Oral Answers to Questions
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Kate Osamor (Edmonton and Winchmore Hill) (Lab/Co-op)
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)
The infected blood scandal is the worst medical scandal in the history of our NHS, and the infected blood compensation scheme was set up to provide some small measure of justice to victims and their families. We have set aside £11.8 billion for victims, and since the scheme became law on 31 March, the Infected Blood Compensation Authority has the powers it needs to press ahead and make payments to those eligible for compensation. The compensation payments began last December, and 69 people have accepted their offers, totalling more than £71 million.
Kate Osamor
My constituent, who is 77 years old, is a victim of the infected blood scandal. He is worried that haemophilia patients infected with hepatitis are being sidelined by the compensation scheme. He tells me that he was told those on the special category mechanism with hepatitis C would be upgraded to the same level as those with cirrhosis, but that position has now been reversed. Will the Minister look into my constituent’s concerns about disparities for haemophiliacs infected with hepatitis?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I will certainly write to my hon. Friend on the issue of the special category mechanism. I reassure her that the Government’s objective is for all victims of the infected blood scandal to be able to achieve the compensation that they deserve.
Alice Macdonald
My constituent, Mr Alan Kirkham, has been badly affected by the infected blood scandal. He was infected with hepatitis C from a blood transfusion in 1983. I met Alan recently, and he has been campaigning for justice for years. Will the Minister welcome and pay tribute to the work of campaigners like Alan? Can he provide assurances that we are working at pace to deliver compensation? Will he consider fast-tracking older and more vulnerable people?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I will certainly pay tribute to Alan and to the work of all campaigners over decades. I am restless for progress, and I will support the Infected Blood Compensation Authority to deliver compensation as quickly as possible. On fast-tracking for specific claimants, last week IBCA set out details of how it is prioritising claims from infected people nearing the end of their life.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
What direct discussions has the Minister had with people in Scotland who have been impacted by the infected blood scandal about the slow pace of compensation payments?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
In the course of the work I have done, I have not only spoken to groups in Scotland, but engaged with the Scottish Government’s Health Minister on this matter. On the pace of the payments, IBCA has taken a test-and-learn approach, which allows it to deal with a sample of the cases and then subsequently to scale up. IBCA is operationally independent, but I stand ready to provide all the support I can to speed up the payments.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
My constituent Hazel, from Street, was infected with hepatitis C in the 1970s after receiving blood products following the birth of her child. She suffered years of ill health and related problems, and is still waiting for the infected blood compensation scheme. Her case is truly heart- breaking, so what assurance can the Minister provide to people like Hazel that they will soon be supported?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
First, I express my sympathy and, I am sure, that of the whole House to Hazel in respect of what she has been through. The assurance I give is that this Government will act at pace. That is what we did in putting the first set of regulations in place by 24 August last year and by putting the second set of regulations in place by 31 March this year. I continue to stand ready to help and support IBCA, which is operationally independent, in any way that I can to speed up the payments.
Sarah Coombes (West Bromwich) (Lab)
Jess Asato (Lowestoft) (Lab)
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Ind)
Matthew Patrick (Wirral West) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
This Government believe in the power of good public services to provide security and opportunity, but we are clear that the way in which the state works has to change. That is why we are reforming the planning system to get more houses built, why we have introduced free breakfast clubs to give children the best start to their day, why we have launched the AI action plan to drive the adoption of new tech in public services, and why a combination of investment and reform has helped us to cut NHS waiting lists for months in a row.
Sarah Coombes
Labour was elected to get the NHS back on its feet, and that is exactly what we have been doing. At Sandwell and West Birmingham hospitals NHS trust in my area, the waiting list has fallen by 10% since the election, which means that patients are finally getting the treatment they need. One of the key things we have been doing is to look at things such as ambient AI to automate doctors’ notes and ensure that we have modern technology in the NHS. Will the Minister set out what we are doing to ensure that the NHS adopts all technology and reform to ensure that patients are being seen as quickly as possible?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is huge potential to increase NHS productivity through the adoption of new technology and AI. As I have said, the combination of investment and reform has helped us meet our election pledge to deliver 2 million extra NHS appointments in England in the first year seven months early, but we want to go further. We want to adopt the technology to which my hon. Friend has referred to get maximum productivity and better outcomes for patients.
Jess Asato
I thank the Minister for his response. I have been contacted by a constituent who is concerned for his poorly elderly father, who requires cryotherapy. That service used to be offered at his local GP, avoiding a difficult trip to our local hospital, which would have a deleterious impact on his father’s already poor health. Given the Government’s focus on moving more health services into the community and people’s homes as part of our public service reform agenda, does my right hon. Friend agree that cryotherapy services should be considered as part of that welcome shift?
Pat McFadden
The Health Secretary has talked about three big shifts that are part of the 10-year NHS plan. One of those shifts is from hospital to the community, which will require more services to be available locally. We have agreed a new GP contract, which will see a large boost to general practitioner funding, alongside reforms to improve digital access. If we are going to make this shift, it is important that services are available in the local community.
Luke Myer
The Government’s laudable mission-led approach has seen NHS waiting lists fall for five months in a row. Like many public services, our NHS has been plagued by over-specified guidance and unnecessary targets for many years, so will the Minister assure the House that the mission-led approach will mean a focus on core non-negotiables to deliver for the British people?
Pat McFadden
The missions set out the Government’s long-term targets, and the plan for change sets out the key targets for the next few years. I do believe that targets can play a key role in driving behaviour, and that the focus on getting waiting lists and waiting times down set out in our plan for change can make a real difference over the coming few years.
Oliver Ryan
I thank the Minister for that answer. I know from my time as a councillor outside this place that under the last Government, policy was made in Westminster, with very little thought given to how it could hit frontline services more locally. However, examples such as test and trace during the pandemic show that local services can deliver national priorities effectively, so what can the Minister do to ensure that civil servants down here work better with frontline workers up there to make sure that this Government’s priorities are being delivered?
Pat McFadden
The hon. Member makes a very good point. It is really important that we change the way in which policy is made—that we listen more to the frontline and work with the test-and-learn approach that was referred to by the Minister for the Cabinet Office in answer to the previous question. That can help drive better outcomes for the public.
