can, of course, do so by primary legislation. There was a parliamentarian who said that
“the use of delegated powers carries a risk of abuse by the Executive, which is not something the Opposition could ever support.”––[Official Report, Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Public Bill Committee, 1 February 2018; c. 305.]
The Secretary of State should agree with that, because it was he who said it.
Jonathan Reynolds
That was obviously part of a very wise set of remarks that I made from the Dispatch Box. But, yes, we must recognise that. I say again, because the Bill has been through the other place, that changes have been made as a result of that feedback: we have removed a number of Henry VIII powers; we have introduced a consultation requirement; we have provided for additional affirmative resolution procedures; and we have said that we will publish a code of conduct that sets out the statutory and non-statutory controls to ensure that regulation is proportionate, evidence-based and developed through consultation. Because of the process that we have been through, we have responded to the kind of concerns that I was wisely articulating in relation to primary legislation.
Perhaps it will be of use to the House if I say a little about that journey and the work of the other place in this regard. I wish to thank in particular my ministerial colleague, Lord Leong, for his great efforts in taking the Bill through the other place. I also thank the many Members and Committees of the other House for their assistance in creating what I believe is strong and effective legislation—legislation that will benefit millions of UK businesses, tens of millions of consumers, and, of course, all those who enjoy a pint or two at the pub.
Dr Murrison
The Minister is right to praise the House of Lords for making sure that the great British pint is in this Bill as an exclusion from the metrology regulations. However, this will not satisfy the metric martyrs. The Minister will remember that the ability to sell in imperial measures was a big issue a few years ago. Why is it that there is an elaborate schedule to the product regulations, but not to metrology, and why in particular is food generically not included in the exemptions from what the Minister proposes to do?
Jonathan Reynolds
We would say with confidence that there was never a danger to the pint, but because of the concerns that were raised in the other place and perhaps by some colleagues here, I am more than happy to have made the changes to assure everyone present and everyone watching that the pint will be defended and secured in the Bill. I have to say that I have received no entreaties from businesses that they wish to sell in imperial measurements. However, if the right hon. Gentleman believes that there is an absence of provisions in the Bill, he can write to me and I shall write back to him and hopefully be able to reassure him. I think he may be misplaced in thinking that that is a principal issue for UK businesses.
As all hon. Members know, the digital age in which we live has created significant growth opportunities. The consumer and technology landscapes that we have today are almost unrecognisable from those we had 20 or 30 years ago, so the products that we buy and the way in which we buy them are evolving rapidly. That means that the relevant rules and regulations must adapt, too. If we are to protect consumers and businesses, especially smaller firms, that is essential.
As we have examined in some detail, product regulation and metrology are policy areas that have largely been repatriated from the EU following our withdrawal in 2021. Since then the UK Government have simply not had the necessary powers to continue regulating these areas effectively. We have brought forward this legislation so that we can respond to anticipated changes in the global regulatory landscape. That is why, to be frank, I am somewhat bemused by the reasoned amendments tabled today.
The Bill will ensure that the UK is better placed to address modern-day safety issues. It gives us the power to better regulate items such as potentially dangerous baby sleep products and toys. It will enable us to reduce burdens on business and keep up with technological developments, for example by updating the outdoor noise regulations in Great Britain. It will align testing methods across the UK, which was overwhelmingly supported in our recent call for evidence, and it will protect the public from noise pollution from products like lawn mowers and power generators.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
I have only closely scrutinised the Bill today, so I am just bringing myself up to date on this. It appears to give the Secretary of State the power to ban any product he wishes for whatever reason. We make law in this place not for when we are dealing with a Minister of the moral calibre of the right hon. Gentleman, but on the basis that we might have someone who lacks such qualities; that is who we legislate for. Is it true that this Bill would give the Secretary of State the power to ban literally any product, and that all that would have to be done is to notify this House?
Jonathan Reynolds
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his concern and his regard. I believe that if we were of the view that a product was a danger to the public, the right hon. Gentleman would expect me as Secretary of State in my Department to take action. If he is concerned about provisions in the Bill, he can look to the changes that have been made. It has been through an extensive scrutiny process in the other place, particularly in relation to the powers and delegated powers given to the Secretary of State. I think he recognises the case we are making for the safety of the public; indeed, it is why Opposition Members themselves recognise the need for a Bill of this kind.
The Bill will help to create a level playing field between the high street and online marketplaces. Critically, we are able to protect consumers by reducing the number of unsafe and non-complying goods that are sold online. This could include asking sites to verify third-party sellers before allowing them to list their goods or to have a product safety reporting function for customers on their sites. One example is e-scooters and e-bikes, which like many products are reliant on lithium-ion batteries. These batteries have been attributed as the cause of a number of fires in recent years, both in households and on public transport.
While we know that the vast majority of products are safe, in recent years we have seen some goods mis-sold by a minority of unscrupulous manufacturers and sellers. As a result, low-standard, high-risk products have been able to enter the UK market. Some people have paid for this with their homes and, in some cases, their lives. I think we would all recognise that that is unconscionable.
I want to pay tribute to the family of Sofia Duarte. Sofia tragically died when a bicycle that had been converted into an e-bike burst into flames. The bike’s lithium battery pack failed, causing a fire on new year’s day 2023. I know that the whole House will join me in recognising the bravery and courage of Sofia’s family in campaigning for change in memory of their daughter and in fighting for better regulation of e-bikes, along with the batteries and chargers associated with them. I also thank the London Fire Brigade for its campaigning on this issue in recent years. It has been on the frontline, seeing at first hand the devastation that has been wrought by some of these products.
This Bill is about keeping the public safe. The Office for Product Safety and Standards has taken action in this area already. It has issued 26 withdrawal notices on eight online marketplaces, two manufacturers and 16 sellers. This has removed two dangerous models of e-bike battery from sale, and I am glad that the legislation we are discussing today will allow us to consider further steps on enforcement.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I have campaigned for greater regulation of bicycles, which have got away with killing individuals, not to mention e-bikes. I want to pick the Secretary of State up on a particular point. I do not disagree with him on the need for regulation, and it should have been done some time ago, so we are as one on that. However, I still do not think that he has quite answered the question posed by the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) just now. Why do we need to have a wide-sweeping Bill like this if we could do it already in the House by vote?
If we have a powerful enough argument to say to both Houses, “This must be done,” then they will see it through very quickly by the power of persuasion, but they would have the right to vote on it and to disagree. The Bill takes that right away and achieves the same result, but only by way of a diktat from whoever is in power—and, by the way, I agreed with what the Secretary of State said in opposition.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am sorry that we have not convinced the right hon. Gentleman, but I am certain that the Government need powers in this area. We need to be able to respond to fast-moving changes in technology and regulation. The public would expect me, as Secretary of State, as well as my Department and the Government, to have these powers to keep them safe. Perhaps we have not convinced him at this stage, but he can look at proceedings in the other place and in Committee.
Jonathan Reynolds
I will give way one more time before we come to the amendments that were made in the Lords.
Jerome Mayhew
I am genuinely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He says that he has failed to persuade Opposition Members in this place, but does he accept that he has also failed to persuade the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in the other place? That Committee, which is chaired by Labour, said last month:
“We remain of the view”
that
“the delegation to Ministers of law-making powers in this Bill involves legislative power shifting to an unacceptable extent from the…legislature to the Executive.”
Why does he think the Committee remains against his view?
Jonathan Reynolds
I find that when political parties go into opposition, all of a sudden they seem less keen on the Government having decisive powers to take action in a whole range of areas. We have listened carefully to the criticism from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, and significant changes have been made to the legislation, which I am happy to take the hon. Member through. They relate to the number of Henry VIII powers, the consultation requirement and the additional affirmative resolution procedure. We are always seeking feedback.
I will now go through some of the other amendments that were made in the other place.
Jonathan Reynolds
The question I always have for the right hon. Gentleman is: is it going to be good? I will give way one more time.
Graham Stuart
It will be brief. Forget the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee; what about the Secretary of State’s colleague, Lord Leong? He said in the House of Lords that he did not think the Bill was right. In what way does it need to be improved? Will the Secretary of State look carefully at the extent of these powers? Even from this short debate, it is clear how wide-ranging and over the top they are.
Jonathan Reynolds
On Second Reading, we have a Bill that is even stronger than the one that started in the other House. Once again, I thank all our colleagues in the other place for their constructive feedback and contributions to the debate. I will not go through every change that has been made, but I will mention some aspects of the Bill that have been strengthened.
First, we have amended the Bill to ensure that there is more parliamentary scrutiny, and we have provided for a statutory consultation requirement to ensure that regulations are informed by those who would be impacted by them. There will also be that additional use of the affirmative procedure for regulations stemming from the Bill. Secondly, the Bill now includes a requirement for me, as the Secretary of State, to publish a statement setting out how my Department expects to identify and assess high-risk products.
Finally, contrary to previous suggestions from the Conservative party, the great British pint will clearly not be affected by this legislation, whether that is ale, cider or indeed milk. We do not believe that the Bill in its original form posed any threat to the pint, but we do not want to run the risk of colleagues thinking that my reassurances are small beer, so we accepted an amendment tabled in the other place that will give the pint statutory protection. That means, Madam Deputy Speaker, that in a few weeks’ time, when I hope you will confirm to the House that the Bill has received Royal Assent, we will all be able to raise a pint—protected under statute—to the Bill. I did inquire about whether I was allowed to bring a pint with me to the Chamber to illustrate the point, but that is apparently not in order; only the Chancellor has that ability. Given the week I am having, perhaps we will look at that at a later date.
To summarise, this legislation will finally enable the Government to properly regulate in areas where we have been unable to do so post Brexit. It will also give us the tools we need to better regulate modern-day consumer products. The Bill will help to create a fairer environment for high street shops and small businesses, support our growth mission and provide better protection for millions of consumers. For all those reasons, I commend the Bill to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add:
“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill [Lords] because it will provide for regulatory alignment with the European Union, and it has been condemned three times by the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee as a skeleton Bill which provides, without justification, inappropriately wide powers for Ministers to re-write the regulatory regimes for product safety and the weights and measures of goods by regulations.”
Too often when the public think of Parliament, they think of out-of-touch power and bad laws. The Bill is the archetype of everything that is wrong with Westminster. There should be an unwritten rule in this postcode: never trust a Bill with a convoluted name. This Bill is no exception.
Although it professes to simplify our regulatory framework, the reality is that this is an EU Trojan horse of a Bill, which will sabotage our Brexit freedoms, undermine the integrity of the United Kingdom, disrespect Parliament, befuddle British business with uncertainty and take us back to being a Brussels rule-taker—all from a party that voted 48 times to overturn the will of the British people.
Andrew Griffith
I will not, but before I get into further—[Interruption.] I will say something nice about the right hon. Gentleman in a minute.
Before I get into detail, let me welcome the Government’s U-turn on their plan to scrap the great British pint. Let us hope that that is the first of many. When I raised that on 26 February, Labour Members described it as “a conspiracy theory”. The hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) said it was “scaremongering”, and the Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Ealing North (James Murray), said that an amendment was no more needed than a
“law to say that the sun must rise in the morning.”—[Official Report, 26 February 2025; Vol. 762, c. 812.]
The truth is that the Government were caught red-handed trying to ditch our British pint by this back-door Bill. Had the Opposition not fought back, the power to crush the British pint would have rested on the whim of a Minister’s pen. Welcome though that U-turn is, let us not ignore the fact that the Labour Government wanted to give themselves the power in the first place.
Andrew Griffith
I will give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner).
Laurence Turner
I thank the shadow Minister for giving way, and I hope he will also give way to my right hon. Friend on the Front Bench. Will he tell the House what possible motive he thinks a Labour Government would have for scrapping the pint?
Andrew Griffith
The Labour motive is all too plain to see. This is a Labour party that voted 48 times to reject the will of the British people, led by the Prime Minister, who sought a second referendum to overturn that will. I accept that the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield was not in the House at the time, but he might want to spend some time with his colleagues in the Tea Room and hear precisely what happened.
Andrew Griffith
No, I will make some progress.
The anti-pub, anti-hospitality agenda goes far beyond this Bill. The jobs tax, the threshold change, the attack on seasonal and flexible working, the more than doubling of business rates, the war on pub banter and the garden smoking ban are all from this Government. Our hospitality industry—the Secretary of State is smirking—deserves infinitely better than this from this Government.
Andrew Griffith
I am happy to give way if the right hon. Gentleman talks about what he will do to repeal the Employment Rights Bill.
Jonathan Reynolds
The hon. Member was a senior member of the previous Government and played a well-known role in the mini Budget, as well as a number of other things that that Government did. Will he confirm that they were planning exactly the same piece of legislation because of an absence in the statute book?
Andrew Griffith
Once again, the Secretary of State has failed to engage on the key issue, which is that British businesses—[Interruption.] It is not funny. British businesses are bleeding out, business confidence is at a record low, unemployment is rising, and all the Government have to talk about is the past, not what they are currently delivering.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
My hon. Friend was asked just now whether the previous Government were likely to have introduced this legislation. May I set the record straight? Had we done so, the Secretary of State would have voted against it.
Andrew Griffith
Let me move on. The biggest flaw of many in this Bill is that, as the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart) have both identified, it hands over too much power with too little accountability. There is
“a real need to consider the balance between primary and secondary legislation, which in recent years has weighed too heavily in favour of delegated powers…excessive reliance on delegated powers, Henry VIII clauses, or skeleton legislation—”
such as this Bill—
“upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive.”
Those are not my words, but those of the Attorney General. They are taken from a speech that he made in October, while in government, about the importance of restoring parliamentary sovereignty. No one who considered that speech could fail to agree.
The Lords’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has slammed the Bill not once, not twice, but three times, including after the Government’s changes were made. To put this into context, the wide powers contained in this 15-page Bill will allow Ministers unilaterally to amend product safety regulation, impose obligations on online marketplaces, meddle with standards for weights and measures or entirely align British regulatory standards with the European Union, posing a threat to the integrity of the UK internal market. It is 15 pages of the most egregious Whitehall overreach.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that this is yet another hammer blow to British businesses? We have had the Labour Government introducing £25 billion of tax with the employers’ national insurance contribution, £5 billion of costs with workers’ rights and a never-ending increase in energy bills as they drive forward on their net zero fantasy. Now they will be able to change regulation more or less on a whim, whenever they feel like it, destroying certainty and confidence for British businesses.
Andrew Griffith
My right hon. Friend makes a serious and important point. I take the Secretary of State in good faith when he says that he desires for his Government to grow the economy—every Government should, and I believe that this Government should as well—but he must recognise that every single action he takes will take us further away from that goal by piling on the red tape and increasing the level of tax. The regulatory jeopardy in this Bill will do the same, by simply making it impossible to know what product regulations will look like. How can any business plan for the future when the powers offered up by the Bill introduce such a prospect of unpredictable regulatory change?
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that someone sitting at home watching this will be worried by the argument that it is more important to stick to some anti-EU dogma than it is to protect their children from dangerous products, or to keep dangerous electric bikes off the market and regulate for their safety?
Andrew Griffith
With the very best will in the world, I think the hon. Lady can do a great deal better than that. As hon. Members have said, this House can legislate. If there are dangerous products, bring those use cases here, and I believe that across the House we will legislate rapidly to protect our constituents’ safety. However, our constituents did not send us here to pass a 15-page Bill full of skeleton powers to give the Secretary of State an unlimited ability to regulate without having to consult this place.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The challenge for many of us who were here during the previous Parliament, when the hon. Member was in office and had the power to diverge, is that we watched what happened and we saw the cost to British business. That is why the previous Government decided in the end to abandon the British charter mark, is it not? Would he care to tell the House how much proceeding with his plans would have cost British business? It was £1.6 billion, in case he does not know. British businesses need to hear that we get it. They do not want more paperwork; they want less.
Andrew Griffith
I am genuinely intrigued, and I shall sit here and listen to the hon. Lady’s speech later on. Does she want divergence? Does she want us to use our Brexit freedoms, or does she seek to go back to being a rule taker and converge?
We have not heard a compelling argument from the Secretary of State today as to why these powers should be granted. It is right that we in this House adopt the precautionary principle, and if the Secretary of State, or the Minister in winding up, can give us some more compelling use cases, I am sure we would consider that.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
This is all very important. There has been some merriment about the pint, but in the novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell, the hero goes into a pub, and somebody there laments the fact that the despotic regime has just abolished the pint and forced people to drink litres. The road to serfdom is paved by many steps such as this. By the way, when I was Minister for consumer affairs many years ago, we regularly banned things. We did not need this Bill.
Andrew Griffith
My right hon. Friend makes the perfect point that this is precisely what the road to serfdom looks like, whether it is serfdom to an individual Minister at a moment in time or serfdom to an unelected Brussels bureaucratic elite. Why would we give up the powers of this House, the reason why we are sent here, and the ability to hold the Government to account?
Dr Murrison
The hon. Member described the Bill as a Trojan horse—it is more like a Trojan donkey. Does he agree that clause 2(7) is a particular problem, because it appears to take European Union regulations as the baseline for determining safety? To many of us, the assumption that European Union regulations should be the starting point for any safety regulations that we might want to make seems somewhat bizarre.
Andrew Griffith
The right hon. Gentleman is exactly right, and we can contrast the number of references to the European Union throughout the Bill with, for example, our biggest single country trading partner—the United States.
Jonathan Reynolds
I want to directly answer the point made by the right hon. Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) and provide clarification that I have just sought. Clause 2(7)(a) is not about alignment; it is about recognition. We already recognise certain EU product requirements on a mutual recognition basis, and where it is of benefit to do so, that is what the clause allows. Rather than take European standards as the basis for our own and align with them, it enables that where it is recognised that we have the interest. I can write to him in detail if he wishes.
