Westminster Hall
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Non-disclosure Agreements
(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Louise Haigh (Sheffield Heeley) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government policy on the use of non-disclosure agreements in civil harassment, discrimination and abuse cases.
It is a great honour, Mr Betts, to serve under your chairmanship, as you are my good friend and fellow Sheffield Member.
As hon. Members know, last month I tabled an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill that would bring an end to the widespread misuse of non-disclosure agreements, which in recent years have proliferated in every single sector of our economy. It seeks to ban the use of NDAs in cases of harassment, discrimination and abuse, unless at the specific request of the victim. I am incredibly grateful to the Minister for his warm words, his interest in this important topic and his commitment during the debate to look at options to take forward. I would like to use this time to explore what those options might look like and what more the Government need to understand in order to commit to legislate on the matter.
This issue burst into the public consciousness off the back of the #MeToo movement and the brilliant campaign work of Zelda Perkins, who joins us in the Gallery today and who exposed the exploitation and abuse perpetrated by Harvey Weinstein. Other brave women have spoken out in recent months and years, including Rebecca Ferguson and Cher Lloyd—about their experiences on “The X Factor”—and countless more across the entertainment industry, but although these high-profile cases grab media attention and absolutely raise the profile of the issue, they have in a way masked the true, horrifying scale of the issue, which is far from confined to the entertainment industry. In fact, the victims of this issue are far more likely to be low-income workers.
A recent survey of the hospitality sector by the Can’t Buy My Silence campaign found that 100% of NDAs or confidentiality clauses in the hospitality sector were written too broadly.
Natalie Fleet (Bolsover) (Lab)
We have no idea how many people in Bolsover this issue affects, because the very nature of it means that they cannot speak to me about it as their MP. The Can’t Buy My Silence campaign has found that the issue affects five times as many women as men, so does my right hon. Friend agree that addressing it has to be considered as essential to tackling violence against women and girls?
Louise Haigh
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The issue overwhelmingly affects women and it overwhelmingly affects low-income workers; it affects all vulnerable people, particularly disabled people and people of colour. She is absolutely right that we have to address it in order to help fulfil our mission to tackle violence against women and girls, but we also need to be careful that we do not narrow our definition only to sexual harassment, as NDAs cover all kinds of abuse in the workplace. Quite simply, we need to remove this tool from employers completely.
It is only those with the means and the confidence to pursue their employers through the courts who can challenge these practices. Low-paid workers in hospitality or retail are being legally silenced after they have suffered serious harm, and they have no access to redress. I want to stress that I do not think 100% of hospitality businesses are bad employers or that the sector is packed full of people who set out to silence victims after they have been abused or discriminated against. The point is that these clauses have become boilerplate. They are signed unwittingly by workers and, in many cases, are required unwittingly by employers with little or no understanding of the consequences. It has become standard practice to include these broadly drafted confidentiality clauses in contracts that go far further than is required to protect commercial confidentiality or trade secrets.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
What the right hon. Lady is saying is very important and the overall thrust of her case is absolutely on point. Is it not the case, though, that NDAs are the symptom, and that the underlying disease is the inability of ordinary people to get access to justice through the courts? That is why people enter into non-disclosure agreements: they fear that there is no other way that they will get proper recognition of their case.
Louise Haigh
The right hon. Member is absolutely right. NDAs are one tool of oppression, essentially, used against workers after they have been abused or discriminated against in the workplace. That failure to access justice through the courts is without doubt a wider disease that needs to be tackled by the Government, but NDAs and their misuse have to be clamped down on because they are having this terrible chilling effect across society and the world of work.
Since the debate last month, I have been inundated with details of such cases. There was the woman who was raped by a colleague at work but had signed a confidentiality clause that explicitly prevented her from discussing the issue even with medical professionals, making it impossible for her to recover from her trauma. An employee who signed an NDA on leaving her workplace has since been effectively blacklisted, because her former employer is undermining her to prospective employers, while she cannot tell her side of the story. A woman I met yesterday told me about the mental health charity she worked for that has discriminated on mental health grounds against at least four people she is personally aware of in the past year; three of them have signed an NDA, but she is bravely pursuing the charity through the courts, because she believes that it is the only way to get justice.
If mental health charities are exploiting this practice to discriminate against people with mental health issues, or, as raised in last month’s debate, progressive news organisations and trade unions are exploiting this practice, we have to accept that it is a serious problem in every type of workplace in this country and that employers simply cannot be trusted with this tool at their disposal.
This practice undeniably has a terrible impact on the individuals affected. It prevents organisations from facing up to the fact, or the scale, of their wrongdoing. It also affects our economy and our productivity, as people are forced out of their workplace—maybe because they are pregnant, have additional needs, or their face simply did not fit—and then they struggle ever to return to work. As the woman I met yesterday who had been a victim of this practice said:
“With all the discussion at the moment around disabled people and returning to work, I just want to cry. My experience is far too common for disabled people because too many employers simply don’t support disabled people at work.”
This is the tool that is then used against them.
If we are to tackle such structural issues, we have to remove the ability to silence people at will, and many other countries and jurisdictions agree. Ireland has recently legislated to ban the use of NDAs in cases of sexual harassment or discrimination. In the US, 27 states have legislated to ban the improper use of NDAs, with no apparent detriment to business or discouragement of settlements. Canada and Australia are following suit. Of course, we also saw some limited progress in this country under the last Government. In May 2024, the Victims and Prisoners Bill was amended to make it clear that any confidentiality agreement is void if it precludes a victim from speaking to legal and therapeutic advice services or family when it is related to criminal conduct. The Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Bill was also amended to prohibit NDAs being used in cases of sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying.
We now have the absurd situation where students and workers in universities are protected, but a cleaner, who works on a university campus but for an outsourced company, would not enjoy those same protections. We have created a two-tier system of protection, so what is the possible justification for denying workers outside the higher education system that same level of protection?
All of this progress has been predicated on multiple consultations, reviews and evidence bases. In 2019, the Minister’s Department, which was then the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, ran an extensive consultation on measures to prevent the misuse of confidentiality clauses in cases of harassment or discrimination. In 2019, the Equality and Human Rights Commission ran a consultation on the use of confidentiality agreements in discrimination cases. The Treasury Committee in 2023 conducted an inquiry into sexism in the City, which recommended further protections for victims of sexual harassment. The Women and Equalities Committee has conducted three inquiries into this issue, under both the last Government and the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen). The most recent one was on misogyny in music, which again explicitly recommended banning the misuse of NDAs. There has been extensive scrutiny in the legal sector, with both the Legal Services Board and the Solicitors Regulation Authority conducting large consultations, resulting in more evidence of the endemic misuse of confidentiality agreements. Both the General Council of the Bar and the Law Society have called on the Government for legislative reform.
My one question to the Minister, who I know agrees that this issue needs to be tackled, is: what else does he or his Department need to be satisfied on the need to legislate? How much longer must low-paid workers be legally required to suffer in complete silence before we can be persuaded to take the necessary legal steps? I know he wants to take action. The strength of support from a number of political parties in the Chamber today demonstrates that the House wants to take action. Twenty-seven US states have passed legislation. The UK Government are starting to look like the outlier. Let’s not let this opportunity pass us by. Let this Labour Government lead the way on protecting victims and survivors in the workplace and finally bring an end to legalised abuse.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
Speeches should be about seven minutes; that is guidance, not an absolute limit. I remind Members not to refer to any cases that are active before the courts, because they are sub judice.
Zöe Franklin (Guildford) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I thank the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) for securing this important debate. As we heard in her eloquent speech, the use of NDAs across all industries is far too prevalent, but I would like to focus my comments on the creative industries.
Back in 2017, the #MeToo movement exposed the pervasive issue of workplace sexual harassment and shone a light on the insidious role of NDAs in silencing victims. Despite the movement’s spotlight, abusive NDAs continue to thrive in the creative industries, serving as tools of coercion rather than legitimate business protections. These agreements do not just limit disclosure; they enable perpetrators, protect abusers and perpetuate cycles of harm.
The creative industries, with their reliance on freelance and temporary employment, irregular working hours and lack of employer accountability, are particularly vulnerable to exploitation. In this environment, NDAs have been weaponised to cover up harassment, discrimination and abuse. They do not exist to protect trade secrets or intellectual property in these cases—they exist to protect the powerful from the consequences of their actions. When 80% of individuals who report misconduct in the music and film industries are silenced by NDAs, the question is not whether these agreements should be regulated but whether they should be allowed at all.
The continued use of abusive NDAs is an outrage. They strip individuals of their right to speak out, forcing them into a cruel dilemma: stay silent or risk financial ruin.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does the hon. Lady agree that it is an even more significant abuse of NDAs when public money is used by public sector employers such as the BBC, which is paid for by the licence fee, to try to silence those who have a case against them?
Zöe Franklin
I agree; we need to look carefully at this issue, particularly where public money is being used. Across the board, we need to end the practice of abusive NDAs. It is an outrage, and I ask the Government today to act decisively. We have waited too long for a ban on NDAs in cases of abuse, harassment and discrimination. Protecting corporate reputations should not come at the cost of human dignity.
Since its formation, the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority has been a crucial force in fighting this abuse, working to expose harmful practices and advocate for transparency and accountability. If its efforts to become a prescribed person are successful, it would provide legal safeguards for whistleblowers, helping those bound by NDAs to speak out without fear of retribution. By its very existence, CIISA makes it harder for misconduct to be hidden away, forcing perpetrators and institutions to think twice before engaging in exploitative behaviour.
Unfortunately, despite its vital work, CIISA faces the threat of closure due to financial barriers. Its request for just 0.1% of a company’s profits—a mere fraction of what other regulatory bodies operate on—is being met with obstruction, delays and shifting goalposts. If CIISA is forced to shut down, it will send a clear message: creative industry workers, despite generating £124.6 billion in 2022, do not deserve a safe and respectful workplace.
I have two requests for the Minister. First, will he please act to ensure that CIISA has the funding it needs to continue its work to protect people in the creative industry and prevent the industry from sliding back into silence, fear and impunity? Secondly—we will hear this again and again today—will he please take the action we have been waiting far too long for and ban abusive NDAs outright? No one should ever be forced to choose between their career and their dignity, so it is time to end the use of NDAs as a weapon against justice, and ensure that those who have suffered can speak their truth without fear, without penalty and without being erased.
Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
Members who have heard me speak on these issues before—I do so a lot—know that I am a solicitor specialising in employment law. I am not currently practising, but I spent 13 years doing employment and particularly discrimination law work. A small amount of it was for small employers, but predominantly it was for employees. I have seen a lot of settlement agreements—pretty much every client I ever had ended up with one—and it is extremely unusual for them not to contain some form of NDA. The typical wording states that the person cannot discuss the terms of the agreement, nor the circumstances surrounding the termination of their employment.
There are too many difficulties to unpack in seven minutes, but one is that some of the people who put forward the agreements are not solicitors. A lot of businesses have a human resources adviser who is not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Many of them are good people who do a good job of providing affordable advice to businesses; I do not want to universally condemn HR consultants. The reality is that at some point they will have been given a precedent settlement agreement by a solicitor—we might be talking 20 years ago—and those agreements contain NDAs, so they are still in widespread use.
As a solicitor, I would go back and say, “But if my client can’t say anything about the circumstances concerning the termination of their employment, what are they supposed to say to their new employer when they try to get a new job?” Some employers would agree to negotiate some sort of vague wording such as “left by mutual agreement”, so the person could at least say that, but some of them would just say flat out, “There’s money on the table. Your client can take it or leave it.”
But the client faces significant legal bills, and although the employment tribunals were hypothetically designed to enable them to represent themselves, the reality is that if it is a complex discrimination claim and they have a mental health problem—either because their claim related to it in the first place or because they developed one after they were treated so badly in their employment—they may not be able to face the prospect of an unrepresented employment tribunal claim. It is all well and good that the Solicitors Regulation Authority has said that people should not put forward NDA clauses, but they are still in extremely widespread circulation.
The flipside is that in order for someone to be persuaded to sign a settlement agreement, there is a requirement that the employer pays for them to have some legal advice. The standard legal advice offer is somewhere between £250 and £500, and for low-paid people the standard is still £250. The reality of the legal market is that no specialist employment lawyer will explain a potentially 20-page legal document to the person, send them follow-up written advice and renegotiate the terms for £250.
People on low pay can go to a lawyer who for £250 will perhaps take them through the terms of the agreement and explain what they mean, but then they have run out money, so that is the end of it. The terms are not renegotiated and the person just signs what is put in front of them. Senior execs can often afford the advice, which means they get it fully explained and totally renegotiated, so it is compliant at the end. A solicitor like me working against a solicitor on the other side who has put forward something that does not meet the SRA guidelines will say, “We’re not signing that—you know it’s not compliant. You’re in breach of your professional obligations, now get this off the table.” And they do—swiftly.
If a person has £250 and earns £20,000 a year, there is no way that they will pay for that level of top-up legal advice. That is not happening for them at all. Most good solicitors will explain that they cannot do it for the money and tell them how much it will cost to have it done properly. The person will not be able to afford it and, at best, they end up with some really shoddy solicitor who is not necessarily a specialist employment lawyer and is prepared to sign off pretty much anything and, bluntly, leaves them completely stuck. This payment structure is enriching for non-compliant solicitors at best.
There is, in theory, legal aid for people who are on very low wages or in receipt of certain benefits and who have equality claims, but that has been paid at such a low rate for such a long time that there are almost no providers whatsoever. Unless we significantly increase the hourly rate that we pay to providers, they will simply continue to hand back their contracts, which is what has happened in the majority of places. It is extremely difficult to access advice unless someone is a trade union member.
There are still lots of employers who regard all this stuff as just priced in. I have had clients come to me and say, “He’s absolutely notorious—the chief exec is a complete perv.” Everyone in the organisation knows it, but the board does not care. The board can give the women 20 grand to go away, they sign an NDA and that is the end of that. We have watched the chief exec do that time after time—it is just the cost of doing business. He is regarded as the superstar who brings home the bacon, so no one cares. Those are the fundamentals for many UK employers. At UKFast, for example, the chief exec got done for raping his staff. It had been going on for years: he did not just wake up one morning and do that to one woman. He was notorious in Manchester and lots of people knew what was going on. It happens across different organisations; there is no one specific sector.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech and her experience is spot on. I have seen this culture of fear at the Welsh Rugby Union, where thankfully it no longer exists. Women are so scared to speak out, yet the culture of fear is perpetuated everywhere by the use of NDAs.
Mrs Russell
That culture is totally everywhere—across sectors. There is no specific sector where if we just sorted it out, the others would be all right. There is also the phenomenon of organisations that say publicly that they do not use NDAs, but I have seen their settlement agreements and can tell Members that they absolutely do. That is not at all unusual.
In summary, we have a systemic problem that is being used to cover up employment rights abuses across the board. We really do need to legislate and have standard wording that people cannot derogate from, whether they are lawyers, HR consultants or business owners. There are lots of good employers out there. I do not want anyone to think that I think all employers are terrible—I really do not: a lot of people are busting a gut to do the right thing by their employees—but we have to stop the use of NDAs.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. Mr Betts. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) on setting the scene, and I commend the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell), who has brought a vast amount of knowledge to the debate. She is not a practising solicitor any more, but all the knowledge she has learned has contributed greatly to the debate, so I thank her for that. That does not take away from anybody else, by the way—I appreciate that others will contribute their expertise.
This is an issue in every avenue of life, from public to private life. In 2022, in his then role as Economy Minister, my colleague at the Northern Ireland Assembly, Gordon Lyons, was one of the first to come out in support of the publicly funded universities that were speaking out against the use of NDAs to silence victims of abuse. Others have outlined how NDAs can be abused, which is the point I wish to focus on.
Gordon Lyons issued a statement at the time, which said that
“sexual harassment and bullying is completely unacceptable and complainants should never be bought or bullied into silence simply to protect the reputation of the institution they study or work at. Non-Disclosure Agreements make it harder for other victims to come forward and help hide perpetrators behind a cloak of anonymity…While there is little evidence of NDAs being used in Northern Ireland higher education settings, I still fully support the Can’t Buy My Silence campaign’s aim of bringing an end to this practice which is why I wrote to the local higher education institutions asking them to sign the pledge…I welcome the collective leadership shown by Northern Ireland’s higher education sector in signing a pledge which demonstrates their clear opposition to the buying of victims’ silence.”
That was in 2022, but how wise those words are today, as was the leadership that Minister Lyons gave at that time in Northern Ireland. Even though we did not have many examples of it, we still need to have the same law in Northern Ireland as here, with the same protection for people. Gordon Lyons’ actions are to be congratulated: they were the first of a number of steps taken in Northern Ireland to send a message that people could no longer hide behind NDAs to protect themselves when they had clearly done wrong.
Initially, NDAs were created with a view to commercial sensitivity, and the reasons behind that could be understood, but they are not used for that any more. They are used for other reasons, which is where the problems are. What has not been right for some time is that staff are pressured into agreeing to blanket NDAs, which are then abused by those in power to cover over bad behaviour or, even worse, wrongdoing and criminality, with the rights of victims taken away. We have seen very public cases of how NDAs covered up the most vile and disgusting acts for decades, and the time has come to put that right. I very much look forward to the Minister’s contribution. He is an honourable person who takes on board our issues and questions, and hopefully comes back with answers.
I believe in the principle of clean hands. A person deserves protection if they have done nothing wrong. When someone with access to a good lawyer can tie a victim in knots, we know there is something wrong with the system. We must change the legislation and offer the protection for victims that is so needed.
There are loopholes for legal professionals to use. I have no issue with legal professionals doing the job they are paid to do. The hon. Member for Congleton is honourable in every sense of the word, and used her position well to help others. However, we know that loopholes are there and must be closed, to protect not the people who are seeking to sell a story to a tabloid but those who have been abused and cannot speak or warn others. They are petrified of the system and the legal complications that surround them. That is not the purpose behind an NDA and the Government must clarify that in legislation.
I ask the Minister to ensure protection for those who have signed NDAs without realising that they went beyond what they thought. Commercial confidentiality is one thing and should be protected, but when it becomes something else—protecting wrongdoing in the business—that has to be taken on. For many victims, the trauma of the reporting process is too much. When they do go through it, the appearance of an NDA they signed, believing it referred to keeping silent about business practices, now means they cannot speak about their abuse. This is simply not right. The right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley referred to victims; some of those who have spoken to me say they never knew what an NDA meant, and they are petrified by the legal complications and implications.
I support the right hon. Lady in her efforts and hope she is successful. We are all here to support her in the goals she seeks to achieve on behalf of all our constituents. Those who are proven to have committed sexual offences should not find shelter under an NDA. We must revise the legislation accordingly, and I hope the Minister will give us that reassurance. The victim has a right to be heard; we can and must make that easier, in a way that ensures they feel confident and reassured that their concerns and complaints are taken on board.
Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to take part in a debate with you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I extend my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) for securing this debate on such an important issue, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell), who spoke so clearly about the subject.
We cannot talk about the use and abhorrent misuse of non-disclosure agreements without mentioning the crimes of Mohammed al-Fayed. He was a predator who sexually assaulted and harassed hundreds of female employees over decades. I put on the record my thanks to my constituent Keaton Stone, who has been working with a network of Fayed survivors and has become a tireless campaigner for their stories to be heard. He played a part in the making of a BBC documentary exposé last year, which quite frankly horrified the nation with the scale of what had been going on. He has done a lot to make sure we know just how big the scandal was. I note that a new documentary shining a light on one of the many people who enabled al-Fayed will air on Channel 4, possibly this week.
I say that al-Fayed preyed on hundreds of women, but we do not actually know the true figure. We know that 400 women have come forward, but we do not know how many more have been unable to speak out for years—for decades. That is in large part because of al-Fayed’s intimidation tactics, including the coercive use of non-disclosure agreements. Keaton tells me that he still speaks to women who fear going public because of an NDA.
Through non-disclosure agreements, our legal system enabled Mohammed al-Fayed. Lawyers signed those documents week after week, month after month, year after year, and allowed that man to prey on hundreds of women. They were not required by any system to raise the alarm; indeed, they were unable to raise the alarm because of client privilege and confidentiality. That is utterly and unspeakably wrong. Our legal system must begin to protect victims and survivors so that non-disclosure agreements cannot be used to ruin lives in that way again.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton said, non-disclosure agreements are often attached to settlement agreements. In my many years working for a trade union, I negotiated a number of settlement agreements, and they invariably included the statement that she mentioned: “You cannot mention this.” I worked with teachers, and it is unusual for them to be able to share some kind of secret that will put their school out of business, but the settlement agreements are boilerplate and it is standard practice for that statement to go in them. Settlement agreements are an important piece of our employment law framework, but we must not have this situation where non-disclosure agreements are attached to them by default, preventing things from being aired. That is particularly true in the case of some of the things we have heard about today, such as sexual harassment—although I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley that it is about not just sexual harassment, but discrimination and other things.
I was going to touch on the Victims and Prisoners Act, but my right hon. Friend mentioned that, so I will conclude by asking the Minister: when can we expect to go further and faster on this? We must have a legal system that protects low-paid workers, in particular, as well as women and those who are at risk of abuse.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) on securing this important debate.
We have heard from Members how widespread this issue is: we heard about the hospitality industry and the creative industries, we just heard about teachers, and the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) told us that it occurs in every HR department. I am horrified that it also happens in the NHS. I was approached by a constituent whose employment as an NHS nurse was terminated, but I do not know many of the details, because she cannot speak to me about it. Her employment was terminated due to—how can I put it best?—a medical condition that she suffered and is now over, but she cannot talk about it, and it has given her issues ever since. I do not know how many people in my constituency fall into that category, because, as the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley said, they cannot talk to us about it.
Mrs Russell
Typically, the agreement’s wording will contain an exemption for whistleblowing—the Solicitors Regulation Authority says it must—so the chances are that the hon. Gentleman’s constituent can actually talk to him about the details, and he can refer to it under parliamentary privilege. However, most people do not fully understand the relationship between the whistleblowing exemptions—they are extremely limited and tightly drafted and say that someone can only speak to very limited people in very limited circumstances to whistleblow in line with the law—and the broader statement that I referred to: “You cannot discuss the circumstances surrounding your employment.” Unless someone has had good legal advice that makes that really clear, and they can retain that quite sophisticated combination, they do not understand. The exemptions that we have just do not work.