Matthew Patrick
It is clear to me that under the last Government, our state failed the public. We had an agenda that was not rooted in the lives of everyday people, meaning that despite the number of civil servants being the highest in a generation, outcomes for my constituents in Wirral West and people across the country were worse. Will the Minister please set out how a smaller, more modern and more focused state can once again deliver world-class public services?
Pat McFadden
Over recent years, the public have seen the state get bigger and taxes go up, but they have not always felt that they are getting the right outcome from those changes. To deliver our plan for change, we need to reform the state to make it more efficient and more effective. We have started to deliver those reforms through stronger performance management, accelerating AI adoption, a focus on the frontline, and reforming rules around recruitment and secondments. Those plans will help empower our excellent civil services to work better, reduce bureaucracy and focus on what really matters, which is better outcomes for the public.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond and Northallerton) (Con)
I commend the ministerial team, both on the innovation fund and—more importantly—the test-and-learn culture that has been referred to, which embraces a willingness to take risks and iterate. Does the Minister agree that in order for this work to be truly successful and transform our public services, we must also reform our governance and approval processes in parallel, so that they do not inadvertently stifle this welcome method of innovation?
Pat McFadden
The right hon. Member obviously has hugely important experience in this regard. He will know from that experience that the traditional system can be risk-averse, and that it can seek to resolve too much and try to cover every base before launching a policy. The test-and-learn approach is different by intention. It intends to start small and to build from there. What is absolutely certain is that whether it is his party or my party in power, there is a duty on any Government today to pursue reform of the state to improve outcomes for the public, so in that regard I agree with him.
Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)
A number of months ago, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster announced the plan for change and the pillars, missions and various other things that come with it. When will he update the House on how that is going and how the Government are meeting those targets?
Pat McFadden
Well, I have good news for the right hon. Gentleman. [Laughter.] This is parliamentary accountability in action. One of the key targets in the plan for change was to get waiting lists and waiting times down. I am pleased to report to him that they have fallen for five months in a row and that we have met our first step on 2 million extra appointments early, and I look forward to more progress in the future.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
With 2,100 jobs set to go at the Cabinet Office by 2028, please can the Minister confirm what impact those cuts will have on his Department? What responsibilities might be transferred out of it?
Pat McFadden
The Cabinet Office has tripled in size in the past decade or so. I think it is right, after growth like that, that we look at productivity and how to get the best outcomes for the public. We have introduced a mutually agreed exit scheme. Some of the headcount reduction will be by transferring functions to other places, but I believe that the Cabinet Office can absorb a headcount reduction after, as I said, tripling in size over the past decade or so.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Can the Minister outline Government plans to reform the funding of fire authorities? That is especially important in Somerset, where changes to employer national insurance contributions, the ending of the rural support grant, the removal of the services grant and the reduction of the pension grant will cost Devon and Somerset Fire Authority nearly £2 million a year, at a time of rising costs.
Pat McFadden
I do not want to interrupt the collegiate mood we have had this morning by pointing out that we had to take those decisions after the inheritance we received. I cannot speak for every local authority settlement around the country, but the local authority settlements announced after the Budget were on the whole better than they have been for many years. They will not make up for the past 14 years, but they are better settlements than many local authorities have seen for some time.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much for his answers to those questions. The reform of public services is important, and I welcome the ideas he has put forward. I know he has a deep interest in Northern Ireland. Is it possible on his journeys to Northern Ireland—I understand that he goes regularly —for him to discuss the reform of public services with the Northern Ireland Assembly and the relevant Minister to ensure that we can have the same benefits that come from what he is putting forward today, thereby improving services and saving money at the same time?
Pat McFadden
It is important that we have good dialogue between all the devolved Governments and the UK Government. I believe that we do have that good dialogue in place at the moment. There are always different political parties represented around the table, and people will come at things from a particular angle, but when it comes to this kind of agenda, the questions are: how do we get the best value for money for people, how do we get waiting lists down, and how do we make sure that the taxes that people pay get the best possible public sector productivity? There is a common agenda there, and I see no reason why we cannot keep working productively together on that.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Ms Abena Oppong-Asare)
The Government are introducing a range of measures to strengthen our emergency preparedness. We hold regular cross-Government planning exercises for a range of scenarios. Later this year, we will undertake a pandemic response exercise, and we will also undertake a national test of our emergency alert system. Next week, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster will open the new UK Resilience Academy, which will train over 4,000 people a year.
Ms Minns
I thank the Minister for her response, and I particularly welcome the proposed test of the emergency alert system. The demise of landlines and the switch off of the public switched telephone network means that residents—particularly those in areas that suffer prolonged power outages, such as parts of my Carlisle constituency—now rely on their mobile phones more than ever in emergency events. Does the Minister share my desire to see Ofcom expedite its work on the radio access network resilience project so that we can move towards a position where the networks put in place emergency generators to switch the masts back on in the event of a prolonged power outage?
Ms Oppong-Asare
This is an issue that I recognise, and I reassure my hon. Friend that my colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are working very closely with telecoms companies and Ofcom to ensure that consumers are protected throughout the public switched telephone network migration. As she mentioned, that will include provisions to protect access to emergency services during power outages.
Liz Twist
Local resilience forums such as Northumbria LRF and Durham and Darlington LRF, which cover my constituency, play a very important role in identifying potential risks and supporting our local communities. Can the Minister tell the House how the Government are working with these local forums, and how they will ensure that their insights feed into the Government’s planning and preparation for risks such as pandemics?
Ms Oppong-Asare
I thank my hon. Friend for her important question. The Government recognise the importance of local resilience forums and the role they play in boosting resilience in places and communities. I hope she feels reassured that I have met all local resilience forums across England to discuss their concerns, and I have also met businesses to talk about the importance of local resilience. We will continue to work closely with local resilience forums, including Northumbria LRF in her local area, to plan and prepare for a broad range of risks, including pandemics.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
While I was a police and crime commissioner, I saw many of the things that have been referred to by hon. Members as critically important for emergency resilience planning across the public sector and working with the private sector. To ensure that that is all targeted in the right way, it is key to make sure that all the different agencies, public bodies and companies have a shared understanding of the risks that we face as a country, and receive the latest updates on those. Can the Minister tell the House when the Government will next update the national risk register, and explain what plans Ministers have for the frequency with which those updates will be published?