Andrew Griffith
On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), I thank the Secretary of State for intervening. It is important that we legislate with full understanding of what the law says, but the point still stands on the overweighting of references to EU standards versus comparable standards from the United States and Commonwealth friends of this great nation.
Sir John Hayes
On that note, the point is the one I made to the Secretary of State: where, as the impact assessment suggests, regulations are moving at pace—the Secretary of State repeated that—we will default to a European set of standards. That is the problem, and that is certainly implied in the Bill’s impact assessment. I sought the Secretary of State’s assurance that that will not happen. If it does not happen, will there be no rules or regulations? How will that work in practice?
Andrew Griffith
We are having the proper debate through these interventions that perhaps we should have had when the Secretary of State was introducing the Bill. That illustrates the point about putting a vast amount of ambiguity—even if it is well intentioned—into the law and how things will operate, and for a reason of which we know not. If there are instances of, for example, e-scooters catching fire in people’s halls, this House has the ability to legislate, and legislate fast where necessary, against those particular harms at that particular moment in time. My right hon. Friend, with his many years of experience in this House, understands that point, and I think that was what he was saying.
Sammy Wilson
Although Opposition Members will perhaps deliberately choose to believe that the words and assurances given are ambiguous, does the hon. Member accept that even Government Members in the House of Lords believe there is an ambiguity that needs to be cleared up? One comment was:
“The question of dynamic alignment with the EU remains unanswered yet ever more topical.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 12 March 2025; Vol. 844, c. 712.]
Andrew Griffith
The hon. Member makes exactly the right point. This is a blank cheque Bill and a Trojan horse Bill. It is simply not clear under this Secretary of State, or any Secretary of State in the future once these powers have been ceded by this place, how they will be implemented. There is a real asymmetry in the constant litany of references to the European Union—a valued trading partners of ours, but only one valued trading partner of ours, as I hope the Secretary of State is about to reveal over the coming days. Tomorrow we understand that tariffs will be imposed by the United States on British exporters. If that is the case, that would be the worst failure of trade policy for a generation. It is businesses, jobs and our economy that will all pay the price. The Chancellor’s emergency Budget will not have lasted a single week because she made no provision for the imposition of tariffs—if that is indeed what is to come.
It is frankly outrageous that the Government have failed to make a statement about where we are, despite the Prime Minister’s official spokesman briefing the Lobby, and the Business and Trade Secretary himself finding time this morning to conduct a round of media interviews. If the Secretary of State would like to comment on the progress of US talks, I will happily give way.
Jonathan Reynolds
This is a little off-topic for a Second Reading, but the hon. Gentleman could have just listened to the “Today” programme this morning. He would have heard me articulate those concerns. We are engaged with our US counterparts, more so than any other country, in those negotiations. He will know that I will not share the content or detail of those talks. The policy originates with the President of the United States and we are responding to and engaging with it. The hon. Gentleman will understand that it comes from the mandate and the agenda of the US Administration.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I remind the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State that we are debating the Second Reading of the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, and not necessarily tariffs.
Andrew Griffith
Of course, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am nearing a conclusion in any case. However, I do think that the issue of product safety—the rules and regulations that govern our economy, as the Secretary of State himself said—is intrinsically linked with trade, mutual recognition and growing the economy by removing trade frictions and barriers rather than erecting them and subjecting businesses to the tyranny of simply not understanding the corpus of rules and regulations.
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Does he, like me, hope that the Liberal Democrats, despite their hobby-horse love of the EU, do not allow the EU flavouring of the Bill to blind them to the frankly illiberal Executive-enhancing, legislature-diminishing aspect of the Bill? If they genuinely aspire to being His Majesty’s Opposition, they will join us this evening in voting against Second Reading.
Andrew Griffith
My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I hope, as the Secretary of State slightly alluded to in his remarks about the ability of a country to make its own rules and regulations, that we will soon be back in the House with a Government statement at which we can celebrate the mother of all Brexit benefits: securing the ability to conduct our own trade. I look forward to hearing from the Liberal Democrats exactly how much they welcome that ability on behalf of their constituents.
Christine Jardine
Although I cannot speak immediately for all Liberal Democrats, it puzzles us that the official Opposition do not seem to recognise that if they had legislated properly when we left the European Union, this legislation would not be necessary. Do they not accept any responsibility for where we are today?
Andrew Griffith
We will not accept any lessons from the Liberal Democrats about what it takes to Brexit successfully and go back to being an independent nation, but if that is what the hon. Lady will speak about, I look forward to hearing it.
To conclude, the Bill is flawed in so many ways. With the best will in the world, Ministers should not be proposing it, particularly given their failure so far to protect us from US tariffs. It is a bad Bill from a Government who are already failing. It is a travesty for anyone who cares about respect for parliamentary democracy and the role of this House versus Ministers. It is, as I said, a Trojan horse Bill that will sabotage our Brexit freedoms and take us back to being an EU rule taker, which the British people had long put behind us. I urge the House to back our reasoned amendment and end this terrible Bill.
Michael Wheeler (Worsley and Eccles) (Lab)
I welcome this essential and timely Bill, which upgrades our product safety, regulation and metrology—a word that I admit I had to look up, but it does not take much to understand it—framework, delivering a much-needed boost to protections for consumers and ensuring that every company in the UK, whether they operate online or on our high streets, upholds the high product safety and quality standards that working people in this country deserve and that have been absent for too long.
Whether it is faulty carbon monoxide alarms, dangerous children’s toys or the issue of spontaneously combusting e-bikes and scooters, which has been raised with me by my constituents in Worsley and Eccles, examples of hazardous products being on sale are far too common. Clearly, there is an urgent need to raise the bar on consumer product safety in this country. The Bill achieves that aim, establishing a modern safety regime that will enable companies to operate safely, while accounting for the post-Brexit regulatory landscape.
In an increasingly turbulent international trading environment, it is imperative that the Government update the UK’s product regulations. However, since our exit from the EU, the Government have not had the necessary powers to meet the challenges presented by the fast-moving global product safety standards environment. That has left British consumers vulnerable to falling behind with regard to protections.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s argument. I have been in this House for a little while; I have sat on both sides of the House, and I have been in government. I have never come across a Government who have failed to get regulation through when they feel it is necessary to do so, but it goes through with debate. We cannot just impose regulations because we think it is right. There has to be some measure of whether it is balanced and whether it works, and that is normally done by this House. Why give it to the Government alone?
Michael Wheeler
If the system we have in place was working, we would not be here debating this, and we would not see these shoddy products on sale or these fires. The only explanation is either that the system does not work or the last Government failed in their duty to the people of this country.
As I was saying, this has left British consumers vulnerable to falling behind with regard to protections in rapidly emerging areas of product safety that need reaction—for example, those related to new technologies such as AI and lithium-ion batteries. I therefore support the Bill’s provisions to enable the Government to meet the fast-moving challenges of the day in these areas.
Graham Stringer
I am interested that my hon. Friend mentions AI. There are three major systems around the world being proposed for artificial intelligence regulation: those in China, the EU and the United States. If we have to make a choice for our own framework, which might be different from those, for the safety of people in industry, why should that not be done on the Floor of this House rather than through delegated regulation? It is one of the most important issues that will face us in the coming years.
Michael Wheeler
I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention. I will happily admit to the House that I am not an expert on AI. I do, however, recognise that the fast-developing nature of AI as it relates to consumer safety and product regulation requires a rapid response, which is potentially not necessarily suited to a full debate on the Floor of the House.
Graham Stuart
Can the hon. Gentleman give a single instance of a Government at any time in the past decade not being able to take action on a seriously risky product? I cannot think of one.
Michael Wheeler
I can think of several—for example, the lack of regulation around the e-bikes and e-scooters on our streets that are causing fires. We are in a fast-moving environment, and we are creating a framework that will future-proof our system.
Ms Creasy
I want to help my hon. Friend out, because he was not here when the previous Government introduced the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which deleted more than 4,000 laws and used statutory instruments to replace them. The right hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), who was a Minister at the time, is nodding his head as if that process was acceptable. He is now challenging a colleague who was not here at the time by saying that somehow it is not acceptable now, but it was acceptable then. My hon. Friend is right to be concerned and slightly sceptical about the Opposition’s sudden agreement that statutory instruments are perhaps not the best way forward.
Michael Wheeler
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. We are dealing with a regulatory black hole that was left behind, and the absence of a framework is letting down the consumers and people of this country—[Interruption.] I was about to say that I am sure we would all agree on that, but that is potentially a stretch in this debate and in this Chamber.
I hope that we do agree that consumers should be able to buy products online without worrying about their safety, and that product standards should not be bypassed or compromised on any platform, digital or otherwise. However, research by the Office for Product Safety and Standards found that 81%—eight in 10—of products for sale on online marketplaces between 2021 and 2022 failed to meet safety standards, which underlines the need for the Bill. We cannot allow companies to circumvent essential safety standards, presenting a public health risk just because they sell their products online.
However, the Bill is not just about safety, critical though that is; it is also about ensuring fairness. We simply cannot continue with a product safety regime that enables online marketplaces to undercut bricks-and-mortar retailers, or that allows rogue traders to out-compete responsible retailers with unsafe, low-quality products. That is unfair on consumers, reputable manufacturers and the small high street businesses that must compete with the online giants. With online sales already making up over a quarter of total retail sales in 2023, we must level that playing field now, providing our high streets with a long overdue boost to their competitiveness.
Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point about product regulation, but is the issue that he is highlighting not actually about enforcement? I have no issue with legislating for product regulation safety standards, but they already exist. In fact, he says that there are products that do not meet the safety standards, so we know that those standards exist. The issue that he highlights is purely around enforcement, which this Bill does nothing to address.
Michael Wheeler
I disagree that the issue is “purely” around enforcement. Obviously, there are elements of enforcement, but separating out one part of a package—a regulatory framework that will future-proof us from other issues—is not a coherent argument.
To conclude, it is vital that we create a product safety, regulatory and metrology framework that protects consumers, encourages fair competition and meets the changing picture internationally. This Bill delivers that framework, and I look forward to supporting it further in this House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
I declare an interest having spent 40 years in the toy industry and, in another life, having been the chair and the president of the British Toy & Hobby Association. It was a wonderful job—the second-best job. The best job is being the first ever Liberal Democrat MP for Wokingham.
Clive Jones
I doubt that very much.
Nearly a decade since the Brexit referendum, this House is still grappling with what it means to be outside of the European Union. Away from the big headlines about trade deals and newly erected borders, the technical nitty-gritty of product safety and metrology is ever more important now that we must decide what we want our policies to be in this area. Our original framework, derived from EU law, must now keep up with fast-evolving technologies and consumer behaviours. Technological changes in the 21st century may have created new opportunities, but they have also left us exposed to new risks, such as AI, battery hazards and e-bike fires.
Our online marketplaces and the complex digital commerce that facilitates them have reduced barriers to small and medium-sized enterprises sharing their products across the UK and the world, but the internet is still a wild west in many ways, leaving small businesses and consumers exposed. That is why the Liberal Democrats welcome aspects of this Bill. We fully understand and support the need to update the regulatory framework for the UK marketplace to give businesses and consumers confidence in their products. We welcome in principle the powers in the Bill to put new responsibilities on online marketplaces throughout the supply chain, and we support enhanced consumer protection for products that pose a safety risk.
The product regulations falling in scope of this Bill will have an impact on our country’s trade policy, and the Liberal Democrats are clear when it comes to trade: we believe the Government must pull the most powerful and readily available lever at their disposal to kickstart economic growth by urgently launching negotiations for a new UK-EU customs union. That would create jobs, boost our public finances and reverse much of the damage inflicted on our economy by the previous Conservative Government’s terrible trade deal with Europe. I take this opportunity to urge the Government to move in that direction and to commit that, as part of these trade negotiations, they will use the provisions in the Bill to facilitate a new customs union, which could have such a transformative effect on our economy.
Jonathan Reynolds
I am really grateful to the hon. Gentleman for engaging with the issues about product safety and consumer protection in the Bill, and he is making a serious speech in relation to them.
First, on the point of the customs union, which was skilfully woven into his speech, that would preclude us from reaching any arrangements with the United States, India, the Gulf states or other countries. For my money, if we wish to be part of something without a say in how it would affect our trade policy, that would be a very difficult position to take. I will come back to the references made by Conservative MPs, who often feel like they are fighting the old, last war. They cannot get past it—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. First, I gently suggest to the Secretary of State that he is meant to be making an intervention. Secondly, we are quite definitely debating the Second Reading of the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, not a customs union. Perhaps the Secretary of State will conclude his remarks.
Jonathan Reynolds
I will, Madam Deputy Speaker. In relation to the number of references made to the EU in this Bill, the EU is explicitly referenced simply because UK product regulations are derived from a lot of EU regulations. We have to reference that when looking to the future, particularly when we recognise some of those European standards, but it is wrong to simply look at those references and try to make them out to be something they are not.
Clive Jones
Thank you for your intervention, Secretary of State. You are right—
Clive Jones
Sorry. The Secretary of State is right when he talks about us needing to keep up with EU regulations. We definitely need to do that.
Despite the potential in this Bill, unfortunately it contains very little actual policy. It relies far too heavily on secondary legislation, which limits opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny and provides little clarity on what the Government actually intend to do with the powers they are giving themselves. The Bill hurls us into a hokey-cokey trade policy in which, at Ministers’ political whims, we can stick ourselves into aligning with the EU just as easily as we can throw ourselves out of it all over again if another Government decided they wanted to do that. It will also hurt business confidence, because the underlying regulations of our country can be easily altered without the appropriate levels of scrutiny from Parliament.
Taking a step back from the issue of EU alignment, this principle can apply across any of the areas that this Bill seeks to regulate. It is developing opaque mechanisms on which the Government expect us to trust them to do better. However, Government Members must contend with the fact that they will not be there forever. All the potentially positive things they could do with this legislation could be reversed or made worse by a different Government.
It is at this point that I must recognise the excellent work of the Liberal Democrat peers. For example, a Lib Dem lord introduced an amendment that protected the use of the unique British pint measurement, ensuring that the Bill could not prevent or restrict its use for beer, cider, or milk in the iconic pint bottle. Liberal Democrat peers pressed the Government to introduce stronger protections against lithium-ion batteries, and a Liberal Democrat peer also ensured that the Government included an important amendment that requires the Secretary of State to publish a statement setting out how the Government expect to identify and assess product safety risks before legislation is laid. Put simply, this will ensure greater scrutiny of regulations that are designed to make products safe.
Despite those improvements, the Bill is still ultimately a skeleton framework that shifts legislative authority from Parliament to the Executive without the necessary level of scrutiny. Many great Ministers agree with me that skeleton Bills are the wrong way to deliver legislation. In fact, in 2023—a mere two years ago—one shadow Minister stated that such Bills were not
“a model example of how Parliament would like to see legislation brought forward”,
and that we should be minimising
“the use of delegated powers where possible”.—[Official Report, 18 January 2023; Vol. 726, c. 409.]
I agree with that then shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), who is now sitting next to the Secretary of State who has brought forward today’s Bill. I am sorry that he does not agree with himself any more.
I also note the assurances that the Government gave to my Liberal Democrat colleagues in the other place that a process for editing statutory instruments will be brought forward. We will be pushing for details of that pre-legislative consultation as the Bill progresses through the Commons. Any Government will say that they are acting in our best interests, but all of the things that this Bill could do—such as enhance consumer safety, reduce trade barriers and build an economy fit for the future—could be undone at the stroke of a pen. That is a pen that Parliament should hold, not Ministers.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
The use of hazardous chemical flame retardants in domestic furniture has been criticised by the Association of Master Upholsterers and Soft Furnishers and in a 2019 Environmental Audit Committee report, because those chemicals have been shown to cause more toxic smoke, increase the production of carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide and increase the prevalence of health conditions, including developmental disorders, breathing difficulties and reproductive disorders. As this Bill would provide the Government with more powers to act on that issue, does my hon. Friend agree that Ministers should outline how the Government plan to address the dangers associated with CFRs?
Clive Jones
I agree with my hon. Friend, and I hope that Ministers will address her question—if they heard it. The Bill makes it possible for the Government to use those new powers, and that would be a good place for them to start.
The Minister in the other place stated that this Government are not looking to reduce consumer protections. However, what measures in this Bill make sure that parliamentary scrutiny cannot be bypassed to weaken those protections? The skeletal nature of the Bill also makes clear what is missing—the very heart of our changing economy is nowhere to be seen.
Clive Jones
Can I just carry on a bit? Thanks.
Online marketplaces are rapidly expanding in number and popularity, competing with high streets across the nation, but unfortunately, there is no level playing field on which those two competitors can battle it out for consumers’ cash. That is what the Bill should be addressing, because our high streets and our small businesses must contend with regulations that online marketplaces are not equally liable to. That is not a level playing field. For example, unsafe products are flooding online marketplaces. A study by Which? revealed that 90% of toys purchased from Amazon, eBay, AliExpress and Temu were illegal due to choking and strangulation hazards. Another study from the British Toy and Hobby Association found that 85% of toys from online marketplaces were unsafe, with 8% also illegal due to missing warnings. Do we want that situation to continue?
Sammy Wilson
I note that the hon. Member has described many of these toys as “illegal”. In other words, the law is there already. This Bill is therefore not necessary to deal with children choking on toys and all the other things he has outlined. The law is already there; the question is, do we actually implement the law?
Clive Jones
The law needs to be tightened up. We definitely need to be taking a lot more interest in the unsafe products that online companies are selling.