Martin Wrigley
I fully agree. Absolutely—people do not know what they can do.
Will the Minister investigate how widespread the use of NDAs is in the NHS? Given that it is probably in the Government’s power to ban it in the NHS without primary legislation, will he take steps immediately to have it stopped and seek what recompense is required for those who have suffered it?
I agree absolutely that this practice must be stopped entirely. It is just one of many poor practices that are carried out by some businesses—not all, but some—often unwittingly. That is why I introduced my Company Directors (Duties) Bill, which will have its Second Reading debate on 4 July. Right now, the company directors’ duties say that they must put shareholder interests first and might have regard to other things. My Bill—I hope the Minister will consider working with me on making it happen—would change company law so that directors have a duty to balance the interests of shareholders, employees and the environment. I seek the support of Members present to make the Bill law; I hope that we can have further discussions to see what we can do to get it into the Government’s schedule. Until we put that balance at the foundation of the company directors’ duties, it will be impossible to get rid of circumstances, such as those the hon. Member for Congleton described, where company directors behave badly.
I fully support the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley on all the issues that she identified and will happily engage and do whatever I can to advance work on them.
Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
The Front-Bench speeches will need to start by 10.28 am. I call the Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
I certainly will not take that long—that would not make me very popular at all.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair today, Mr Betts, and to follow such informative and heartfelt speeches. I wish that there were more people here, because I have learned something new from every single speaker—those who spoke because this issue matters to them and those, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell), who have huge experience in this area. It is well worth sharing the information that we have heard with colleagues, so that it does not stay within these four walls.
There will probably be some bad-faith actors out there who will want to read what we say as a desire to ban NDAs altogether and not protect commercially sensitive information. That is absolutely not what my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh), or any of the other campaigners who have worked hard on this issue, have laid out. Our intention is purely to stop the abuse, discrimination, bullying and sexual harassment that we have heard about. I praise my right hon. Friend for seeking to include a measure on this subject in the Employment Rights Bill, and the Minister for saying that they will work on an issue on which we have not seen progress, despite the existence of quite a lot of cross-party consensus.
We have heard about the high-profile cases, and we know that women are five times more likely to have signed an NDA than men, but the problem is not just the scale; it is that victims of discrimination or sexual harassment are asked to sign NDAs at their most vulnerable moment. Pregnant Then Screwed estimated that around 435,000 pregnant women and mothers in the UK have signed NDAs, and 80% of those felt they had to either leave their job or cut their hours as a result of the NDA. Those are shocking statistics. Surely, that goes against the Government’s aim to ensure that people get work, get the jobs they want, and stay in work and progress. This is not just about injustice; it is also about the growth agenda.
We do not know the true scale of the issue. I am grateful that Can’t Buy My Silence, Pregnant Then Screwed and other organisations are working on estimates, but we should not be working on estimates; we should know the full scale of what is happening throughout our economy. I do not know how many people are subjected to NDAs in Luton North. I really should. We all should, and we should know which employers are abusing the system.
Why do people sign NDAs, and why are they predominantly women? It is because of the huge power imbalance. We have heard about the low pay, and the lack of justice and of access to justice. They often feel that it is their only option and their only way out. They think, “If I don’t take this, what else am I going to get?” The big CEO of a corporation is not going to get taken down by the cleaner. That just does not happen; it only happens in films. That is because our justice system is not balanced or fair, and people feel that the oppression of workers is just part of the cost of doing business.
An NDA not only leaves the victim without a sense of justice, but protects a culture of wrongdoing. Not only does it protect the wrongdoer every step of the way, but, a large chunk of the time, they actually fail up. I have heard about instances of sexual harassment in the workplace in which the woman has to sign an NDA and leave, while the man gets to stay—in fact, not only does he stay, but he is either moved aside to a different department or promoted to gain more power and access. That is happening in all parts of our economy, in every workplace. We saw it at Harrods, and we have just seen it at Primark. It is really downplayed. I think that NDAs are used to downplay the severity of what they are truly hiding. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, people hide disgusting behaviour behind NDAs.
The boss of Primark has just resigned for what he called an “error of judgment” with regard to his behaviour towards a woman. An “error of judgment” is when I decide to dress for winter but it is really hot outside; it is not something that a CEO has to resign for because of his behaviour towards a woman. It is not just about protecting the victim; it is also about how we improve the culture in business and in our economy. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley said, this does not just happen in one sector; it happens in charities, in finance and, unfortunately, in trade unions. We have heard about it at the Women and Equalities Committee.
I plead with the Minister to not forget self-employed workers. Whatever changes we make—and I hope that we make progress—we must consider the vulnerability of self-employed workers. The Committee heard that loud and clear in the evidence we received on our misogyny in music inquiry. We heard from brave witnesses, including Charisse Beaumont, Lucy Cox and Celeste. Dr Beaumont, who is the CEO of Black Lives in Music, said:
“We have hundreds of stories from women of being harassed including sexually assaulted by male artists as well as promoters, people assaulting women in music education, participating in almost naked casting videos, young women pressured to drink and take drugs, who are then assaulted, male producers grooming young female vocalists.”
She added:
“It’s rife in all genres, particularly classical music.”
I want to pay tribute to one of the very brave female artists who did speak out. She came from the classical music industry, and she spoke at our Select Committee. I really do recommend reading her testimony. She spoke about the horrendous behaviour of some of the conductors towards female classical musicians, the sexual favours that those women were asked for in order to get the first positions, and the fact that one conductor had said, “Well, if you want to be in the first chair, you’re going to have to wait until someone dies or gets pregnant.” In the classical music industry, they equated pregnancy with death. I want to say how difficult it was, and how hard my Clerks had to work, to find women who were prepared to speak out against the misogyny and sexual harassment that they had faced in the music industry.
The last Tory Government agreed that there was a problem with misogyny in music but rejected every one of the Committee’s recommendations. I ask this Government to do better. One of those recommendations was about banning NDAs. The general secretary of the Musicians’ Union, Naomi Pohl, has called for a ban on NDAs that prohibit the disclosure of sexual harassment, discrimination or bullying. Some 51% of women report experiencing gender discrimination in music, and 32% of them have been sexually harassed while working as a musician. That proportion increases if the woman is from a global majority—black, Asian or minority ethnic—background, disabled or LGBT+.
Lawyers are probably getting quite excited by the thought of what alternatives there might be to NDAs, so I say to the Minister that we need to be innovative. We need to be ahead of the curve and of all the bad-faith actors. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley is right: we should not be falling behind as a country; we should be leading the way. Minister, the evidence is there—let us get to it.
Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
I thank everyone for their co-operation. We now move on to the Front-Bench spokespeople, each of whom has, as a guide, around 10 minutes, but we clearly have more time than that if people want to take it.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
I hope not to take the full 10 minutes, but it is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) on securing this important debate on the use, or indeed the misuse, of non-disclosure agreements in cases of civil harassment, discrimination and abuse.
The Liberal Democrats, like all of us in the Chamber, believe in a society that upholds transparency and fairness, and protects individuals rather than shields the institutional reputations of the powerful. As we have heard, and as the #MeToo movement uncovered, when NDAs are misused they represent a systemic failure to prioritise the rights of victims and survivors over the convenience of the powerful.
We must remember that the original intent behind NDAs was to protect sensitive business information and ensure confidentiality in legitimate commercial dealings, but there has been significant creep. They were never meant to be weaponised as tools to silence victims, particularly women, as the hon. Members for Bolsover (Natalie Fleet) and for Luton North (Sarah Owen) highlighted, to suppress evidence of wrongdoing or to allow perpetrators to evade accountability, but bad-faith actors have transmogrified them, and too often now, NDAs are used in precisely that way—to bind victims of harassment, discrimination and abuse into silence and to isolate them. We hear stories of the loneliness of the many victims who speak off the record. Ultimately, they are denied justice.
This happens across many sectors, including the creative industries, as my hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) and the hon. Member for Luton North said; the NHS, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) described; and the retail and hospitality sectors, as the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) said. Imagine for a moment the plight of a new mum who worked in the financial sector, but who returned from maternity leave to face mistreatment and eventually her employment was terminated.
Mrs Russell
On that point, will the hon. Member join me in encouraging the Government to bring into force clause 24 of the new Employment Rights Bill as soon as is humanly possible? It will enable the Government to make provision in respect of dismissals relating to pregnancy other than those covered by redundancy. That was a huge element of the dismissals that I used to see wrapped up in NDAs.
Josh Babarinde
I would love to study that particular dimension. We must defend the rights of pregnant women and new mums, who have been so let down by our legislative framework, including the individual I am asking hon. Members to imagine. She went through mediation, where it was agreed that she would receive a severance payment in exchange for signing an agreement that included a gagging clause. She said:
“The net effect was that I was unemployed and, whilst I was financially compensated, I was unable to explain to future employers why I had left that employment and why it wasn’t my choice to do so.”
That is exactly the point that the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) made. By the way, I really feel that her contribution to this debate has been kick-ass—I am not sure that that that is a parliamentary term, but I am sure that hon. Members agree. Further, this new mum said:
“I felt I was the party in the right and yet I was the one who had the uncertainty and stress of being unemployed and having to job hunt with a 9 month old baby.”
There is no need to imagine such a scenario because it is a true story. The only reason I cannot name the individual or the employer is that, although we might be protected by parliamentary privilege in this place, the lady whose circumstances I just described is not.
This is the reality faced by countless individuals across the country, right under our noses, and it is an injustice that cannot be tolerated. We as Members of Parliament have to act decisively to end this moral and regulatory failing. First, and no two ways about it, NDAs should be outlawed in cases of sexual misconduct, harassment and bullying, to ensure that no victim is silenced, no victim is prevented from seeking justice and no police or regulatory investigation is obstructed. We have already seen encouraging steps in the legal and academic sectors to ban the use of NDAs in such cases. We heard a bit about those from the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley, but these piecemeal efforts are not enough.
We need comprehensive legislation, and there is precedent for that in other jurisdictions, as has been touched on already. In Prince Edward Island in Canada, new legislation restricts the use and content of NDAs in cases of sexual harassment and discrimination in all out-of-court settlements where a survivor does not want it. In the USA, the Speak Out Act was passed in 2022 prohibiting non-disclosure and non-disparagement clauses agreed to before a dispute that involves sexual misconduct. Last month, Ireland became the first jurisdiction in the world to legislate country-wide against the misuse of NDAs. In the light of that, the efforts of the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley in her amendment are extremely laudable, as are the similar efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran). That is the first thing we must do: outlaw NDAs in such circumstances.
Secondly, we must ensure that individuals who sign NDAs outside those circumstances but under duress or intimidation have a clear and legal route to challenge them. Too often, victims sign these agreements without fully understanding their rights or the full extent of the implications. They end up, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, tied up in knots in their endeavour. I have heard from a man in this scenario who said,
“I had no resilience left to fight an investigation nor a tribunal so I accepted.”
On the powerful point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), we must guarantee that legal advice is readily available, independent and free from conflicts of interest for people in these scenarios, so that no one feels coerced into silence by a document they barely understand.
Thirdly, we must foster a cultural shift in public and private organisations so that they no longer view NDAs as a convenient tool to shield themselves from scrutiny, and we can move away from the culture of fear, which the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who is no longer in her place, referred to. Employers must be held accountable not only for misconduct that occurs on their watch, but for any attempt to cover it up. Transparency should be the norm, not the exception.
Finally, we must support victims and survivors in speaking out. That means strengthening whistleblower protections, including through establishing a dedicated office of the whistleblower, which the Liberal Democrats advocated for in our manifesto, alongside organisations such as WhistleblowersUK. There is a particular whistle- blower in my constituency who I will not name, but she knows who she is. She is campaigning hard on this front as well.
Silence benefits only those who perpetrate harm. Our role must be to amplify the voices of those who have been silenced for too long. This debate, while ostensibly technical and legalistic, gets to the core of what kind of society we want to be. Do we want to be a society in which institutions prioritise their reputations over human dignity, and victims are forced into silence while abusers continue unchecked, or do we want a society in which justice prevails, transparency is valued and every individual regardless of their status or power can be held accountable for their actions? I know which society I want to live in, and I think that all of us in this Chamber today are on the same page—in fact, I am confident of that. Liberal Democrats look forward to working with the Government on a cross-party basis to stamp out this insidious practice once and for all. We look forward also to hearing what steps the Minister will take to make that a reality.
Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
I now call the spokesman for the official Opposition.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this important debate, Mr Betts.
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) on securing this debate. I remember sitting as the shadow Minister on Report of the Employment Rights Bill, listening to her speak about her amendment to the Bill in that debate. All too often, we sit in the main Chamber and listen to speeches from Members in all parts of the House that are, perhaps loosely, hung off handouts from Whips.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
By you. [Laughter.]
Greg Smith
I can say in response to the Minister’s quip from a sedentary position that I have never spoken with a handout from the Whips.
Sometimes, we sit there in the main Chamber listening to the usual yah-boo of party politics, but every so often there is a speech—it can come from any part of the House—that makes our ears prick up a little bit and think, “They have a point.” The Member is making a genuine case about a real grievance or a real problem out there in our country that needs resolution, almost undoubtedly via primary legislation. I therefore congratulate the right hon. Lady on her passion and dedication to this cause, and on ensuring that we continue to debate it here in Westminster Hall this morning.
The right hon. Member was absolutely right to highlight the two-tier absurdity brought about under the current law. I was particularly struck by her point that 27 states in the United States of America have passed legislation on this issue. The United States is hardly a nation that is looked to for high-end employment rights. It is a country where, for example, most people get only two weeks’ holiday a year, and where maternity and paternity rights are far short of those we have here, so the fact that those 27 states have passed laws on this issue in varying respects is something that we should reflect on.
During the debate the hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) spoke powerfully about the creative sector; the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) clearly brought extensive experience of this matter from her time as a solicitor; my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) brought his usual eloquence to supporting this cause; the hon. Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) gave powerful examples from his experience working for a trade union—the example he gave about a school setting was particularly powerful—and the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) powerfully cited a local case. The hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen), who is Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, gave a particularly powerful speech, reminding us that of course this issue is not about banning NDAs in their entirety, but about stopping this very particular abuse.
In fact, the hon. Lady’s most powerful point—on top of the one about self-employment, which is a subject that I will always prick my ears up about, having been self-employed myself for 15 years before I entered this House in 2015—was that people are being forced into signing these agreements at the lowest ebb of their lives, at the time when they are at their most vulnerable. We should face that fact and reflect upon it.
I am grateful for this opportunity to continue the debate on non-disclosure agreements, which have become a tool that too often is used to silence victims of harassment, discrimination and abuse in the workplace. This is not just a matter of employment law; it is a fundamental issue of justice, accountability and transparency. At their worst, NDAs allow perpetrators to escape scrutiny, enabling toxic workplace cultures to persist unchecked. Undoubtedly, some victims, facing an imbalance of power, are pressured into signing away their right to speak out in exchange for a financial settlement. This not only denies individuals the justice they deserve, but prevents organisations, and indeed our society at large, from learning from past failure and making necessary change.
Of course, we are not in any way suggesting that every single NDA out there is inherently wrong. There are legitimate reasons for their use in protecting trade secrets or commercially sensitive information. However, when they are used to cover up wrongdoing, they become a shield for bad employers and an obstacle to a fair and open working environment. Like other Members, I believe that the vast majority of employers do act in good faith and are good people, but where it goes wrong and they are acting in bad faith or—let’s say it how it is—criminally, NDAs should not be a shield for that.
The Government have said they are committed to tackling workplace discrimination and harassment. There are elements of the Employment Rights Bill that the Opposition support, but we had a particular debate about the provisions on third-party harassment. I say this in a spirit of wanting to solve this problem: we all want to see harassment stamped out, but those provisions will have the unintended consequence of what we call the “banter ban”, whereby an employee can take their employer to court if they happen to overhear something that politically offends them in a hospitality setting or whatever it might be.
Greg Smith
I will just finish the point; I am pre-empting the hon. Lady. There is still time, as the Bill passes through the other place, to look again at this legislation. Instead of risking those unintended consequences in hospitality settings, for example, the Government could put provisions in the Bill to tackle the serious, life-changing problem that we are debating this morning and stop this use of NDAs to silence victims.
Mrs Russell
There is a defence to that form of discrimination, which is where an employer has taken all reasonable steps to prevent it—and I speak only of reasonable steps, not every single magical thing that could be thought of. In fact, there was a case just last week in the Employment Appeal Tribunal in which an employer did successfully defend a harassment claim on the basis that it had taken all reasonable steps to prevent harassment. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the position is not as extreme as he is presenting by any stretch of the imagination, and that as long as hospitality businesses have taken all reasonable steps to prevent their employees from being harassed, they will be fine?
Greg Smith
I do not particularly want to relitigate our debate in the main Chamber a few weeks ago. It is the job of the Opposition to kick the tyres on legislation that the Government put forward, and that is what did in that debate. I hope the hon. Lady turns out to be right, but the Employment Rights Bill is still a Bill, and when it undoubtedly becomes an Act due to the parliamentary arithmetic at the moment, we will be able to fully test that and see who is right.
I want to focus on the importance of the issue before us today. His Majesty’s loyal Opposition echo the question that Members have asked the Minister this morning: when can we expect legislation to be brought forward to tackle this issue? Will it be stand-alone, or will the Government amend the existing vehicle available to them in the House of Lords?
We also need to ensure that the Government’s own house is in order on this front. I gently ask the Minister for transparency on the Government’s own use of NDAs. How many non-disclosure agreements have been used across the civil service since the Government took office last July? Do the Government rely on these agreements to settle disputes within their own Departments? If the Government believe, as I hope they do, that NDAs should not be misused—and misused is a light term for this—they must lead by example.
I do not believe that this is about party politics; it is about ensuring fairness and justice in our workplaces. We must end the practice of silencing victims and start fostering a culture where wrongdoing is exposed and addressed. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and, more importantly, seeing the meaningful action that every Member who has spoken in this debate this morning wants to see come to pass.
Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
I call the Minister. I would appreciate it if he could leave two minutes at the end for the mover to wind up.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Justin Madders)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this morning, Mr Betts.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) on securing this debate. As the shadow Minister said, her contribution on Report of the Employment Rights Bill was particularly powerful and certainly helped to shape some of my thinking about where we need to go on this. I am grateful, too, for all the thoughtful and considered contributions from all parts of the Chamber.
Let me pay my respects to the individuals whose stories we have heard both today and on Report—stories of awful exploitation, harassment and terrible treatment, which have been silent for far too long. As my right hon. Friend said, often we are talking about some of the most vulnerable people in the workplace, and at the most vulnerable time for them. Often, only those who have the means and the confidence to take on their employer escape the clutches of NDAs.
I wish to acknowledge the comments made by the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde), who speaks for the Liberal Democrats, about the work that the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) has done in this area. She has campaigned tirelessly, as have many Members, alongside organisations such as Can’t Buy My Silence to ensure that victims of sexual harassment, discrimination and bullying are able to speak up and get the help that they need.
Many of the issues that we are debating today are not new, but things have been talked about that I was not aware of, such as the classical music sector, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen). Clearly, there is widespread concern about the use of non-disclosure agreements. I recognise that this is an important issue. As we know, NDAs or confidentiality clauses are legally binding. Their intention is to keep information confidential but, as many Members have said, they also have a legitimate role in contracts to protect trade secrets, intellectual property and commercially sensitive information.
Josh Babarinde
Does the Minister agree that the purpose of an NDA is, for example, to protect the identity of the 11 spices that KFC uses in its chicken, and not to protect sex pests? If so, what action will he take, as soon as possible, to protect those victims and survivors over the rich and the powerful?
Justin Madders
I shall come on to the action that we are taking a bit later. None the less, that is an important point: there are legitimate uses for NDAs and it is important that we get that balance right, making sure that those commercial and legitimate business interests are protected while, at the same time, not deliberately silencing victims. NDAs should never be used to silence victims of harassment or any other misconduct in the workplace.
There are important legal limits to the use of NDAs in the employment context. Any clauses of an NDA that were to stop a worker from blowing the whistle, for example by making a protected disclosure to a lawyer or a prescribed person, are not enforceable. The use of an NDA by an employer could also amount to a criminal offence if it is an attempt to pervert the course of justice or conceal a criminal offence. A settlement agreement under the Employment Rights Act 1996 and any confidentiality clauses it contains would be void if the worker did not receive independent advice on the terms and effects of that agreement.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission and the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service have both published guidance on NDAs to ensure that workers and employers understand those limitations, but we have heard from many hon. Members that the guidance is not being observed in practice as much as we would expect. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley mentioned the guidance from the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which has issued an updated warning notice to remind the legal profession that NDAs should never be used to try to prevent the lawful disclosure of serious misconduct or potential crime. The SRA is also clear that evidence of the use of inappropriate clauses in such agreements may lead to disciplinary action.
Nevertheless, we hear the calls to go further, and the issues raised today highlight some of the key areas that we want to further investigate. It is clear that there are still serious concerns about how employers are using NDAs to silence employees. We have heard today that victims often feel that they are left with little choice but to leave their employer, without any assurance that their employer is addressing the misconduct and dealing with the perpetrator.
Martin Wrigley
Does the Minister agree that we need to change the social contract for companies such that they no longer take all the benefits of limited liability and simply focus on shareholder value? Will he support my better business Bill—the Company Directors (Duties) Bill—which will have its Second Reading on 4 July, and meet me to discuss it? The Bill is backed by some 3,000 businesses, the Institute of Directors and others. As I mentioned, it would balance the responsibility of company directors with the interests of shareholders, employees and the environment; fundamentally change their basic responsibilities in how they run their companies; and therefore turn the purpose of the company to good, including that of the employees. It would prevent many of the circumstances that we are describing today.
Justin Madders
I have not seen the hon. Member’s Bill, and I suspect that its application is rather broader than just to the topic we are debating. We are looking at corporate governance, and in due course we intend to introduce legislation that may pick up on a number of the issues addressed by his Bill.
As we have touched on, a number of recent reports, such as the Women and Equalities Committee’s “Misogyny in music” and the Treasury Committee’s “Sexism in the City”, highlight that NDAs do not stand up in a court of law and are often used to chill victims.
The hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) spoke about the good work of the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority. I understand that the Culture Secretary recently met the authority to discuss how they can work together to improve workplace standards and behaviour in the creative industries. We want to support the authority moving forward; that is a matter for the Culture Secretary, and I am sure that she continues to engage with it.
Louise Haigh
The Minister talked about protected disclosures, including in relation to criminal offences. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) said, this area of law is complex, and low-income workers in particular cannot access the kind of legal advice that she provided so authoritatively to her clients. Does the Minister agree that we therefore need to end the blanket use of NDAs so that it is much clearer that victims of abuse, harassment or discrimination cannot be silenced? It is next to impossible for them to navigate this complex area of law without specialist legal support, which they are clearly struggling to access.
Justin Madders
My right hon. Friend makes an important point: this is a complex area for individuals to navigate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) spoke about her experiences in the profession, with which I am familiar. Non-legally qualified consultants often simply apply boilerplate clauses to agreements, which has a practical impact on the victim’s ability to explain how their employment ended. I have seen agreements that prevent people from even confirming that they have reached a settlement, which makes it doubly difficult for them to explain that when seeking future employment prospects. My hon. Friend also talked about the financial contribution that employers provide towards that advice, which does not always cover the cost of taking proper advice, rather than going through a rubber-stamping exercise. Both those issues highlight the inequality of arms in the workplace when disputes arise.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made an excellent contribution, as always. He was absolutely right to highlight that the original intention behind NDAs has been distorted. They were about commercial confidentiality and protecting business interests, but they are being used for wider, less justifiable purposes.
My hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) raised the terrible case of Mohammed al-Fayed. He was right to say that we do not know how many victims there are; some will not come forward because the gagging orders still prevent them from speaking out or make them feel that they cannot do so. Of course, we addressed that to some extent in the Employment Rights Bill, in which we now make it clear that a complaint of sexual harassment qualifies as a protected disclosure under the whistleblowing Act. We will never know whether that kind of protection would have prevented the atrocities committed by Mohammed al-Fayed, but it would at least have given people some reassurance that they could speak out and have additional protections.
Mrs Russell
As I understand it, the whistleblowing provisions in the Employment Rights Bill will let people go to the police or a regulator, but they do not automatically mean that they can go to the media, although they might be able to in some circumstances. If the Minister does not mind my saying so, what he has described is possibly not a blanket solution to the problem.
Justin Madders
My hon. Friend highlights some of the limitations of the whistleblowing Act, in terms of what qualifies as a protected disclosure. As I have commented previously, that legislation needs to be looked at again.
The hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) talked about the widespread use of NDAs in the NHS. That highlights that there is no sector of the economy in which such agreements are not in use.
The hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) talked about the use of NDAs in Government Departments. I will make inquiries about that and get back to him, and I will pass on the comments of the hon. Member for Newton Abbot to the Department of Health and Social Care.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton North, Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, gave an informative and well researched speech, as always. She was right that this is not just about protecting victims; there is a wider issue relating to the growth agenda. These issues are debilitating and damaging for victims and can have an impact on their ability to return to work. She made the important point that it is nearly always the victim who has to leave their employment and move on. As we have heard, they do not always have a clear explanation to give prospective employers about why they have had to leave. It is usually the man, who is often in a position of greater power, who stays in work, and sometimes advances off the back of the claim. That relates to the culture in organisations: victims are not protected and perpetrators are often supported because they are seen to be in a more powerful position in the workplace. My hon. Friend also made an important point about protecting self-employed people and contractors in particular industries. We will need to consider that further.
On the current legislation being passed, we are pressing ahead with plans to commence the provisions relevant to NDAs in the Victims and Prisoners Act 2024 and the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, as a number of hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley, mentioned. When commenced, section 17 of the Victims and Prisoners Act will ensure that clauses in NDAs cannot be legally enforced where they seek to prevent victims of crime from reporting a crime, co-operating with regulators or accessing confidential advice and support. It will provide that clauses in NDAs that seek to prevent disclosures that are necessary to access confidential advice and support needed to cope with and recover from the impact of crime are unenforceable.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Eastbourne, talked about a new mother’s experiences of discrimination and the consequences of that. The Employment Rights Bill will provide a new baseline of protection, enhanced dismissal protections for pregnant women and mothers, extra requirements to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment—something that has been a matter of considerable debate—and protection of workers against third-party harassment. It will also make it clear that the disclosure of information can be a protected disclosure. We think all those things will improve the workplace experience, but I hear the calls to go further.
We know that there are calls to roll out the approach in higher education to the whole economy. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley provided a clear example of how the provisions in the Employment Rights Bill will not apply to an outsourced worker working in higher education. The legislation has not yet been enacted, but the Government intend to press on with it shortly. I share concerns that something needs to be done, but the changes that have been proposed through amendments to the Employment Rights Bill would need a significant amount of engagement with workers, employers and stakeholders, as well as an assessment of the impact on sectors and across the economy.
This is a complex area of policy, as we have heard today, and it is important to take a balanced approach to make sure that we reach the right end point. There are different views and opinions. There are organisations and hon. Members calling for a ban on NDAs in specific circumstances. Some advocate for a greater say for victims in when they can be legitimately used. Others warn about unintended consequences for victims who are looking to settle a claim to avoid the stress of litigation.
Louise Haigh
I am grateful to the Minister for being so generous with his time. I completely accept that there are different versions of the amendment that could be successful and I accept the need to consider the impact on businesses. Will the Minister meet me and other interested Members to look at a way in which this amendment could be written that would satisfy him and the Government? We have heard today that there is support from the official Opposition and the Lib Dems. There is every chance that this could receive serious cross-party support in the other place and pass into the Employment Rights Bill. Will he meet me and others to discuss exactly what the amendment could look like?
Justin Madders
I am always happy to meet my right hon. Friend. It would be good to get cross-party support on our Employment Rights Bill—something that has been sadly lacking in the Commons so far. The shadow Minister is grinning knowingly—I am not sure whether that means we shall ever get him on board for the whole package. I am happy to work with individual Members. I would just note that there was a consultation under the shadow Minister’s party’s watch, and a number of proposals were developed that never saw the light of day because the previous Government did not introduce an employment rights Bill. His late conversion to this cause is welcome, but he should recognise that his party perhaps did not do enough in government. Some of the recommendations made under the previous Government did not go as far as is reflected in the general mood of the Chamber today.
There is a range of issues that we need to consider to get this right, such as whether some sectors, such as the creative industries, need particular protection, and the different relationships—we have heard about self-employed people and how this would operate for those in the gig economy. We can have the debate about whether they are self-employed or workers: I am sure that will be returned to on many occasions. We also need to consider the international approach—we have heard some examples from across the pond, and Ireland recently introduced its own legislation—and how the legislation will apply to different groups with protected characteristics.
It is important to ensure that any work we do does not create a new loophole for clever lawyers to exploit, so it should be future-proofed as much as possible. We also need to ensure that any legislation includes an option for a victim to freely choose to have an NDA without pressure, if that is what they want. We need an awful lot of discussion to get that right. Hon. Members have mentioned access to justice and legal advice that is timely, correct and affordable. A cultural shift from employers is also important. Legislation can say what it wants, but unless we get employers to tackle rather than protect the perpetrators of these terrible acts, we will continue to debate these matters.
As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Heeley said, I am happy to work with hon. Members. I recognise that non-disclosure agreements are important and need looking at. I thank her for securing the debate and am happy to continue working with her and other hon. Members to get this right.
Louise Haigh
I have not been in a Westminster Hall debate for nearly six years, because I was faffing around in the shadow Cabinet and then the Cabinet. I do not recall being in a Westminster Hall debate where there has been so much cross-party support. I am incredibly grateful for the quality of contributions today and the support from the official Opposition and the Liberal Democrats.
I completely agree that the contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) was kick-ass. Her experience in this area is second to none and shows how widespread the issue is. As my hon. Friend the Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) said, the scale and nature of the crimes covered up, as demonstrated today, warrants urgent and immediate attention. I am grateful to the Minister for committing to work with those of us who care about this issue, looking at what steps can be taken. If we can get cross-party support for an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill, we can ensure that victims no longer have to suffer in silence.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Government policy on the use of non-disclosure agreements in civil harassment, discrimination and abuse cases.
Digital Landlines: Rural Communities
(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
I remind hon. Members that it is up to the Member who is speaking whether they take an intervention. If any Member wants to speak in the debate, they must have got the agreement in advance of the Member in charge and the Minister. They cannot just get up and speak. They must have done that in advance, according to the rules that apply in this debate.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the impact of the switch to digital landlines on rural communities.
It is good to see you in the chair, Mr Betts. You are correct that a 30-minute debate is normally a two-person debate. This subject has attracted more attention than is normally the case. I come at this from this from the perspective of my beautiful rural constituency, with places such as the Candovers and the Tisteds, Binsted and Buriton, Froxfield and Privett, Hawkley and East Meon, but the debate is deliberately is not entitled “East Hampshire”; it is entitled “Rural Communities”, because the impacts and the issues are much broader. Colleagues from all parts, possibly all four nations of the United Kingdom, with us today may therefore wish to intervene, and I have trimmed my remarks to make sure that colleagues can intervene—within reason, obviously—should they wish to.
Analogue telephony will soon be no more. PSTN, the public switched telephone network, uses technology that is outdated, with copper wire infrastructure nearing the end of its life and spare parts becoming harder to source. Britain, like other places, will thus be digitising its phone network. What follows will in many ways be better—more resilient, more scalable and more flexible. The roll-out of VoIP, Voice over Internet Protocol—we sometimes hear different names such as Digital Voice—is an industry-led initiative, but some of the issues that we will be talking about today go beyond that. They are issues for our society and therefore for the regulator, and ultimately, they are issues for the Government.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The right hon. Member is right to highlight the issue. Although the technology is moving, for those of us in coastal and rural areas, the new digitalisation will cause problems where there is a dependence on landlines. If we have electricity cut-outs and storms, which we have had this last year, the system will not work. For those in rural and coastal areas, such as the right hon. Gentleman, myself and many others here, the problem is that it just does not work.
Damian Hinds
I hear him. The hon. Gentleman is right—I cannot claim coastal for my area, by the way, but I can claim rural. Telephony is a fundamental service, most acutely for contacting emergency services whenever that need arises, but there is also a broader question about people just being able to stay in touch. Although the word “voice” is often used, including in Voice over Internet Protocol, the telecoms network is also used for other connections, including medical devices and security alarms.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
The right hon. Member might be aware that the all-party parliamentary group on digital communities, which I chair, produced a report this week on this very issue, where we urge the Government to take greater leadership in building awareness and ensuring that people are identified as vulnerable so that they can be helped in an emergency. Does he agree that the Government should look to take a greater leadership role in that area?
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
The right hon. Gentleman talks about vulnerable people. A constituent of mine, a widowed mother, lives in Westport with her son who has ME—indeed, she suffers from ME as well. Two weeks ago they were left without power and therefore without a phone. Had an emergency occurred during that time, they would have been. Does the right hon. Member agree about the serious risk that the rapid switch to digital landlines poses to more vulnerable residents in rural areas?
Damian Hinds
I do. It is a major infrastructure change and there are particular considerations around the elderly and the vulnerable. I have heard from many constituents who have shared their concerns about the switchover, mostly about fear of losing that means of contact during a power cut and not having a mobile phone signal to fall back on. Elderly people often speak of their phone—their landline, as we would call it—as their lifeline, not only for their health support, but to be able to be in touch with friends and family, their support network. One constituent who has had the changeover talks about having her landline cut off, in her words, and replaced with a battery phone, which she says is too bulky for her to carry around and which does not reach all parts of the house. Because she lives alone and is disabled, she has relied on having multiple phones in the house, including a landline extension in her bedroom. The new phone has to be placed on a charger overnight, and the charger is located in a room up steps that she struggles to reach, so she no longer has a phone within reach of her bed.
Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)
I spoke last week to one of my constituents, the daughter of a 99-year-old lady who was looking for her commode in the night. She pressed her personal alarm, but owing to Storm Darragh and the power cuts, nobody came, and very sadly she died in the dark. She was discovered after two days. Does the right hon. Member agree that Ofcom needs to have real teeth now to take account of that and force the communication companies either to put battery back-ups on the masts, or to ensure that constituents get the batteries on their phones to make sure that that never happens again?
Damian Hinds
First, my sympathies to the hon. Gentleman’s constituent’s family in that terrible case. I do agree, and those are points I will come on to.
Identifying vulnerable users is vital; some will already be known to the communications providers, but the list of vulnerable customers is further expanded by data-sharing agreements with local authorities and housing associations. That is not a perfect process, and there is no complete picture of that user group, which leaves some elderly and disabled users exposed to non-voluntary migration.
The previous Government did make important progress with the PSTN charter in 2023, with steps that the industry should take to protect vulnerable consumers and a pause on non-voluntary migrations unless a customer had not used their landline in the previous 12 months. That came after several incidents where medical alarms had failed to function on digital landlines, with tragic results. The March 2024 network operator charter, a voluntary agreement between the Government and the communications providers, aimed to ensure a smoother transition.
Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
Llanerchindda—now that is a proper Welsh name, is it not?—farm guest house and self-catering cottages in Cynghordy, in the north of my constituency, recently contacted me with serious concerns about the digital switchover. It was one of many businesses to do so. Openreach has no plans to connect that area with commercial fibre delivery, so what are they expected to do? I have had discussions with the Minister about that, and I thank him for his time, but in reality, 3% of Caerfyrddin will never have fibre connectivity. Does the right hon. Member agree that the Government must take a more proactive role in the digital switchover, to ensure not only that our rural communities are connected, but that they are not neglected or disproportionately affected by this?
Damian Hinds
The hon. Lady is, of course, right. My constituency is not quite as rural as hers, but it is true that, while it sounds great when people talk about reaching 95%, 97% or 98% of households, hon. Members in this Chamber represent the 2%, the 3%, and the 5%, and we absolutely need a robust, reliable solution for them as well.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Large parts of the Bridgewater constituency lack both effective broadband and mobile signal. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should pause the switching-off of landlines until there is an effective technology that can be used in rural areas?
Damian Hinds
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that we need to find robust solutions.
David Smith (North Northumberland) (Lab)
I thank the right hon. Member for securing this debate on an important subject. Given the challenges that we have heard about, especially for those in rural areas such as my constituency, does the right hon. Member agree that it might be prudent in the switchover for at least one copper wire line to be left at a community building, perhaps a community or church hall so that, in the emergencies that we have been talking about, there is at least one place in a settlement?
Damian Hinds
I have heard that suggestion; it is interesting and something to be explored, but I do not think it is a substitute, particularly for elderly and infirm people who need that contact at home.
My focus today, however, is not only on the elderly, infirm and the vulnerable; it is on anyone, because anyone can be vulnerable at some time. Anybody can need to dial 999, and anybody who lives in the sort of rural area that is prone to more frequent, sustained power cuts is someone we should be concerned about. Since we were born, we have all been used to the idea that, even if there is no power, we can still pick up the phone and be in touch. In emergencies, that landline can literally be a lifeline, but digital telephony needs its own power supply.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and I congratulate him on raising this issue. During the recent storm that affected my constituency in the borders, many constituents who rely on the digital phone service could not contact the 999 service because not only do they not have a mobile phone signal, but the mobile phone masts were destroyed by the storm. Does he agree that there is an argument for greater resilience for the mobile phone network to deal with storms, and that the roll-out should not happen until the mobile phone network is more comprehensive in more rural areas such as mine and his?
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to identify the importance of network resilience as well as individual household connectivity—and, in a more general sense, to keep reminding us of the linkage between landline and mobile telephony. For so much of the country there is an assumption that if someone cannot get on the phone at home, they can still use a mobile phone. That just is not the case in some places, and certainly not in cases of storm damage.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
The reality is that in rural and semi-rural areas such as Tatton, broadband is unreliable, poor and intermittent; when coupled with power cuts, there is no broadband whatsoever. We have heard about the needs of vulnerable people with medical devices. Does my right hon. Friend agree that there are rural businesses that need connection to the internet to pay for things online, and that they use a landline to dial for that automation?
Damian Hinds
I do recognise that, and hopefully I will be able to come on to it. While broadband and mobile connectivity have improved markedly in many areas, there is still a big gap between towns and rural areas. With electricity, the key point is that we have been having storms more frequently—and in our sorts of rural areas, with storms comes damage to powerlines.
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
In the relatively recent example of Storm Arwen, which had a huge impact on the north and north-east of Scotland, some communities were without power for in excess of a week because of the sheer number of trees that were down over power lines. The back-up generators for the mobile networks ran out of fuel because no one could get to them to refuel them. In most communities, there were at least some houses that still had a working landline, but there is a real fear among those communities about that happening again. Does the right hon. Member agree that that needs to be addressed?
Damian Hinds
Absolutely. I found it difficult to get reliable data for a local geographic area on the instances of power outages but, like the hon. Member, I can say from my personal experience, as well as from constituents’ reports, that in my constituency we do have power cuts—as we would call them in old language—that are frequent and can be of significant and sometimes long duration. In the last few years we have had power cuts of multiple days at a time.
With the PSTN charter, the previous Government asked communications providers to work with Ofcom to provide solutions going beyond the minimum of one hour of continued uninterrupted access to emergency services in the event of a power outage. I understand that Vodafone is now providing back-ups with four to seven hours of usage time free of charge to vulnerable customers. I am grateful to Vodafone for letting me see that technology and to ask about it further. For other customers not on the vulnerable list, however, those back-ups come at the customer’s own cost.
In September 2024, Ofcom issued updated resilience guidance setting an industry expectation that power back-ups for newly installed fixed network cabinets should last four hours. As I understand it, however, although the Government continue to encourage providers to go further for householders, the actual minimum requirement remains at just one hour. That is simply not nearly enough for people experiencing power cuts of the duration that we have been talking about.
I have the following asks. There must be much greater awareness about the digital switchover, through a nationally led campaign, alongside the telecare national action plan. Some of the fears people have could be allayed through just understanding more about what will happen.
Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)
I congratulate the right hon. Member on getting so many interventions in. I completely agree with the need for better communication, and better industry-led communication in particular. Does he agree that communication between industry and those rural communities, such as Rochester, Otterburn and Byrness, is crucial to getting this right?
Damian Hinds
I agree entirely about the importance of communication. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) said, it is important for businesses as well as vulnerable consumers to understand some of those implications. When we communicate things, we need to think about people who do not use the internet. Organisations like Citizens Advice could play an important role in that, along with local authorities.
Government Departments need to work with each other to make this infrastructure transition work. The Department for Energy Security, Ofgem and the energy sector need to work hand in hand with the Minister and his Department, regulator and sector, because electricity and communication are no longer two separate utilities—one relies on the other.
Crucially, communication providers must find a way for all customers in areas that have a high incidence of power cuts—especially those that do not have a good mobile signal either—to provide a decent power back-up without additional costs to them individually. Those costs should be considered part of the fixed costs of the network as a whole, not for that individual household. Given that I do not have that data, I cannot work out how many postcode areas that is, or how many individual homes, but it must be a manageable number, because from what the Department for Energy Security has told me in answers to written questions, we have one of the most reliable energy systems in the world. Therefore, presumably the number of homes getting significant numbers of power outages must be relatively small.
My final ask to the Minister is: please do not say, “This is an industry-led programme”. Ultimately, it is for the Government to ensure that people are not totally cut off and can contact the emergency services in their hour of most pressing need.
The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
It is a delight to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts, and to see so many Members take part in this debate. From the moment I was appointed as the Telecoms Minister, this issue has been the single thing that has kept me awake most at night. It is about very vulnerable people up and down the country, many of whom have absolutely no understanding of what PSTN might mean, how their telecare device works or whether it will work when a man or a woman comes to change the connection to their house, and so on.
At the same time, on day one, I was made very aware by officials that the single biggest problem we have is that the copper network is simply becoming less and less reliable. Simply remaining with the old system will not work, because that will leave more people in danger, rather than fewer. The very first thing I did as a Minister was to rant in the office, “We are going to get everybody round the table to come to a better set of decisions.” It was preposterous to me that people were still selling telecare devices that would only work on an old analogue system, and would not work on the new system at all.
Chris Bryant
I will not give way for the moment; I want to make a few points first, if that is okay.
It was also preposterous to me that still very few people had any understanding of what was happening in their own home and that most operators had no proper connection with a list of vulnerable patients or customers, despite the fact that local authorities, health boards and a whole series of other public sector bodies have precisely that information.
As I said, the very first thing I did was to stamp my foot and we got everybody round the table—I think it was in July last year, and we had another meeting later in September. I was forceful with all the operators in this field. First, I wanted to make sure that every single local authority was written to and told that they must provide that list of vulnerable customers to the operators. They started saying things about GDPR and I said, “No, you know perfectly well that we are able to get round these issues for this specific purpose.”
Secondly, I was trying to make sure that there was much greater resilience in the system—the point that several Members have made. Thirdly, of course the Ofcom rules say batteries only need to have one hour of back-up, but it is not just Vodafone that offers more than that; BT, KCOM and Zen Internet have all announced, following discussions I had with them back in September and November, that they will now have a battery power of between four and seven hours. Of course, that is not perfect—if there is a flood or something that will knock out the systems for several days—but that is when other resilience measures from local authorities really need to kick in.
I have acted in all those different areas from the beginning. I say this as gently as I can to the former Minister, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds): the briefing that I had was that previous Ministers were utterly complacent in this area, and that is why I was determined to act.
Esther McVey
The explanation that has been given is that the switchover is happening because of the poor condition of the copper, but has the Minister sought reassurances? Has there been a full investigation? I find it hard to believe that the copper is so bad that the switchover cannot be delayed. Will he go back and get assurances that it needs to be done?
Chris Bryant
It is a fact. We have to deal with the facts, I am afraid. It is a simple fact that the copper system is now failing on a daily basis.
Chris Bryant
Yes, I have facts. I would be happy to write to the right hon. Lady if she would like me to. I remember that last July, my anxiety was that somebody would end up having a telecare device not working because of VoIP. Since that time, the number of failures has increased far more in relation to when copper has failed, rather than in relation to VoIP. That is the precise fact that we have to deal with.
The former Minister, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire is right; it is an industry-led process and it always has been. We have to deal with the practicalities of the fact that the copper system is not going to last forever. The other former Minister over there, the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), is looking cross with me. I am not saying that the civil service briefed me to that effect.