Ms Oppong-Asare
I thank the hon. Member for his work in this space, because I know he has done a lot of work on this issue. We are constantly looking at the risk register and updating it, and a lot of work has been done. Alongside that, we are carrying out a resilience review. As he rightly pointed out, we need to work across a wide range of sectors to make sure that wider society plays a greater role in this matter, and the work that I have been doing has involved meeting businesses, voluntary organisations and vulnerable groups to make sure that the issues are reflected. We will make sure that we share the lessons learned with the House in due course, and I have also engaged with parliamentarians on this issue.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
In the last few weeks, Dorset has been ravaged by wildfires, especially Upton heath and Canford heath in my local area, where more than 130 acres are gone. I was blown away by the work of the fire crews from Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Will the Minister thank the fire services for their combined work, but also acknowledge that there needs to be a review of funding for emergency services to ensure that they are consistently able to protect us in the face of climate change? I ask her for that assurance.
Ms Oppong-Asare
I thank the hon. Member for raising such an important matter. I want to put on record my thanks to the emergency services, which have been doing a lot of work on the ground, particularly through local resilience forums and her work as a local MP. As part of the resilience review, we are looking at the issues she has raised. We are also working collaboratively across Departments to make sure that the climate change matters she has raised are looked at, because they should be looked at not only by the Cabinet Office alone, but across all Departments.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
I would like to turn to the sorry state of Labour-run Birmingham, where rats the size of dachshunds are terrifying local residents. Indeed, in The Daily Telegraph this morning, we read that
“Birmingham city council warns of a surge in rat-borne diseases…that the elderly, disabled people and babies are ‘particularly susceptible’ to”.
The Government have had emergency powers throughout this crisis, not least the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. Will the Minister set out for the House why they have declined to use them?
Ms Oppong-Asare
I thank the hon. Member for his question, and I am sure he would like to join me in praising the Deputy Prime Minister and her team for their hard work on this. A lot of the rubbish has been cleared, and I want to take this opportunity to thank all the staff in Birmingham and across Departments who have played a key role in responding quickly to and dealing tirelessly with this matter.
Alex Burghart
I am afraid I am not going to congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister, in much the same way that the people of Birmingham are not thanking her either. I very much hope that the Deputy Prime Minister will take the Prime Minister and maybe the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to Birmingham to see that, in fact, much of the rubbish has not been cleared. I also hope that the Labour party will undertake not to take any donations from Unite the union while this crisis is ongoing.
The Government have commissioners in Birmingham at the moment, but we know from answers to parliamentary questions that the commissioners are not involved in the negotiations to end this ongoing problem with the local union. The Government have powers to do so. Why are they not using those powers, and when will they bring an end to these strikes and set the people of Birmingham free?
Ms Oppong-Asare
I thank the hon. Member for the question, but I am slightly disappointed by the approach he has taken. It is important that we work collaboratively together. As he rightly pointed out, Birmingham is the focus here, and let us move the politics out of it. It is important that the dispute is resolved as swiftly as possible, and that is what the Deputy Prime Minister and her team are doing at the moment.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)
When we came into power, the Government commissioned a comprehensive state of digital government review, which demonstrated just how far we have to go. It set out a picture of fragmentation, silos and a failure to maximise the opportunity of data to personalise and target services. The average UK adult citizen spends a week and a half dealing with government bureaucracy every year. The Government have set out a plan to change this, and we are taking wide-ranging action: from creating the national data library to increasing the number of services that use gov.uk One Login.
Steff Aquarone
I am glad the Minister mentioned the Government’s state of digital government review and its fairly excoriating conclusions. It is clear that the public sector is not using data well enough. It detailed the challenges, barriers and reluctance in getting the best out of the data available to Departments—some cannot even get their own arm’s length bodies to share data with them—and if we use data better, we can deliver government better. Would the Minister meet me to discuss further how the Cabinet Office can lead in acting on the lessons of the review and ensuring that the citizen experience is put at the heart of the changes it makes?
Georgia Gould
I would be delighted to meet the hon. Member. I am very passionate about this. In local government, I saw how difficult it was for frontline staff who were not able to get data from different services. Most importantly, citizens are having to tell their story to and share data with multiple services, which causes confusion. We are working very closely with the new digital centre of government on this, and we have an action plan to address it. However, I always welcome new ideas, because this could be really transformative for citizens.
Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)
Too often, when I am trying to get to the bottom of problems for my constituents in Ribble Valley, I get responses to written questions saying that Ministers just do not have the data available. I applaud the Government for putting data at the heart of their plans, but I worry that we could get too carried away with looking at AI solutions before we get to solutions for actually collecting data in the first place. Could the Minister reassure me on how we are working with local government to make sure we are collecting data from all possible sources in one place to start with, before we get to how we can make that more efficient?
Georgia Gould
The two issues are completely linked. To use the opportunities of AI, which are enormous, to personalise services and target prevention, we need to have a clear data picture. We need to be able to bring data together across different levels of Government. There is a huge amount of data in Government, but some of it is stuck in legacy systems and not shared properly. This is the absolute bedrock of the opportunity around AI, so it is something we are very committed to, especially working with local government.
Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I hope to continue the positive cross-party approach to this question. I particularly like the Minister’s commitment to a clear data picture. The Sullivan review into Government data was published in March this year, and Professor Sullivan made 59 recommendations to ensure that across Government accuracy and consistency are maintained. I do not expect the Minister to have a full formal response to that review today. However, can she reassure me that the Government will issue a full formal response to the review and its recommendations to provide that clear data across Government within, say, a year of the report’s publication?
Georgia Gould
I appreciate this collegiate style of discussion. There is a huge amount to do here. When we came into power, we set out, as I said, a review of the picture that showed just how hard it is for citizens to negotiate. When moving home, one has to announce it to 10 different organisations using different public services, sometimes 40 different services, so we need to change. We have not waited for the review. We have already set out our own plans, but we will of course respond to external reviews that come forward.