Do we want to allow unsafe toys to be sold to our precious children by some faceless online operation through an online market? I am sure the answer is no, but the Bill as it is written fails to address that. The problem is not just limited to toys, but extends to heaters, phone chargers and batteries. The Government have signalled an ambition to bring online marketplace liability in line with more traditional models of retail, but an ambition can be easily reversed by a different Government without parliamentary oversight. Without the measure being explicitly put into the Bill, consumers and the high street are not receiving the guarantees they deserve.
This is a serious issue for children and personal safety, and we therefore need explicit guarantees of minimum duties for online marketplaces in the Bill. What is the Minister’s view on whether a duty to notify consumers who have been sold unsafe or illegal products should be placed on online marketplaces? Such a duty could enhance consumers’ rights to seek a refund of the purchase price. Will a requirement to verify the identity and activities of sellers be established? If it is a yes to any of those questions, the Minister should do the right thing and amend the Bill so that those guarantees are enshrined in primary legislation.
I could go on. The Bill requires a tighter definition of an online marketplace to ensure that there are no loopholes for platforms to avoid appropriate regulations. That is especially the case for platforms that do not exist solely as an online marketplace, such as TikTok Shop and Facebook Marketplace.
Finally, the Bill does not make explicit reference to e-bikes, e-scooters or lithium-ion battery safety, despite safety being one of the explicit aims of the Bill. E-bike and e-scooter battery fires pose a uniquely high risk to consumers, with the London Fire Brigade estimating that it attends a fire incident caused by one of these devices once every two days. There need to be stronger regulations on these things. Can the Minister explain why they are not included in the Bill?
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
My constituents would be forgiven for thinking that the clock had turned back, so I will focus on the issues that they have asked me to raise, which are not political in the slightest, but relate to safety. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State that while this is a small Bill, it is very important. It is of great interest to my constituents, especially the members of Torphichen community council in my constituency who asked me to speak in this debate. They back the Electrical Safety First campaign, and they spoke to me about the danger of fires caused by lithium-ion batteries in e-scooters and e-bikes and in everyday products. The lithium-ion battery safety campaign is calling for stronger measures, including improved enforcement efforts, particularly online; disposal guidance at the point of sale; and measures to ensure safer charging. I hope that the Ministers who are present will give strong consideration to those suggestions in due course.
Lithium-ion batteries are integral to many modern devices that most of us have in our homes, from e-scooters to laptops, but widespread use has exposed significant safety concerns, largely owing to the lack of oversight. Batteries have been linked to numerous fire incidents and pose serious risks of injury or worse. Thermal runaway is a dangerous phenomenon: battery cells overheat and catch fire, releasing toxic gases and often causing extensive damage. By their very nature, e-scooters are often left in town centres, walkways and communal areas in flats and hallways, putting other members of the public at risk in the event of thermal runaway. As we have heard, in London e-bike and e-scooter fires occur as often as once every two days. Worse still, I am aware of domestic incidents in my constituency, including one in which, sadly, a family lost their home and all their belongings as a result of an e-scooter fire.
The Bill introduces welcome steps to deal with those risks, creating a landscape to address the dangers associated with products that are so widely used. The mandates on safety standards for the storage, use and disposal of lithium-ion batteries will help to mitigate the dangers associated with thermal runaway. I also welcome the new powers to monitor compliance and enforce regulations effectively. It is critical that only safe and reliable products reach the market, and reach our homes. Such measures are essential to prevent incidents and protect people from serious harm, such as that which affected my constituents.
There is much in the Bill that has been long awaited at a local level, and I am glad that the Government are responding to people’s concerns in a timely and stringent manner. The danger posed by poorly maintained or unsafely stored lithium-ion batteries is too great to be ignored.
Graham Stuart
Is it the hon. Lady’s understanding that the existing regulations on lithium-ion batteries are insufficient? There is a British standard, and there are environmental and disposal regulations. There is a swathe of regulations relating to lithium-ion batteries, but if there is a failure to enforce them, that should not give Ministers carte blanche to decide on a whim what products, in this area or any other, should be available for sale in the UK without any recourse to Parliament.
Kirsteen Sullivan
I do not think that we want to rerun the arguments relating to Brexit, which is what this debate has largely been about so far. The Bill has clearly been introduced to address gaps that have left consumers exposed to great harms.
The prominence of online marketplaces is an established trend in our society. We all know from the pandemic how important essential—and sometimes non-essential—online purchases can be to our daily lives. They have become commonplace, and that trend is only set to continue. By the end of the decade, online purchases will be worth £156 billion. Nevertheless, many products are poorly regulated, faulty and—too often—dangerous. Whether it is the carbon monoxide alarms that do not work that have been used to kit out a cheaply renovated student flat, the faulty chainsaw attachments used by a neighbour or the faulty e-scooter sitting in a back garden, these faulty products have come about because the pace of change online has been poorly matched by regulations. We are now in a situation where regulations in the online world do not match the protections in the real world. Quite simply, if a product is too dangerous or fails the standards for those sold in shops, it should not be available in online marketplaces. As a society, we need to be protected in our increasing reliance on and use of the digital world; otherwise, the lack of online protections will have yet more devastating real-life impacts.
Kirsteen Sullivan
I am about to conclude.
This Bill is a welcome step to alter the regulatory landscape. More importantly, it will ensure basic product safety and better oversight of products such as lithium batteries. The Bill will reduce the risks associated with thermal runaway and protect our communities from potential harm. As online marketplaces continue to expand, it is essential to extend these regulations to the digital realm to respond to the evolving challenges of modern technology and safeguard public safety.
Joy Morrissey (Beaconsfield) (Con)
I have deep concerns about this Orwellian Bill because of what it does not explicitly say and its ambiguity regarding EU dynamic realignment. The Henry VIII powers the Bill gives Ministers will have serious consequences for businesses, consumers and our ability to trade, but does so with little detail on how they intend to use such powers.
Let me first turn to regulatory alignment. As you may recall, Madam Deputy Speaker, I spent much time taking the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 through as a Whip, and I believe passionately that that Act was vital to take back control, for parliamentary sovereignty and in freeing businesses to compete by shedding unnecessary EU regulations, directives and red tape. So I will say plainly that this Bill will lead to regulatory alignment with the EU through the back door. I invite the Minister to confirm from the Dispatch Box that this Bill and the powers it gives Ministers will not be used by this Government for dynamic alignment with EU regulations. I doubt that any such categoric reassurance is likely to be forthcoming, but I await with bated breath and a hopeful heart that it be so.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Joy Morrissey
Let me make some progress, and then I will give way.
The Government have always claimed that they would not return us to the single market and the customs union, and many believed them. I was always a healthy sceptic, but I am willing to be proven wrong. However, my fear is that this Bill will lead to back-door EU regulatory alignment, and whether that is deliberate or unintentional matters not. We had our democratic instructions from the British people, and we must honour them.
I now want to talk about competition—
Joy Morrissey
Well, I am now on competition. Would the hon. Member like to make a comment about that?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. This is turning into a debate in itself. It is very clear that the Member does not want to take an intervention right now, Mr Snell, but she may do so later.
Gareth Snell
Persistence sometimes pays off, Madam Deputy Speaker. I genuinely want to pick up the point the hon. Lady is making about competition in relation to alignment. In the ceramics sector, the food contact materials regulations set by the European Union are essential to enabling the export of the products we create and make. They are product regulations for safety, but she seems to be suggesting that any regulatory alignment is a bad thing. Is that her party’s message about alignment for the purposes of export that I should take back to the thousands of workers in Stoke-on-Trent?
Joy Morrissey
With exports, we can apply any kind of regulation we want to maximise our market advantage from leaving the EU. We could apply a statutory framework for Japan, or any country we want, to ensure we can export our products. The point of leaving the EU was so that we could remain globally competitive, and so that we could choose to adopt any regulatory framework we wanted if that market enabled us to export our products, support our businesses and help to grow our economy. I would support that, but nothing of that is mentioned in the Bill. If it mentioned realignment with market values in relation to Japan, so we could export things to Japan or to other markets, I would be interested in looking at the Bill holistically, but not once is any country or trade grouping mentioned except the EU. That gives me pause, and it makes me wonder whether this is an attempt to achieve a backdoor realignment with EU regulatory frameworks without the scrutiny of Parliament.
Sammy Wilson
Does the hon. Lady also accept that the Bill is not necessary to promote exports? If a company wants to export its products to Japan or Timbuktu, it will have to align with the regulations that exist in those countries anyway. It does not need a Government Bill, and—far worse—it does not need a Minister to have the power to make regulations without coming to this place.
Joy Morrissey
I agree completely with the right hon. Gentleman. I will leave it there, because that is an excellent point.
This is about free trade and expanding our global reach by making money, growing our economy and allowing everyone to benefit from a tax base that grows because our businesses can export freely. I am very supportive of that. If the Bill in any way addressed the concerns I have raised, I would be happy to support it, but it is vague and does not give us the insight we need into the kind of alignment that is intended. That vagueness presents a challenge that was mentioned repeatedly in the other place. In this House, we must address the Bill’s challenges with a similar rigour. It may look quite harmless on the outside, but under the surface it will deliver profound change and threaten our ability to scrutinise these regulatory changes. In the other place, the noble Lord Sandhurst described it as:
“a Henry VIII Bill par excellence”. —[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 November 2024; Vol. 841, c. GC44.]
We would do well to heed those words.
Where is the policy framework under which Ministers will decide to use these powers? On parliamentary sovereignty or Ministers’ decision to use the powers, there is no such framework.
Michael Wheeler
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. As a fellow member of the Procedure Committee, I do enjoy a good procedural debate, but I wonder whether she will get to the meat of the Bill at any point. Will we be talking about Brexit bogeymen, or will we be talking about consumer safety, representing those we are here to represent, looking after their interests and making them safer?
Joy Morrissey
The Bill is a legislative blank sheet of paper for Ministers to fill with whatever legislation they feel like. The Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee stated that the Bill
“signifies an exceptional shift in power from Parliament to the executive and entails the Government, in effect, asking Parliament to pass primary legislation which is so insubstantial that it leaves the real operation of the legislation to be decided by Ministers”.
I say to Members right across this House: heed those words. If we do not stay alert to legislation that looks so harmless yet confers such powers on Ministers, we are failing in our role as legislators.
Joy Morrissey
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I am not aware of any other legislation that has received the same recommendation three times. That represents a substantial warning.
The Bill, either deliberately or unintentionally, will lead to realignment with the EU and once again leave our country beholden to others’ decisions on regulatory standards. It will hamper our businesses in this fast-changing world, making them less agile and less competitive and making us poorer as a nation. It gives Ministers too much power—a fact that in this House should always be pause for thought, no matter who governs. I urge the Government to think again.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate. I hope to offer a course correction from the Opposition’s attempts to fight many things today, not least the concept of geography and what is in the interests of British businesses. In this debate, we are watching the last gasps of the Brexit delusions that have fallen on hard contact with the paperwork reality. That is what this piece of legislation is about; it is about making it easier for British businesses who have been harmed by the previous Government’s approach to their basic needs. This is not about free trade. What came about as a result of Brexit was not free trade, but mountains and mountains of paperwork.
I want to focus on that in my speech, but I cannot let go of what the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey) said. She was, as she says, a Whip on the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023—my goodness me, I welcome a sinner that repenteth. In that Act, the Government were going to rip up more than 4,000 pieces of legislation overnight without any parliamentary scrutiny, simply because they had the word “Europe” in them. That included things like airline regulations, because of course what we needed were our own separate regulations so that a plane would have to take a different course in mid-air. That was the Brexit benefit.
Under the previous Government’s watch, more than 2,000 statutory instruments were laid before the House as a direct result of retained EU law. I welcome opposition parties’ commitment to parliamentary scrutiny, but I simply say that some of us on that Bill Committee tried to offer arguments about the importance of parliamentary involvement in such decisions, and they fell on deaf ears. I will come on to that.
Now that Opposition Members have suddenly discovered that statutory instruments might not always be the best way to look at such things, I hope they will be able to focus on what really matters here, because British business needs us to do that. British business needs us to clear up the mess created by the previous Administration and their approach to Brexit. That is what this legislation does. It is common-sense politics.
Mr Holden
The hon. Lady is making an interesting point. The key point with that carry-over of EU law is that all the regulations had already been debated and had already gone through Parliament. All we were doing was replacing like with like. With this Bill, the Government are introducing huge Henry VIII powers to create brand-new legislation, perhaps around production regulation, but on who knows what else? Who knows what impact it will have, and on which countries? That is the difference. We are removing parliamentary scrutiny, rather than just carrying over old EU laws into current UK law.
Ms Creasy
There are so many things to unpack there, not least the right hon. Gentleman’s recognition that our previous regulations as part of the European Union were perhaps not that bad. With rules on bicycle safety, for example, perhaps it was pretty sensible to say that if something was safe in the UK, our colleagues in Europe might also be looking at it and we could share the burden of working out good regulation. That is not what happened with the retained EU law Act or with divergence, and it does sound like he needs to look at divergence. Thankfully, I have some statistics for him—I know he will be delighted to hear them.
Before we move on, let me just say this. Opposition Members have not spoken for British business today, although I accept that the Liberal Democrat spokesman, the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), did try, and I recognise his expertise in toy manufacturing. He will recognise that we are talking about thousands of British businesses that are affected by regulations. What rules will those businesses have to follow to be able to sell in a market that makes their business sustainable? Some 12% of businesses in this country will be affected by this legislation, not because there are new rules, but because if we start to diverge from existing regulations, they will face a choice. Do they continue to follow European legislation so that they can sell into a larger market, or do they try to follow UK legislation, EU legislation and maybe Japanese legislation as well, with all the paperwork that comes with that?
Graham Stuart
I am grateful to the hon. Lady, but I shall survive. Given the time that she has spent in this House, I am surprised that, like some newer Members, she may have been taken in by the Government’s wording. The Bill gives Ministers such blanket powers. Sure, they can align more with EU regulation, as she desires; equally, another Government or Minister could go the opposite way and do all the damage she is talking about—needlessly differing from Europe purely out of ideology—and the House would have no say in it. Surely, the hon. Lady must be more like the hon. Member for Blackley and Middleton South (Graham Stringer) and share with her colleagues the need to restrict Ministers’ powers.
Ms Creasy
I tried in vain to make exactly such arguments to the right hon. Member when he was a Minister telling me that European legislation was not good enough for this country. [Interruption.] I now ask him to let me finish my speech, because I want common sense in this legislation, as I think Ministers do. We need to stand up to those who puff and spout about Europe as though somehow it is a bad thing to make it possible for British businesses to trade with our nearest neighbours post Brexit. For the avoidance of doubt, this is not an argument about rejoining the European Union.
Ms Creasy
I will, if I may, continue with my speech, but I shall take an intervention a bit later.
Our colleagues in Northern Ireland know the practical consequences of divergence—the obsession with the concept that somehow we have always to be different, which is somehow believed to be sovereignty. They will know what the “not for EU labels” mean. They will know, too, the impact that that has had on them and their colleagues. Neil Johnston, director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, recently told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee about just that. He described how suppliers have to have separate print runs for labelling, and how the requirements in shops for posters and edge-of-shelf labelling are massively burdensome for small businesses. We end up with a sausage roll that we cannot take across the border between Castlederg and Castlefin simply because of the way that the previous Government undertook Brexit.
Sammy Wilson
I wonder whether the Member has read the schedule to the Bill. Agri-food products are not covered.
Ms Creasy
I hope the right hon. Member can understand that my point is about divergence—about what happens when we try to ask businesses to run two different regulatory regimes out of a mistaken ideology that somehow we cannot find a way forward. That is what this piece of legislation will do. The hon. Member for Beaconsfield wanted to tell us that British businesses were better off as a result of the “Brexit freedoms”. Well, the numbers and statistics tell us the exact opposite. I am talking about not just the fall in GDP or the fall in trade that is predicted, but the thousands of businesses—16,400 of them—which have given up exporting to the European Union because of the additional paperwork and the additional regulatory regime.
Jerome Mayhew
I am so pleased to have eventually got through to the hon. Lady. She heard the Minister at the Dispatch Box say that this was not about dynamic realignment. Am I right in understanding that her view of this legislation is that it is 100% about EU dynamic realignment?
Ms Creasy
The hon. Member is completely wrong. I hope that he will give me a chance to make my speech before getting too excited about the word Europe.
He should try to understand what we are talking about here, which is British businesses and the regulatory certainty that they need from their Governments. My goodness, if we think how a Tory hard Brexit has hit British businesses, we should also consider how it has hit small businesses, which simply could not afford to comply with multiple regulatory regimes. We do know that we live in uncertain times, and that the threat of tariffs will kill what little business our firms might have left.
As the OBR pointed out to us last week, if global trade disputes escalate to include 20 percentage point rises in tariffs between the USA and the rest of the world, it will reduce GDP by a peak of 1% and reduce our current surplus. In that environment, we owe it to British businesses to talk common sense and to talk about what they actually want, which is a reduction in the Brexit red tape that they have had to deal with. We have been here before—on the practical insanity that Brexit generates. There was the obsession with blue passports, which came at the expense of being able to trade and keep a business going.
We have also been here before with the previous Government, which is why all those Conservative Members who were here before 2024 need to hang their heads in shame at some of the arguments that they are making about this. The previous Government wanted us to have our own UK charter mark. They wanted British businesses to run two separate charter mark arrangements. Undertaking testing requirements for both the UKCA and the European CE to allow a business to be able to sell in both markets was costing businesses hundreds of thousands of pounds. The costs could go as high as £200,000 per product range. I am actually quoting from the previous Government’s own impact assessment of the legislation, and I am happy to send that document to the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew), who is chuntering from the Opposition Benches.