Chris Bryant
I did not. I will finish my point. All of industry briefed me about that point—they were grateful because they said that everybody was, frankly, complacent about the issue until we came to power.
Steve Barclay
The Minister did say that. I welcome the fact that he has just corrected what he said. I think this is a debate in which everyone has a common purpose—particularly relating to the vulnerable and those with medical devices when there are storms and other crises—which is how we can arrive at a solution. Hopefully, we can work on that together.
What came out of many of the interventions we have heard was a concern about gaps in data. For those of us who, as Ministers, have attended Cobra, one of the first things that is almost always found is a concern over the quality of data. In covid, we had to get the Information Commissioner to change the rules for the clinically extremely vulnerable because we did not have enough data.
The Minister seemed to be saying that, having stamped his foot and intervened, he has fixed the data issue, but colleagues have been saying that they are concerned about data. Could he clarify—is he still concerned about gaps in data, or is he saying that the gaps in data have now been addressed? Could he also write to the Members attending the debate to confirm the data issue?
Chris Bryant
That was a long intervention and I am not sure what precise elements of data the right hon. Gentleman is referring to. What I am saying is that one of the things the operators needed to have was a full list of all vulnerable customers. It is never going to be 100% perfect, because there are some people who had telecare devices but have moved on to a different system, and so on, but in the main the people who know who their vulnerable customers are—those who might be relying, for instance, on a telecare or similar device—are local authorities and local health trusts or boards, or whatever the pattern may be in different parts of the United Kingdom. We have got to a place where 85% of local authorities are now reliably providing that information. I have not had any further complaints from the operators, but we keep on pressing the point with them.
In November, we also introduced the non-voluntary migration checklist, which means that nobody will be moved from one system to another without having had a visit, without having had the system explained to them, and without it being made sure that the new telecare device, or whatever it may be, would work under the new system. That has substantially reduced the dangers that there may be to individuals.
The right hon. Member for East Hampshire referred to the subject of working between Departments. We have been working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, and that has led to the new telecare national action plan, which was announced a few weeks ago. That, too, was a result of the consultations that we started last July, September and November about trying to make sure that every person in the country who could be at risk because of an outage, an electricity failure, or the simple transition from one system to another, would be covered, and that they would have a system that worked as efficiently and effectively under VoIP as it would have done under the copper system.
I do not think we have any choice about whether we transition from copper, because copper will simply not survive for the next five to 10 years. I am happy to write to the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) on the specifics if she wants.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
If there is a recognition that we need to switch from copper to broadband, then this plainly is another incentive to get broadband rolled out to the most remote rural areas. A councillor wrote to me to say:
“As we only get 2MBs on a good day, adding the land line will reduce the signal to a point where our devices will not work”.
These are people who are trying to work, earn money and pay taxes in rural areas. Does the Minister agree that, if we are going to scrap copper, we need to make sure that we have broadband?
Chris Bryant
There is a big point about broadband generally, and I will come to mobile because I think that several Members’ points have not been about PSTN at all today; they have been about mobile connectivity. That is an important issue of resilience as well. I could speak for the whole day about that, not least because of the reports today—I think in The Telegraph—that all of Ofcom’s previous announcements on mobile coverage are rather wide of the mark when it comes to what people are really able to achieve. The hon. Gentleman referred to 2 megabits per second; a telecare device will work on 0.5 megabits per second, so that is not the issue. The issue is whether someone has a router that has a back-up battery that will survive long enough if there is an electricity cut.
Damian Hinds
The Minister is right that the most vulnerable people must be at the very top of our list of concerns, but can I be really clear that this debate is not only about that group? It is about anybody who is cut off in a storm and may need to phone the emergency services, because anybody—they may not even be elderly—might have a medical emergency. That has not been getting enough attention in his remarks so far.
Chris Bryant
In truth, the advice I have had so far from the industry is that in the main in those kinds of instances, people would be using their mobile phone to—[Interruption.] Well, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire got cross with me when I was not listening to him earlier, so I will get cross with him back.
There is a legitimate point here: how do we make sure that we have the resilience for mobile technology as well? The point that I have made many times is that Ofcom reports 97% coverage for all mobile operators in many constituencies, but we all know from our lived experiences that that simply is not true. I think that that is partly because its expectation of mobile coverage is 2 megabits per second, whereas to be able to do anything reliably, a mobile signal today needs 5 megabits per second. There are also still areas with notspots—where there is simply no mobile signal. In my own semi-rural constituency in the south Wales valleys, there are many areas like that.
We need to make sure that the industry providing the mobile signal is able to deliver greater resilience in its masts. I am sure that other Members will have had the experience that I have had in my constituency, where people have set fire to masts because they believe that they do medical damage and things. If there is no mobile signal, people do not have any ability to make calls. The vast majority of people now do not rely on their home landlines to make emergency phone calls; they rely on mobiles.
Damian Hinds
This may be the last thing in the debate, but it is important to say that in many of our constituencies, there are places where people cannot make a voice call on a mobile telephone indoors. That is what an elderly person would be trying to do. It is not about a data transaction; it is about being able to make a phone call.
Chris Bryant
That is literally the point that I made two sentences ago, so I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for reiterating it. The point is that we need to be able to get broadband to every single home in the country. We are working on Project Gigabit to deliver that as far as possible.
I am aware—not least because I am a Welsh MP in Wales—that there are some places in the UK where it is going to be phenomenally difficult to get to every single home with gigabit-capable broadband. That is where other solutions, such as fixed mobile and potentially satellite, are going to have to come into play. We will need to develop new technology to—
Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)
Order.
Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).
Universities: Funding and Employment
(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
Westminster HallRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the impact of university finances on jobs in higher education.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. The UK’s higher education sector is facing a severe financial crisis, with profound implications for both staff and students. Two years ago, university lecturers across the UK raised an urgent call for help when they voted to strike. Regrettably, their concerns were largely ignored. Over 5,000 job cuts have already been announced, with projections indicating that more than 10,000 jobs will be lost across the sector this year.
The Office for Students’ latest modelling suggests that nearly three quarters of English higher education providers could be in deficit by 2025-26. The University of Bedfordshire in my constituency has recently announced plans to cut over 200 jobs as part of its efforts to address financial challenges. Several factors have contributed to this situation, including tuition fees that fail to cover actual costs, rising operational expenses and a significant decline in international student numbers from 5,270 in 2023 to just over 2,000 in 2025.
The funding model, which depends on international students paying higher fees, has harmed universities since Brexit, as has the Conservative Government’s policy to crack down on student visas, despite international students contributing over £40 billion to the economy before the restrictions were introduced. The amount of income English universities receive for teaching home students has declined in real terms almost every year since 2015-16 and is now approaching its lowest level since 1997.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member on securing the debate. A 2024 report from PwC said that 10 of Scotland’s 15 universities were at risk of falling into financial deficit by 2027. Of the 18 institutions that students can now study in, seven have a deficit, so there is a particularly acute issue in Scotland. Does he agree that falling Government investment is part of the issue? Indeed, in Scotland, it is 22% lower than it was in 2013-14.
Mohammad Yasin
I will come to that point about universities in Scotland in a minute.
Even prior to the 2022 reforms, the UK had the lowest share of public funding in tertiary education among OECD member countries, with the majority of the funding coming from fees and student loans. The tuition fee system is unpopular with both students and universities. Although reversing it may be unrealistic, the model has to be improved.
A disturbing pattern of job cuts is emerging, with universities following suit at an alarming rate—even those that are running a surplus. Critical administrative and technical staff, key to the smooth running of courses and the welfare of students, are often the first to be let go. We are witnessing widespread deficits, restructuring, fire and rehire tactics and even the closure of entire departments, with faculties, schools and jobs being lost or downgraded. A survey of institutions in spring 2024 found that almost 40% had seen voluntary redundancies, almost 30% had reduced module choices for students and almost a quarter had closed courses.
In just the past month, universities in Dundee, Coventry and Bradford have announced similar measures. Perhaps most shockingly, Kingston University has proposed the closure of its humanities department. The closure of a humanities department, in a country renowned for its literary and cultural heritage—Shakespeare’s birthplace, no less—signals a troubling future for our higher education system. It is not merely a loss for humanities; it is a loss for the future of education in our nation and a blow to our global reputation as leaders in education. These subjects are disproportionately impacted by the cuts, and that reinforces the damaging notion that studying arts is the privilege of a select few—a hugely regressive step.
Under the previous Conservative Government a false narrative emerged, claiming that arts cannot equip students to thrive in a rapidly evolving world. In reality, these disciplines are adapted to a skills-based agenda, producing exceptional communicators, critical thinkers and researchers, which is still essential for a healthy democracy and a world increasingly driven by artificial intelligence.
The English higher education sector contributes £95 billion to the UK economy, while our vibrant creative industries generate £125 billion in gross value added each year. Last year, Labour unveiled our exciting plans for the arts, culture and creative industries as key sectors for driving economic growth, but none of that can be achieved without investing in the teachers and lecturers who train the next generation of skilled professionals. Post-1992 universities, which often serve the most diverse student demographics, are hit the hardest. Many students in those institutions are the first in their families to attend university and come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. These universities are essential for students who cannot afford to live away from home.
The problem for the arts and humanities is not confined to post-’92 universities. Newcastle University, whose chancellor is the chair of the prestigious Russell Group, has announced plans to cut 300 full-time positions, including 65 academic roles. Cardiff University also plans to cut 400 academic staff, which is almost 10% of the total, and to eliminate subjects like music, modern languages, and nursing, despite ongoing NHS workforce shortages. The University of Edinburgh has a £140 million deficit forecast over 18 months, which outstrips the £30 million deficit recorded by Cardiff University. Durham University has joined the ranks of Russell Group institutions planning job cuts, with a target of reducing staff costs by £20 million over two years, starting with 200 professional services staff this year.
For a full view of the scale of the cuts, people can visit the UK HE shrinking page, compiled by Queen Mary University of London and the University and College Union, which tracks redundancies, restructures and closures across the sector.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)
Before the hon. Member moves on, and to save people from going to the website, can I mention Brunel University? I have been on the picket lines with UCU, and there are large numbers of job cuts being threatened. It is a successful university that is doing everything asked of it by Government to provide skills training for the future. What is extremely disappointing to me is the refusal of management to even engage with the union to look at transitional arrangements and future planning. There must be a way in which we can work through this, after years of austerity. The Government must work with universities’ management and the unions to see the way through.
Mohammad Yasin
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for his comments; I must make some progress now.
Universities are major employers and significant contributors to local and national economies. A recent report on the economic and social impact of Lancaster University, for instance, found that it contributed £2 billion to the UK economy in 2021-22, with 61% of the impact felt in the north-west. If we continue to cut essential departments—English, nursing, modern foreign languages —where will our teachers and professors come from? The approach is so short-sighted. Without a strong university sector, how can the Chancellor grow the economy? Universities are central to delivering education, research and innovation in critical areas for future growth, including in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
Degree-level apprenticeships are another important part of the Government’s strategy to address skills shortages and rebalance the economy. By combining academic study with practical work experience, apprenticeships offer a valuable alternative to academic degrees, but when universities shrink, the skills gap will only widen. In the blink of an eye, we are losing thousands of years-worth of accumulated knowledge. The university exists to pass expertise to the next generation; there is a moral imperative to protect it.
I urge the Government to review university governance and ask why expensive building programmes are being prioritised over investment in staff and students. Multi-year commitments on research and higher education funding are expected in June, when the Government’s spending review is finalised. The reduction in faculty options, loss of vital services and pressure on remaining staff all contribute to a diminished quality of education. This is not the future we should offer our students. We have to fix the broken funding model, safeguard staff, enhance the student experience, and ensure that our universities continue to be engines of economic growth and innovation.
Chris Law (Dundee Central) (SNP)
The hon. Member is making the powerful point that money should be put into staff and students. In my constituency, the University of Dundee faces critical challenges just now, with almost 700 jobs at risk. My thoughts are with those staff, and I thank the Scottish Government for the £22 million package of support for them. Does he agree that the UK Government need to reverse the Tory hostile environment policy for international students that means they cannot bring members of their family here? It has cost our university alone more than £12 million. Does he agree further that the national insurance contributions increase—an additional £3 million that the University of Dundee has to find—needs to be stopped right now?
Mohammad Yasin
I am asking the Government to look into this whole scenario very carefully, because it is impacting staff, students and future generations.
Higher education in the UK is at a crossroads. We have a choice: continue down this path of a boom-and-bust approach, cutting jobs and course offerings, or make the necessary investment to secure our universities as pillars of innovation, growth and opportunity. I urge the Government to take immediate action to address the crisis, consider a sustainable funding model, look at capping the numbers for a fairer distribution of students, and look again at student visas, to save our universities. They must ensure that higher education remains a vibrant and accessible resource for future generations.
Several hon. Members rose—
Martin Vickers (in the Chair)
I remind hon. Members that they should bob, as indeed they are, if they wish to be called in the debate. It will clearly be necessary to impose a time limit, so we will start with four minutes. Jim Shannon will show us how to go about it.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Mr Vickers, you are very kind to give me the challenge of four minutes; it will probably be an eight-minute speech in four minutes. I thank the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for setting the scene so very well and for providing lots of detail and information.
I wish to give a Northern Ireland perspective. We witness hundreds of students going to different areas in the UK to study. There is no doubt that the financial stability of our higher education facilities is important, so it is vital that we are here to discuss it.
As in many other areas, Northern Ireland has a different set of guidelines when it comes to higher education. Our approach is distinctive, because we have oversight from a Government Department: the Department for the Economy. In the 2012-13 financial year, the combined income of higher education institutions in Northern Ireland was approximately £502.9 million. Fast forward to 2023, and Queen’s University—Northern Ireland’s primary education facility—reported a total income of £474.2 million. I thank Queen’s University and Ulster University for the partnerships they have and for trying to find cures for some of the great diseases and problems, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer, cardiac arrest and eyesight issues.
Furthermore, there are growing concerns about the higher education sector’s reliance on international tuition fees. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee has warned that higher education providers are potentially exposing themselves to significant financial risks if future growth in international student numbers is not high as they expect or had hoped. For example, Ulster University back home in Northern Ireland did experience increases in income, with tuition fees from international students rising by more than 50% in the 2021-22 financial year, reaching some £12 million.
Although it is understood that we cater for and are generous in welcoming international students, as we should be, when I spoke to students in my constituency it became clear that many are put off going to England, Scotland and even Northern Ireland for university placements because of the intense tuition costs. Yes, universities rely on fees to deliver fantastic programmes across the board for lots of people, and they train our young ones for the future to get them the jobs that will help the economy to grow, but it is no secret that the levels of tuition fees are extortionate, and they will have to be paid back.
In addition, it is worrying that one in five graduates, or around 70,000 students a year, would have been financially better off if they had not gone to university. That tells me that many students will ask whether they should go to university or get a job and not have a debt to pay back in the future. That is a worrying statistic that we cannot ignore. I seek the Minister’s thoughts on how that can be addressed.
There is a parallel between supporting students and supporting our wonderful universities. There is always a balance to be found, and we need to get that right. Universities can use partnerships with businesses to try to find cures to the world’s diseases, which Queen’s University and Ulster University both do, along with others across this great United Kingdom.
If we allow our universities to suffer financially, they will face challenges such as reduced funding for academic programmes, limited grants and diminished support. Although we must encourage students to attend universities and pursue their dreams, the facilities must be financially supported to allow that to happen.
I look forward to hearing from the Minister, and I have a request. There will never be a debate when I do not ask for something, but I ask in a respectful way. In future, will the Minister ensure that we engage collectively as a nation, despite our having different guidelines, so that universities and jobs are protected and all our students are supported?
Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for securing this important debate. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a member of the UCU and a former professor in higher education.
As someone who dedicated over 20 years to teaching and research in higher education, I have seen at first hand the transformative power of that work. Students’ lives are changed, economies grow, communities are transformed and cities are lifted. Despite the challenging times facing the sector, I remain optimistic about the future of our universities and the vital role they play in our society, but we need to act before it is too late—which means sooner rather than later.
The current financial model for universities is the most challenging it has been since the previous Labour Government enabled so many to access higher education. Members will know that in 2012 a cap on the domestic tuition fee was introduced, which increased only slightly in 2017 and again this year. It has not kept pace with inflation, and the financial strain is felt across the sector.
Research funding is another area of concern. We cannot have universities without research, because the research informs the teaching. That is the nature of the beast and of the game. The UK rightly prides itself on being a global leader in innovation. Our universities are world class and attract people from around the globe. Research often runs at a loss and is subsidised by education provision, even though that research underpins our productivity and economic growth. That is the case in any sector I could name: AI, defence, health, life sciences and the creative industries. If the universities were taken away, where would we get that innovation—accessible innovation that is open to all—from?
As my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford said, international student recruitment has been severely affected. The University of Essex, where I taught, has seen a 47% decline in EU student enrolments post Brexit, and recent changes to visa policies have contributed to a 40% drop in international student numbers. The subsequent reduction in income exacerbates the financial challenges faced by the sector.
Despite the difficulties, universities have been proactive in seeking solutions—I was personally involved in creating those solutions over many years. At the University of Essex, we introduced efficiency measures, diversified income streams, invested in transnational education and merged departments. We have done an awful lot over the past few years—I felt myself slipping back into using “we” there, in a rather odd way.
The university also collaborated with local businesses. Indeed, I ran a doctoral training consortium that spanned 10 universities across the south-east of England, and my whole job was to get money in from business to support collaborative master’s and PhD programmes. Industry and business do need to step up in this regard. They benefit from universities and those who are educated there, and they need to step up and provide assistance.
The contribution of universities to economic growth is palpable. For every £1 of public money invested in universities, we get £14 back, so there is a good economic case to be made. I am encouraged that the Education Committee is to start an inquiry into higher education and funding on 8 April, and I urge the Minister to take seriously the issues raised. I encourage her to meet those of us who have worked in the sector to explore solutions that involve the unions, business and all the other stakeholders.
Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)
In following the hon. Member for Colchester (Pam Cox), I should refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary university group and I am proud of my relationship with the University of St Andrews. The hon. Member talked about her experience; I was previously assistant vice-principal at St Andrews, with oversight of recruitment and internationalisation—areas that are crucial to the health of the university sector.
Today, I will remain closer to home and talk a little bit about the University of Dundee. My hon. Friend the Member for Dundee Central (Chris Law) has already referred to this issue. I should also register my interest as a graduate of the university. Like most people locally, the university is very much part of my family, with my father also being a graduate of it and my grandmother having worked there as a cleaner.
Before I move on, I want to make clear something that we do not hear enough in this place. Our higher education sector thrives and is world leading in teaching and in research because it is international, and because it is competitive and brings in the best researchers and students from all over the world. It will remain competitive only if it remains international. Today, the University of Dundee and the city face 700 job cuts. That would be devastating for families, for the city and for Scotland and the wider UK. We all benefit from the research and the teaching there.
The main issue that has been highlighted—it dwarfs all the others—is the huge drop in international income. The acting principal, Professor O’Neill, told the Scottish Parliament recently that
“changes in immigration policy and related factors…have had a negative impact on our international student recruitment.”
He also pointed to a two-thirds drop in taught postgraduate student numbers in the last two years.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s points about the impact of immigration policy—the sector needs a policy that helps it to attract the best staff and the best students—but he will know that the challenge facing the sector in Scotland is long-lasting and is due to underfunding. Student fees have dropped substantially below the level in England and there has been a cap on places. That is why universities in Scotland have had to look overseas so much. Does the hon. Gentleman share my disappointment that this year Scottish universities faced a real-terms cut from the Scottish Government?
Stephen Gethins
I wanted to give the Member the opportunity to intervene because I am going to criticise Scottish Labour and talk about some of its priorities. The difference between English fees and Scottish fees would not even cover the national insurance increase that has been imposed by his Government.
Stephen Gethins
I think the hon. Member has said enough. His Government have damaged the sector enough, never mind the £12 million, which is structural, that my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee Central highlighted. The sector has been battered by Brexit and by a Tory hostile environment that the Labour Government have embraced. We want to see something international.
Scottish Labour previously proposed that we should devolve greater migration policy. The First Minister has talked about a tailored visa route for Scotland, which Scottish Labour proposed previously. I would love to find out whether Scottish Labour still propose that, because that could make a real difference to our sector. The Labour party previously campaigned on that.
We have seen the biggest drop in dependant visas, whereas we know that the markets bring in dependants from all over the world. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) identified that as an issue, as have others. Will the Government rethink wiping out dependant visas? It is entirely understandable that people bring their kids with them when they come to study. I understand that the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) cannot answer that, but I know that the Minister will. I hope the hon. Member will agree with me that the dependant visa needs to be looked at, because the health of the sector depends on it.
The UK is hobbling universities’ international competitiveness. I am pleased that the Scottish Government stepped up for the University of Dundee and made a contribution. Labour and SNP Members called on them to do so, and I was glad we all had that common approach. Given the damage that is being done at a UK level, as we sit in the UK Parliament, it would be nice to hear Scottish Labour stand up for the sector and address the damage that their own Government are doing. Will the Minister look at the hostile environment when they look at this issue? That is key to the sector.
Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for securing this important and timely debate on the issues in our constituencies in respect of our fantastic higher education institutions.
I have the pleasure of representing Brunel University, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned earlier. Many of the students and staff who make up the university community also live in my constituency. Brunel educates 16,000 students a year and contributes £750 million to the UK economy. It is an important employer, an important buyer of services and the centre of much of our community activity. It hosts a range of community sports groups, concerts and conferences, and has links with local schools. Brunel University even—I have some distant memories and scars on my back—hosts the election hustings, of which I have some positive and negative experience.
Unfortunately, because of the long-term funding challenges, which Members have already raised, and, particularly in Brunel’s case, a reliance on international students from particular regions who have been affected by visa changes, the funding crisis at our university means that Brunel has been hit extremely hard and is projecting a deficit this year of £32.9 million. Brunel has therefore instituted a scheme of redundancies of 125 academic staff and 239 other staff across the university and professional services. Around 20% of the workforce at Brunel is affected.