Peter Lamb (Crawley) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
Let me thank the thousands of diligent and hard-working civil servants who are dedicated to making people’s lives better. We want to get the best for civil servants and out of civil servants, so we are reforming the structure and the focus so that it is better placed to fulfil that purpose. That includes a number of important steps in recent weeks: robust performance management; better use of digital tools; faster recruitment; cuts to some wasteful spending; and a review of the arms-length body landscape, including the changes announced on NHS England, to return both power and responsibility to elected representatives.
Peter Lamb
I thank the Minister for his response and I am perfectly happy to accept the diligence of the civil service. Regardless, every two years a third of the civil service change their Department and countless more change to unrelated policy roles within each Department. Under the previous Government, policy expertise was completely hollowed out from the civil service. Will the Minister set out how we intend to resolve that to bring policy expertise back into the civil service and ensure we have Government teams capable of delivering for Britain?
Pat McFadden
It is probably true to say that a long-held frustration of some Ministers has been turnaround and the pattern of career progression, where people move on after a few years just as they are becoming an absolute expert in their area. Our ambition is not just to have policy expertise, but to change the way that policy is put together in the first place. That is why the test-and-learn approach, which we discussed earlier in this session, is so important. Frankly, the old way of having a group of experts writing a White Paper, throwing it over a wall and hoping it will work first time, just does not work in today’s age. What we really have to avoid is a two-speed world, with massive innovation in the private sphere and a public sphere working in the same old ways. We have to avoid that in the interests of the public.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman talks a good game about scrapping quangos and I support the review he announced to reduce the size of the bureaucratic state. Why then, despite the rhetoric, are the Government at the same time creating dozens of new quangos?
Pat McFadden
This is another debate, which has gone on for many years and relates to the question of headcount—Governments can magically reduce headcount by creating a quango somewhere, but the headcount may not have changed at all. What is informing the drive this time is the fiction that an arm’s length body can somehow absolve Ministers of responsibility. It does not work like that in the real world. Sometimes there is a good case for having an arm’s length body, but in the end, we know that accountability will be with Ministers, and that is what is informing how we look at these things at the moment.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
I have listened with a great deal of interest to what the right hon. Gentleman has had to say on the Government’s plans to make Whitehall more efficient and to make significant reforms to service delivery, and we on these Benches very much welcome the intention behind that statement. However, announcements have been made in the media about the intention to cut 2,100 jobs in the Cabinet Office and reduce the Department’s workforce by a third. Why have we not had a statement in this House about those job cuts specifically, and when will Members of Parliament get an opportunity to scrutinise exactly what that means for their constituents and their expectations about service delivery?
Pat McFadden
I work very closely with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury on this matter. The truth is, civil service headcount grew by more than 100,000 in the years the Opposition was in power. We believe that some of that can be explained by the repatriation of powers after Brexit, but some of it can be looked at in terms of efficiencies, which is what we are doing. By reducing the Government’s overhead, we can devote the resources to where they are really needed: in frontline public services. After such growth presided over by the Conservatives over the past decade, we believe that can be done.
Kenneth Stevenson (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)
Katrina Murray (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch) (Lab)
John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
Elaine Stewart (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)
The Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security (Mr Douglas Alexander)
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster spoke a few moments ago of a good dialogue. We are committed to working with the devolved Governments across the UK, and there is frequent, proactive engagement between Ministers and their devolved counterparts to achieve that. For example, we have worked with the Scottish Government on the joint investment plan for Grangemouth, with the Welsh Government through the Tata Steel/Port Talbot transition board and alongside the Northern Ireland Executive on the city deals.
Kenneth Stevenson
The Minister will be aware of last week’s historic UK Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman being based on biological sex, which provided important legal clarity. It is critical now that the UK and Scottish Governments work in a co-ordinated manner to ensure that the practical impacts are understood. How does the Minister plan to ensure that this co-ordinated approach delivers for women in Scotland and across the United Kingdom, and does he agree that the ruling must be a lesson for the SNP Government to stop wasting Scottish taxpayers’ money on flawed legislation and court cases?
Mr Alexander
The ruling upholds the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex and brings welcome clarity and confidence for women and, indeed, service providers. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, as Britain’s equality regulator, has already committed to supporting service providers with updated guidance. On the specific point raised by my hon. Friend, we will meet Scottish counterparts to discuss the implications of this significant judgment.
Katrina Murray
I thank the Minister for his answer to the earlier question. Events such as Tartan Day provide a vital opportunity for companies such as RSE in Cumbernauld to promote their products to international markets. RSE has repeatedly told me that it wants to be a part of Brand Scotland. Will the Minister outline how he will work with the Scotland Office and the Scottish Government to ensure that Tartan Day is an even bigger success next year to secure investment in the Scottish economy and create Scottish jobs?
Mr Alexander
Let me first pay tribute to RSE and all its brilliant work on water tech. Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of representing Scotland in the United States along with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland at Tartan Week, where we met a range of businesses and investors to bang the drum for Scotland as a great place to invest and to work. It was, frankly, a powerful opportunity to show that Scotland has two Governments committed to its prosperity and wellbeing. As the UK Government committed to growth, we are more interested in new markets than old arguments, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State actively reached out to the First Minister seeking to co-operate by co-ordinating our presence.
John Grady
I welcome the steps that the Government are taking to strengthen co-operation with the Scottish Government, to cut waste and inefficiency and to ensure that Ministers take responsibility for public services. This is an important area for potential co-operation and dialogue, because, in Scotland, we currently have more quangos than there are MSPs in Holyrood, which wastes millions of pounds a year. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the SNP Scottish Government should stop hiding behind these quangos, end the culture of waste and take responsibility for plummeting standards in Scottish public services?
Mr Alexander
I echo the sentiments of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The powerful point he made about the ultimate ministerial responsibility resting rightly and reasonably with elected representatives applies north of the Tweed as surely as it does south of the Tweed. I only wish that the Scottish Government would use the powers that they have to do the same and actively cut waste and bureaucracy. Scotland deserves better than what we are witnessing just now.