UK conformity assessment marking covered goods worth £109 billion. It is little wonder that after four years, and I believe the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham might have been on that very Committee when it happened, those obsessed with the Brexit freedoms were hit with cold, hard reality and had to climb down and say that British companies that had met European standards had also met the British charter mark. They had to roll over the charter mark, because if they had not, their own impact assessment would have shown that it cost British businesses up to £1.6 billion in the decade. That is the Brexit bonus of which Opposition Members are so proud—billions of extra cost to British businesses because they are trying to fill in two forms at once to sell the same item to different sets of consumers.
The Bill is about so much more than just kitemarking. We need to be clear that it does not mean that we have automatic access to the EU market. It means that British businesses can see what the regulatory landscape might look like ahead of them. That is very important in these uncertain times. It also prevents the UK becoming a dumping ground for goods that are no longer considered safe in the European Union. I certainly believe that my constituents need to be confident that we will not be flooded with cheap goods that are bad for them.
It also does not mean that we have to align automatically, and I hope that answers the question from the hon. Member for Broadland and Fakenham. I am not here arguing for automatic alignment. After all, there are examples of where we have taken a different approach. The vaping legislation was something that Conservative Members opposed, but it put us ahead of European product legislation. The Bill has protections for the British pint. The Lords wrote those in.
It is also clear that choosing not to participate does not mean that UK consumers are not affected. We saw that with mobile phone charging cables. Even though we are too small a market to influence Apple, the European Union acting together made Apple stop selling us multiple cables. As somebody who was carrying around multiple pieces of equipment, I am very grateful for that.
We may also want to look at examples where we might learn from our colleagues. Right now the European Union has been taking the lead on carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—basically what is in a synthetic football pitch. Our kids right now in the United Kingdom play on pitches that have dangerous chemicals in them, but our European colleagues’ kids are not playing on those. When we talk about alignment, sometimes we are talking about sharing good practice on how to make our kids safer—the consumer regulations product safety that we were talking about.
I suspect that is why the previous Government, in the end, with all their obsession with Brexit freedoms and with all the powers they had, did not diverge very much. Indeed, under their watch, there were only five cases of active diversion. There were 15 cases of passive divergence, where basically they did not update regulations. For all the huffing and puffing, when faced with the cold, hard reality of having different regulatory regimes for goods in this country from those of our next door neighbours, where we might also want to sell, the previous Government took the better approach; they did not look to make British businesses try to double up on their paperwork. Indeed, where we have diverged there are clearly problems being stored up. Anybody watching the court case about sandeels knows what is coming down the line.
This Government are not going to mess British business around in the way that the previous Government did with their huffing and puffing about whether previous Governments in other countries were friend or foe. We need to make trade work. British businesses need less paperwork. That means being clear about where we will diverge, where we will align, why that makes a difference and what that means for product standards.
I think we agree across the House that we want high standards. That is delivered not by being not European, or pro-European, but by looking at what the regulatory regimes are. That is why it matters that we have paused some of the current proposals of divergence—on a new recycling label regime, on the “not for EU” labelling, and on the new checks on agrifood imports. We are looking at what works for British businesses so that we can make it easier for them to trade. That is why I wanted to speak in this debate.
What we need to do in the Bill—I hope the Minister will be open to this—is be clear about the direction of travel and the proper, right way and point for Parliament to be part of that process. If we are going to diverge, we should be clear why that would be in the British interest and how we as a Parliament will have that conversation. Where we have information, we should update our constituents, who might have businesses with products that take 18 to 36 months to develop. They need to know the regulatory regime, for example of the toys they want to make, and which markets they can sell into. That is why it matters that we have parliamentary scrutiny.
I welcome sinners who repenteth about the value of that, but I do not want to see British business faced with the idea of us having to consult on absolutely everything. I do not have an erratic fear of the Europeans somehow holding us back if they help us ensure that our kids are not playing football on pitches that have carcinogenic chemicals on them. That is common-sense British politics, and that is what the Bill needs to deliver.
Regulatory uncertainty undermines economic growth. If economic growth is our primary ambition, we need to reduce the amount of times we ask British businesses to be part of consultations, because they need to have confidence about where regulation is going. That is why it matters that we say, “We are not going to start diverging for the sake of it, but only because we can see there is a national interest in it.”
I will finish on this point. It matters to so many of our growth ambitions that construction materials are also covered under the Bill. Construction costs are due to rise much further here than in the European Union. Many of us who want our hospitals rebuilt and house building to happen know that if we spend our time giving uncertainty to British businesses about which way the regulations will go, we will not get the investment that we want. The cold, hard reality of businesses’ decision making is that they do not want to invest on a risk. My question to the Minister is: how can we give British business certainty about the direction of travel and ensure that we have the right consultation and engagement process for Parliament so that, where there are points where we would diverge—like we did on vaping—we can do that, too? It is not an either/or. Frankly, we have to get over the idea that if something is European, it is somehow taking us back. Nine years after we voted to leave the European Union, and six years after the legislation to do that, what the EU is doing still affects our British businesses.
We have a choice in this House. We can continue to peddle fantasies—I am sorry that the shadow Secretary of State is no longer in his place; he seemed not even to know about the capitulation that his Government must have made in his eye over the charter mark—but we owe it to British businesses who are being hammered by Tory Brexit and facing economic uncertainty not to add to the pile of paperwork in their in-trays as the Opposition would. I hope that when the Minister sets out that direction of travel, he will be open to ideas about how we can secure that. British businesses may have stopped listening to Opposition Members, but they will listen to us if we get this right.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
There are three fundamental points to be made about the Bill, and I will make them more briefly than the previous speaker, the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), although I am delighted to follow her. First, there is a constitutional issue at the heart of the legislation about the power of this House and this Parliament, and the power of the Executive.
The Bill creates a permissive power for the Executive to introduce by regulation, through statutory instrument, all kinds of measures. Those who have been in the House for a long time, and perhaps those of us who have been in the House for a rather shorter time, will know what that means in practice: a brief debate in a room upstairs that will take a few minutes or perhaps a little longer. It will be thinly populated and the measure will be given scant scrutiny. The Executive should be held to account on the Floor of the House or by a Committee designed for the purpose.
That brings me to my second point about the Bill. We once had a European Scrutiny Committee whose task was to look closely at all kinds of things that emanated from the European Union. The hon. Lady who spoke immediately before me described those of us in the House who are sceptical about the European Union as not being rational; she said these were irrational fears about the European Union. Were that to be true, she would probably have a point, but actually our fears are entirely rational. We know what emanated from the European Union during our membership, and it was endless bureaucracy. I acknowledge that it was often gold-plated here, but none the less it was every kind of rule and regulation, some of which were entirely superfluous to our needs because they were introduced on a pan-European basis. I learned long ago that power is best exercised when it is exercised closest to its effect. When decisions are made, they need to be sensitive to the difference they make to those affected by them. One of the reasons I was a passionate supporter of Brexit is that I want power to return to the place where it has its effect. I fear, therefore, entirely rationally, that if the default position as a result of the Bill is that we end up with European regulation, it will not be sensitive to its effect but instead will be decided upon far from where the businesses that it affects are located.
So, given the second issue is about how the measure is scrutinised, I invite the Government to reinvent some kind of European Scrutiny Committee or similar. Perhaps we can call it a regulatory scrutiny Committee; perhaps it may be a body that allows the full consideration of each of the measures that the Government introduce under this umbrella Bill to ensure the House was happy with them and felt they were appropriate and had been tailored in the right way. That might be an amendment that the Government will accept, given that the Secretary of State said he was open-minded about improving the legislation during its passage.
The third problem that this Bill has at its heart is the assumption about harmonisation. That term is often used and one should always be terribly fearful when it is, because it’s usually not about creating harmony but about accepting control from elsewhere. I worry that that process will snuff out some of the measures that might more usefully be adopted by Government and impose on businesses and others blunt measures that are insensitive to the particularities that prevail in our country. I do not say that is with intent, as it seems to me that the Secretary of State made clear it was not his intention, but I just fear that it will.
The regulatory impact assessment and the explanatory notes that we already had seem to imply that. They say, and the Secretary of State repeated this in his opening remarks, that there are all kinds of changes—new rules, new regulations and new restrictions—happening at a pace that require the attention of Government, and that pace is so great that it is hard for the Government to keep up. My fear is, therefore, that they will adopt very broad measures rather than ones that are sufficiently tailored and sufficiently refined to meet domestic needs.
With that constitutional problem of the balance between the Executive and Parliament; with that lack of scrutiny and oversight that comes from not having a body that can look at these things on a one-by-one basis; and with that tendency to produce broad-brush measures emanating from the European Union, as implied both in the Bill and in supporting documents, I have grave doubts about this legislation.
It is true that we should regulate where necessary, of course; it is right in the public interest that we do so. However, we must always do so with care, because when that regulation becomes burdensome, when it frustrates innovation and when it tempers the ability to produce goods that meet popular demand, rather than becoming helpful to either customers or those that supply them, it inhibits the very things that support those businesses and aid those customers. I simply invite the Minister when he sums up to re-emphasise that the Government believe, as I do, in light-touch regulation and in regulation that only applies when there has been appropriate discussion with those affected by it, that there will be a proper dialogue between business and business representatives before new measures are introduced, and that all that is introduced will have the character that I have set out: tailored, specific and in the British interest.
Our role in this place is to defend the national interest. I know that a kind of heady internationalism permeates particular parts of this Chamber—I look to my left towards the Liberal Democrats—but I have always thought that it was more important to stand up for the British people, to represent my constituents to the best of my ability and to be, as I described earlier, sensitive to the particularities of the locale that I represent and the country that I love. Is that too much to ask of Members of this House?
So, I do not regard my fears about this Bill as irrational, contrary to the hon. Member for Walthamstow’s assertion; they are deeply rooted in a rational fear of the worst this Bill could bring.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Good regulation is basically the immune system of our nation, and it is often unseen. When regulation is working well and having the desired effect, we rarely see it happening because it is keeping us safe and protecting us from those harms that we outsource to the Government to keep watch over for us. It is taking the necessary steps and measures to make sure that we are safe, the things we buy are safe, the interactions we have in our communities are safe and our children are safe. That regulation is a protection, essentially, and this Bill gives the scope and the agility for the Government—any Government—to respond quickly and in a timely manner to new and emerging potential threats that regulation is required to protect us from.
I worry when Governments of any colour—including, unfortunately, that of my own party of late—seek to suggest that regulation is inherently a bad thing, an inhibitor of growth or the heavy hand of the state stopping the illustrious bounds of enterprise, because it often is not. Often it is about a level playing field. It is about creating the circumstances where competitors in Stoke-on-Trent have as much opportunity to compete with their competitors around the country or around the world in a way that we understand to be fair, balanced and proportionate. To me, this Bill sets us on a course where we are able to do that.
There are some areas where product regulation and the safety that comes with it are lacking. If the House will indulge me, I would like once again to talk about ceramics and the ceramic industry because I believe that the product regulatory framework and the existing protections for ceramics—in terms of the quality of goods that are purchased and also the protection of the level playing field—could benefit hugely from actions that the Government could take through the powers in the Bill.
We have discussed online drop-shipping platforms many times in this House. These are websites that bulk buy things and sell them into the UK, often at a fraction of the price that people could buy them for in this country, and often faking and forging the identities and brands of British companies, without any consideration for what people are actually buying. I was shown a great example by a company in Staffordshire, Dunoon ceramics, which makes a very particular style of ceramic mug. The mugs cost about £28 to make and they retail at about £35, sometimes up to £50.
An online drop-shipping website was selling a fake version—with the same artwork and the same “Made in the United Kingdom” sticker and backstamp on the base—into the UK for about £10. We have no idea whether that product was meeting the Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (England) Regulations 2012 that it is required in this country to meet in order to be considered safe. We had no idea of the levels of lead or cadmium in the paint, no idea what the glaze was made of, no idea where the clay had come from and no idea of the conditions under which it was made, but it was sold into the UK thousands at a time, undercutting the British company. For clarity, I have no idea whether the product was defective, but it could have been, thereby putting people at risk.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Gentleman may not know this, but I collect ceramics, by the way, so I am extremely interested in them. He is right that we should support and, indeed, revere the British ceramic industry, but many laws already prevent the kind of counterfeiting he describes and other laws prevent illegal substances from being used and sold in the manufacture of goods. There is a lot of existing statute that protects consumers from the kind of practices he describes.
Gareth Snell
The right hon. Gentleman is correct that there are existing protections for some of the things I have mentioned that, if enforced properly, could take those products off the market, but the enforcement of many of our regulatory frameworks in this country is quite weak. Funding for most enforcement agencies across this country was—not to make a party political point—reduced under the last Government. I hope this Government will reconsider that because a regulation is only ever as good as the enforcement regime sat behind it.
Sammy Wilson
Would the hon. Member accept that if Ministers got up at 9 o’clock in the morning and worked until 9 o’clock at night introducing regulations on the basis of this Bill every day, but there was no enforcement or the enforcement was as weak as he says it is on pottery, we would be no better off?
Gareth Snell
I do not think anybody would disagree with the right hon. Gentleman’s assessment that if there is no enforcement of regulation, there is no benefit, but we are not saying in the Bill that there should be less enforcement. The Bill produces a framework in which the Government can take action to respond to create the good regulation necessary. I will freely admit that what has to come with that are the enforcement arrangements to ensure those new regulations are enforced properly, penalties to deter people seeking to circumvent the regulations, and the proper resourcing of enforcement agencies so they are equipped to take action against those people and companies seeking to circumvent the laws. Without that, I fully accept that regulation for the sake of regulation is no good any more than regulation being cut or diverged for the sake of divergence and reduction is any good. It comes down to enforcement.
To go back to the comments of the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), there is one area in this Bill where Government action could bring in a new product protection regulation that would have a huge impact on the ceramic industry. That is around the backstamp on the bottom of a piece of ceramic or pottery. As an avid collector, he will be aware of the importance of those backstamps. In this country, if we turn over any plate, cup or anything made from good-quality British ceramics, we will normally find the words “Made in England” and the pottery name underneath it. Consumers then know they are buying a premium piece of British-manufactured ceramics that has been made to a suitable product standard that we accept in Stoke-on-Trent is one of the best in the world. It is perfectly plausible, as has been done with some of the fakery, to replicate that phrase when it is not true.
The other challenge we have is companies that import things into the United Kingdom augmenting the wording of that particular backstamp to suggest it has been made in the UK when it has not. It may have been bisque-fired overseas, imported and then decorated and glazed in the UK, but it will normally have a company name, the word “England” and the date upon which that historic brand was established. It gives consumers the idea that they are buying a piece of British-made ceramics that would therefore be protected by the normal product regulations when in fact it is not.
There is the potential for the Minister to use the new powers in the Bill to produce new regulation that says anything produced in the UK that is considered to be ceramic has to have a proper mark on the base that demonstrates where it was made and where it has come from and to demonstrate that it was made in the UK. If a company is not making it in the UK, they become prohibited from putting the words “England” or “Made in the UK” on it.
Sir John Hayes
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way a second time—it is very generous of him. I think that we should jointly sponsor a Bill, Madam Deputy Speaker—the hon. Gentleman and I, not you and I, although we would love for you to be involved. He and I could jointly sponsor a “Made in Britain” Bill that would do exactly what he describes. I am not sure that this piece of legislation is necessary to do that, for we have that power in this House as it stands. Let us get little crowns printed on eggs again, let us have “Made in Britain” printed on everything, and let us go back to “Foreign made”, which was formerly widely used. I would love to see “Foreign made” stamped on imported goods—then people would not buy them!
Gareth Snell
I am very sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman, but I and a number of my colleagues have already presented the Ceramics (Country of Origin Marking) Bill. He is more than welcome to support it should it ever be given its Second Reading. However, because of the nature of this place and the way private Members’ Bills work, I am realistic about the fact that if we are to see that regulatory protection for British ceramics, it will have to come through a different mechanism. The mechanism in this Bill, which allows the Government to make those protective arrangements through secondary legislation, could increase the protection of British ceramics.
My final point is about a level playing field for exports. I take the point that the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made, after I had intervened on the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey), about our regulatory regime and where we want to export. The bulk of the ceramics made in my constituency are exported to the EU. We could diverge from the EU food contact materials regulations and have a secondary system in this country, but all that would do is create a separate set of regulatory regimes for small companies with small margins, requiring them to make products twice. We simply could not stand that burden. Before I get attacked for being one of those horrible remainers, I urge Members to check my voting record during the 2017 to 2019 Parliament. There are times when sticking with what we know—the European regulations—absolutely makes sense. We should control that, but it makes sense to align ourselves where we should.
I support the Bill. I hope that the Minister will, as one of his first actions with his new powers, consider my points about ceramics. If he does not, perhaps he would like to support my Ceramics (Country of Origin Marking) Bill.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. If colleagues speak for too long, others will be disappointed, so, unofficially, let us try to keep our speeches to under 10 minutes.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Anyone listening to the debate would think that it is all about saving children from choking on toys, buildings not burning down because of defective batteries in bicycles, saving lives, safe products, and even the internal market and safeguarding the Northern Ireland economy, but it is not about any of that. It is nice to dress it up like that, and I suppose using that kind of language is helpful to make the Bill relevant to constituents, but the Bill is nothing to do with that.
Time and again Members have spoken about those kinds of issues—batteries catching fire, defective toys and so on—but they can and have been dealt with already in law. Indeed, we have even heard Members talking about illegal products being sold, so we do not need some Minister to change the law; we need someone to ensure that the laws in place are enforced. We already have a mechanism to make things illegal, so if there are gaps in the law, we can just use that mechanism.