A few weeks ago, I met staff members from the university in Parliament at UCU’s lobby day. They told me they had dedicated their lives—sometimes 20-plus years—to the university. There is a deep level of concern among them and their colleagues about not only their futures but the university’s. It is a deeply disappointing situation for the university to be in. As has been said, universities are central to human capital, to education and to opening opportunities, as well as to research for our nation and more globally, as we face the challenges that we see before us. The cuts are bad for staff and bad for students, who want the very best possible education.
Moreover, I am concerned about the knock-on effects on the local economy in Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Brunel is a very good institution and an incredibly important part of my community. As we face up to the missions around recruiting more medical staff through its recently opened medical college, or supporting those who are not in education, employment and training into training and work, Brunel stands at the centre of our community to meet the longer-term challenges that the Government face.
I hope that we can put in place a more sustainable, long-term funding solution for higher education that will stabilise Brunel and the broader sector’s finances. More immediately, I hope the Government will consider how relatively small amounts of transition funding, through grants or loans, might be made available to institutions such as Brunel. Newer universities do not have very large reserves, historic estates or trusts on which to draw to change the institution at pace, so without those relatively small amounts of funding the cuts will bite harder, and they will have to make more redundancies than they might otherwise need to make. I hope the Government will explore those options for universities such as Brunel.
I hope that, through long-term funding settlements, we can secure Brunel’s future and ensure that it continues to provide the best quality of teaching and remains the best possible institution for students, staff and the broader community in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) on securing this very important debate.
As we have heard, a great number of higher education institutions across the United Kingdom face very worrying times indeed, and I am sure we will hear of other examples from Members. Many who are more learned than me will say that the situation has been developing for quite some time. Scarcely a week goes by without yet another announcement of significant job cuts at a university somewhere in the UK, so there can be no doubt that the situation is unsustainable. If we do not act, and if the Government do not intervene to get a grip of it, a great number of higher education institutions face collapse.
That should worry us all because, as well as the incredible research and teaching they provide, universities make an important contribution to the economy of the United Kingdom. In Wales, higher education supports more than 60,000 jobs, contributes more than 4.2% of Welsh GDP and has an overall economic impact of nearly £11 billion. The new Government have identified growth as a key mission, and as such research and development will be key. In Wales, just as in other parts of the UK, universities are critical to ensure that research and innovation benefits not just communities but the economy. They account for 37% of all Welsh research and development expenditure. I have seen that at first hand in my constituency of Ceredigion Preseli, from the good work of the AberInnovation centre, associated with Aberystwyth University.
Universities also help ensure that we have the skills we need for a prosperous society and economy. A report by Universities UK estimates that more than 400,000 extra graduates will be needed in Wales by 2035 to respond to the skills gaps and workforce challenges of the future. That is clearly a problem if institution after institution in Wales announces severe reductions to teaching provision and staff cuts. We should also bear in mind that universities are crucial to train the workforce of key public services, particularly in education and health.
From my personal experience, not just as an MP but as someone born and raised in a university town—Lampeter, the birthplace of higher education in Wales —I know we face a very uncertain future. The university in Lampeter has announced its decision to relocate undergraduate teaching from the campus in the town; more than 200 years of history is going down the pan. The point is that the university also sustains a whole load of extracurricular community benefits, from the arts hall to the sports facilities. We often make the point that universities are important to the economy, and they are—that is where I had my first job, so perhaps I should declare an interest—but as a young student at sixth form I was able to benefit from the resources at the library and the extracurricular courses that the university provided to enrich my own learning and prepare myself for university. Many of my sports teams trained in the university sports hall during winter months. The university also plays host to two of the big events in the town: the St David’s day march and the annual food festival. All that is now in jeopardy. When we consider the importance of higher education providers, let us remember not just the economic impact but the wider social and community consequences.
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for securing the debate.
As we have heard, there is a crisis in higher education in this country. The crisis is writ large in an academic institution in my area, the University of East Anglia, which is why I am attending the debate. The University of East Anglia really matters for our city, our county and the country. It is a vital hub that delivers cutting-edge research, educates thousands of students and provides thousands of jobs. It is more than just an education facility; it is on a campus that is home to five research campuses funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, 40 businesses, four independent research institutes and a teaching hospital. That university, which has produced renowned novelists, filmmakers, scientists and cardiologists, is now in a precarious position, as are so many other institutions.
The proposals advanced by the University of East Anglia could see up to 190 staff members—163 full-time equivalents—losing their jobs, and it comes after losing more than 400 staff members a year and a half ago. It will have a direct impact not only on many people’s lives but on our economy. Last week, about 700 university staff members held a strike day to fight against the job cuts. I understand the pressure that chancellors and vice-chancellors are under, but the loss of knowledge and expertise when staff go lasts for not just years but generations.
I want to be clear that the jobs, and the education of students, must be protected at UEA. I am sure that the Minister agrees that higher education institutions such as UEA are central to our local and national economy. As we move towards more devolution in Norfolk and Suffolk, it is deeply worrying that the largest HE provider in our region is in such a difficult position.
I have recently spoken with the UCU branch at UEA, as well as with the vice-chancellor and members of the team. I know that work is being done to try to find a solution, but it is clear that stress levels are high and morale is low. Of course, for staff who go, the impact is huge, but it is also huge for the staff left behind as workloads increase and their colleagues leave. As we have heard, each institution will have particular issues, but there are systemic issues that need to be addressed. I think we all recognise that it is complex, with many factors at play, but also that it has been going on for too long and it has to be gripped. I do think this Government will get to grips with it. We have heard about some of the measures that we could be considering, such as how student loans, payments and tuition fees are structured, and about some of the shorter-term measures. We heard about considering caps on student numbers, and the impact of visa changes.
I also want to make a point about the importance of transparency and accountability for those who lead UK higher education institutions. I am talking broadly, not specifically about UEA. From listening to people at UCU, it sometimes feels that staff are not necessarily as fully involved as they should be in some of the decision-making processes. We need robust systems of accountability.
When we talk about higher education funding, we also need to talk about further education funding. We have very good colleges in Norfolk, but I heard from City College Norwich that under the previous Government, it felt invisible. I urge the Minister, as we look at all the funding conversations holistically, to also look at the role of colleges in addressing issues such as pay parity.
I would also like to take the opportunity to draw the Minister’s attention to the proposal for an undergraduate dental school at the University of East Anglia. That touches on funding and jobs. It has cross-party support and has been in the pipeline for a long time, but in order for courses to start this autumn, we urgently need an allocation of places from the Office for Students. I know that a lot depends on the spending review, but I want to highlight that important investment that we need in our area.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I start by putting on record my thanks to higher education. I could not be here if I had not been the first in my family to go to university, and that was possible because the last Labour Government set that high ambition for people from poorer backgrounds. This Government, too, can set that high ambition for people to go into FE and HE.
I also thank Professor Inderjeet Parmar at the University of Manchester and Professor Duncan Bell at the University of Cambridge. If they had not taught me critical thinking and helped to strengthen my sense of independence, I do not know that I would have pursued a career in politics. I say that because when I speak to professors and teaching staff at the universities in Bournemouth, the town where I am an MP, it is clear that they are passionate about the student experience and education. However, the three universities are facing danger.
We are fortunate, in Bournemouth, to have three universities, including Arts University Bournemouth, which teaches 4,000 students and was established in 1880. I was pleased to be there on Saturday, as they were hosting a youth celebration showing the ways in which they contribute to our local society. We also have Health Sciences University, which just installed Her Royal Highness Princess Anne as chancellor, showing that it is taking a leap forward in providing education, research and clinical care to help build a healthier society, and I commend the leadership of Lesley Haig there.
We also have Bournemouth University, the largest in the town. Its motto, “To learn is to change”, is one that the teaching staff and students feel deeply. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales), I have been honoured to hold election hustings there, be quizzed by students, tour their facilities, meet frequently with their leadership team and attend their graduation ceremonies. It is a fantastic university, but it is in a difficult position. On 26 March, it was announced that teaching and support staff could face up to 200 potential redundancies. It was also announced that there would be a reduction of the number of faculties from four to three and a suspension of 15 courses, all to address a £15 million to £20 million financial black hole inherited by the new leadership team, which is moving quickly to put the finances right in a difficult set of circumstances. I have met constituents in surgeries to talk about the possible repercussions of that on their livelihoods and of their commitment to their students. They are worried about the possible impacts on students’ education.
Arts University Bournemouth is also in a difficult financial position, announcing earlier this year that it could be at risk of job losses due to ongoing financial pressures, having posted a deficit in the last three financial years. This shows that two of the three universities in Bournemouth are not immune from the national challenges. They are in the firing line because over the past 14 years we have seen the funding model for higher education trashed and higher education disrespected by the Conservatives. Enough is enough. I am calling on the Government to provide to all universities—and in doing so the universities in Bournemouth—the longer-term financial settlement that will offer the security that universities need to plan and the certainty that teaching staff need to develop their courses, improving both the teaching experience and professional development. That will ensure that students have the very best possible education.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair today, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for introducing the debate so well. I should start by referring Members to the register of interests and saying I am a member of the University and College Union. I am also proud to say that I employ two university students in my office on a part-time basis.
“Our education system in Scotland is crumbling, and it’s being allowed to happen. It’s becoming all too common to hear from university or college management that course closures are necessary and staff redundancy schemes unavoidable.”
These are not my words, but those of Sai Shraddha Suresh Viswanathan, the current president of NUS Scotland. Scotland is unique in so many ways, but one of those ways is that it stands alone in the world with a Government who think they can grow the economy by cutting university funding and capping the number of places available to Scottish students. Our universities are at breaking point in Scotland. Funding per undergraduate student in Scotland is more than £2,000 less per student compared with England. Think about what that would mean for universities in England. Undergraduate education in Scotland—universities—cannot run at a profit; they cannot break even. They have to do other things.
The cap on places is brutal. Since 2006, there has been a 56% increase in the number of applicants to universities, which is fantastic, but the number of refused entries has increased by 84%. When clearing comes in the summertime and options are posted for Scotland’s universities, they are available only for students from outside Scotland. Even when Scottish students have better qualifications, they cannot get access to those places because the cap has been used up.
The financial crisis is resulting in job losses right across Scotland. We heard about Dundee; the hon. Member for Dundee Central (Chris Law) is not in his place just now, but he outlined that 700 jobs are at risk there due to a £35 million deficit. The Scottish Government described the bleak outlook in Dundee as “troubling”—I think the staff there probably view it quite differently. The University of Edinburgh is looking at £140 million-worth of cuts over the next 18 months. That is 10% of its annual budget. The principal there has refused to rule out compulsory redundancies, saying,
“nothing is off the table”.
In Aberdeen, voluntary redundancy schemes are open. Robert Gordon University is talking about losing 100 staff. It is expected that the Scottish Funding Council will say, that, as we heard earlier, over half the institutions in Scotland are running at a deficit. This is a crisis that demands urgent action.
It is not just universities that are being short-changed; poor students are when it comes to loans for living costs. The living wage went up yesterday, which is good, but a single parent on the national minimum wage in Scotland working 37 hours per week will be earning £3,000 over the threshold for their child having full support at university, meaning that that single parent is expected to give the child £1,500 to attend university. That is utterly shameful.
I am a huge supporter of Scottish universities, and I love meeting staff and students in this place to hear about all they do. I have to acknowledge that often the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) is also there, supporting the sector in Scotland. Universities are at the heart of Scotland’s economy, and have been for centuries, but they need to be cherished, and that is not happening right now. We need a Scottish Government who take the sector seriously.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Vickers. There is a real mismatch between the Chancellor’s growth agenda and the policies impacting the higher education funding landscape that we inherited. As has been highlighted, every £1 of public investment into university research generates £14 in economic output—but scale up, add in the direct, indirect and productivity overspill, and we are talking about £15.2 billion returned to the Exchequer from a £2.49 billion investment. The N8 Research Partnership universities have an economic impact greater than the whole of the premier league. We know that this is of significant value, and we must honour that. If £1 billion is deducted from UK Research and Innovation investment, we are talking a 42% fall in that return. That is poor for the economy and the UK industry, and catastrophic for universities and students—22,000 jobs could be lost. That must not happen.
We also must be aware that the demands of UK industrial ambition far exceed the supply of graduates that we are currently producing. We are all alerted to the falling roll that will hit higher education by 2030—another 11 million graduates will need to be found to fuel our economy into the future—yet last year we saw 5,000 jobs cut in the academic year. This is a real challenge. If we are going to realise the knowledge and scientific, innovative and technical opportunity that this country presents to the world, we must have a global outlook on the investment we must make into higher education.
There have been many factors impacting universities, many of which we have heard. On international students, I urge the Minister to make representation to the Home Office to ensure that dependants can accompany academics and students as they come to this country, and that we look again at visa costs and NHS surcharges. That will enable people to come our country to put in to it and bring benefits—including the economic benefit that we know has been deeply damaged with the change in visa rules.
We also must address our relationship with the EU, which we got so much out of. We must address a deeper relationship with Horizon, look at Erasmus again, and ensure that we are getting the very best academics, researchers, staff and students from across the EU. We must also give our students the opportunity to travel overseas and make it more attractive to engage in higher education.
The pain has been felt in York. There are two universities in my constituency: York St John University has removed 70 vacant posts and deleted 30 posts, while the University of York has already seen 273 leave. I know from talking to the unions just last week that the pressure is there once again. It is having a real impact on staff and academics as well as students. We know about the mental health challenges and the stress that people are experiencing, and those workloads are going up.
Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)
As an academic in recovery, currently working as a visiting professor at Royal Holloway, University of London on Monday mornings before Parliament sits, what the hon. Lady is saying resonates with me very powerfully. Today, Royal Holloway announced a voluntary severance scheme. I remember that moment in 2016, after the Brexit referendum, when our international student numbers fell off a cliff. Britain cannot claim to be a genuine world leader in many things, but in our university sector we absolutely can. We have the second largest number of Nobel prizes of any country. Does the hon. Lady agree that, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell, we won’t know what we’ve lost until it’s gone?
Rachael Maskell
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and thank him for participating in this debate and bringing his experience. The referendum was nine years ago, and the country was in a very different place then. We must address that, but also look at opportunities to put funding into the sector.
It is clear that the funding model is broken. We know that students cannot continue to pay higher tuition fees, and nor should they. The funding model needs to shift. I support a progressive taxation system, because whether someone earns more money because they are a graduate or through other means, I believe the more they earn, the more they should put into the system. In York, where the cost of living is exceedingly high, students are breaking. They are working more hours than they are studying, and as a result some are not even able to complete their course. That is not the kind of education system that we want, so we must revisit the funding model. Tweaking around the edges is not enough. We are missing opportunities for the economic future of our country. In York, there are the bioeconomy, digital and advanced rail opportunities, safer automation and the digital creative sector. They need these graduates and academics, and we need our universities to remain.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I should like to speak this afternoon about the vital but vulnerable role of clinical academics. These are the people who combine frontline work in the hospitals with teaching and research at the universities. They are essential to the success of life sciences, and central to the training of the future NHS workforce.
Clinical academics are employed by the NHS and higher education institutions jointly. Their pay follows the NHS consultant contract, which was updated last year after national negotiations. Universities, however, were not part of those negotiations, and are now required to implement that contract without having received any additional funding. The result is deeply worrying. I understand that 20 out of 26 medical schools may be preparing to offer redundancy to clinical academics because they simply cannot afford them. That would be a disaster. We cannot afford to lose the very people who train the future NHS staff and carry out the medical research that underpins all the innovation in our health service. As the Government rightly expand the number of medical school places, we will depend even more on clinical academics to educate the next generation of doctors. Their numbers are declining.
Clinical academics now make up just 5.7% of the consultant workforce—down from 8.6% in 2011. Over the last decade or so we have seen a 6% fall in medically qualified researchers, and a 24% decline at the senior lecturer level. We are marching towards a cliff edge. More than a third of clinical academics are over the age of 55 and approaching retirement, so universities need to provide incentives to get younger clinical academics to come.
We did solve this problem previously. When the consultant contract changed in 2003, the then Department of Health provided £15 million to support the medical schools with the implementation of the consultant clinical academic contract. That funding was later embedded in the baseline grants to the universities. That is a model for solving this problem. Unless we act now, we will lose this vital workforce altogether at the very moment when we need them most, and we simply will not be able to run our medical schools.
Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for bringing us this important debate.
In my constituency of Bournemouth West, we are fortunate to have two world-class universities producing the next generation of entrepreneurs, leaders in the creative industries and journalists. Universities are a cornerstone of our communities and play a hugely important role in our local economy, but as we have heard from many hon. Members from a range of parties, higher education is in crisis. Our education system is struggling to cope with the many years of chronic mismanagement under the Conservatives, and student numbers have suffered from a combination of visa changes, Brexit and the rising cost of living. Those factors have affected student decisions on whether and where to study in the UK, and universities across the country have been left facing difficult decisions about what they continue to offer.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) has rather stolen my thunder by talking about the two universities in my constituency, Bournemouth University and Arts University Bournemouth, so colleagues already know that the challenges are great, and not simply limited to Bournemouth University. The whole higher education system faces these issues. I too have heard from numerous staff members and students who are worried about what cuts will mean for them. Many have moved to Bournemouth to make their lives because of the opportunities offered to them by Bournemouth University. I met local university leaders to discuss these issues with them, and I hope to do so again during the consultation period, which I encourage all staff to engage with.
I am pleased that the Government have demonstrated commitment to supporting the higher education system. I know Ministers are acutely aware of its challenges, and I appreciate the steps that have been taken. Our higher education system creates vital soft power links with nations and individuals around the world, and it is important to our standing in the world. Given that, what assessment has the Minister made of the impact that visa changes will have on international students and university finances?
I welcome the Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunities and to provide young people with the right pathways that are suitable for them after secondary school. Given that the funding crisis is clear, what assessment has the Minister made of the stability and sustainability of the current fees-based model? What steps is she taking to ensure that young people across the country can access good-quality, affordable higher education should they wish to?
I now turn back to Bournemouth. Can the Minister reassure students and staff at Bournemouth University that the Government are aware of the proposals that have been made, and that they will work with local partners to address the issue? Would the Minister be willing to meet me and the other Dorset MPs, who represent many amazing universities, to discuss this situation in greater detail? I want to reassure the students and staff at Bournemouth University that I will continue to press for the support you need during this difficult time, and I will work closely with the university, the local community, the UCU and my colleagues in Parliament to ensure that your concerns are heard and that we begin to tackle the gravity of this situation.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) on securing this important debate. I note with sadness that barely any Conservative Members—whose party presided over the system when it was in government —are here.
The impact of university finances on jobs in higher education is felt deeply in my constituency of Rushcliffe, which is not only home to a University of Nottingham campus but sits in the middle of a fantastic cluster of east midlands universities: the University of Nottingham, Nottingham Trent University, the University of Derby, Loughborough University, the University of Leicester and De Montfort University. The universities are all vital to our local economy and play a major role in producing spin-out businesses, which in turn create high-quality jobs for local people.
However, as has been admirably described by many hon. Members, the pressure of the funding crisis in higher education is already being felt locally. In 2024, Nottingham Trent University removed over 230 staff members in a cost-cutting drive. The University of Nottingham has also faced a highly challenging year, reporting a £17 million loss. Those are not isolated events; they are part of a sector-wide crisis. The University and College Union has warned that over 5,000 jobs are already marked for cuts this year and, if current trends continue, more than 5,000 additional posts could follow. That equates to thousands of lecturers, researchers and support staff, many of whom are already working under precarious contracts, now facing uncertainty or redundancy.
The consequences of the crisis extend far beyond employment. When institutions are forced to shrink their workforce, course offerings are reduced, class sizes rise and students—especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds—lose access to the quality education that they deserve. The knock-on effects on research output, regional economies, and especially the UK’s global reputation for higher education, are significant.
University finances are being squeezed on multiple fronts: numbers of international students are declining, costs associated with inflation and pension liabilities are increasing, and income from domestic tuition fees is flatlining. For many institutions, especially those without large endowments or global brand recognition, the financial model is simply no longer sustainable. We therefore need a serious review of governance structures across the sector. Will the Minister explain what the Government are planning to do in this regard? If some institutions are being forced into short-term reactive cuts, while others remain relatively stable, we must ask why. Are decisions being made transparently? Are senior management teams being held to account for financial planning? How can we ensure that long-term educational quality is prioritised over short-term balance sheets?
Today’s debate is not simply about special treatment for one sector; it is about recognising that higher education is a national asset. Universities drive innovation and regional economies and provide opportunities to millions. If we allow them to hollow out their workforces, we risk eroding the very foundation on which they stand. I know that many Members across the House have universities in their constituencies facing similar pressures, and I hope that today’s debate serves as a call to action, not just to acknowledge the funding crisis in the higher education sector, but to begin charting a new, sustainable path for its future.
Martin Vickers (in the Chair)
We now come to the Front Benchers. If they limit their contributions to nine minutes, we will just have time for Mr Yasin to sum up.
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank the hon. Member for Bradford for securing the debate and raising this important issue—
Ian Sollom
I am sorry. I should know; I was just about to say that the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) is a near neighbour of mine.
Although I am here as the Lib Dem spokesperson for higher education, the proximity of St Neots to Bedford gives me a particular constituency interest in the concerns that the hon. Member raised about the challenges facing the University of Bedfordshire, which, as we have heard from hon. Members across the Chamber, are echoed around the country. It is clear that many universities are feeling huge financial pressure, and it is something we are all concerned about. Universities’ financial challenges are not just numbers on a spreadsheet; they affect real people, their livelihoods and their communities, as well as the quality of education and research.
I am not as young as I used to be, so I hope it is valid for me to say that I cannot remember a time when universities faced such financial pressures. We desperately need the situation to change. The income that English universities receive for teaching UK students has declined in real terms almost every year since 2015-16, and is now approaching the lowest level since 1997. There are major budget shortfalls due to rising energy costs and, more recently, the increase in national insurance contributions, as well as a lack of investment and support after years of neglect from the last Conservative Government. That is coupled with a decline in international student numbers because of visa restrictions, as point that many hon. Members made well. We are in a global competition in that regard, and it is unsurprising that our institutions have ended up in such a fragile financial position.
Figures released in November by the Office for Students revealed that 40% of education providers were already forecasting deficits, but I believe that new data suggests that, without mitigating action from the Government, up to 72% of providers could be in deficit by the 2025-26 academic year. It is unsurprising that many institutions are being forced to make difficult decisions on staffing across the sector, in all jobs—support workers as well as academic staff. That is deeply worrying, and will negatively impact the sector and the country more widely.