Elaine Stewart
Does the Minister agree that this Labour Government’s plan for change has helped to deliver 1,500 more GPs to help stop the 8 am rush and that the Scottish Government should work with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to look at how the SNP-run health service in Scotland could learn from such action?
Mr Alexander
As the UK Government, we have delivered more than 2 million extra NHS appointments seven months early, as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster set out just a few moments ago. Yet we all know that, despite the brilliance of NHS staff, the NHS in Scotland is still on its knees. Today, from this Dispatch Box, I urge our colleagues in the Scottish Government to work with us and actually learn some lessons from our team in the Department of Health and Social Care who are already driving change across England.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)
Of course, if the Government were serious about co-operating with the devolved Government, tomorrow’s Second Reading debate on devolving immigration policy to Scotland, which has been secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins), would not be necessary. The Minister will recall that, in the run-up to the general election, Labour’s Deputy Leader in Scotland, Jackie Baillie, said that they would be open to talks on this issue and, of course, it would be unthinkable that she would have said such a thing just to gain short-term electoral advantage. Therefore, having waited a year, can the Minister tell us when he expects those talks to open?
Mr Alexander
In the spirit of collegiality that has been the hallmark of this question session so far, let me respectfully suggest that there is a fundamental philosophical difference between our two parties. The SNP wants to end the United Kingdom and we believe in devolution, which is, ultimately, a two-Parliament, two-Government solution. There are two Governments who represent the best interests of the United Kingdom and, in that sense, I appreciate that there is a constant demand and a constant set of grievances from the SNP about why devolution is not working. It is about time that we had a Government in Scotland who were committed to making devolution work.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
Further to the question from the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Kenneth Stevenson), given last week’s UK Supreme Court ruling, which I welcome as a return to common sense and biological reality, what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that Government messaging reflects this clarity and that it is implemented consistently both across the devolved regions and here in Westminster?
Mr Alexander
I can assure the hon. Lady that the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which has a remit across the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, has already committed to supporting service providers with updated guidance. I assure the hon. Lady that we are talking to colleagues in Scotland and that we will also be talking to colleagues in Wales and, indeed, in Northern Ireland.
Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)
I welcome the House’s continuing passion for procurement, and my hon. Friend has helped to lead the way in this area at Hammersmith and Fulham council. I have seen how much energy there is in local government to use procurement to deliver jobs and growth. The Government are working on plans to allow local authorities to reserve contracts for local employers. Public procurement can be a key tool in driving growth and supporting businesses across the economy. Our new national procurement policy statement looks to maximise spend with small businesses and asks contracting authorities to work collaboratively on local and regional growth plans.
Ben Coleman
I thank the Minister for her reply and for the excellent work she has done in putting together the procurement strategy. It has been a passion of mine for many years that we do not use procurement just to get extra social value but extra economic value, which will help local firms and local growth. That is what this statement does, and I hugely welcome it. May I ask the Minister whether she intends to issue guidance to local authorities so that they know how best they can achieve economic value? For example, they could proactively tell small firms what contracts are coming up or train them in how to tender, which is very difficult for them. They could also encourage small firms to break procurement into lots, so that they have a better chance of bidding. Finally, they could stop requiring an unreasonable number of years of accounts to be shown before small firms are permitted to bid.
Georgia Gould
Growth is the No. 1 mission for this Government. We have learned from local authorities such as Hammersmith and Fulham, which built economic value into procurement. The Procurement Act 2023 makes new tools available, but what is critical is how they are used to deliver innovation and growth. The Government will be consulting on new plans to set targets for small and medium-sized enterprise use for the wider public sector. We have delivered extensive training and developed new communities of practice to help make the most of this huge opportunity. As my hon. Friend has said, much of this is about culture and the use of the tools. We will be working with local authorities around the country to deliver on this enormous opportunity.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
My constituency is a food production powerhouse, and I welcome any steps by the Government to encourage local authorities to procure British-produced food. Local authorities are under extreme pressure to procure at very low cost. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that, first, the Groceries Code Adjudicator ensures that farmers are paid fairly for the food they produce and, secondly, the Department for Business and Trade is not about to undermine the food they produce by entering a damaging trade deal with the US that would undermine those standards?
Georgia Gould
The guidance we put into the national procurement policy statement makes it clear that we want to deliver best value for money, which means not just cost but ensuring that we support growth and local suppliers. That allows local authorities to make decisions on what will create jobs and best opportunities for communities in the procurement of food.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
The Minister without Portfolio (Ellie Reeves)
This Government were elected with an overwhelming mandate to deliver change. We inherited a country hit by an unprecedented cost of living crisis, with millions stuck on waiting lists and communities blighted by crime and antisocial behaviour. We are already delivering the change we promised. There will be a pay rise for 3 million workers, thanks to our increase in the national minimum wage. NHS waiting lists are down six months in a row, and there is funding for 13,000 neighbourhood police and community support officers. That was the change we promised, and that is the change we are delivering.
Jim Dickson
I thank the Minister for her answer. It is a really impressive catalogue of achievement in the early months of the Government. Can the Minister set out more specific detail for my constituents and the House on big infrastructure projects such as the lower Thames crossing? I am delighted that the Government have now given consent to it, and Dartford residents are delighted too. How can these big infrastructure projects not only kick-start economic growth but provide jobs, skills and opportunities for residents in Dartford and across the Thames estuary?
Ellie Reeves
My hon. Friend is a great champion for the people of Dartford. Fixing Britain’s creaking infrastructure is vital for our growth mission and plan for change. We are reforming our planning rules to cut through blockages to delivering infrastructure and to help meet our target of 150 planning decisions by the end of this Parliament. The Government are committed to working with the private sector to deliver the lower Thames crossing. As well as creating jobs, it will reduce congestion and drive economic growth by improving connectivity between Kent and Essex.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
As the Minister is undoubtedly aware, part of the plan for change is kick-starting economic growth. Prior to the recess, the Secretary of State for Transport advised me in relation to her statement about electric vehicle charging that the Cabinet Office is responsible for EU reset negotiations. What assessment has the Cabinet Office made of the cost of the UK not being in a customs union with the EU?