Let us not obscure what the debate is all about. It is not about gaps and the need to safeguard people. It is all about the Bill’s agenda, which is to give Ministers additional powers. The public see a Government with a majority of over 200 who have been able to drive through legislation that has frustrated and angered them, whether it is taking money off pensioners for winter fuel or the legislation that was driven through last week to meet the net zero agenda, which failed to prevent us from buying solar products from China that are made by slave labour. I could go through all the other things that have made people angry, but a Government with a majority of over 200 now want to take on additional powers to allow a Minister to avoid having to come to this House to ensure product safety.
I have no doubt that the real reason Ministers wish to retain that power is that the Government have already set their mind on resetting our relations with Europe. They know it is unpopular with many of their supporters. They do not want to have constant scrutiny in this House on a weekly or monthly basis of new regulations that align us with Europe, so it is far better to give Ministers the power to do that quietly, without consultation or a vote in this House. As a number of Members have said, the Bill gives Ministers the power to do that.
Indeed, some of the Government’s own supporters in the House of Lords made the point that the Bill contains the potential for dynamic alignment. The Government have been ambiguous about whether the powers will be used to do that, but I am fairly sure that is the main reason. There is little enough opportunity for this House to look at and challenge legislation, but I believe it is wrong for a Bill to allow Ministers, under the cover of darkness, to take us back into arrangements that we have escaped from.
Members have mentioned Northern Ireland. We know the impact of the EU general product safety regulations already, because they apply in Northern Ireland. Businesses in the rest of the United Kingdom that want to sell their products in Northern Ireland will have to have agents in Northern Ireland. The EU makes these laws to try to tie other countries and companies to its regulations. I suspect the excuse the Government will use for pursuing dynamic alignment will be, “We’re doing it for the good of businesses in GB as well as Northern Ireland, because if we’re aligned to EU rules, we escape some of the restrictions on trade that the EU has imposed.” But why did we leave the EU in the first place, and why did many businesses support leaving the EU? First, the EU introduced costly regulations that did not even need to apply to many businesses because they never traded with the EU, but they still had to adjust their products to meet the regulations, which incurred costs.
Sir John Hayes
I am listening with intent to the right hon. Gentleman’s contribution. It may be that the Government are more innocent than he suggests and that there is not this hidden agenda he is describing, but in the words of a Northern Irishman, C. S. Lewis,
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”
Even if there is not a hidden agenda, in the end, in the name of the victims—the customers—this will end up being regulatory, bureaucratic and costly.
Sammy Wilson
The potential is there, and it has been put in the Bill. I suspect that clause 2(7) has been included in the Bill to give that opportunity, if not now, then at some future time.
The other reason why businesses have opposed the implementation of EU regulations and the other danger of dynamic alignment is that many of the laws and regulations made in Europe that we may be aligning ourselves with only get there in the first place because powerful lobby groups lobby the European Commission to get regulations imposed. Those regulations may well suit one particular industry, or even powerful firms within that industry, but they do not necessarily benefit all of business. Some have said of the Bill, “Oh, this will give certainty to business,” but it may well give businesses additional costs.
Given what has happened in Northern Ireland and the way that our market with the rest of the UK has been disrupted, some may think that I would welcome the measures, but I do not welcome them for two reasons. First, as I pointed out to the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), many of the restrictions are on goods that are not even included in the Bill, as the schedule excludes them. Secondly, even if this problem is solved, it does not deal with the issue. We know that because Northern Ireland is subject to the EU single market regulations—300 areas of law, as the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) keeps reminding us on an almost weekly basis. The issue is that we have allowed the United Kingdom to be divided by the deal that was done with Europe. When the previous Government was in power, I warned that this would happen and that Northern Ireland would be the foot in the door. I believe that that will be used as one of the arguments for this legislation.
The DUP will oppose the legislation because we believe it is not in the interests of the United Kingdom and does not address the problems that are faced in Northern Ireland.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I thought it was remiss that the speech by the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) did not have a literary person in it, but he managed to get C. S. Lewis into his intervention.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
As the Secretary of State said earlier, I believe I am the first metrologist to be elected to this House in history, so it gives me great pleasure to rise to debate the Bill. I took the liberty of checking Hansard and until the Secretary of State used the word earlier, I was the only Member to have ever used the word “metrologist” in the House of Commons. I am proud to be here today and prouder still that the Labour Government have brought forward a Bill featuring metrology in the first year of our new Government.
Most of the debate has focused on the product regulation in the Bill, but given my background I will focus on the metrology. Prior to my election to this place, I was at the University of Nottingham, where I was active in research in metrology for advanced manufacturing, beginning with my PhD, continuing through several more years as a research fellow, and latterly as a senior research fellow. However, like most people I have known in my life, when I began my PhD, I had absolutely no idea what metrology was. Indeed, I am sure several colleagues in the Chamber did not know what it was before today, and I fear some still do not, so I would like to provide an explanation of the nature of my science, and explain why, contrary to popular assumption, it has nothing to do with clouds. [Interruption.] Please forgive my terrible pun.
The international standard, “Vocabulaire international de métrologie”, formally defines metrology as
“the science of measurement and its application”,
noting that
“metrology includes all theoretical and practical aspects of measurement, whatever the measurement uncertainty and field of application”.
It is not the
“branch of science concerned with the processes and phenomena of the atmosphere, especially as a means of forecasting the weather”,
which is, of course, meteorology—something I have explained almost every day of my professional career.
Metrology broadly encompasses the various fields of research that seek to develop the science and technology of measurement, be that measurement of any of the seven base quantities from the système international d’unités—the SI—or any of the units derived from those base quantities. The seven base quantities are, of course, length, mass, time, electric current, thermodynamic temperature, amount of substance and luminous intensity.
The great physicist Lord Kelvin once expressed:
“To measure is to know”.
He also said:
“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.”
Those sentiments are rarely more applicable than in the advanced manufacturing industry, where we are interested both in ensuring that a manufactured component meets the dimensional specification laid out by its designer and in constantly improving on existing products.
Metrology is a science that fundamentally underpins all other science. Without tools that allow us to measure and know, we cannot gain any understanding of the world around us, nor can we improve on it. In the fundamental scientific pursuit of understanding our universe, we are most often concerned with the metre, the first of the SI base units. The metre is defined formally by taking the fixed numerical value of the speed of light in a vacuum, C, to be 299,792,458 when expressed in the unit of metres per second and where the second is defined in terms of the caesium frequency. In fact, that definition changed very recently—it came into force in 2018. The metre is more simply described by its older definition, which is simply the distance travelled by light in a vacuum in a time interval, in seconds, of one divided by the speed of light. In my opinion, the metre is one of the most beautiful creations in science: it is defined by light itself, and it is a creation that allows us in turn to create everything in our world.
At the start of this debate, the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) asked the House when weights and measures became metrology. The answer to that question is: several thousand years before the common era. Behind every great scientific advancement in history, there has been a metrologist. Behind the pyramids, there was the first standardised unit of measurement—the royal cubit, defined as the length of the pharaoh’s forearm as measured from the tip of his forefinger to the base of his elbow. The cubit was a technology so advanced that it allowed the ancient Egyptians to position the building blocks of the pyramids with an accuracy almost equal to modern methods. Thousands of years later, there remains speculation on whether they were in fact built by aliens, because of how incredible an achievement that was. They were, of course, built not by aliens, but by metrologists.
Graham Stringer
At the start of this debate, as a fellow scientist, I wondered what the difference was between mensuration and metrology. When I was an undergraduate, we did not use the word “metrology”—it seems to be a new word. Perhaps my hon. Friend can enlighten the Chamber.
Adam Thompson
Certainly. It is not a new word as far as I am concerned; I believe it was brought into common parlance in the Victorian era.
I will move on to some more examples. There is the James Webb space telescope—something more modern than the pyramids. It takes images of our universe more than 13 billion light years away that are deeper, more brilliant and more beautiful than anything we have ever seen. Behind that, there is the construction of a 6.5-metre mirror, flat to within just a few tenths of billionths of a metre from its highest top to its smallest valley. If we were to expand the size of the 6.5-metre mirror to the size of the Earth, the distance from the highest mountain to the deepest valley would be of the order of the height of my hip.
Behind the discovery of gravitational waves, there is a series of interferometers, kilometres in size, which can detect signals from noise at levels considered unachievable throughout human history until the past 20 years or so and which are capable of listening to the collision of black holes across spacetime.
Sir John Hayes
I hesitate to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, because he is making a wonderful contribution to our affairs, which is indicative of the beauty of science, about which we hear too little. Before he rushes—hurtles, one might say—into the future, can he say a word about the peculiarly British measurements that informed my childhood? I mean things such as pecks, perches, rods and bushels, for each of those was rooted in the way that he described.
Adam Thompson
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I am happy to explain. Those particular forms of measurement are not in common use any more, but of course many right hon. and hon. Members of this House will have grown up with them. Broadly, the ones that are still in use are defined in the modern parlance, but it is important to remember that the modern metric system accounts for all of those heritage measurements. The common inch, for example, is formally defined as 25.4 mm, and while I apologise to Members across the House, it is important for me to let them know that the pint is formally defined as 568 ml. Those heritage measurements and, indeed, the entire imperial system are now referenced on to the metric system; defined very simply, the imperial system is the metric system. There is no reason why we should not use those historical measurements—where they are useful, they are perfectly valid—but they are formally defined with reference to the modern metric system. I will talk more about this shortly.
Metrology lies at the heart of everything we know, from telescopes to speed cameras and from knee replacements to jet engines. Every single thing made by human hand was designed first, constructed second and then checked by a metrologist to ensure it met its specifications—if we cannot know it, we cannot improve it. However, ensuring that parts meet their specifications is not simple, as each measurement, dimensional or otherwise, has an associated measurement uncertainty. That is a non-negative parameter characterising the dispersion of the quantity values being attributed to the thing being measured, based on the information used. Estimation of measurement uncertainty is a complex procedure—one that formed much of my career prior to coming to this place—and is usually performed in line with the “Guide to the expression of uncertainty in measurement”.
Uncertainty estimation is generally performed by making measurements that are traceable to the definition of the SI metre—when we are concerned with the metre. Again, the “Vocabulaire international de métrologie” defines traceability as a property of a measurement result whereby the result can be related to a reference through a documented, unbroken chain of calibrations, each contributing to the overall measurement uncertainty. Traceable measurements allow for the successful estimation of uncertainty and are generally a base requirement for the verification of manufactured goods. Traceability is considered by the international community to be the only means by which evidence can be provided towards a given product fulfilling the requirements set out by its designer.
To provide an example, let us consider a length measurement made between two faces of a manufactured part, such as a Rubik’s cube. Imagine that I am holding a Rubik’s cube—I could not possibly have brought a prop, Madam Deputy Speaker. The length between two faces could be measured by a calliper. That calliper would be calibrated using a measurement artifact, most commonly a metal cuboid called a gauge block. That gauge block would in turn be calibrated by a more accurate instrument, which itself is calibrated using a more accurate gauge block. That more accurate gauge block would then be calibrated with reference to an optical interferometer using a laser source. That laser source is finally calibrated against the iodine-stabilised laser that is used to realise the definition of the metre, so traceability is established from the shop floor measurement all the way up to the definition of the metre by an unbroken chain of calibrations.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
It feels impertinent to intervene, because my hon. Friend is giving a hugely passionate speech about a subject he clearly knows so much about, but how can he can help the next generation of metrologists to be as inspired about this topic as he clearly is?
Adam Thompson
That is very kind, and I thank my hon. Friend very much for his intervention. If he wishes, I have a 97-slide lecture that I would be more than happy to deliver afterwards.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Nobody wishes for the 97 slides, Mr Thompson.
Adam Thompson
Do not worry, Madam Deputy Speaker—it is not one for today. I am nearly finished.
Each stage of the traceability chain has some discernible uncertainty, which generally increases as we move down that chain and instrument accuracy decreases. Estimation of uncertainty at each link in the chain is essential; it is impossible to have a traceable measurement without the inclusion of an uncertainty with that measurement. When applied in manufacturing, traceability allows us to create anything we can imagine within the confines of our chosen manufacturing process. It is the cornerstone of our modern manufacturing industry.
Through this Bill, the Government seek to update metrology regulations and the means by which those regulations are enforced. We have heard at great length different opinions about that process, but the Government are today ensuring conformity with SI, ensuring uniformity in the measurement, sale, monitoring and quantity of goods. Further, they are ensuring that the Secretary of State and other appropriate bodies have the powers they require to inspect and enforce that conformity. The Bill will ensure that UK law is updated to recognise new or updated international regulations and keep us at the cutting edge of science and regulation.
Members said earlier in the debate how the UK was at the forefront of regulation. I spent many years on standards committees working through these things. Every standards committee I ever worked on fed into the British standard, which fed into the European standard and the international standard. Those are the frameworks we are updating today to ensure that we remain at the forefront. It will mean cost savings for business and it will promote regulatory stability.
Finally, the provisions laid out in this Bill continue the work begun by the ancient Egyptians—the work that allowed us to build everything from the great pyramids to the phones in our pockets, the paper that we hold in our hands and indeed the very floor on which we stand today. Our work today will ensure that the bulbs that light this room are of an appropriate brightness, that the air that we breathe and that surrounds us is of an appropriate temperature, and that we can finally get a fairly measured full beverage of exactly 568 ml in the pub. I support this Bill wholeheartedly.
Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)
I do not think I can; I thought that was an absolutely brilliant speech. I feel like a party-pooper, because I am going to drag the debate back to the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, and I can only apologise. I was going to assert boldly that I was the only Member of this House who had sat on a standards committee and drafted European regulations, but I stand corrected. There are now two of us.
At first glance, the Bill looks tiny. There are just four clauses on product regulations and four substantive clauses on metrology. There is a reason why it is so tiny: it does not actually say anything. There is no description of the changes anticipated by this legislation. There are no examples of what needs to be addressed. There is no indication of the direction behind any future decisions—nothing. Members, particularly those on the Government Benches, have referred to e-bikes and e-scooters, electrical safety, defective toys and lithium-ion batteries, to name just a few, but not a single one of those things is in the Bill. They could be. This could be a regulation Bill trying to fix the problems that have been identified, but none of that is there.
Worse than that, there is no explanation for the silence. The Bill simply makes a request of this House—of us, as parliamentarians—by saying, “Please give me, the Minister, the power to change primary legislation through regulations, including the power to create new and novel criminal offences.” This is the very definition of a skeleton Bill, where almost all the substance is left to regulations. That is contrary to an established convention in this House and the other place that the principal aspects of policy should be in a Bill, and only its detailed implementation left to delegated legislation. That is an established principle of our legislature. If we wish to depart from that, there needs to be a very good reason.
In exceptional circumstances, there are good reasons, but are there exceptional circumstances here? The issue was picked up immediately in what proved to be a hostile reception in the other place on Second Reading on 8 October last year. That was followed by a review on 15 October by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which is not some right-wing conspiracy theory group. This is not “Brexit or die”; it is chaired by Labour. It is chaired by Baroness Ramsey, and it is a cross-party Committee. By the way, in another role, she is the senior adviser to the Labour party on standards and ethics, yet her report has been entirely ignored by this Government, because it was damning in its conclusions. It said that Government guidance was that skeleton legislation should be used only in the most exceptional circumstances, but that test was “failed” by this draft legislation. As a result, that cross-party Committee, chaired by Labour, made the recommendation that clauses 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 9 all be removed. Those are the substantive clauses right through the Bill, on both sides. That is a stinging indictment of this category of draft legislation.
However, the Committee members were so concerned that they did not leave it at that. The following day, they took the exceptional step of summoning the Minister and his officials to give oral evidence. That is very rare, and it was the first time for three years that it had happened. The Committee members were clearly unimpressed by the answers—the attempted explanations —that they were given, because in a subsequent report, on 28 October, they reported that the Minister and his officials had
“failed to provide a convincing justification”.
As a result of that second damning indictment of the Government’s approach, there was some movement: the removal of some Henry VIII powers, and the addition of a duty to consult, at least in the first instance. However, other Henry VIII powers remain, and the duty to consult refers only to the first instance, not to any secondary attempts.
The Committee then produced a third report, on the Bill in its current form. It said that
“the delegation to Ministers of law-making powers in this Bill involves legislative power shifting to an unacceptable extent from the democratically appointed legislature to the Executive”,
and also that
“the Government have failed to provide a convincing justification for the inclusion of skeleton clauses in the Bill”.
Actually, I think the Government did understand what they were doing, because the Bill gives Ministers the power to make politically contentious decisions about the degree to which domestic law on product regulation and, indeed, on metrology should be aligned with EU laws. That is the real reason behind the Bill: the fear of EU alignment by the back door.
Sir John Hayes
My experience in this place—I am mindful of what my hon. Friend has said already—is that there are two types of Bill to beware of. The first is the Bill whose provisions are so permissive, so broad, lacking the tailored approach that I described earlier, as to allow law to be applied in a way that is not expected by those who debate it as it passes through the House. The second is the Bill that makes specific provision for delegated legislation—for subsequent action by the Government. Those two types of legislation are legislation to beware of, and I say that to Members on both sides of the House, having seen Governments of all kinds introduce such Bills which became, in the end, bad laws.
Jerome Mayhew
Of course I agree with my right hon. Friend, and that comes to the nub of what I want to say. Yes, inevitably we are party politicians. We have the official Opposition, we have the Government, and we have those who sit on the left-hand side of the official Opposition. Above that, however, we are parliamentarians, and some of us are quite new. I may look old, and indeed I am, but I was first elected in 2019, and an awful lot of Members in the Chamber who may be voting tonight are even less experienced than me. It takes a while to begin to understand the difference between the role of the legislature and the role of the Executive, and my profound concern is that we are at risk of handing very significant powers from ourselves, the legislature, to the Executive.
Michael Wheeler
Having heard these comments several times, I wonder whether the hon. Member will accept that wisdom is not necessarily proportional to the amount of time spent in the Chamber.