Universities play a crucial role in our country by providing a high-quality education to many, through research and development and, crucially, by boosting regional economies. Many universities are the largest employer in their area, and the knock-on economic benefits of students living in those areas cannot be over-emphasised. The bottom line is that higher education is an investment in our future on many levels.
When it comes to research and development activities, our universities are world leading and at the forefront of discoveries and innovations that boost growth and improve everyday life. The hon. Members for Colchester (Pam Cox) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell) mentioned that for every £1 invested in university research and innovation, the UK gets £14 back. I had a slightly more—dare I say it?—conservative figure, £10, but the order of magnitude is clear, and it is reassuring that different research reinforces similar numbers.
On top of that, universities are vital in supporting start-up companies across the country. Universities UK recently launched its “Unis start up the UK” campaign. It says that partnering with start-ups boosts economic growth by creating jobs and attracting investment, and sees universities equipping entrepreneurs with the right skills through incubator hubs. Analysis by the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows that between 2014-15 and 2022-23, there was a 70% increase in the number of start-ups founded in UK universities, and that in 2022-23, around 64,000 people were employed by those start-ups—up 170% from 2014-15. HESA predicts that, with the right support, 27,000 new start-ups, with a predicted turnover of around £10.8 billion, could be established by students and staff at UK universities by 2028.
Despite the positive contributions that universities make to social and economic life, in far too many cases their finances are simply unsustainable. In the past year, around three quarters of universities have implemented significant savings programmes, including, sadly, redundancies, course closures, reductions in module options, and the consolidation of professional services and student support.
Thriving universities are essential to a thriving UK, delivering stronger growth, better public services and improved individual life chances. If the Government are serious about their growth mission, they have to work with the higher education sector to stabilise funding, protect fair pay and jobs, and ensure long-term sustainability. We have been calling on them to implement a full-scale review of higher education finance. We believe there are many more things that could be done to support universities that do not involve raising tuition fees further, such as recognising the benefits that international students bring and giving universities policy stability in that respect, and reversing the decline in quality-related funding for research. Finally, the Government should work with the sector to put clear plans in place for any university that finds itself in financial distress. We really do not want to lose any university in the higher education sector.
Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I thank the hon. Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) for securing this important debate, which could not be more timely, and I am grateful to all colleagues who have contributed.
Our universities are among the most important institutions in our national life. They are centres of research, innovation and learning, and for many thousands of young people every year, they are the route to opportunity, economic independence and personal growth. Despite its great importance, the higher education sector has come under increasing pressure in recent years. The latest modelling from the Office for Students suggests that nearly three quarters of English higher education providers could be in deficit by 2025-26, and 40% would have fewer than 30 days’ liquidity. Indeed, as we have heard from many Members today, redundancy programmes are already under way in some institutions and, across the country, university staff are understandably anxious about the future.
I will say at the outset that I am deeply sympathetic to those who work in institutions that have found themselves in financial difficulty. Nevertheless, I believe it is past time for us to have a grown-up conversation about university finances, in which we look seriously at what is driving the pressures and what it might be possible to do to alleviate them.
I will begin by stating the obvious: decisions taken in recent years have increased the financial pressure on students and graduates, without necessarily addressing the deeper questions of value and sustainability. We have seen steady rises in student loan interest rates and tuition fees, which both fall heavily on students, and now, the spike in employer national insurance contributions is putting further cost pressures on universities.
Meanwhile, the Government’s proposals to cut funding for level 7 apprenticeships, which are essential qualifications in a number of fields, including education, health and engineering, risk further undermining key parts of the post-18 education ecosystem. Many university departments rely on that funding not just to sustain course provision, but to attract and retain highly qualified staff. The impact of the cuts will not be evenly spread, and it is right that we consider how they will affect institutions already under financial pressure.
Rebecca Paul
I suggest to the hon. Member that we need to deal with the situation that we have now, and that her questions should be targeted towards the Minister. We should make the right decisions to do the right thing for our country, and for our students and university staff.
We must confront an uncomfortable truth: there is mounting evidence, including from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, that a sizeable share of higher education courses simply do not provide good value for money either for the taxpayer or for the individual student. The IFS has concluded that around 30% of graduates, both men and women, would have been better off financially had they not gone to university at all. That raises important questions about how we can ensure that our higher education system delivers for those who fund it—namely, the students who invest years of their lives and take on significant debt, and the public whose taxes support the student loan system.
The current funding model is failing under the enormous weight of rapid expansion, marketisation and insufficient quality controls. The ability of an institution to prop itself up on the backs of overseas students who pay vast fees is coming to an end. Although fee income from international students has grown by an average of 15% a year between 2017 and 2023, the recent international recruitment environment has been challenging. Recent Home Office data indicates that 393,125 visas were issued to main applicants in 2024. That is down 13.9% year on year and down 18.8% compared with two years ago.
While some institutions have embraced innovation, strong outcomes and world-class research, others have pursued growth at all costs, adding courses with limited market value, often to attract overseas students or to maximise short-term income. We cannot and should not return to a time when university was accessible only to a wealthy minority, but we do need to have a serious conversation about the purpose of higher education, who it is for, and how it can be sustainably funded in a way that delivers for students, taxpayers and the wider economy. That means looking at systemic reform, rather than simply demanding that young people pay more without addressing the underlying issues. We need to examine course quality, graduate outcomes, student choice, and the role of further education and apprenticeships alongside traditional degrees.
Rebecca Paul
I will in a moment.
Such a reform could begin by addressing the unacceptable lack of transparency around the student loan system. The public have a right to know how the system is operating, who is borrowing, who is repaying, and where there may be a risk of fraud or misuse. I understand that a paper on this very subject, compiled by the IFS and commissioned by the last Government, remains unpublished, despite efforts to obtain it via freedom of information requests. I hope the Minister will explain why that is the case, and will understand that transparency builds trust, while withholding data only fuels suspicion.
On a related theme, questions have rightly been asked about the eligibility criteria for student loans, particularly for non-UK nationals and EU citizens with settled status. It is surprising to many that, even several years after Brexit, more than 180,000 individuals were granted settled status in the first six months under this Government. That figure deserves scrutiny, and it is legitimate to query the implications for access to taxpayer-funded support for accessing higher education. It has been widely reported that the Student Loans Company is now accepting a mere certificate of application for settled status in order to approve loans. If that is the case, I urge Ministers to review that policy as a matter of urgency. We must ensure that eligibility checks are robust and that the system is not open to exploitation.
Rebecca Paul
I am going to continue because of the time.
On the concerns about the quality of some higher education provision, the Government have said they are considering changes to the regulation of franchise providers, some of which have been implicated in cases of poor-quality provision and potential fraud. Although I welcome the consultation launched by the Department for Education, I caution that many of the largest franchise providers are already regulated by the Office for Students, so the key question is not simply whether they are regulated, but how well the regulatory framework is working and whether it is actually driving up standards.
Finally, we have heard Ministers speak in recent months about “tweaking” the role of the Office for Students to strengthen its focus on value for money. In September, the Department said that it was
“developing options for legislative change,”
and the Secretary of State has since re-announced that commitment, but as far as I can tell no tangible progress has been made. When will we actually see legislation brought forward? We have also heard mention of the Public Sector Fraud Authority being brought in, but that sounds remarkably similar to the Internal Audit Agency investigation mentioned in last year’s National Audit Office report. What is changing, exactly? Are we simply hearing the same announcement robed in new language?
I conclude by emphasising that the largest losses to the taxpayer do not always come from outright criminal fraud, and can come from legally operating institutions that provide poor value. These providers operate within the letter of the law, but not within its spirit. They enrol students on low-value courses with high drop-out rates and weak earnings potential, while drawing down large sums from the student loan system—sums that in many cases will never be repaid. We cannot continue like this. Our goal should be a higher education system that is sustainable, high quality and genuinely life-changing. I look forward to continuing this discussion in the months ahead.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Janet Daby)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mohammad Yasin) on securing a debate on this important subject. I know he has a keen interest in the financial sustainability of the higher education sector. I have heard my hon. Friend and many Members from all parties speak about the amazing universities in their constituencies, and I welcome all their contributions. I have heard about universities’ contributions to economic growth, systemic issues, operational expenses, home and overseas student numbers, staff redundancies, the deficits that universities carry and many other issues.
I hear and acknowledge the concerns raised. In response, I will address higher education employment; the financial position of higher education; the role of the Office for Students; the tuition fees increase; the risk of financial failure; the sector’s independence; the higher education workforce; higher education reform; international students; research funding; and employer national insurance contributions. I will also address the franchising fraud mentioned by the hon. Member for Reigate (Rebecca Paul).
I thank all the Members who have spoken: the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain); the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell); the hon. Members for Dundee Central (Chris Law) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon); my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Pam Cox); the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins); my hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), and for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales); the hon. Member for Ceredigion Preseli (Ben Lake); my hon. Friends the Members for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald), for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell); the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Dr Pinkerton); and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley).
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket that the Government recognise the vital role that clinical academics play in research and education in the NHS. Although universities are independent and, therefore, responsible for decisions around pay, we are committed to working closely with partners in education to ensure that clinical academia remains an attractive career choice.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth West (Jessica Toale) for her invitation to visit Dorset MPs; I will pass that on to my noble Friend the Minister in the other place, who responsible for skills, higher education and further education. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (James Naish), the hon. Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) and the hon. Member for Reigate.
As I set out in a similar debate on this topic in December, the Government value the vital contribution that our world-leading higher education sector makes to the United Kingdom. Through education provision and research output, our providers are integral to our economy, industry, innovation and wider society. The sector contributes to productivity and growth, and plays a crucial civic role in local communities. It also helps to enhance the UK’s global reputation.
Of course, higher education providers are vital employers in their local communities and across England. They provide not only jobs for academic staff, such as professors and researchers, but a wide range of non-academic roles in administration, facilities management, IT, student support services and many more.
The Government recognise that the financial position of the sector is under pressure. In November, the Office for Students published an update to its May report on the financial health of the sector. The update states that the financial context for the sector has become more challenging since the May report. By 2025-26, the Office for Students predicts that incomes will be £3.4 billion lower than provider forecasts, and up to 72% of providers could be in deficit if they do not take significant mitigating action. We have heard much about that in the debate.
It is clear that our higher education providers need a secure financial footing to face the challenges of the next decade. I assure Members that we are committed to working in partnership with the sector to put providers on a firmer financial footing than that which we inherited. As has been mentioned, the fact that absolutely no Members from His Majesty’s Opposition are here to speak on this important issue sends a message to universities about how they are valued, or not.
The Government have acted quickly to address the challenges. Last month, Professor Edward Peck was appointed as substantive chair of the Office for Students. Professor Peck will continue the excellent work of the interim chair, Sir David Behan, focusing on the sector’s financial sustainability and increasing opportunities in higher education. In recognition of the pressures facing the sector, in December the Office for Students announced temporary changes to its operations to allow for a greater focus on financial sustainability. It will work more closely with providers that are under significant financial pressure, to protect the interests of students.
Of course the Government have announced that tuition fee limits will increase in line with inflation. As a result, the maximum fee for a standard full-time undergraduate course in the 2025-26 academic year will increase by 3.1%. Fees will increase from £9,250 to £9,535 for a standard full-time course; from £11,100 to £11,440 for a full-time accelerated course; and from £6,935 to £7,145 for a part-time course. This was not an easy decision, but it was the right one to put our higher education sector on a more secure financial footing. In return for the increased investment that we are asking students to make, we expect providers to deliver the very best outcomes for students and the country.
I want to affirm that all providers, regardless of their current position, must continue to adapt to uncertainties and financial risk. Although the Office for Students has statutory duties in relation to the financial sustainability of the higher education sector, the Government have a clear interest in understanding the sector’s level of risk. As well as working closely with the Office for Students, my Department continues to work closely with higher education representative groups such as Universities UK, and with other Government Departments, such as the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, to better understand the sector’s changing financial landscape.
I also want to make clear the Government’s position on providers that are at risk of financial failure. If a provider was at risk of unplanned closure or, indeed, found itself in the process of exiting the sector, my Department would work with the Office for Students, the provider and other Government Departments to ensure that students’ best interests are protected—students will always be our priority—and to support the university itself as best as possible.
I commend the dedication of staff across the sector during these difficult times. Their hard work and commitment continue to uphold the quality and reputation of our higher education providers. These are undeniably challenging times and we understand that some providers have had to make difficult decisions around staffing to safeguard their financial sustainability. As independent institutional providers, they are responsible for managing their budgets, including decisions about pay and staffing, and the Government do not intervene in these matters, or in disputes between providers and their staff. However, we expect providers to engage constructively with their workforce to identify ways to reduce unnecessary expenditure while ensuring sustainable long-term benefits for both students and the sector as a whole.
Looking ahead, Ministers and officials remain committed to maintaining strong collaborative relationships with employers, staff and unions through continued dialogue. We aim to better understand the challenges facing the sector and to provide support for its evolving needs. Due to the time, it feels like I need to finish, so I will end by saying that this Government are committed to working with universities.
Mohammad Yasin
It is an honour to open and close this important debate. I extend my heartfelt thanks to everyone who has participated and made a compelling case for the future of our higher education sector. It is clear that we all share a deep pride in our world-class universities and the exceptional staff who dedicate their lives to educating and shaping the workforce of tomorrow.
However, we must recognise that words alone are not going to be enough. We must take meaningful action to ensure that our universities remain sustainable and fit for the future, without compromising their invaluable knowledge base or limiting student choice.
I thank the Minister and the shadow Minister for their contributions. I look forward to the Education Committee session on this matter next Tuesday. Together, I hope that we can rise to the challenge and collaborate to ensure that our universities continue to provide transformative educational experiences.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the impact of university finances on jobs in higher education.
Irish Guards: 125th Anniversary
(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
I will call Gavin Robinson to move the motion. I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may only make a speech with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and from the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention for 30-minute debates.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the 125th anniversary of the Irish Guards.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, and as a Parliament to take the opportunity to celebrate a significant milestone for the Irish Guards. I thank the Minister for being present on this enjoyable occasion.
Yesterday evening, in the Royal Military Chapel—the Guards’ Chapel—and in St Mark’s, Dundela, in my constituency of Belfast East, services were held to give thanks for the service and the sacrifice, for the bravery, loyalty and determined strength of the Irish Guards. Today I am privileged to offer the same opportunity to our Parliament. Yesterday, 1 April, marked 125 years since the formation of the Irish Guards. On 28 February 1900—you may remember it well, Mr Pritchard—a letter to The Times read,
“Sir,
May I venture to suggest, through you, to the authorities within whose province it may come, that now is a most opportune time to recognise the distinguished valour of our Irish soldiers who, in the Inniskilling Fusiliers, the Dublin Fusiliers and the Connaught Rangers, have shown to the world such conspicuous bravery in the many recent battles which they have fought with such brilliant dash and daring throughout our South Africa War. Is there not one mark of distinction and honour that can be conferred upon them and their country which belongs to Scotchmen and Englishmen, but is withheld from them? There are Scotch Guards and English Guards—why not add to the roll of glory a Regiment of Irish Guards?”
On 3 March 1900, a letter in response was issued from the Queen’s private secretary, Windsor Castle, in reply to the Secretary of State for War:
“My Dear Lord Lansdowne,
By a curious coincidence The Queen has during the past week been seriously considering the question of a Regiment of Irish Guards, thinking that the present was opportunity for its creation. Therefore I am glad to be able to tell you the Queen entirely approves of the ideal. Her Majesty asked the Duke of Connaught to speak to the Commander in Chief on the subject and hopes that you will therefore find that Lord Wolseley is already in procession of Her Majesty’s views.”
So was issued Army Order 77, on 1 April 1900:
“Formation of Regiment of Irish Guards:
Her Majesty The Queen, having it deemed it desirable to commemorate the bravery shown by the Irish regiments in the recent operations in South Africa, has been graciously pleased to command that Irish Regiment of Foot Guards be formed. This regiment will be designated the ‘Irish Guards’.”
Affectionately now known as the Micks, the Irish Guards were formed in solemn recognition of their antecedents’ bravery, arising from their sterling contribution to our nation. Their formation was a fitting tribute to the bravery of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, the Dublin Fusiliers and the Connaught Rangers during the Boer war. This Unionist is not only grateful, but proud, that the history and heritage of the Irish Guards predates partition and to this day draws personnel from across the island of Ireland; and this Unionist is proud that the regiment’s emblem, motto and blue plumage all draw upon and recognise our patron saint, St Patrick.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend my right hon. Friend for bringing this debate forward. He is immensely proud of the Irish Guards, as am I. In Newtownards, we have the second largest Irish Guards Association—after Liverpool. The reputation of the Guards from the Ards, as they are well known, is secure, with Ards and North Down borough council granting the freedom of the borough to the Irish Guards in 2022. Does he agree that we can all be proud of the reputation, service and legacy of the Irish Guards, wherever we live in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—and those in the Republic of Ireland who served in the regiment as well?
Gavin Robinson
My hon. Friend is right to mention the Guards from the Ards, just as it would be right to mention the Mini Micks—the cadets associated with the Irish Guards—and to recognise the affection for those past and present who have served the Irish Guards and our country with distinction, many of whom leave the service and go on to perform duties in support of us. With your permission, Mr Pritchard, I would like to recognise Mr Wayne Jenkins, our Deputy Principal Doorkeeper, who I believe is here this afternoon. He served his country proudly in the Irish Guards; I think it is important that we recognise his service—especially as my hon. Friend mentioned Liverpool.
Each St Patrick’s day, the regiment receives shamrock from their Colonel of the Regiment; Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales is admired and highly regarded beyond the regiment, but it was wonderful this year to see her with the regiment, enjoying a customary pint of Guinness.
One hundred and twenty-five years is an epoch. That duration of service can be marked in many ways. The regiment was formed in 1900, when the only thing flying in the skies were birds. In the century that has followed, our skies have not been the limit to man’s exploration. When the regiment was formed, mail was sent after putting parchment and quill together. Now mail is sent through the ether in bytes. During the passage of those 125 years, we have endured two world wars, a war on terror and, ongoing today, the invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine in our own European continent. In each of those examples, the Irish Guards served with distinction.
Forming part of the British Expeditionary Force, the Irish Guards were pivotal during the first world war in France. As a regiment, four Victoria Crosses were earned. Their gallantry was unquestioned in Ypres, as it was elsewhere. During the course of the second world war, the second battalion was raised in 1939 and a third in 1942. Efforts in Normandy, Belgium, Holland and Germany cannot be considered historically without the role of the Irish Guards.
Since then, Palestine, Suez, Cyprus, Afghanistan and Iraq have all formed part of the regiment’s illustrious history. It is hard to consider a conflict over the last century without considering the bravery and fortitude of the Irish Guards. More recently, guardsmen have been training, equipping and supporting Ukrainians in the defence of their country through Operation Interflex. Although that is their primary function, as Foot Guards of the Household Division the Irish Guards also have the illustrious privilege of ceremonial duties. At times of national pride and national sorrow, the Irish Guards have played their part with impeccable distinction.
I fondly remember being present for Trooping the Colour in 2022. It was a special year, with our nation celebrating the platinum jubilee, marking the enormity of our Queen’s 70 wholesome years of reign. The annual showcase occasion was made all the more special by its historic nature, providing a climax to wonderful jubilee celebrations held throughout our nation and the Commonwealth, and it was suitably led with the colours being trooped by the Irish Guards—an incredible honour that was accentuated some three months later, when we all realised that that Trooping the Colour was Her Majesty’s last.
All too often at times of distress, we seek the familiar and the comforting—the warming reassurance of the constant—and yet on this occasion it is right that we recognise that those who serve in the Irish Guards and our armed forces more generally often forgo the constant family life, family support and comfort of home so that we can enjoy ours. As this Parliament wrestles with the legacy of our past, I ask that it is prepared to honour and recognise the service and sacrifice of those who have gone before, to defend those who defended us, and in this week to celebrate 125 years of the Irish Guards. We honour them, we thank them and we wish them continued success. Quis separabit—who shall separate us?
The Minister for Veterans and People (Al Carns)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) for the opportunity to celebrate the outstanding service of the Irish Guards and to have in our presence the Doorkeeper who served his country so admirably in that fantastic regiment.
It would certainly be foolish to think we can sum up 125 remarkable years of service in a 30-minute debate. Indeed, one of the most renowned writers, Rudyard Kipling, spent five and a half years researching his 1923 history of the regiment. It was a labour of love in honour of his son John, a teenager and Irish Guardsman who was killed in 1915 during the first days of the deadly battle of Loos, an allied offensive that was meant to be the big push but ended up with 60,000 British casualties, many Irish Guardsmen among them, but negligible territorial gains. During the great war, Irish Guardsmen went on to win four Victoria Crosses—a remarkable achievement for any regiment. Over the next century, the regiment served with distinction at different turning points in British history.
Louise Jones (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) for securing this important debate. When I started at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst as a member of 29 Platoon, Alamein, we were very fortunate to have as our first colour sergeant a member of the Irish Guards, Colour Sergeant Griffiths. Although I have to admit that I probably was not very promising material, under his guidance and tutelage I learnt an awful lot. Many of the lessons that he taught me at Sandhurst, I have carried forward in my life since; they have come in very helpful in my life as an MP. It is safe to say that there are few people that I have learnt as much from as I have from Griff. Does the Minister agree that there are few better cap badges, providing us with our first colour sergeant when we begin our military career?
Jim Shannon
I am not sure whether it is the same person, but Simon Nichols, a colour sergeant from Newtownards and one of the Guards from the Ards, trained personnel at Sandhurst—he actually trained Prince William and Prince Harry; one of them turned out well, while the other one I am not so sure about—and was instrumental in looking after the soldiers, male and female, who went through there.
Al Carns
Another fitting tribute. I suggest that there will be many from across the House.
The Irish Guards have served with distinction in north Africa, Italy, Normandy and Arnhem, where the Irish Guardsmen led the ground assault to relieve the besieged British paratroopers. In the post-war years, they served with distinction in Palestine and Malaya and, in my lifetime, in Northern Ireland, the Falklands—although I was very young at the time—the Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and of course Afghanistan. I had the privilege of serving under a general who had served in the Irish Guards, and I learned a huge amount from him. He is an example of the exceptional leadership of individuals and young officers who have come up and grown up through that fantastic regiment.