Ellie Reeves
The Minister for the Cabinet Office has been negotiating with the EU in the country’s national interest. We have been clear that there will be no return to the customs union or single market, but the reset in our relations with the EU is an important one.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
Key to much of that plan is the Government’s target to make the UK the fastest growing economy in the G7. But with the International Monetary Fund joining the Office for Budget Responsibility and the OECD in massively slashing projections for UK growth and the IMF not expecting the UK to be the fastest growing economy in the G7 in any year between now and 2030, how confident is the Minister that the Government will meet that target?
Ellie Reeves
The prediction is that we are set to be the largest growing European economy in the G7. Since coming into government in July, we have prioritised growth: for example, Universal Studios building Europe’s biggest theme park in Bedfordshire, and unblocking planning decisions on projects like the lower Thames crossing. We are getting on with delivering the growth that the country needs after 14 years of decline under the Conservatives.
Gurinder Singh Josan (Smethwick) (Lab)
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Pat McFadden)
Since the last oral questions, we have been working to create a more focused Cabinet Office that will drive the work of reform and help to deliver on our plan for change. We have taken decisive action, including by cutting wasteful spending so that resources can be targeted on the frontline. I am pleased to inform the House that I will shortly be opening the UK Resilience Academy, which will be an important resource in training public servants for a range of potential emergencies.
Gurinder Singh Josan
I am sure the Minister will agree that the diversity of those in positions of responsibility across all areas of UK Government and public institutions is key to maintaining confidence among the British public that the Government are working for all of us. Diversity is important across all the various equality strands as well as the various geographical areas of the UK’s nations and regions. Will he detail what work has been done to review the diversity of public appointments in the UK and to maintain and improve that diversity, particularly in view of the changes proposed to public bodies?
Pat McFadden
Merit will always be the primary consideration in any appointment, but diversity is important, and we are not giving up on it. We want to see a public service that looks like the country and speaks with all the accents that make this country a great place. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale (Georgia Gould) recently spoke at the civil service social mobility conference to bring home that message, which will reflect what we do on public appointments.
Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)
Will the Paymaster General give us an update on his negotiations with the European Union? He has not updated the House since the beginning of February, and there has been much speculation in the press. Will he take this opportunity to rule out dropping the right to annual quota negotiations on fishing?
The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)
We will negotiate in the interests of our fishers and understand and implement our marine protection rights. As I am sure the hon. Gentleman will understand, I will not give a running commentary on the negotiations, but we are clear that we will negotiate in the national interest and in line with the manifesto that the Government, with 411 Members of Parliament, were elected on.
Alex Burghart
The whole House will have heard the Minister fail to rule that out.
It was good to hear the Prime Minister recently praise the Brexit freedom to regulate as we wish on artificial intelligence; will the Minister assure the House that EU AI rules will not be applied to Northern Ireland?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
Again the hon. Gentleman comes with his questions on the reset. We have had an atmosphere of collegiality, and I want to join in by agreeing with the Leader of the Opposition that the previous Conservative Government left the EU without any plan for growth. That is absolutely true. The hon. Gentleman should follow the public debate on this issue. Major retailers including M&S, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Lidl all support this Government’s approach in the reset to get a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement. The hon. Gentleman should back that approach; otherwise, people will rightly conclude that he and his party have learned nothing.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Speaker
Order. I say to those on the Front Bench that we only got to Question 8 earlier because we were slow. Now we are in topicals, and I really want to get in all the Members who did not get in earlier.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
The Minister without Portfolio (Ellie Reeves)
I am pleased to hear about the seven new free breakfast clubs in Carlisle, and I am delighted that Brent Knoll school in my constituency also has a new free breakfast club. With our plan for change, we will give children the best start in life, breaking down barriers to opportunity and putting money back in parents’ pockets by saving them up to £450 with the roll-out of free breakfast clubs.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
Warm words about a reset in UK-EU relations are no longer enough. The summit that will take place in London on 19 May is an opportunity for real action. Will the Minister take the opportunity that the summit presents to commit to bringing in a UK-EU youth mobility scheme that will boost economic growth and enhance chances for young people in our country and across the EU?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
A youth mobility scheme is not part of our plans. We have always said that we will listen to sensible EU proposals, but we will not go back to freedom of movement. Where I do agree with the hon. Lady is on concrete proposals and concrete progress on 19 May. We are looking to secure a new partnership with the EU that will make our country safer, more secure and more prosperous.
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Pat McFadden
AI is a huge opportunity for the UK. The AI opportunities action plan was a statement of our ambition to make the UK a world leader in AI. We launched an expression of interest on AI growth zones and have received more than 200 responses. The first such zone has already been announced at Culham, home to the UK Atomic Energy Authority.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
We have recently found out that portraits and paintings of Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh and William Shakespeare are among 69 pieces of artwork that have been removed from No. 10, No. 11 and across the Government estate. Does this not make a mockery of the Government’s St George’s day celebrations this week? They are more interested in chasing the latest woke trends than celebrating the history and heritage of this great country.
Pat McFadden
I have already said that we want a public service that reflects all the great accents that make this country such a great place. We celebrate our history, and I warmly wish the hon. Member—a day late, I admit—a very happy St George’s day.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
Nick Thomas-Symonds
My hon. Friend is a powerful advocate on this issue. It is incredibly important that the Government are held to account for the implementation of inquiry recommendations. It is why the Government have already committed to establishing a publicly accessible record of recommendations made by public inquiries since 2024. We will ensure that becomes standard practice in the future. We are also considering wider reform of the inquiries landscape.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
Nick Thomas-Symonds
There is no such link, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that the current arrangements will come to an end in 2026. We will negotiate in the interests of our fishers and are looking at our responsibilities to the marine environment.
Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
Nick Thomas-Symonds
My hon. Friend is a powerful advocate for her constituents. The Infected Blood Compensation Authority is of course operationally independent, but I stand ready to take all the steps I can to ensure that compensation is made as soon as possible. Payments to the infected started at the end of last year; payments to the affected will start by the end of this year.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
It is every British citizen’s right to vote, and voter turnout is one demonstration of public engagement with politics. Will the Minister consider scrapping photo voter ID, so that the 777,000 people who said that was the reason they did not vote at the last general election will be able to exercise their right to vote at the next general election?
Ellie Reeves
As we set out in our manifesto, the Government are committed to encouraging participation in our democracy and believe that it is unacceptable when legitimate voters are prevented or discouraged from voting. Although we have no plans to remove the voter ID rules, at the elections in May the veteran card will be accepted for the first time, and we are conducting a thorough review of the voter ID rules, evaluating how they impacted citizens at the general election.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Too many Government Departments and public bodies have foreign-made tableware purchased with British taxpayers’ money. May I invite the ministerial team to make a commitment to ensure that every Department replaces its foreign-made table set with a British-made one—preferably from Stoke-on-Trent?
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Georgia Gould)
We know of the brilliant craftsmanship of the Stoke-on-Trent industry. We are committed to supporting British businesses and ensuring that they have the best chance of winning public contracts. Our new national policy statement asks contracting authorities to maximise spend with small and medium-sized enterprises and to support our industrial strategy.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
During the last Parliament, I made a submission, on behalf of the National Association of Retired Police Officers, for a medal to be issued in recognition of the service given by those injured on duty and invalided out of the service. That had the backing of the then Policing Minister, and I understand it also has the backing of the current Policing Minister, but it has now disappeared into a black hole in the Cabinet Office. Will the Minister please dig it out, dust it off and give it a fair wind?
Pat McFadden
I will find out exactly where we are with this matter and then write to the right hon. Member.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
Under the Windsor framework, the Government, through the Cabinet Office, regularly supply data to the European Union about the number and type of checks conducted at the Irish sea border, but they refuse to provide that data to Members of this House. When I was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the oversight of those checks lay with the local Department, I was able to acquire that, but now that it is under the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Members who ask those questions get a refusal of an answer. Why is that?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I am perfectly happy to look into the matter that the hon. and learned Gentleman raises. On the UK-EU reset, I very much hope that if the Government are able to secure a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement that they will reduce the number of checks on the Irish sea.
Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)
The 36th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster came and went over the recess, when we also saw in the media rumours that the Government are considering watering down their proposed Hillsborough law. Can the Minister explain the Government’s thinking?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
I pay tribute to the Hillsborough families and those who have campaigned over so many years. The Government are committed to bringing in a Hillsborough law, but it is also important that we work closely with the families to ensure that we get it right, and that is precisely what we will do.
Ukraine War: London Talks
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Foreign Secretary if he will make a statement on the talks held yesterday in London on the war in Ukraine.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
I thank the right hon. Lady for her question and for the Opposition’s continued support for the united position that we take in our iron-clad support for Ukraine. We remain fully committed to working with Ukraine and our international partners to secure a just and lasting peace.
Our support for Ukraine is iron-clad. Representatives of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States convened in London yesterday, with Ukraine, for another round of intensive talks, following up on the meeting in Paris last week. All parties reiterated their strong support for President Trump’s commitment to stopping the killing and achieving a just and lasting peace. The talks were productive and successful, and significant progress was made on reaching a common position on next steps. All agreed to continue their close co-ordination and look forward to further talks soon. There was an E3 statement on this just last night. The Foreign Secretary had bilateral discussions with Foreign Minister Sybiha, and he remains in close contact with his ministerial counterparts. To give further details of the discussions would only benefit Putin, as I hope the right hon. Lady understands.
We condemn Russia’s brutal missile and drone attacks on civilians, including overnight. Our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones at this tragic time. They were absolutely horrific scenes, and they came on the back of shocking scenes not only in Kyiv but in Kryvyi Rih, Sumy, Marhanets and many other locations across Ukraine in recent days. I remind the House that, while Ukraine has been in peace talks, Russia has continued these severe attacks, including last night. That is a stark reminder of the continued bloodshed and aggression perpetrated by Putin. I witnessed myself the terrible situation in Kyiv when I visited just weeks ago; there were attacks on Bucha of all places just hours before I arrived. Indeed, this is about not just the killings but the continued shocking abductions of children and attempts to wipe out Ukrainian culture. Putin’s demands remain undiminished. We are very clear about that.
President Zelensky has shown his commitment to peace. President Putin must now agree to a full and immediate ceasefire without conditions, as Ukraine has done. We will not stop in our efforts to work with all parties to that end.
Priti Patel
For all the talks taking place, it is concerning that a clear and unified front in support of Ukraine, to support a peace on its terms, has yet to emerge. The Minister mentioned the E3 statement on yesterday’s talks, but it consisted of three sentences stating that the talks were productive and successful, and that significant progress was made in reaching a common position on the next steps. Will he tell us exactly what was productive and successful about the talks, what those next steps are, and whether Ukraine is in agreement? Were security guarantees for Ukraine discussed, and was progress made on agreeing what they will be? Was the UK’s long-standing position of supporting Ukraine’s accession to NATO discussed?
Following the abhorrent missile strike in Kyiv last night, which killed more innocent civilians, does the Minister believe that Putin is committed to a just and fair end to this conflict? Can the Minister confirm whether the status of Crimea and other Ukrainian territories invaded and occupied unlawfully by Russia was discussed and what the UK Government’s position is? The UK was the strongest advocate for Ukraine regaining all the territory taken by force by Putin and for Putin to lose this war. Is that still the case?
There is much debate about the initiatives to end the war by negotiations, but we cannot forget that this war was started by Putin—a murderous, vile autocrat who is being propped up by an axis of authoritarian states trying to extinguish democracy on our continent, and by those who are opposed to our values, including China, North Korea and Iran. We need the Government to leverage British influence in every way possible for Ukraine. Our Ukrainian friends are on the frontline, battling an attempt to reshape the whole international order by force.