Jerome Mayhew
The conventions of the House, and the conventions of the legislature, cannot be brushed aside by a flip comment like that. There are reasons why we have conventions. There is a separation of powers between the Executive and the legislature, and the power to create legislation lies with us. There are grounds, sometimes, on which we can give it to Ministers, but there must be really sensible reasons for that to be done, and there simply are not in this instance.
Graham Stringer
I have been following the hon. Member’s arguments closely. It is certainly the case that, with or without wisdom, the House is capable of making poor decisions. I have voted for measures and against them on occasion, and the House has made poor decisions. However, it is much more likely that the House will get it right, rather than a delegated legislation Committee dealing with a statutory instrument where a Minister comes along and reads out a brief that she or he often does not understand, as is revealed under questioning—if, indeed, questioning takes place. The argument for the Bill is really to do with speed and capacity. We do not meet to vote on Thursdays, but we often do on Mondays. There is plenty of time for the House to do this.
Jerome Mayhew
I entirely agree. I did an analysis, and 48.3% of sitting days since the general election have been on one-line Whips, so there are no grounds for the Government to assert that they do not have time to put forward fresh legislation. It simply is not the case, and they do not have a legislative agenda that they are progressing with any urgency. There is plenty of room, and if we need to regulate, we can do it.
We have a big decision to take as parliamentarians. We are being asked by the Government to nod through a blank cheque—a blank cheque that is in breach of our parliamentary conventions. It is against the express advice of the cross-party Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee not once, not twice, but three times. I say to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that any parliamentarian worthy of the name will vote against this Bill.
Laurence Turner (Birmingham Northfield) (Lab)
As has been said, on the face of it this is a short Bill, but when we look beneath the surface, it is even more exciting than the bare title of the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill suggests. Most of us go through our days without giving much thought to the measurement of the units that govern our everyday lives—I confess that, until very recently, I was one of them—but so many of our scientific and medical advances have succeeded or failed on the most precise margins, as my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson) so brilliantly set out. It was a real privilege to be in the Chamber to listen to his speech.
In the city of Birmingham, best known throughout much of its history as the workshop of the world, many millions of hours must have been sweated out to meet the finest of measurements and tolerances. I suspect my hon. Friend is capable of accurately estimating just how many hours that would have taken. However, I note in passing that one of just two remaining proof houses, which fell under the scope of the Gun Barrel Proof Act 1868 and succeeding Acts—they attracted a lot of attention in the other place—is in Digbeth in the city of Birmingham.
At the start of my hon. Friend’s speech, he raised the question of when exactly the word “metrology” entered common parlance. I do not know what that date was, but I note that when the National Physical Laboratory was created in 1900, it was established with a metrology division. One of the early guiding forces, Mr J. E. Sears, later found a second career as a scales manufacturer, again in the good city of Birmingham. Today, when pharmaceutical manufacturing jobs are starting to return to my constituency, 20 years on from the collapse of MG Rover, I know some of the exacting standards that those manufacturers must meet.
We need only look at the number of Weights and Measures Acts passed by this House down the years to understand the importance of these questions for our role as legislators. I fear that I am about to commit an unwise act by referencing Magna Carta in this place, as that text has been the subject of one or two interesting emails that I suspect a number of hon. Members have also received, but it is telling that it stipulated:
“There is to be a single measure for wine throughout our realm, and a single measure for ale, and a single measure for Corn… And it shall be the same for weights as for measures.”
In the other place, and it is fair to say in this place as well, the arguments over the Bill have come down to a simple point: are delegated powers and statutory instruments the right processes for adapting to a rapidly changing landscape for product safety and international measurement standards? It is worth remembering two things. First, the theory that we could make sufficient updates through primary legislation can be tested against the history of legislation in this place. For example, some of the provisions in the Consumer Protection Act 1987 have been overtaken by events, and it has proved hard in practice to bring forward the necessary changes to that legislation.
Secondly, as has been said, this work was initiated by the last Government, who at the time made the case for delegated powers persuasively. As the 2021 response to the 2019 call for evidence stated:
“Over time, the limited powers we retained in domestic legislation became less effective. Rather than update these, the UK relied on powers in the European Communities Act (ECA) 1972 to introduce new harmonised legislation to deal with product safety and metrology.”
Those powers have now expired. Governments of all colours must deal with
“A complex, forever changing landscape”
and current legislation does
“not allow for many of the changes necessary to keep pace with technological advances and modern hazards.”
A good example of the ever-changing metrological field can be drawn from the 2019 changes to the international system of quantities, which altered in subtle ways the definition of the kilogram, the amp, the kelvin and the mole, with implications across a very wide range of regulations. I think it is sensible to update those definitions swiftly by regulations. We have heard examples of some of the unsafe products that are on sale at the moment. It is worth noting that the Bill is not simply about definitions, but enforcement. Clause 3 will enable some of those stretched resources, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) referred, to go further. I also note that through the Transport Committee I received representations from Brompton Bicycle, a very good British manufacturing success story, which said that UK product safety regulations and enforcement have failed to keep pace with the development of e-bike technology. Unsafe, poor quality e-bike products are entering the hands of UK consumers with sometimes devastating consequences.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent point. Many constituents around the country will appreciate the specific points he makes about the changing product environment, and the way that product design and development is moving very quickly. I have a large number of residents who are concerned about e-bikes being ridden irresponsibly, home-made kits attached to bicycles, and cyclists often speeding on pavements. That is an interesting example of how the Bill could be very effective, so I thank him for his work on that.
Laurence Turner
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I know that was one of the areas to which he paid a lot of attention in the transport brief. I am sure that as the Committee continues to look into this area, it will build on that work. As he says, this is an issue that comes up time and again in my constituency. We might not ever be able to get every single one of those vehicles off the road, but we need the powers to bring more of them off our streets where they pose a threat to people’s safety.
To illustrate the seriousness of the challenges the Government face and the need sometimes for very swift progress, we need only to look to the scale of technological advancements in the field of hybrid warfare and the implications of those advancements for dual-use civilian technologies. I note that clause 1(4)(d) draws specific attention to products that can
“cause, or be susceptible to, electromagnetic disturbance.”
In Ukraine, the two adversaries are locked into a cycle of innovation and reaction in drone warfare and electronic countermeasures that are escalating at a blinding speed. Some of those developments have implications for the potential misuse of civilian drones in this country. To suggest that primary legislation is capable of keeping pace with that is not realistic.
Similarly, in respect of intangible products, again an issue on which the House of Lords spent a large amount of welcome scrutiny time, there is a case that primary legislation cannot cover enough eventualities in good time, especially in the age of artificially generated code. I think back to the Volkswagen emissions scandal 10 years ago, when so-called “defeat devices” were intangible in nature.
Graham Stuart
The hon. Gentleman is making a brilliant speech and he has focused on some of the key issues in ways that not every speech has. He makes a powerful case, but why does he think that those arguments have not persuaded, in three different attempts in three different reports, the cross-party Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, which provides expert insight into precisely such proposed legislation?
Laurence Turner
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, although I do not agree with his characterisation of the speeches we have heard today. I think hon. Members have brought a wide range of perspectives, and that even though there has been some disagreement across the House—and, on occasion, on the same Benches—all Members have made their points sincerely.
I have read the reports the right hon. Gentleman references and the Minister’s evidence. My reading of that report is that the Committee held a very strong view on the principle of skeleton delegated legislation, but the point it made is that the case must be made for the use of such powers. My view is that the case has been made in this instance because of the seriousness of the matters we are discussing.
Jerome Mayhew
I refer the hon. Gentleman to the conclusions of the fourth report by the expert Committee, which states:
“We remain of the view…that the Government have failed to provide a convincing justification for the inclusion of skeleton clauses in this Bill that give Ministers such wide powers to re-write in regulations the substance of the regulatory regimes for products and metrology.”
He is wrong in his assessment, is he not?
Laurence Turner
No. With respect, I think the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood my point. The Committee has every right to express that view; we also have the right to express our view as legislators in this place as to whether the case has been made. As I say, I think the case has been made that primary legislation is not a sufficient vehicle in this instance. I will just say to the hon. Gentleman that there are numerous precedents under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, for example, for regulating dangerous products; the difference is that primary legislation does not cover all the eventualities for products of the kind we are discussing today.
I will finish by talking about the pint. I note, in passing, that the first legislation to clearly regulate the pint—the Act for the ascertaining the Measures for retailing Ale and Beer of 1698—did not see it as necessary to define the actual quantity; perhaps it was left to royal prerogative to define. The history books do clearly show that the pint is safe, so to speak, in Labour’s hands: in his memoir of his time at head of the No. 10 policy unit, the noble Lord Donoughue details how Harold Wilson intervened to save the pint; and it was a Labour Government in 2008 who secured the metric opt-out that preserved the inch, the troy ounce and, of course, the pint.
I know that hon. and right hon. Members on the Opposition Benches have spent a lot of time chasing away phantoms on this particular issue, and I hope that they feel that was a good use of their time and that we see more of it in this Parliament. For the Government Benches, however, I look forward to following the progress of this important Bill and to voting for it tonight, and perhaps also to raising a pint—or, as clause 5(5) has it, 0.56826125 cubic decimetres—to the Bill’s good health as it completes its remaining stages in this House.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
Forgive me for bringing the Commons back to the purpose of Parliament. Its historic purpose is to make laws for our constituents and to hold the Executive to account. That is the fundamental that has been loosened by this Bill. Although it is entirely skeletal in form, the Bill’s effect is very far-reaching indeed.
It is quite obvious that the Bill has a clear purpose, which is to align Great Britain with the EU single market on goods. If it were not so, we would not have clause 2(7). The standard that is set in that clause is the EU standard. If the Bill was just about creating the opportunity to make regulations because of a regulatory gap, it would not be tethered to the EU provisions on goods. It would be open ended, and we would be free to make the choice that best suited us. However, the giveaway clause in the Bill is clause 2(7). That lets the cat out of the bag, as indeed did the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) when she quite clearly indicated that that was the direction of travel that she sought. Therefore, that is the purpose.
When we look at clause 1(2), we again have the open affirmation of the desire to make the compliance with “relevant EU law”, so it is abundantly clear that this is a creation to realign us with EU law. The intent is to create this vehicle for realignment without voters noticing. Of course that means realignment with laws that we do not make and that we cannot change because they are made by a foreign Parliament. The ambition in this Bill in respect of clause 2(7) is to disenfranchise—as has happened already in Northern Ireland by our subjugation to the EU single market and all its rules—the people of the United Kingdom, so that, in their entirety, they are at the Government’s whim and can be subjected to laws they do not make and cannot change. That then inextricably ties us to the European Court of Justice. It is the ECJ that mediates and deliberates on those laws that this Bill wishes to tie us to. Therefore, it is an attempt to tie us not just to the EU single market, but to the court that rules the EU’s single market.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
On the point the hon. and learned Gentleman is making about enfranchisement and the fact that he wishes this Parliament to be in control of the powers that it has, does he agree that it would be sensible for the UK Government to ensure that, where powers are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, for example, they seek consent from Scottish Ministers rather than just legislating? The Bill, as currently drafted, allows Ministers here to legislate in areas of devolved competency, much as he is making the case that the EU court would be allowed to do.
Jim Allister
One critical thing about the Bill is that, under the Sewel convention, it does not extend to secondary legislation. It does not extend to statutory instruments. The Bill drives a coach and horses through the Sewel convention as far as devolution is concerned, because it heaps all the powers into statutory instruments. One might expect such a bold move to realign the United Kingdom with EU law to be an up-front piece of legislation. I do not think that that is too much to ask—that it should be plain and clear for all to see. Instead, it is to be conveyed in these statutory instruments. And statutory instruments, as we know, are those that, in the main, pass through unnoticed. We have all been to Delegated Legislation Committees. We know that they are farcical in that the Minister comes in with a brief, which is simply rigidly read, and Members nod the motion through. It is a farcical way to make legislation of any sort.
Jerome Mayhew
Much of this debate has been about whether this Bill leads us to dynamic alignment. The Government’s position is that it does not and that this is all a mirage and a fantasy. If that is the case, does the hon. and learned Member agree that a simple amendment to this Bill to make that clear would go a long way to reassuring Members.
Jim Allister
Absolutely. If the Government are not—as many of us suspect—following a deliberate approach of circumventing debate in this House on key realignment issues, and is seeking rather to channel it through statutory instruments, then call our bluff, change this Bill in that regard. But this idea of skeleton legislation, which sets up the powers that have been taken from Parliament and given to the Executive, is something which, historically, this party of Government have railed against.
Indeed, within a week of Second Reading in the other place, the Attorney General gave the Bingham lecture. He said:
“excessive reliance on delegated powers, Henry VIII clauses, or skeleton legislation, upsets the proper balance between Parliament and the executive. This not only strikes at the rule of law values…but also at the cardinal principles of accessibility and legal certainty. In my view, the new Government offers an opportunity for a reset in the way that Government thinks about these issues. This means, in particular, a much sharper focus on whether taking delegated powers is justified in a given case, and more careful consideration of appropriate safeguards.”
That was the Attorney General. Where did that go to?
Sir John Hayes
I am interested in the Attorney General’s view, and we should take it seriously. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman recognise that primary legislation in this place metamorphosises in its passage through scrutiny? I have been involved in many Bills, as shadow Minister, Minister and Back Bencher, and that is precisely what happens. Ministers listen to argument, and as Bills return to the House, they reflect that argument both from here and in the Lords. Secondary legislation does not go through that process. That is why it is so important that the Bills we pass here do not contain the kind of permissive powers that facilitate so much secondary legislation.
Jim Allister
The right hon. Member is absolutely right. If one wanted to realign the United Kingdom with the EU, the easiest passage would be by statutory instruments. That is why that is the chosen mechanism here.
I have one final point. This Parliament traditionally and properly makes the law on criminal offences. We set the tariffs. Sometimes we say what the minimum penalty for a criminal offence is, but we always say what the maximum penalty is. We say what the content is of the criminal offence—what are the actus reus and the mens rea. But amazingly under clauses 3(9) and 3(11) and clauses 6(9) and 6(11) of the Bill we are going to make criminal offences by statutory instrument. Surely we have lost the run of ourselves if we think it is appropriate to make criminal offences in that essentially uncontrolled manner. It deprives this House, and therefore those we represent, of the very careful scrutiny that should always go into making something a crime. That is but another of the fundamental flaws of this undeserving Bill.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Dr Prinsley, I am told that your speech is just a few minutes long, so I hope you will honour that.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
I welcome this Bill, which will address the alarming proliferation of unsafe products in online marketplaces. I would like to talk particularly about the hazards of unsafe toys, which are increasingly being sold online.
As a very recently retired ear, nose and throat surgeon—yesterday actually—I know the very real harm that these dangerous toys cause. I have operated on young children who inhaled small components from unsafe toys, detachable parts or parts that were unsafely secured and were a choking hazard, and ribbon or string that exceeded the legal limits, creating strangulation hazards. These are frightening life-threatening situations that no family should have to put up with.
Those are not isolated incidents. A Which? investigation found that over 90% of toys purchased from some online marketplaces were unfit for sale in the UK. Shockingly, these toys falsely displayed UK and European safety marks, misleading parents into believing that they were buying something safe for their children. The tragedy is that in many of these cases the sellers simply disappear, vanishing from the platform, and the families are left with no way to seek redress from the harm caused.
That is why we must act. I am glad that the Bill will give the Government the opportunity to address this issue. It will give them the power to regulate new and emerging business models and marketplaces, which previous laws did not allow.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
Lithium-ion batteries are essential for achieving our net zero goals, but as demand grows for products containing such batteries we need to do more to protect consumers against dangerous lithium-ion batteries. Since 2020, e-bike and e-scooter fires have—
Helen Maguire
Does the hon. Member agree that there should be a mechanism to recognise and regulate high-risk products so that we can protect consumers?
Peter Prinsley
I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. I would point out the particular danger of button batteries—something that is well known to ENT surgeons—which cause perforation of the oesophagus and the trachea by a chemical reaction.
In the last two years, 95% of consumers have purchased from online platforms, with approximately 23 million monthly transactions in UK. We certainly need strong accountability for these marketplaces. Without that, dangerous items will continue to resurface, putting children at risk. I urge the House to ensure that the Bill puts more pressure on the sellers of unsafe toys, forcing them to take responsibility for their actions.
Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in the debate. We have had excellent speeches from across the House. I think the whole House agreed on the brilliance of the speech made by the hon. Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson), and—perhaps I would say this—great speeches have come from Opposition Members in particular. My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew), the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) and the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) got to the heart and the nub of the critique of the Bill.
We have also heard many good speeches, including the last one, about issues of product safety and the need to have a system that can keep up. The speech that addressed both that issue and whether the Bill is appropriate—it was the outstanding speech by a Government Member—was made by the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner). He did not like my praise of his speech in so far as it disparaged in any way anybody else’s, but he faced up to the issues directly. He did not just say, “Well, there are these problems with products and product safety, and here’s a Bill that could do something about it.” He dealt with the fact that the Bill gives enormous power to Ministers. As colleagues across the House have pointed out, the purpose of this honourable House is to hold the Executive’s feet to the fire, hold them to account and hold them in check, and ensure that we champion the will of the people who sent us here. As has been said, not only the Minister but, back in 2018, the Secretary of State warned the House that
“the use of delegated powers carries a risk of abuse by the Executive”.––[Official Report, Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Public Bill Committee, 1 February 2018; c. 305.]
The hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) is not here, so I will try to be more polite than I would have been if she was, but if Brexit derangement syndrome is a condition, it is one that affects not only people who are maniacally in favour of Brexit, but those who seem unable to think rationally from the other side. The point that I tried to make to the hon. Lady in an intervention—I would make it again—is that giving such untrammelled power to Ministers is frightening, regardless of whether we prefer closer alignment with the EU. She said that we need common-sense alignment, but these powers would allow a super-ideological future Minister to come in and seek, entirely for ideological reasons, to stop any alignment with the most sensible of EU regulations purely to have some Brexit difference. That makes no sense whatsoever.
Graham Stuart
I will press on a little, but I may come back to the hon. Lady.
I understand that, following the loveless landslide that brought the Government to power, the Government, and Government Members, have done an about-face. They now delight in more powers for the Executive, so much so that the Bill’s very first subsection gives the same Secretary of State I just referenced the power to make regulations anywhere in the UK, without consulting Parliaments in Westminster, Holyrood, Cardiff Bay or Stormont, on more or less anything he likes.
I was so pleased that the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim raised the devolution question. I was a Minister for eight years, and such is the complexity of the devolution settlement now that even with thousands of civil servants working on primary legislation, Ministers can come to the House and suddenly it gets pointed out to them that they are in breach of the Sewel convention and ignoring how Northern Ireland has a slightly different environmental or energy regulatory environment from Scotland or Wales. They find that the situation is more complex than they first thought. Now, we are giving powers to Ministers who will not have to go through any of that rigmarole. They will not get to find out how they are trampling on the devolution settlement, and that is a serious issue.
We on the Opposition Benches can make the arguments, but what we must really do is engage Government Members and get them to recognise that they are not here just to back the Government. They need to question these things, and not just ask whether the powers could be used for good. The hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield gave a brilliant speech with examples of the speeding up and pace of technological change—I think he spoke about the drones in Ukraine. Even though Opposition Members may maintain that the system that we had worked perfectly well, he made the case that perhaps we need something speedier going forward, and I can see that he made a strong argument. None the less, is the answer just to hand to Ministers, in this skeleton Bill, all the powers in the world? I suggest that it is not.
I know the Minister and the Secretary of State are decent people, and I hope that we will see, as the legislation proceeds through this House, ways to curb some of the powers while allowing us to have a regulatory system that can speedily respond to inappropriate products. None of us wants to see parliamentary pride getting in the way of an effective system; we have to find a way of making things work. This Bill, however, goes too far the other way. That is why the cross-party experts on the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee have looked at it and said that they do not feel that the case has been made to justify such massive powers.
Some parallels were raised by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, and I think it is fair enough to say, “Look at the way that Henry VIII powers and delegated powers were taken by the Government in the last Parliament.” Quite rightly, people questioned it, but that was about implementing Brexit; it really was something enormous that had to be done at a reasonable speed. Those of us involved were cognisant of the fact that we did not want it to set a precedent; we did not want Government to take the unique conditions of implementing Brexit and take it as a new way of governing. To the comment from the hon. Member for Erewash about rebuilding the world that the ancient Egyptians had, they were very good at centralising authority and I do not think that that is an entirely good thing. That is exactly what the Bill does, so I agree with him on that.
I am sure the Secretary of State is an excellent judge of things such as the safe operation of a laptop, say, for a trainee solicitor, but he will now have the power to regulate any product for sale in the UK on the basis of safety or functionality. The immense power given to him will allow him to decide what is and is not sold in the UK, without consulting this place and by merely providing a written statement. The Bill goes further, with Ministers acquiring the power to give inspectors the right to enter somebody’s home to seize any product that the Minister has decided, on the basis of non-compliance. That can be imposed on manufacturers, marketers, installers, importers or people who run an online marketplace, the definition of which, by the way, can be altered on a ministerial whim and at any point.
We have heard about dangerous and often unpopular electric bikes and scooters, but the powers in the Bill allow a future Secretary of State—we have had some eccentric ones in the past—to decide to ban bicycles because he considers them to be dangerous. He might look at the figures on that. After publishing a statement, he could instruct anyone he likes to enter the house of every bike owner and every bike shop to seize every bike in the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State could effectively end cycling in the UK without coming to Parliament. He could create legions of cycle inspectors who could enter people’s homes or businesses and seize their property before disposing of it. And the Government want to hide this act under the innocuous name of the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill. It is a massive power to give to the Secretary of State.
I say this to the many new Labour Members: I am not very keen on any Government, even the one of which I was a member. It was Lord Acton who said:
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Well, there is an element of absolute power in this Bill, but we have an opportunity both to recognise the powerful case made by the hon. Member for Birmingham Northfield for an appropriate system and by his colleagues talking about different challenges, and to make sure that we limit and reduce those powers as the Bill goes through the House. I know that my cycle example is a little extreme, but it is also true. It would not require the Government to return to this House; they would be able to do it.
The Prime Minister has told us that the No. 1 mission of this Government is growth, yet his Ministers, not satisfied with taking the fastest growing economy in the entire G7 and bringing it to a shuddering halt, have introduced what may be the most tediously named but potentially dangerous Bill in the history of Parliament. We can look at what the Government have done for business so far. They have ended the rate relief for hospitality, made part-time workers too expensive to hire, hiked the cost of employing people through next week’s jobs tax, strengthened the trade unions and made it impossible to fire new workers. I would not want to exaggerate this Bill’s role, but in a crowded field, it takes the biscuit in many ways. Businesses are struggling to cope with all these things already, and now we will have greater business uncertainty caused by the fact that Ministers can, on a whim, choose which products can and cannot be sold. This will provide the exact opposite of the certainty that Labour Members suggested the Bill could bring, in a way that has no logic behind it.
Jerome Mayhew
Every single one of the measures in that infamous list that my right hon. Friend just went through required a vote in this House, and Labour Members had to put their name to each proposed legislative change. They will not have to do that under this legislation, will they?
Graham Stuart
They will not. The Secretary of State—not the current wonderful, benign, insightful and genial Secretary of State, but a future rather less palatable one—could wake up one day and impose new regulations on business that effectively strangle and bring red tape to every business in the land. Remember how close we were in 2017 to having a Government that would have been very different from the one that is opposite us today, or indeed from the Conservatives.
Why are the Government doing this? I cannot look into a man’s soul, but I have an idea, because Labour spent years fighting the UK’s attempts to remove the burden of regulation on business after we left the EU. At every turn, Labour tried to cling to nurse rather than let businesses innovate and sell their goods. This Government are seeking to undermine and erode the freedoms we have won over the last few years. Indeed, that is in black and white in the Bill. The Secretary of State may reimpose EU law on products without the requirement to come to this place and ask our permission to do so.
I am not saying that this is the worst thing the Government have done. As I have said, there is quite a packed list, including cutting the winter fuel payment for pensioners, the farm tax, the jobs tax, imposing stamp duty on first-time buyers, which comes in, I think, today—[Interruption.] Suddenly someone wants to buy a house. There is also the hospitality tax. I could go on, but executive powers are at their most pernicious when they have no limits. This legislation is not about metrology or about the better regulation of products; it is about giving the Government the power to do what they like, when they like, for reasons they do not have to explain, and then impose it as they see fit. The fact that we might like, and even trust, the current Secretary of State is no reason to give powers like this to Ministers about whom we know nothing now. I hope that Labour Members will join us in opposing this Bill.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
This has been a genuinely important, interesting and lively debate on product regulation and metrology. It has also been a debate about the balance of power between the Executive and us here in Parliament. The UK product safety and metrology framework is derived from European Union law and it developed while the UK was a member of the EU, when we did not have the opportunity here to address product safety in our changing world as rapidly as we do now.
Following our departure from the European Union, the UK established its independent regulatory system, which must be flexible enough to accommodate emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, and address changes in consumer purchasing behaviours. As the Bill’s explanatory notes state, its purpose is to ensure that the UK is better equipped to tackle modern safety challenges, safeguard consumers, seize opportunities for economic growth and so on.
The Secretary of State said in his introductory remarks that the Bill was introduced in the previous Parliament, and I want to emphasise that it was not. I want to offer the Minister the chance to correct the record in his closing remarks, in case the House has been inadvertently misled.
Upon leaving the European Union, the UK created the UK conformity assessed marking, known as the UKCA, to replace the conformité Européenne marking, known as the CE. These markings are used by manufacturers to demonstrate product conformity. The UK still recognises CE markings; however, the EU does not recognise the UKCA. Will the Minister confirm that discussions are happening with the EU, including the resetting of discussions on trade, to ensure that UKCA markings and any products regulated here in the UK are mutually recognised?
Turning to the points raised in today’s excellent debate, we heard fantastic speeches from my right hon. Friends the Members for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and for Beverley and Holderness (Graham Stuart), and my hon. Friends the Members for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) and for Beaconsfield (Joy Morrissey). We also heard powerful voices from Northern Ireland on the adjacent Benches, from the right hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) and the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister). We also heard the expertise that the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) brings from his background in the toy industry.
From the Labour Benches, we heard impassioned speeches often about product safety, including from the hon. Members for Worsley and Eccles (Michael Wheeler), for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) and for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy). She described us as sinners repenting, which I hasten to surmise might mean that she is a repenter beginning to sin. We heard from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), who is a passionate advocate for ceramics from his constituency. We had the pleasure of hearing a masterclass from Parliament’s first metrologist, the hon. Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson), on the ancient history of metrology; it was a very enjoyable speech. We heard speeches from the hon. Members for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) and for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley).
Before embarking on the reason why we will oppose the Bill tonight, I welcome the Government’s U-turn in the other place on their plans to rule over the size of the great British pint or, as the hon. Member for Erewash would describe it, 0.56826125 cubic decimetres. Although they were initially resistant, Ministers eventually recognised that our great British pint should remain untouched. I am afraid that that is all I can welcome about this piece of legislation, because the Opposition are deeply concerned with the Government’s overreach and excessive reliance on delegated powers within the Bill.
Henry VIII would be absolutely delighted by this piece of legislation. Labour Members claim that it will simplify our regulatory framework, yet all we see is the undermining of our sovereignty and the powers of Parliament. This 15-page Bill would give the Secretary of State unchecked powers to amend product safety regulations, change the definition of an online marketplace and introduce new penalties, inspection powers and charges on businesses, driving up the already soaring costs of doing business in the UK. As many hon. Friends have said, it would grant the Government sweeping powers to make us a passive recipient of laws made in Brussels. International trade and co-operation are welcome, but this is not what more than 17 million people voted for in 2016, when we took back control—it is a betrayal of Brexit.
The Bill is not purely technical; part of its purpose is to allow the dynamic alignment of goods with EU single market laws, giving the EU the power to rule on standards for manufactured goods produced in the United Kingdom. This EU Trojan horse Bill could see us readopting a regulatory regime over which we have no influence, input or sanction, leaving us as rule takers, not rule makers.
It is fundamentally not good practice or good governance to deliver substantial changes through delegated legislation.
“We must bear in mind that the use of delegated powers carries a risk of abuse by the Executive, which is not something the Opposition could ever support. Rather, it is our duty at this stage to check the powers of the Executive and ensure that we are not giving them carte blanche to change the balance of power permanently in their favour.”––[Official Report, Taxation (Cross-border Trade) Public Bill Committee, 1 February 2018; c. 305.]
These are not my words but those of the Secretary of State.
Tomorrow, the United States could impose tariffs on us. It is paramount that we secure a mutually beneficial UK-US trade deal as soon as possible, but I cannot see how the Bill, which drags us closer to the European Union, would give the United States any incentive to work with us.
In closing, let me ask the Minister a few questions. Can he confirm what the limits will be on ministerial powers? What oversight will Parliament have of regulatory changes made under the Bill? What consultation will occur with the real-world businesses that are affected by the change? Will he confirm that no regulations made under the Bill will prevent or impede UK businesses from trading internationally?
The Bill undermines Parliament and risks tying British businesses to EU red tape on which we have no say. We cannot allow these excessive powers to create further uncertainty among British businesses of all sizes, which already face the soaring costs of doing business because of the Chancellor’s tax grab. The Bill is a parliamentary sovereignty sell-out. We got Brexit done; let us keep it that way. The Bill gives away control, and that is why I call on the House to back our amendment and stop it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
I thank right hon. and hon. Members from across the House for what has been an interesting and, at times, informed debate on the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in opening, the Government’s primary mission is economic growth to help rejuvenate our high streets and promote innovation, and this legislation is an important element in that drive and will further cement the UK as a world-leader in product regulation and safety. The legislation will have real-world impacts that we can all relate to. As we have heard, product safety failures can have devastating consequences, and we are determined that our regulatory framework be as agile and flexible as possible in its response to new threats and complex modern supply chains but without stifling innovation.
There have been an awful lot of contributions, and I will try to cover as many of them as I can. I think it is appropriate that I start by referencing the excellent speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson), which lit up the whole House. He is, of course, the first meteorologist to have spoken in this Chamber—
Justin Madders
Metrologist. He may well be on the Bill Committee, because he has definitely talked his way on to it with his insight into this issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner) almost matched him in terms of technical specificity, and his historical knowledge was also very important. He has just finished sitting on a Bill Committee with me, but he is talking his way on to this one as well—perhaps I should not say that, because it might encourage colleagues not to speak in future debates.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones), were among a number of Members who talked about the issue of e-bikes, which is a real concern. I am sure the whole House has been moved by the tragic cases of e-bike fires that we too often hear about. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred to the tragic death of Sofia Duarte. I met her mother last year to talk about what we can do through this Bill to prevent such tragedies from happening again.
In the wake of the increasing number of fires associated with e-bikes and lithium-ion batteries, there have been calls from businesses, trade associations, consumer groups and parliamentarians to tighten up the law. This legislation will allow us to ensure that the UK’s product safety framework can keep up with technological developments, including on e-bikes. The powers in the Bill will allow us to update regulations to ensure the best protections for consumers and consistency with the majority of reputable retailers.
The Government are currently considering how best to use the powers in the Bill to regulate these products in an efficient and proportionate way, in particular to ensure that products that can pose a greater risk, such as lithium-ion batteries and e-bikes and e-scooters, are safe. That includes bringing forward powers in the Bill to better define online marketplaces and confer additional duties on them to help stop the sale of unsafe products, including converter kits. As my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles (Michael Wheeler) pointed out, this is a fast-moving environment, and the Bill will give us the flexibility to tackle that.
Clive Jones
Does the Minister agree that if a UK manufacturer wants to produce a product for the UK market, it should produce it to UK regulations, and if it wants to export it to Europe, it is sensible to produce that product to EU regulations, which will open up a massive market on our doorstep? Keeping up with EU regulations will generally be good for the British business economy and help economic growth.
Justin Madders
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson tempts me to set out a statement of policy, which the Bill is not intended to do. We want to give ourselves maximum flexibility in our ability to deal with issues as they arise. He talked in his speech about online marketplaces, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) talked about unsafe toys and button batteries, citing the fact that investigations have discovered that up to 90% of products purchased in online marketplaces are unsafe. Because we recognise that online marketplaces are in desperate need of regulation, the Bill will give us powers to clarify and modernise responsibilities for online marketplaces in a flexible and proportionate way, to protect consumers and create a fair playing field for law-abiding businesses. It will enable the Government to modernise the responsibilities of online supply chain actors.
While the growth of e-commerce has provided consumers with greater choice and convenience, it cannot be at the expense of consumer safety. We will continue to engage with consumer groups, businesses and online marketplaces in the development of specific online marketplace requirements to ensure that they are proportionate and to mitigate any costs to consumers. I can also confirm that it is the intention of the Government to consult on the duties for online marketplaces soon after Royal Assent and to bring forward subsequent regulations as soon as is practically possible.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) spoke with his customary passion about the ceramics industry in the Potteries. I acknowledge his ideas for protecting the industry. I am not sure whether this Bill is the right vehicle for his suggestion, but I will take it away and come back to him.
It is probably worth talking about the issue that seemed to vex Opposition Members rather a lot, which is whether this Bill is in some way a reset to EU laws by the back door. It is about domestic regulation and we are not rejoining the EU by the back door. The Bill is about giving us flexibility to ensure product regulation, now and in the future, that is tailored to the needs of the UK. Of course, there will be some instances when we will want to take a similar approach to the EU, but there will be other times when we will want to take our own approach. Those decisions will be taken on a case-by-case basis in the best interests of UK businesses and consumers.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy) said, the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023 gave significant powers to the Executive, and the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Wokingham, quoted me on that Act. It reformed 7,000 regulations, ranging across every function of society. Its regulations were far broader than those proposed in this Bill and the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Select Committee called it “hyper-skeletal”, which is some way beyond the criticisms it levelled against this Bill.
Turning to the reasoned amendment tabled by the official Opposition, it is worth restating that the Bill is not about rejoining the EU. David Cameron commented that he wanted the Conservative party to
“stop banging on about Europe”,
but there seems to be some way to go before his words reach fruition, despite the fact that we left five years ago. The Bill gives us the necessary powers to ensure public regulation, now and in the future, meets the interests of the UK. The powers set out in the Bill will be used solely and exclusively in the best interests of UK businesses and consumers.
I recognise that the House of Lords Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Select Committee raised concerns about this being a skeleton Bill, but the Government have considered those concerns and other representations made by Members in the other place. Our existing product regulations are necessary to keep consumers safe, and to provide clarity and a level playing field for businesses. They extend to many thousands of pages and cover a huge amount of technical detail. As the noble and learned Lord Pannick said in the other place,
“the practical reality is that technical regulations of the breadth and complexity that will be produced cannot sensibly be enacted by primary legislation.”
He went on to say that if we are required to use primary legislation every time we wanted to make a regulation on product safety, there would be
“little, if any, time for anything else.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 February 2025; Vol. 843, c. 1716.]