The regimental motto lays down a pledge of unity: who shall separate us? That is hard-hitting and poignant. After 125 years of service, that motto has stood the test of time. The Irish Guards stand strong and united with a bright future ahead of them. They will be better equipped for warfighting as they have recently gained a new role within the Army’s advanced forces, and that will further bolster NATO and, importantly, European security.
As guardsmen, the regiment has also made an immense contribution in non-combat roles. In recent years, it has been particularly focused on training, including partners in Africa, and has countered security challenges as varied as violent extremism and the illegal wildlife trade.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
I want to add my own words of tribute to my brothers in the Irish Guards. My warrior sergeant was a man a called Glyn Crawley. As a result of an accident he had, I think as a child, he only had one eye, and he was known universally as the “one IG”, which is one for the military among us to appreciate.
In the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, when we were Taskforce Lashkar Gah, we had Sergeant Dale Alonzo McCallum, who we inherited from the Irish Guards and who rebadged as a Scots Guardsman. He was tragically killed by sniper fire in Afghanistan. I paid tribute to him at the time as undoubtedly the coolest Scots Guardsman ever to walk the earth. No doubt his time in the Irish Guards prepared him for that role admirably.
The Minister may not be aware that the Irish Guards have also spawned the Blackthorn Rally, members of which go on two wheels and four to some of the craziest places in the world—not least the northern Sahara, Tanzania and Kenya. This year, for the organisation’s 10th anniversary, they are going to Colombia. Sadly, I will not be joining them, because I will be enjoying the joys of the Conservative conference in Birmingham instead. What this extraordinary group of mostly Micks do—
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that, even though this is all fascinating, interventions do need to be kept short. I am going to be flexible; the Chair has discretion. If the mover of the motion is happy for him to continue and the Minister is happy to reserve his remarks until after the hon. Gentleman has concluded, then I will let it go. I want to hear all this. I will probably get in trouble, but subject to the mover of the motion and the Minister agreeing, I will let the hon. Gentleman continue. Are you happy, sirs?
Lincoln Jopp
I am very grateful for your forbearance, Mr Pritchard, and it is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship. [Interruption.]
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
Order. Forgive me, but there is a Division. I am sure we will get around to these excellent tributes and stories of the Irish and the Scots Guards, and others indeed.
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
Let us crack on. The debate must end at 4.40 pm; I am sure hon. Members will be mindful of that.
Lincoln Jopp
I thank the Minister and the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) for their generosity. Before the suspension, I was talking about the extraordinary work of the Blackthorn rally. It is great fun, delivers conservation projects around the world and takes with it former service personnel who are in some cases incredibly disabled—I think our record was one working limb between the two drivers in one RZR. The Irish Guards’ effectiveness and reach are extraordinary, and I pay tribute to them on their birthday.
Al Carns
I would be really interested to follow that four and two-wheeled rally. I will see what they are up to next year, and whether we can visit or take part.
As I previously mentioned, the Irish Guards have a fantastic operational role but have also played a visible role in British life, pulling society and defence back together, primarily through ceremonial duties in the London region. They have supported countless important political and royal events, including both the state birthday and the funeral of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Today, 125 years and one day after Queen Victoria formed the Irish Guards in recognition of the bravery and service of Irish soldiers during the second Boer war, it is right that we reflect on their collective past achievements.
Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)
I thank the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) for securing this debate. The Minister speaks of the contribution of the Irish Guards. It would be remiss of me not to mention Sir John Gorman, former Ulster Unionist Member of the Legislative Assembly, and former Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly. He was titled Sir John Gorman CVO CBE MC because of the actions he took during Operation Market Garden, when he got across the length of Nijmegen bridge before that operation was called off.
I acknowledge the contribution made to our society in general by all those who have been part of the Irish Guards, or been trained by Irish Guards, and still recognise and salute the Irish Guards, in whatever walk of life they finish up in.
Al Carns
That is a really fascinating point. I think it was 30 Corps, of the Army, that went to relieve the bridgehead in Arnhem, with the Irish Guards at the front of it. The operational orders written for 30 Corps are only about six pages long. It took a truly remarkable level of mission command and leadership to relieve the bridgehead of the tricky position it was in.
Yesterday evening, in celebration of the Irish Guards, a service of commemoration was held simultaneously in the Guards’ Chapel, and in Liverpool, Belfast, Birmingham and Dublin. Representatives of the regiment also marked the occasion in Ladysmith, South Africa: a place with links to the regiment’s conception, where the Irish Guards have enjoyed the freedom of Ladysmith since 2005. Yesterday’s events were part of a year of commemorations. Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, colonel of the regiment, joined the St Patrick’s day celebrations at Wellington barracks, presenting shamrocks to the officers and soldiers on parade. Over the summer, there will be a series of concerts and parades in Northern Ireland and London, including a parade in Belfast to lay up the 1st Battalion’s old colours.
In conclusion, as we honour 125 years of distinguished service by the Irish Guards, we recognise not only a regiment and its achievements but the countless acts of individual courage, sacrifice and duty by the men and women of the Irish Guards over the years. Their collective endeavour and legacy transcend borders, politics and the passage of time. For 125 years, they have been the very best of us. For that, hon. Members across the House, and people across the country, offer their most profound thanks.
Question put and agreed to.
Green Book Review
(3 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Mrs Sarah Russell (Congleton) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Green Book review.
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank all hon. Members who have come today to talk about the Green Book. Our constituents all know that something is very clearly not right and has not been right for a very, very long time. They pay their taxes but they cannot see things getting any better. In Congleton, I cannot see any evidence of any significant infrastructure spending for many years, except for where it has been facilitated through house growth. Government money does not appear to have been involved in significant ways for a long time.
The previous Government talked a good game about levelling up the north, but actual investment never followed, which is why my constituents voted for change. In my area, I want to see the Middlewich bypass, the A50/A500 north midlands manufacturing corridor, massive investment in improving our electricity grid, and all kinds of other changes and improvements, but I can see very clearly that something is not right.
Total capital public spending per person in the north-west in 2022-23 was £13,297 per year; in London, it was £14,842. Something is being done to allocate money in that way. The Green Book is the guidance issued by His Majesty’s Treasury on how to appraise policies, programmes and projects. The five-case model is the required framework for considering the use of public resources. They must be used proportionately to the costs and risks involved, taking account of the context in which a decision is taken.
The five-case model involves a strategic dimension—what the case for change is, including the rationale for the intervention, the current situation, what is to be done and so forth. There is an economic dimension and a commercial dimension: can a realistic and credible commercial deal be struck, and who will manage which risks? There is a financial dimension and a management dimension—are there realistic and robust delivery demands, and can the proposal be delivered?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The hon. Lady led the charge in the 9.30 am debate, and she is doing the same at 4.30 pm—well done for both. I just want to back her up. Does she agree that the Green Book review has to have a view to each area of the United Kingdom, and must not simply point all roads to London and the south-east? We are all aware that, in other areas, UK policies and procedures that work well in London do not translate to rural local authorities, so we need a review of that. Is the hon. Lady saying exactly that?
Mrs Russell
I certainly agree.
We are pleased that the Treasury has initiated a review into the Green Book and we believe it is an opportunity to once and for all address a range of key issues that have undermined successive Governments’ attempts to rebalance our regional economies. We must grasp this opportunity. We believe that the review must be done with ambition and a willingness to challenge underlying customs and practices. In particular, it needs to learn from the successes and failures—largely failures, I would say—of previous Green Book reviews, in particular the 2020 review.
The review recommended that the locational effects be understood via place-based analysis, with the benefits of any intervention valued specifically for the area, hence enabling any transformational impacts to be properly recognised. But once again, those recommendations do not appear to be generally reflected in practice, particularly in the application of Department-level appraisal guidance. It is vital that the current review addresses that. I believe that considering options in the context of place and properly valuing the transformational impacts of interventions is crucial if we are to realise the potential of the north-west and all our regions.
We need to simplify and speed up our Green Book processes. The guidance is enormously long and incredibly complex. It has multiple supplementary documents adding up to thousands and thousands of pages. Its changes, subtleties and intent get lost within the complexity, and practice remains unchanged. That very complexity leads to a desire for a metric that cuts through, and that probably explains why the business case thresholds remain so dominant. That is probably how the weighting towards expenditure in London and the south-east continues to predominate.
There is a consultancy industry around the Green Book, and that raises the cost of developing a successful business case. It also makes it very difficult for smaller local authorities to successfully put together a business case because the complexity of doing so is absolutely mind boggling. Frankly, the whole thing is just a bunch of piffle—we need to make this very simple and outcomes driven. We need to really slim it down and for it to be in a format that our local and devolved mayoral authorities, as we acquire one in Cheshire and Warrington, will be able to actually use in a practical way.
We need a stronger focus on place. We need to really look properly at where money has been spent historically and where we therefore need investment. We need to weight that specifically towards areas that have not received investment so that we can redress the imbalance in which transport spending in London vastly outweighs that in the rest of the country.
When I moved to the north of England, I was so shocked when I first used the railway network; I was in my 20s and the Pacer trains were still being used. Those trains were fashioned out of bus chassis and carried on being used for 37 years. They were given a maximum lifespan of 20 years; they were supposed to be a very basic short-term thing to start with, and the level of shoddiness was just astonishing. That is what we are always given in the north-west. We are given the cast-offs, and then we are expected to make do, and then what we are expected to make do with is expected to continue way beyond its intended lifespan. That has been going on now for as long as anyone can remember, and our economy then reflects that very sad point.
I know the Labour Government are focused on improving the situation. I would really like us to work extensively together on that. I know that the Green Book review will be carried out at pace, and that the Government have announced these plans. That cost-benefit analysis needs to be fundamentally changed so that we can shift capital expenditure out to our regions at pace. By that, I do not mean demanding, as the last Government did, that local areas produce a shovel-ready project at the drop of a hat, so that they could rush spending through and make it look as if they were doing something for the north of England. I mean a fully considered set of proposals that enable regions to be fully developed through our devolved mayoral authorities, which I think are going to be a spectacular improvement for many areas of the north, and that will enable us to have proper economic development in the north of England.
Alistair Darling said:
“it isn’t just about pots of money or building the odd rail or extending a road. It’s about quality of life. It’s about making places that people want to go and live in, where they feel confident, they can live there, their children can grow up there, there’s opportunities there, and they don’t have to go somewhere else to get on, as it were. None of this is beyond us. Most other countries do it, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t either.”
That was quite some time ago, but it applies more than ever now.
Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) for securing the debate.
The current design of the Green Book holds back communities such as mine in Loughborough, and by doing so holds back our country. Due to a flawed methodology, it overestimates the benefits of investment in London, and by doing so underestimates the benefits of investing elsewhere. It is one of the reasons why we have the most economically centralised nation in the OECD, and the reason why places that have been locked out of investment and growth are turning away from us in this place and away from democracy. I am so glad that the Chancellor is reviewing the Green Book at last to help spread investment across our nation, so that we can all reap the gains.
I represent a constituency in the east midlands—a region that has been left behind because of the decline of our great industries and chronic under-investment. The fall in industrial employment was one of the most rapid anywhere in Europe. Suddenly community centres were gone, jobs were lost and people’s sense of purpose and dignity disappeared. On top of that, and contributing to it, my region has the lowest transport investment in the country. We need to end this cycle of decline, because it is holding back our nation. We need to invest in communities such as mine to make the country a better place and to help create good jobs.
For too long, investment has been biased towards London and the south-east. Someone living in London gets £800 more infrastructure spending per year than the national average. That is because the cost-benefit analysis set out in the Green Book to evaluate projects has a hardwired London bias. First, the Green Book prices the benefits of projects in a way that benefits places with higher wages—namely, London. Secondly, it does not estimate the wider impact of investment on growth.
To take the first issue, hourly wages are higher in London, and the benefits of transport projects are calculated in terms of commuting time saved. That commuting time is priced in wages, so according to the current methodology, one hour saved is worth more in London than elsewhere. The projected benefits of investing in London become larger, more projects are built here and the logic because self-fulfilling.
To take the second issue, economies are dynamic—they respond to investment. Better transport allows businesses to attract more customers and workers. It gets economies growing and wages rising. But the Green Book does not account for those dynamic effects. Instead, it assumes that every single project is marginal to an area. It assumes that projects do not influence either growth or prices around the area in which they take place.
The review is taking place precisely because the Government know that investing in our regions outside London will make us all better off. Getting the basics right—more investment outside London, and basic transport infrastructure—will do a lot more for growth than another infrastructure project in London. That is the change we need.
To achieve all of that, we need to overcome the tyranny of the cost-benefit analysis. It has to be confronted and destroyed. This review must not be like reviews of the past. Warm words about regional inequalities are not enough. We need to change a flawed methodology and appreciate the dynamic benefits of investment.
For non-graduates in communities such as mine, it is far more difficult to find a good job than it is here in the capital. The jobs available to my constituents are less secure and lower paid, because we do not get the public investment we need. Our future has been held back by a flawed methodology and a system that does not work for my community, my region or indeed the country.
When people cannot see a good future, their anger grows. We can end that anger, and rebuild hope and a better future, by changing the Green Book so that investment takes place outside London—in my community and in communities across the nation. We can create good jobs, get wages rising and drive growth across the country.
Sarah Hall (Warrington South) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. For too long, my constituents in Warrington South have been told to wait their turn—for infrastructure, for investment and for opportunity. This Labour Government were elected to change the way this country works, and nowhere is that more urgently needed than in how we decide where and how public money is spent. The Green Book should enable fair and effective investment across the UK, but instead it has too often reinforced the very inequalities that we were elected to overcome.
My constituency sits between powerhouse cities such as Liverpool and Manchester, yet struggles to unlock the investment that we need to improve our transport links, further regenerate our town centre or bring truly affordable housing to our communities. Why? Because despite previous reforms, the rules governing public investment are still rigged in favour of places that already have higher land values. That means that towns such as Warrington are too often seen as low-return risks, rather than high-potential communities.
I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement of a full review of the Green Book under this Government, but let me say this clearly: this must not be a technocratic tweak; it must be a fundamental reform, where people, place and long-term potential are at the heart of investment decisions, unlocking the long-term, sustainable pipeline of investment needed in areas such as mine.
But this about more than Warrington South; reforming the Green Book is about building a fairer, stronger and more productive Britain. It is about enabling spending decisions that truly serve the whole country—lifting all our regions, reducing inequality, enabling better growth, wages, opportunity and health, and delivering fair public spending.
Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is talking about fairness, which is really important. The Institute for Public Policy Research said that, if the north was a country, it would be second bottom in the OECD league table in terms of public investment, just above Greece. Is that not a sign of how unfair public investment is in the UK?
Sarah Hall
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Things are deeply unfair as they stand. Delivering fair public spending in all our regions is urgently needed. We cannot grow our economy using a toolkit that still assumes that the south-east is the default. We need a Green Book that reflects the reality of 2025, not the London-centric logic of the past. This is our moment to rewrite the rules—[Interruption.]
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
Order. I will suspend the sitting because we have a Division. I encourage Members to come back as quickly as possible. If there are multiple votes, a maximum of 15 minutes will be allowed for the first vote, with 10 minutes for subsequent votes, but please try to get back earlier.
Sarah Hall
We cannot grow our economy using a toolkit that still assumes that the south-east is the default. We need a Green Book that reflects the reality of 2025, not the London-centric logic of the past. This is our moment to rewrite the rules and deliver the growth, dignity and opportunity that the people of Warrington South and the people of the north have been denied for too long.
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) on securing this important debate.
Investment in regions such as the north-east is not just about fairness; it is about unlocking economic growth and ensuring prosperity for future generations. Good infrastructure is the backbone of a strong economy. By investing wisely now, the Government can set themselves on the right course to achieve their growth mission, creating jobs, boosting businesses and putting more money in working people’s pockets.
But let us be honest: too often, as we have heard today, the north has been short-changed. For years, grand promises have been made, only to be broken. Successive Conservative Governments have failed to deliver the infrastructure we need. Take Northern Powerhouse Rail, a transformative project that would have boosted capacity, slashed journey times and strengthened connectivity between key cities in the north. It was scrapped, and where did the money go? Whether it went on fixing potholes in London or vanished in an accounting black hole, the result was the same.
Even promised Conservative investment in the north, such as dualling the A1, was built on money that never existed in the first place. The north was left behind again and again. Even when the last Government tried to find their way to the north-east, they could not decide whether it was Tyneside or Teesside; they were never quite sure. However, they would have struggled to navigate the mess they left us.
Members across the House will recognise that our roads have suffered years of under-investment. For five years, we heard talk of levelling up, but did the previous Government actually adjust the Green Book to prioritise communities such as Cramlington and Killingworth, where better transport links could change lives? No. Instead, they boasted about redirecting funds to Tunbridge Wells at the expense of the north.
That is why I really welcome this Government’s commitment to responsible, properly funded investment. I am pleased that the Department for Transport continues to assess critical projects, such as the Moor Farm roundabout and the A19 junctions north of Newcastle. As it stands, that is the only north-east project in the road investment strategy 3 pipeline, and those are the last two A19 roundabouts not to have been upgraded. That project has the potential to unlock tremendous growth for the North of Tyne area.
Improvements in the road network there are crucial to unlocking growth in south-east Northumberland—a key growth corridor, both regionally and nationally, that includes the Northumberland Energy Park, which will house a £10 billion AI data centre—and in north-west North Tyneside. But we find ourselves in a constant catch-22, where we know of investment and commercial opportunities that are being missed. National Highways, a statutory consultee, objects to the plans due to the congestion, but then we do not have the investment to do anything about the congestion on the roads there.
If we are to meet the ambitions for growth and development, these upgrades will be absolutely critical. They will also strengthen industries such as wind turbine production and improve connectivity between manufacturing in Blythe and the River Tyne, further driving growth. These upgrades are also recognised in the local growth plan that the North East Mayor has put together, and they are key priorities for Northumberland County Council and North Tyneside Council. That investment can drive the development and job creation that the north-east urgently needs, unlocking its potential.
Unlike the last Government, this Government do not make unfunded promises, and I welcome the Treasury’s commitment to seriously review the Green Book. In its current form, it bakes in regional inequality. When Ministers look at infrastructure investment as part of the spending review, I urge them to recognise the enormous potential in communities such as Cramlington and Killingworth. Currently, the Green Book holds back the north-east and prevents us from getting our fair share of investment. If we get this right, we can ensure that the north-east gets its chance and the right investment, which will drive growth for not just the region but the whole country.
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
I do not like setting time limits, but I am trying to get everybody in, so I will set an informal time limit of around four minutes.
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) for securing this timely debate. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friends the Members for Loughborough (Dr Sandher), for Warrington South (Sarah Hall) and for Cramlington and Killingworth (Emma Foody). I do not believe that there is any rule about repetition in this Chamber, but I will none the less do my best to express my points in a new and interesting way.
The Green Book is part of a colourful spectrum of current Government guidance and standards documents, which alongside the Aqua Book, the Magenta Book, the Orange Book and 19 other publications and pieces of supplementary guidance forms the basis of how the Treasury appraises policies, programmes and projects. On top of that, several Departments have issued their own interpretation of the guidance as it applies to them, thankfully avoiding extending the colourful metaphors any further.
That complexity—well over 1,000 pages of guidance—is at the root of the criticism of the small industry and almost mysticism around navigating the assessment process and of the poor outcomes to which it leads. Local authorities and other public bodies, which have been grappling with cuts to their non-statutory functions for more than a decade, are the ones putting forward investment cases, yet they often lack the capability and capacity to deal with that complexity, which has several unintended consequences.
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton referred to the expensive consultant bonanza that that complexity has created. It also creates a world in which those organisations that do have the capacity, or indeed the consultancy budget, are more likely to succeed, not necessarily those areas that are most in need of investment.
Most importantly, that complexity has led to an over-reliance on benefit-to-cost ratio to drive decision making. Because salaries are higher in London and the south-east, and because high-value sectors tend to be located here, it will always be easier to demonstrate a higher return on investment than elsewhere in the country.
We have a few decades of evidence that says that that is exactly what happens. Over the period from 2008 to 2024, had Governments instead chosen to fund the greater south-east at the same level as the England-wide average for growth spending, they would have freed up over £100 billion. That money could have been used to invest in infrastructure and people, narrow inequalities and address specific regional needs.
The Johnson Government’s review into the Green Book in 2020 was supposed to fix that. It said:
“Current appraisal practice risks undermining the Government’s ambition to ‘level up’ poorer regions and to achieve other strategic objectives unless there is a step change improvement.”
It went on to make a series of recommendations to improve practice. However, it is widely recognised that little has actually changed. The Department for Transport guidance, for example, still includes value-for-money categories derived entirely from the BCR. Local authorities tell me it is still common practice for response letters to open with sentences such as, “We note that the BCR for the proposed scheme is 1.8.” That belies the intent of the 2020 review.
To my knowledge, the terms of reference for the 2025 review have not been published, but when they are they must seek to address those points on culture. The review must end the arbitrary BCR thresholds across Government. It must simplify, increase public transparency on calculations and require publication of judgments on why conclusions have been drawn and decisions made.
Most importantly, we must not lose sight of what we are trying to achieve. It is imperative that we address regional inequality. Doing so is a moral, political and economic necessity. We have allowed some parts of the country to be left out, to the detriment of economic regeneration and social cohesion. We have overheated other parts of the country, leading to a housing crisis and even more pressure on the cost of living.
We should seize the opportunity to rebalance public spending, drive economic growth in areas that have suffered from under-investment, and use the strategic focus that comes with devolution to make investment go further. This is the moment—the opportunity—not just to talk about handing power and money to our regions, but to set the rules to ensure that that happens.
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
That was an excellent example of a four-minute speech, with no repetition either—well done.
Jo Platt (Leigh and Atherton) (Lab/Co-op)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) for leading this important debate.
I stand in Westminster Hall again to highlight the urgent need for a strategic, place-based approach to investment in our towns. Earlier this month, I led a debate on improving transport connectivity in the north-west, and this debate feeds quite nicely into the same narrative. As I mentioned in my last speech, growth goes where growth is, leaving towns such as ours struggling for investment. Without targeted intervention, deprivation becomes entrenched and opportunities are lost.