Conservative Members seem to have forgotten that since the Consumer Protection Act 1987, Governments of all stripes have recognised the need to make product safety regulations by secondary legislation. Since 1987, the Conservatives have been in power for 24 years, so they had more than enough time to find another way of dealing with product safety, but they did not choose to do that. We are taking a pragmatic approach. We have taken notice of some of the concerns raised about the powers of the Bill: we have removed a number of Henry VIII powers, introduced a consultation requirement, added additional affirmative resolution procedures and published a code of conduct that sets out the controls that we will have to ensure regulations are proportionate and evidence based. I am grateful to Members of the other place for setting out some of their concerns.
As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin), pointed out, the Conservatives did not introduce the Bill in the last Parliament; I am happy to confirm that that was the case. That shows that there was a gap in the law that needed filling and the Conservatives failed to act on it.
Some of the important consumer groups in this country, such as Which?, recognised that action was needed. Sue Davies, head of consumer rights, protections and food policy said:
“It’s encouraging that the government is prioritising a Bill that should address the huge gap in consumer protections which allows online marketplaces to facilitate the sale of unsafe and illegal products without facing repercussions.”
If Members vote for the reasoned amendment, we will not be having any of those protections. I do not think any responsible party would move an amendment along those lines.
This Government are never going to compromise on safety. The Bill is essential to strengthening the rules and regulations needed to protect consumers, businesses and the public. I therefore commend the Bill to the House.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Business without Debate
Trail Hunting
(2 days, 8 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
Meur ras, Mr Speaker. I am delighted to secure my first Adjournment debate, and for it to be on an issue so close to my heart: trail hunting and, more broadly, animal welfare.
Put simply, animal cruelty should have no place in modern, progressive 21st-century Britain. Having spent most of my life living in rural areas, I have witnessed at first hand the brutal reality of hunting with dogs. Contrary to the views of some, that opinion is shared by many rural residents. It is imperative that as lawmakers we address the concerns surrounding trail hunting, particularly in light of the Hunting Act 2004 and the Government’s manifesto commitments.
Fox hunting is not a sport. It is an activity that involves tracking, chasing and killing a fox, typically using a pack of hounds and riders on horseback. It was banned by the last Labour Government through Hunting Act 2004. Drag hunting is an activity similar to traditional foxhunting, but with a key difference: instead of hunting a live fox, a scent trail is artificially laid for the hounds to follow. The scent is usually created using a mixture of aniseed and other substances, and it is dragged along a predetermined route. Just to be clear, I have no issues with drag hunting.
Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says that out of control hounds on trail hunts have harmed people, pets and themselves in residential areas. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is urgent that trail hunting should be banned as soon as possible to close the loopholes in the Hunting Act 2004?
Mr Speaker
Order. I advise Members that it is easier for us to hear them if they look to the microphone.
Perran Moon
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention and I entirely agree.
Trail hunting, as it is commonly understood, involves a pack of hounds following a scent trail laid by a human, with the intention that hounds will follow the trail, rather than chase and kill a wild animal. The functional difference between that and drag hunting is that animal-based scents of the traditional hunting quarry are used in trail hunting. That is usually fox urine, but the body parts and carcases of foxes, deer and hares can also be used. On the surface, it appears to be a harmless activity. However, there is now overwhelming evidence to suggest that trail hunting has become a thinly veiled pretence for illegal hunting activities under the Hunting Act.
Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and for securing this important debate. In my constituency several hunts, including the Heythrop hunt and the Warwickshire hunt which crosses the county border, have been caught red-handed hunting live foxes. Does he agree that such incidents show how urgent it is for the Government to honour their manifesto commitment to ban trail hunting?
Perran Moon
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. Not only that, but in his constituency I have personally cleared land on which local hunts had created an environment for foxes to thrive. It is a complete nonsense to suggest that fox hunting is of any use in terms of pest control. It is not.
The 2004 Act was a response to the growing public outcry over the brutality of hunting practices. It made it illegal to hunt with hounds except in certain circumstances, in the case of registered hunts using scent trails.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
First, I commend the hon. Gentleman. I spoke to him before the debate, so he knows where I am coming from. I have a very different opinion, and the hon. Gentleman knows that; he respects that, and I respect him. I just wanted to put that on the record.
This is clearly a devolved matter, so England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales will make their own decisions separately. The hon. Gentleman has outlined his point of view, but does he agree that the hunting community deserve to have their voices heard and considered in that legislative process? The hunting community would dispute some of what has been said tonight. Just for the record, as a hunting man—one who has never hunted with horses or hounds—I think the hunting community should have the right to pursue it. What does the hon. Gentleman think? Before we go any further, let’s get the other point of view.
Perran Moon
I think it is absolutely right that all voices are heard, but that science is followed. Legislation should be based on evidence and science, and the evidence and the science suggest that the cruelty to the animal being pursued far outweighs the pleasure the hunt will give human beings. However, I am really happy for all voices to be heard in this debate.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The law must also be followed. The fact that 46% of registered trail hunts end up chasing a fox proves that the law needs tightening up and that we need tougher sentencing. Ultimately, this Labour Government will deliver that. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a priority?
Perran Moon
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. I do agree, and I will be coming on to that later.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I am sorry to make another intervention on the hon. Gentleman—my neighbour in Cornwall. He is probably aware that I spent hundreds of hours in this House on this matter before the 2004 Act; I was pleased that in spite of all the intimidation and threats that I received at the time, the Act still went through. The point was made earlier that the voices of those who get their kicks out of chasing wild animals for sport need to be heard, and indeed they have been: we have already heard that the leaders of trail hunts admit that they are, indeed, a smokescreen. They have used that word themselves to describe what goes on with trail hunts.
Perran Moon
I agree with the hon. Member, and thank him not just for his intervention but for all his work to raise awareness.
The Hunting Act did not go far enough. It left certain loopholes, particularly the allowance for trail hunting, which has meant that the law is often undermined according to the RSPCA and the League Against Cruel Sports. Despite the requirement for hunts to obtain landowner permission and follow strict regulations, there is significant evidence that trail hunts often lead to the unlawful hunting of foxes and other wild animals.
According to sources in Cornwall, there are five foxhound packs. Alongside trail hunts, some of those packs have continued to hunt foxes illegally and have been filmed sending hounds to dig out foxes hiding in holes, woodland and hedges. Many landowners continue to suffer horse and hound trespass, and uncontrolled hounds regularly end up spilling out on to roads, causing a danger to road users, as mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell).
Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)
Meur ras th’am keren—that is my very best Cornish, and I will not try to repeat it unless I have time to practise. I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. To go back to his point about the difference between drag hunting and trail hunting, a lot of the negative things that he describes would not come from drag hunts, which have predetermined routes and use a different type of scent. For the avoidance of doubt for anybody listening at home, particularly those in the hunting community who may be concerned, might we just reconfirm that this is about trail hunting, not drag hunting?
Perran Moon
I can say once again that I have no issues with drag hunting; this is about trail hunting. Trail hunts are often deliberately laid in areas inhabited by foxes, increasing the likelihood of hounds disturbing, chasing and killing a fox or other animals when the scent of live quarry is picked up.
These are not isolated incidents; they are part of a broader pattern of behaviour that undermines the intent of the Hunting Act. For example, between August 2023 and March 2024, during the last hunting season, several reports were made of illegal hunting incidents, including cub hunting, where the claim of trail hunting was used as a defence. In many of these cases, the evidence suggests that the scent trail is often a formality, with hunts continuing to chase and kill wildlife.
Several major landowners have taken steps to restrict trail hunting. The National Trust, Natural Resources Wales and Forestry England have all banned trail hunting. Additionally, United Utilities and the Lake District national park have suspended trail hunting activities, with the Lake District national park’s suspension described as “indefinite”. The Ministry of Defence has also halted the issuance of any licences for trail hunting on its land.
Additionally, in February 2025, the national lead on fox hunting crime, Assistant Chief Constable Matt Longman, publicly stated that
“of all the cases that I have reviewed”—
this is a point that was made earlier—
“where there have been successful prosecutions of the Hunting Act, trail hunting has been used as a defence.”
His comments reflect the disturbing reality that trail hunting is providing a smokescreen for illegal fox hunting.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. His thesis seems to be that, because the direct hunting of foxes was made illegal, trail hunting is being us as a cover for it. What would happen if he had his way and trail hunting was banned as well? Would it not then be possible for drag hunting to be used in some way as a cover for illegal fox hunting? If so, is not this an endless process, and should he not come out and say straightaway that he wants every form of this activity stopped?
Perran Moon
I think that I have twice made the point that I have no issue with drag hunting. With drag hunting, the scent that is followed is not that of the carcase of an animal or the urine of an animal. Therefore, the likelihood that there will be wild animals included in drag hunting is much, much smaller. The evidence from the RSPCA and the League Against Cruel Sports supports the view that drag hunting is completely different from trail hunting, and that there is no issue with drag hunting. It is really important that this is not seen to be a witch hunt against people who want to have a hack across the countryside with dogs on a specific and pre-planned route. It is a really important nuance within rural communities that we are not against all forms of horse riding. We want to make sure that wildlife and the natural environment are protected, so, respectfully, I do not agree with the right hon. Member.
In fact, the League Against Cruel Sports’ own analysis reveals that trail hunting has been used as a defence in cases involving alleged illegal hunting by registered hunts. That highlights the major issues with the current legislation, as the existing law is often unable sufficiently to hold to account those who flout the regulations under the guise of trail hunting.
Moreover, enforcement in the field has proven difficult. Although hunts are operating illegally, knowingly or intentionally hunting live quarry, it can often be challenging to prove that in court. The impact on animal welfare is significant, with wild animals, particularly foxes, being forced to run long distances while being relentlessly pursued, after which they are torn limb from limb while still alive by a pack of uncontrollable hounds. The suffering does not stop there. Non-target animals, including domestic pets and livestock, have also been disturbed, attacked and even killed when hunts veer off course, creating havoc in residential areas and rural communities.
This issue is not a matter for one party alone. Support for banning trail hunting crosses party lines. MPs from various political parties, including the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats and the Green party, have all expressed concern over trail hunting’s role in perpetuating illegal hunting activities. This broad cross-party support demonstrates a shared commitment to protecting animals, wildlife and the natural environment. I strongly believe it is time for us to come together and close this loophole once and for all.
Public opinion on hunting in the UK has shifted dramatically over the years. Around 80% of the British public support the ban on hunting with dogs, and many of those people would like to see trail hunting banned as well. The moral case for ending trail hunting is clear: it is inconsistent with the values of a modern, compassionate society that respects animal welfare. Hunting, whether through traditional or trail methods, often takes place in areas of natural beauty and fragile ecosystems. The disturbance caused by hounds and hunters can have lasting effects on the local wildlife, disrupt natural habitats, and lead to long-term ecological damage. Given the increasing concern over biodiversity and the need to protect our natural environment, banning trail hunting would be a positive step in safeguarding the UK’s wildlife and habitats.
We need to strengthen the Hunting Act 2004 to make sure it delivers the protection that animals need. That means banning trail hunting, removing exemptions that enable illegal hunting and introducing custodial sentences for those who break the law.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful case. While a pledge to ban trail hunting is welcome, I fear that it could be insufficient. If legislation focuses solely on the term “trail hunting”, hunts may adopt new euphemisms to exploit existing loopholes to continue their activities. Does my hon. Friend agree that effective reform must go beyond a symbolic ban and address the entire framework that enables illegal hunting to carry on?
Perran Moon
I agree with my hon. Friend. In addition to those changes, we must extend the time available to charge in illegal hunting cases, reverse the burden of proof of compliance with exemptions, and make hunting a notifiable offence. These steps would make it easier to enforce the law and ensure that those who break it face the consequences. I thank the Minister for his time today and I look forward to his response on this issue.
The way we treat our wildlife reflects the kind of society we are and the legacy we will leave for future generations. For me, hunting animals with dogs is nothing less than a profoundly cruel activity. It is an activity that I, like most of my fellow Labour MPs, campaigned during the general election to ban. Today I stand before this House to say that it is time to take decisive action and fulfil our promise to the electorate, and end trail hunting in the United Kingdom once and for all.
Dan Norris (North East Somerset and Hanham) (Lab)
I should declare an interest as chair of the League Against Cruel Sports. Drag hunting was invented 200 years ago. It is a peaceful activity. Trail hunting is not. It is designed to get around the current legislation. Why does my hon. Friend think that centuries of tradition are being ignored by the pro-hunting fraternity?
Perran Moon
My hon. Friend raises a difficult question. Society moves on, and people’s values change. Over the course of the last few decades, society has come to respect animal welfare far more than it ever had done before. Hunting was and is perceived to be a traditional rural activity, but that does not mean it is right. It is wrong. In a modern 21st-century Britain, it has to be banned. We have to bring in these changes. As I said, I have no issue with people who want to have a hack across the countryside in a controlled manner, but I have a profound problem if the outcome of that activity is the destruction of wild animals and the local environment.
My question to the Minister is a simple one. When will the Government make available parliamentary time to bring forward the necessary changes to the Hunting Act 2004 to ban trail hunting?
The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) on securing his first Adjournment debate and speaking with such knowledge and passion about this important subject. I welcome the valuable opportunity to close the debate by outlining the Government’s strong commitment to animal welfare priorities, including taking action on trail hunting. I also thank all hon. Members who intervened during my hon. Friend’s speech, because they showed the interest and passion there is on this subject.
The Government were elected on a mandate to introduce the most ambitious plans in a generation to improve animal welfare, and that is exactly what we will do. Banning trail hunting is only one part of that. We will also end puppy smuggling and puppy farming, ban the use of snare traps and ban the importation of hunting trophies. We are supporting the Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill, which will close loopholes in the non-commercial pet travel rules that are abused by unscrupulous traders. It will also give the Government powers to prevent the supply of low-welfare pets to the United Kingdom. We will prohibit the bringing into Great Britain of puppies and kittens under six months old, dogs and cats with non-exempt mutilations such as cropped ears, and heavily pregnant dogs and cats.
We are committed to tackling low-welfare dog breeding practices to bring an end to puppy farming. As part of that, we are carefully considering the results of the post-implementation review of the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018, the recommendations from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee’s inquiry into pet welfare and abuse, and the animal welfare committee’s opinion on canine breeding practices.
As was outlined in our manifesto, we will also bring an end to the use of snare traps in England. I am aware that both the Welsh Government and the Scottish Government have brought in bans on the use of snares in recent years, and we are now considering the most effective way to deliver on that commitment. We will set out the next steps in due course. In the meantime, anyone using snares has a responsibility under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to ensure that their activities do not harm protected species or cause any unnecessary suffering.
The Government are also committed to banning the import of hunting trophies from endangered animals. The UK has a long history of championing global conservation, and the Government are carefully reviewing how to introduce effective legislation as soon as possible. We welcome the establishment of the national animal welfare panel by the all-party parliamentary group on animal welfare and look forward to working with it in the future. As a recent report from the animal sentience committee stated, there is work to do to improve compliance with animal welfare regulation. We will be considering recommendations and proposals as we work to bring that about.
I know that hon. Members in the Chamber will share my deep concern about the recent high-profile incidents of hare coursing that have been in the news. Hare coursing is an abhorrent activity that can quickly shatter rural communities’ sense of safety and security. It is a serious crime, which is often carried out by organised criminal gangs. It is vital that rural communities are protected by effective policing to ensure enforcement of the law. DEFRA, alongside the Home Office, is working jointly with the National Police Chiefs’ Council to deliver an updated rural and wildlife crime strategy. This joined-up approach between Government and policing will help to ensure that the entire weight of Government is brought to bear on tackling rural and wildlife crimes.
The Government are continuing to provide support to the national wildlife crime unit alongside the national rural crime unit. Those units will receive £800,000 from the Home Office in 2025-26. DEFRA will also provide the national wildlife crime unit with a further £424,000 to help prevent and detect wildlife crime by obtaining and disseminating intelligence, undertaking analysis that highlights local or national threats, and directly assisting law enforcers in their investigations. That includes cases of cruelty to wildlife and supporting local police forces to take positive action against those who break the law through illegal fox hunting.
Let me turn to the primary focus of this debate: trail hunting. As we are aware, the Hunting Act 2004 made it an offence to hunt a wild mammal with dogs, except where it is carried out in accordance with the exemptions in the Act. Those found guilty under the Act are subject to the full force of the law. However, as many have said here today, the nature of trail hunting makes it difficult to ensure that wild mammals such as foxes are not endangered. The trail is not laid constantly but is occasionally lifted for a distance and dropped again to allow the hounds to search for the scent. Huntsmen and followers often do not know where trails have been laid and that can mean that, at times, the scents of wild animals are picked up. That makes it challenging to protect foxes, as well as other wild animals such as deer and hares.
From November 2023 to March 2024, as we have heard, the League Against Cruel Sports reported nearly 526 incidents of suspected illegal hunting and 870 incidents of hunts causing distress or nuisance. That is why the Government are committed to going further by putting in place a ban on trail hunting. My hon. Friend asked for a specific timeline. I am afraid that, at the moment, I cannot give him that, but I want to assure Members that we are working to move this forward and will deliver a thorough consultation later this year to ensure that the legislation that is brought forward is effective in practice and that its impact is understood.
I also appreciate that, as we have heard, there are people in this House who will not welcome a change in the law. I want to reassure Members here today that the Government recognise the contribution made to the rural economy by supporting professions such as farriers, vets and feed merchants. We will, of course, look closely at the impact that any changes may make. We will consult relevant stakeholders at the appropriate time and further announcements will be made in due course.
More generally, we will pull together an overarching approach to animal welfare across farmed animals, companion animals and wild animals. We have been meeting key stakeholders from each of those sectors and want to work in partnership with them on improving animal welfare. I conclude by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth for securing tonight’s debate, and I very much look forward to working closely with him in future to secure progress on this very important issue.
Question put and agreed to.