As chair of the Labour MPs group on local growth funding, alongside the Industrial Communities Alliance, I have worked closely with colleagues across the UK who represent former industrial communities—places that have been overlooked for too long. The Government’s mission to break down barriers to opportunity is therefore one I wholeheartedly support, but it must be backed by investment that reflects long-term, transformative impact.
Leigh and Atherton rank high on the indices of multiple deprivation, with lower life expectancy, higher unemployment and poor transport links. Our cities have deeply deprived neighbourhoods, but they also benefit from economic vitality, larger workforces and greater infrastructure investment. In contrast, smaller towns experience deprivation more acutely. Towns such as Leigh and Atherton suffer from long-term underinvestment, lower job diversity, reduced access to essential services and poor transport connectivity, making it harder to recover and attract new economic opportunities. That is why the Green Book review is so important; it must go beyond Treasury metrics and ensure that investment decisions align with the Government’s regional growth goals. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work. We need a model that recognises the unique challenges and potential of different places and improves public health, revitalises high streets, enhances transport links and creates local jobs.
There is also a lack of clarity about the extent to which the Green Book should apply within devolved regions, especially when funding comes from the devolved administrations rather than from here in Westminster. The review offers a chance to both guide and empower devolved regions and local authorities in deciding where growth funds should be allocated and to ensure that investment reaches the areas that are most in need without adding another frustrating layer of bureaucracy.
I appreciate the Government’s commitment to reassessing the Green Book. However, that should not be solely a Treasury initiative; it needs to be a cross-departmental effort that prioritises communities in the decision-making process. By doing that, we can create a fairer, more inclusive economy, ensuring that towns like Leigh and Atherton receive the opportunities that they deserve.
Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) for bringing this crucial debate back to Westminster Hall and it is great to be here with north-west colleagues again. Reforming the Green Book—the Government’s rule book for assessing public investment—might sound technical or dry, but for the people I represent in Bolton North East, it is profoundly consequential.
The Green Book is not just a document; it is a tool that shapes where investment goes, what gets prioritised and who gets left behind. Unless we change how those decisions are made, towns such as mine in Bolton will continue to be overlooked. Many hon. Members have spoken powerfully about how the Green Book favours London and the south-east, and they are right. At the heart of the problem are its outdated rules, which prioritise short-term, easily predicted returns. The rules do not ask about need or potential. They ask where we will see the biggest, fastest payback and, almost every time, the answer is the places that are already thriving—places with high wages, strong growth and well-connected transport. The result is a baked-in bias that overlooks the untapped potential of towns such as Bolton and says that our time, our housing, and our transport matter less, just because our postcode starts with a “BL” rather than a “W”.
Bolton does not just need fair treatment from London, it needs it from Greater Manchester, too. Even when public investment comes to Greater Manchester, the same pattern repeats. Time and again the Green Book prioritises funding into Manchester, where the numbers look better, and leaves Bolton behind. On the ground, the consequences are obvious: fewer jobs, slower trains and many more missed opportunities. Look at the business case to extend the Metrolink to Bolton. It has strong local support, clear economic value and huge potential to drive business growth, unlock investment and boost productivity. However, under the Green Book, the business case falls short because it does not account for induced demand. Infrastructure does not just respond to growth; it creates it. The Green Book neglects the homes that would be built, the businesses that would invest, and the people who would finally be connected to opportunity. That holds Bolton back, both in ambition and in growth.
Between 2007 and 2022, Manchester’s economy more than doubled, while Bolton’s grew 40% less. In the last five years alone, Manchester’s economy grew by a third, but Bolton’s by just 12%. That is not because we lack talent or ideas, but because the Green Book rewards places that are already well-resourced and overlooks Bolton’s potential. Here is where the frustration sets in. We are told that the numbers do not add up, but I say that the system does not add up. We are being asked to play a game that we were never meant to win, judged by rules that we did not write. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about how the Green Book can be reviewed so that towns such as mine feel the difference, and no longer feel left behind or overlooked.
First, I hope that we can adjust the appraisal formula, so that £1 of benefit in Bolton is not judged to be worth less than £1 in London or Manchester. Secondly, I hope we ensure that business cases reflect long-term impact—not just what can be delivered in year one, but what can be delivered over five, 10 or 20 years. Finally, I hope we can ensure that public investment allocated to Greater Manchester reaches towns such as Bolton.
Bolton does not lack ambition; it lacks backing. It does not lack ideas; it lacks investment. Public investment should open doors, but the Green Book, as it stands, is locking towns such as mine out of the future. It is about time that that changed.
Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell), for securing the debate.
As we have heard, the Green Book is the document that sets the framework for deciding where public investment goes. That means it is a subject that is not often spoken about—it is under-spoken about—but it is crucial, and it should be crucial to all our constituents.
We live in a society with grotesque place-based inequality. London enjoys productivity at 170% of the UK average, and that productivity gap has widened over time. The access that my constituents have to public transport is incomparable even with that in central Manchester, never mind the other planet that, frankly, we experience here in this city. Health outcomes and life expectancy are inextricably linked to having a thriving local economy and a place that people can be proud of.
Addressing this grotesque place-based inequality will require place-based investment. The status quo simply represents a game rigged against my constituents. It is baffling that there is a train station in my constituency that is unrivalled in terms of its capacity to connect the north and the midlands through genuine, 360° connectivity, but that we have struggled to secure the investment—frankly, Crewe station is dilapidated—to match the needs of projected future passenger growth. That is simply unsustainable, and it is not acceptable to my constituents and the many people who use that train station every day.
The status quo also forces talented people in my constituency and across the country who may wish to build a life for themselves in their own community to move to where the jobs and opportunities are, which is often not the place they would naturally choose. The place they would naturally choose is often the place where they grew up.
It does not have to be this way, but we have to change the rules if we are to see real change. I welcome the commitment to a review of the Green Book. The 2020 review made a number of recommendations, including placing greater emphasis on the strategic objectives of the Government of the day; deploying a place-based analysis to ensure that the needs of specific regions and sub-regions are taken into account; considering transformational interventions, which have the potential to bring significant long-term benefits to regions; and, crucially, as other colleagues have touched on, reducing the focus on cost-benefit ratio as a measure—a narrow focus that simply compounds regional inequalities. I would welcome the Minister’s reflections on the implementation of the recommendations made under the previous Government; they certainly do not seem to have brought any benefit to my constituents or to have delivered that Government’s so-called levelling-up agenda.
We have to stop treating towns across our country as if the people living in them are somehow fundamentally different from the people who live in metropolitan cities—as if they are less deserving of strong local economies and communities with access to quality jobs, public transport and amenities on their doorstep. A further review is welcome, but it must deliver real change.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) for introducing this important debate.
I rise today to make the case for communities such as mine in Bolton West to be placed at the heart of the Green Book review. The Government’s laser-like focus on growth is welcome, but I know from talking to businesses in my constituency, such as Woodall Nicholson in Westhoughton, Scan Computers in Horwich and Cohens Chemist in Lostock, that they face real obstacles to expansion and job creation. Some of that is a result of a lack of central Government co-ordination. The Green Book has consistently reinforced an economic model that prioritises investment in parts of the country that are already more prosperous, such as the south-east, rather than constituencies like mine.
Despite the expensive self-congratulation from the previous Government, levelling up did not amount to all that much in Bolton West. Indeed, under the last Government, Bolton West simply did not get a fair deal on funding. Time and time again, our towns lost out—a situation played out across the north. The result is that inequality has become entrenched and high streets across the north-west have become ghost towns, with young people having to leave their communities to find work, just as many of my peers had to when I was growing up.
The review is the perfect opportunity to fix this fatal, regressive flaw and ensure that investment decisions consider the wider benefits to our communities: job creation, skills development, better transport and improved public services. Crucially, investment in Greater Manchester cannot just mean investment in Manchester city centre; it must mean investment in the towns and communities that make Manchester the innovative economic powerhouse it has become.
We are at the cutting edge of the cyber and digital industries in Greater Manchester, and Bolton is a key part of that, with a growth corridor that stretches out across to Wigan. Bolton and other surrounding towns, however, have yet to be given the tools to harness that immense opportunity. After years of the Conservatives failing to put their money where their mouths were, we now see more investment into connecting Bolton to these high-growth sectors through training, infrastructure and partnerships, which bring those opportunities to my constituents’ doorsteps.
In my constituency, despite having a number of brilliant small and medium-sized enterprises, including the pioneering Blackedge brewery around the corner from my office in Horwich, I worry that many smaller firms still struggle to access the finance they need to grow. Too often, our local businesses struggle to secure the funding they need to expand, innovate and compete. We must ensure that businesses across the UK, including those in Bolton West, can access the capital they need to succeed.
If we are serious about driving economic growth, Government must invest and build the appropriate infrastructure. We must also work with the private sector to empower our entrepreneurs and local businesses, and not leave them battling a system that is stacked against them. The Green Book review must lead to real, tangible change that rebalances our economy and puts regions like ours at the heart of national prosperity. Never again should we live in a country where people’s futures are too often determined by their postcodes.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
It really is a pleasure to have you in the Chair today, Mr Pritchard. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) for securing this important debate.
Our communities deserve responsible Government. That means a stable economy, support for green innovation and ensuring that no one is left behind. In its current form, the Green Book holds us all back. It is time for a smarter and fairer approach that invests in and for every community. The country needs to move forwards from the last Government’s fairly reckless approach to public finances and backtracking on climate commitments that left our country decidedly weaker.
The Green Book’s framework continues to entrench regional inequality. The reasons for that are clear and twofold. It relies too heavily on blunt and limited cost-benefit analyses, and it fails to adequately factor in broader socioeconomic benefits to proposed spending. Placing disproportionate weight on cost-benefit ratios based on existing economic activity means that proposed spending that would invest in communities where wages and prices are lower is disadvantaged, because the short-term economic benefits appear to be lower. The Green Book therefore directs funding to areas that are already enjoying high levels of economic activity—namely, London and the south-east.
Projects in areas such as my own in Greater Manchester, by contrast, can struggle to compete on paper, even when the real-world need for investment is clearly greater. By focusing disproportionately on direct economic output, the Green Book often misses the wider socioeconomic benefits of investing in less affluent regions. Those benefits include wellbeing, job creation, community cohesion and long-term sustainability. Without a national strategy to prioritise regional equity, too many good projects in the north fall through the cracks.
The Liberal Democrats believe that all communities deserve a fair shot, not only the ones that already happen to be thriving. We need a framework that looks beyond simple economics and recognises the human, social and environmental value of infrastructure investment. It is not just a philosophical argument; in practice, the current system leads to under-investment in projects that could transform struggling communities.
There is also an important environmental angle. The UK has legally committed to net zero emissions by 2050, but our appraisal framework has not caught up. The Green Book still applies discount rates that undervalue the long-term benefits of green investment, making it harder to justify climate-friendly projects with slower financial returns. If we want a green economy, we need green tools, and right now, the Green Book is steering us away from the very infrastructure—whether that is renewable energy, public transport or nature restoration—that will power our net zero future. We need to realign our economic models with our environmental goals.
The 2020 review, undertaken by the last Government, was a missed opportunity. While it nodded to levelling up and net zero, it failed to make the structural changes that are needed. The think-tank Centre for Cities has argued that the Green Book should empower local leaders to choose the best projects for their regions, rather than leaving the Treasury to pick between places. I am interested to hear from the Minister what the thinking of this Government and the Treasury is on that.
As it stands, the Green Book holds back the north. It stifles green investment and ignores the full value of infrastructure investment. My constituents are living with the consequences of that every day. There are many examples of transport infrastructure upgrades in Hazel Grove that would have a transformative effect on their lives. Direct rail links from areas such as Romiley and Marple to Stockport would save my constituents a lengthy and unnecessary trip via Piccadilly. Level access at stations in Woodley and Romiley would ensure that those with physical disabilities can get on the train, and a bus link to the Bredbury industrial estate would promote job growth and reduce the number of people driving to work.
In debating the Green Book, a framework for investment decisions, we should not forget that it is not just about numbers—it is about people’s everyday lives. It is about their health, jobs and opportunities. We cannot let technical frameworks stop us from doing what is right. The Liberal Democrats are calling for bold reform: a system that promotes long-term prosperity, tackles inequality and delivers on our environmental commitments. We should all be working to build a country in which every region and community has a proper chance to thrive.
Richard Fuller (North Bedfordshire) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) on calling this debate, and the nine other speakers on speaking with great passion about the potential of their constituents and their constituencies, as well as about the role that the Green Book review—a rather obscure topic—can play in seeking to unlock that potential. I note that they spared the blushes of the Chancellor. When she announced the review, to unlock the potential of which those hon. Members are so hopeful, she announced further growth measures in the south and south-east of the country. That shows the difficulties there are in achieving some of the objectives. The hon. Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) was kind enough to say that those objectives were the intention of the 2020 review: levelling up this country.
I am, perhaps, an ironic choice to respond in this debate. If I may stretch your tolerance, Mr Pritchard, I will mention some things about the area of the country that I represent, North Bedfordshire. To give hon. Members some sense of the disparities, let me enumerate some of the growth potential projects going on in my county: our housing growth rate is already two and a half times the national average; we have a proposal for a solar farm in my constituency, which will be seven times the size of the largest one in the country; we have the country’s largest road project at Black Cat roundabout on the A1; we have a proposal for a railway line, which will be the third largest railway construction project in the country; and we have the doubling of the capacity of Luton airport to bring people into the country. We are also awaiting, when the Treasury finally pulls its finger out, a potential £10 billion investment for Europe’s theme park from Universal Studios, which will then start a whole new range of investment potential in the south. The hon. Member for Congleton has the right person responding from the Opposition to answer some of her points—because frankly, that is too much for one area to take at one time.
The 2020 review mentions some points that have been repeated today, and the allegations were: systematic bias towards London and the south-east; the tyranny of benefit-cost ratios; overlooked unmonetised benefits; no allowance for transformation or other complex effects; and that guidance was responsible for strategic policy faults with no focus on where, or by whom, effects are felt. Those allegations have been echoed today, but I have to say to Members that the findings were that there were no systematic methodological biases in the process. However, there were significant problems in understanding of the Treasury’s five case model, leading to significant poor practice in the application of the Green Book, and some changes have been made as a result.
As I thought Members would raise the issue of disparities in expenditure, and whether those changes had any effect, I went to table 9.4b of the “Public Expenditure Statistical Analyses 2024”, which enumerates the public expenditure on services per head in real pounds between regions. It splits that between current expenditure and capital expenditure, which is the focus of today’s debate. I have to tell Members that, if we look at those statistics between the years 2018-19 to 2022-23, real capital per head went down by 3% in the east and by 5% in the south-east. Real capital per head did go up by 20% in London, but it also went up by 25% in both the north-west and the north-east, by 24% in the west midlands and by 22% in east midlands. That is not to say that everything is done, but it is important to build on the progress that is being made. There is a lot more commonality here than we perhaps think.
Richard Fuller
I am afraid that I am very short on time. I would love to give way, but I know Mr Pritchard, and he will not give me any more time.
The view that focusing on the BCR as the answer is incorrect. East West Rail, which goes through my constituency, has a BCR of 0.3. It loses money, but the Treasury still wants to push ahead with it—that is another question for the Treasury. There is not sufficient quantification, so we do not understand what those benefits may be for people.
I have one final question for the Minister, as I have only a little time—I do have some other questions, which I will send to him. Can he look at the implementation of the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012? Getting that done is really hard for small businesses and social enterprises in particular.
Mark Pritchard (in the Chair)
Order. I am sure the Minister knows this, but I remind him that he has 10 minutes. He can leave a minute or so at the end for the mover of the motion, but it is entirely up to him.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Torsten Bell)
It is a pleasure to have you overseeing us today, Mr Pritchard. Like everybody else, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) on securing the debate. I also thank all Members for setting out their views, which are in themselves important contributions to the Green Book review that His Majesty’s Treasury is undertaking, and which is our focus this afternoon. Before I respond to the specific points raised, I will spell out what the Green Book is and what it is for.
The Green Book is a technical guidance on how to assess the costs and benefits, and the opportunities and risks, of different options to achieve Government objectives. It is not a decision-making algorithm or a test that must be passed. It is a framework for identifying and assessing different options. It is an important framework but, as lots of Members have rightly pointed out, it should be just one input into decision making. It is ultimately for Government, both national and regional—who are held to account by this place, in our case—to decide on policy objectives and spending choices. We must not evade our responsibilities behind technical frameworks.
This Government have listened to the concerns raised about that framework, such as concerns from our mayors, including my friend Steve Rotheram, and Members present today. That is exactly why the Chancellor announced a review in January: to ensure that all regions get a fair hearing when it comes to the allocation of public funds. The review is looking at potential problems with the guidance itself, as well as how that guidance is being applied by the Treasury, and how it is being applied by other Departments or public bodies. Since January, the Treasury has been in conversations with a whole range of organisations and individuals, regional and national, and this debate offers us the opportunity to hear the well-considered views and perspectives of Members. I assure all Members that what they have said today will have been heard in the Treasury, and will influence that review as it is finalised ahead of the spending review in June.
The frustration that many people feel on this subject is entirely understandable. It is rooted ultimately not in technical questions about cost-benefit analyses, but in unacceptable outcomes, not least flatlining wages for the UK as a whole over the past decade and a half—and, for some areas, abandoned during the 1980s and sidelined during 2010s, for far, far longer.
The frustration is understandable, when low investment manages to combine being both the cause of this economic decline and a visible sign that it is taking place, not least when our roads are riddled with potholes, our trains—whether they are Pacers or not—are unreliable and our housing stock is deeply inadequate. Public, not to mention private, investment has simply been far too low for far too long. It has too often not reached every part of the country, as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Sarah Hall) set out and as any rail user in Wales—particularly in Swansea, since the electrification does not reach our great city—will say.
For this Government, growth in every part of the country is the goal, because Britain is scarred by deep regional inequalities, as my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Connor Naismith) set out eloquently. Our shared growth is the goal, and higher investment is a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for it. That is why we have ended the public investment boom-and-bust cycle, with £113 billion higher investment this Parliament, sustaining public investment at levels not seen since the 1970s. We will work side by side with our mayors, local leaders and devolved Governments to support all regions to achieve their potential, investing for the long term in the infrastructure, transport and housing needed to ensure that all parts of the UK benefit from growth.
We are supporting empowered local leadership with the publication of the English devolution Bill, which my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton mentioned, and we are moving away from the short-termist, competitive approach to local funding so that we can instead support local leaders to drive growth in their areas. That includes implementing this month the first integrated settlements for Greater Manchester and the West Midlands combined authorities, ahead of the roll-out to other mayoral areas.
We are investing in economic infrastructure across the country: we are committed to the trans-Pennine upgrade—the largest investment in northern rail for decades, with a further £415 million announced last week; we are backing West Yorkshire mass transit; and £4.8 billion for the strategic road network will deliver critical road schemes across the country. We are working with Doncaster council and the Mayor of South Yorkshire on their plans to reopen the south Yorkshire airport. There are places outside the north-west that will also classify themselves as being in the north and feel left out by this discussion, so I am getting some of them in too; we will set out further details of our plans for infrastructure across the whole UK in the 10-year infrastructure strategy, which is to be published in June.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) and the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) both rightly noted that we must care about a wider range of social factors, including deprivation, when making investment decisions. They are both right.
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton raised the issue of consultants—an issue that is emerging again in the review that is under way. Of course, while there are times when the use of consultants is value for money, more needs to be done to improve the capacity of local government in this area, and by national Government to ensure that their asks in that regard are proportionate and sensible.
Other Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Cramlington and Killingworth (Emma Foody), have made a powerful case for specific projects, particularly transport projects. I am sure that they will continue to bend the ears of each and every Department for Transport Minister, or, in some cases, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, where they are the appropriate decision maker, and I was glad to hear that everybody recognised that that should happen within important public spending constraints.
Andrew Cooper
Does the Minister agree that in recent years we have seen such a reduction in local government funding that local governments have lost the capacity to develop long-term transport projects and a pipeline of projects, so when the Department for Transport comes along and says, “We’ve got 20 million quid burning a hole in our pocket—what can you spend it on?” many authorities are not in a position to be able to do that? Is that something he thinks needs to be rectified as part of the comprehensive spending review in the 10-year transport plan?
Torsten Bell
My hon. Friend is completely right about both points. We need to address that, partly by providing decent funding for local government. Members will have seen that being laid out over the last few months since the autumn Budget, but it needs to continue. We need to make sure that, instead of setting out short notice, competitive pots between areas, we empower local leaders to decide the right answers for their areas—and that is exactly the approach we are taking.
My hon. Friends the Members for Loughborough (Dr Sandher) and for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) rightly noted that we need to consider the dynamic effects of investments—a point also powerfully made by Diane Coyle in recent years. I agree. There are questions about whether the implementation of the 2020 review has been followed through in that regard. I can reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough that the Department for Transport does use the same value for commuter time for all parts of the country. He may think it is not enough or that it is too much, but it is the same pounds and pence in every part of the country for commuter times specifically.
I can reassure the hon. Member for Hazel Grove that the Green Book is not preventing this Government from delivering a step change in green investment. If the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller) had had time, I am sure he would have said that we are investing too much in green projects—or at least his party’s leader would.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Cheshire (Andrew Cooper) noted that there are real dangers of overreliance on BCRs. He is right: decision-making should always be rooted in strategic objectives, or what he called, “What are we trying to achieve?” Closing regional gaps is exactly what our objective should be, and it is for this Government.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for North Bedfordshire, took his life in his hands by listing the investments happening in his part of the south—broadly defined—although he may have saved himself by pointing out that maybe it was excessive. I look forward to his letter.
As we have heard, investment matters, and it matters that all parts of this country get a fair hearing when it comes to infrastructure investment. This Government understand that, which is exactly why we are acting to support growth across all regions. Once again, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton on securing this debate.
Mrs Russell
I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate. I absolutely accept that, underlyingly, we need a framework for evaluating projects. I am immensely looking forward to the 10-year infrastructure strategy, which is a real opportunity for the Government to grasp and fundamentally change how we are investing in the north of England; that is encapsulated by the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Sarah Hall). We need to stop our communities being seen as low-return risks rather than high-potential communities. I want growth to stop going to where growth already is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) said; I want growth going where people are, in the north-west of England.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Green Book review.