I condemn the sanctioning of 15 Members yesterday by Russia. To those colleagues, I say this: it shows that you are on the right side of history and that we must always stand up to tyranny. UK sanctions on Russia must stay in place. What is the Government’s position on applying secondary sanctions, and when will the billions of pounds of proceeds from the sale of Chelsea FC be made available for Ukraine?
Can the Minister explain why the Government’s £2.26 billion loan to Ukraine, backed by the profits of sanctioned assets, is being paid over three years rather than in full now? Finally, what more can the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office do to mobilise British technology, which could be cheaply and quickly applied to adapt Ukraine’s military efforts?
Stephen Doughty
I thank the right hon. Lady for her questions and for her continued support and unity on these issues. It is crucial that we send a signal not only to our friends in Ukraine but to Putin—that this House will not be divided on these issues. We are united in our support for Ukraine, and I can reassure her of our absolute commitment to Ukraine. Indeed, there has been extensive ministerial contact over recent weeks. I met Minister Sybiha in Turkey a week or so ago, and the Foreign Secretary was with him yesterday. Contact remains at every level.
The right hon. Lady asked a number of specific questions. I am afraid that I cannot go into the detail of yesterday’s discussions, for reasons that she will understand. I know she has a job to do in holding us to account on that, but it is really important that we allow those technical talks to go on at that level between the principals, and she will understand why that is necessary.
I agree completely with the right hon. Lady’s point about the sanctions against Members of this House, which I utterly condemn. This is par for the course when it comes to Putin and his regime. She asked what we are doing on sanctions. Our commitment to sanctions remains undiminished. We will maintain the pressure at every level. In fact, we are ramping up the pressure, and today we have announced new sanctions, including on the shocking repurposing of games console controllers to kill Ukrainians by Russia. We are taking robust action at every step we can, not only directly, to choke off the Russian war machine, but in relation to second and third-country circumvention of those sanctions. She can be assured that I have spent a lot of time on this issue in recent weeks.
The right hon. Lady asks about the situation with Chelsea FC, and I refer her to my previous comments on that. We are working at pace to meet the agreements that were made on that. She points out the importance of the extraordinary revenue accelerator loan. The first tranche of that has been disbursed. In fact, I discussed this with the deputy Finance Minister of Ukraine just a few weeks ago, to ensure that they had access to those resources. They do have access, and I am happy to write to her separately about the details of the further tranches that will be paid.
There is absolutely no softening of our commitment to the coalition of the willing. Indeed, the Foreign Secretary met French, US, German and Ukrainian counterparts last week, underlining our shared commitments, and we are leading a coalition of willing nations to defend Ukraine’s security. We will not get into the operational details, for obvious reasons, as the Defence Secretary made clear earlier this week.
The right hon. Lady asks about Crimea. The UK’s position regarding Ukrainian sovereignty is well known and has not changed: we do not recognise Russian sovereignty over any territory illegally seized from Ukraine, including Crimea. When, how and on what terms this war comes to an end can be decided only by negotiations with Ukraine at the heart of them.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
As one of the individuals who was sanctioned yesterday by the Kremlin, I ask the Minister whether he agrees that if Putin is serious about securing any sort of lasting peace in Ukraine, he should stop the performative sanctioning of democratically elected Members of this House and focus on stopping the murderous, barbaric killing of civilians in Ukraine and the invasion of that nation, which we stand with in full support.
Stephen Doughty
Again, I utterly condemn the sanctioning of Members of this House, including my hon. Friend. I am on that list too, as are many other Members, and it is completely unacceptable; we are clear on that. My hon. Friend rightly points out examples of Russia’s actions in recent days—the horrific attacks, the deaths, the killing, the continued aggression—and of course Russia is the aggressor in this conflict.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
Overnight, Russia launched 11 ballistic missiles and nearly 200 cruise missiles and drones at civilian targets in Kyiv. Yesterday’s talks in London should have been an opportunity to strengthen the western coalition’s support for Ukraine in the face of Putin’s barbarism. Instead, they were derailed by President Trump, who, in a petulant response to President Zelensky’s refusal to countenance the recognition of Crimea as Russian, withdrew his Secretary of State and special adviser from the meeting. President Trump demonstrated that he is not interested in securing a just peace that can deter future Russian aggression and protect Ukraine’s right to self-determination. Instead, he is intent on securing a carve-up of Ukraine with Putin, as long as it is agreed before the 100th day of his presidency. Will the Minister make clear to his US counterpart that the apparent ultimatum shared with President Zelensky last week, which would deliver to Putin most of the goals of his illegal invasion, is utterly wrong and would only embolden future Russian aggression? I too yesterday found myself on a list of MPs from across the House who are being sanctioned by the Kremlin. Will the Government outline how they plan to support Members who are being targeted for speaking out?
Stephen Doughty
While I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s party’s continued support for a united front on Ukraine, I do not recognise his characterisation of the talks yesterday, which were productive and constructive, and involved the United States. The Foreign Secretary also spoke to Secretary of State Rubio just the night before, and we are in regular contact with our US counterparts. Secretary of State Rubio welcomed the fact that we were hosting special envoy Kellogg alongside others. Of course, the Prime Minister has been in contact with President Trump in recent days, and the Foreign Secretary has been in contact with his counterpart.
We share the President’s desire to bring this barbaric war to an end. Of course Russia could do that tomorrow by withdrawing its forces and ending its illegal invasion. We are working with all our allies, including the United States, on a plan to stop the fighting. We obviously need agreement among all of us on that—European allies, the United States and others—and we are working closely with President Trump on that, but we are also clear that Ukraine’s voice must be at the heart of any talks. We warmly welcome the agreements and discussions between the United States and Ukraine, but ultimately the ball is in President Putin’s court. He continues instead to fire missiles and cause the destruction and killing that the hon. Gentleman rightly highlighted. It is utterly horrific. The responsibility lies with one person, and that is Vladimir Putin.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
I associate myself with the Minister’s comments about the appalling attacks on Ukraine last night, and I thank him for his statement today. Will he update the House on the support the Government are offering to Ukrainian communities across the UK at this very difficult time, such as the large Ukrainian community in Reading?
Stephen Doughty
I thank my hon. Friend for his support, and he rightly references Ukrainian communities across the United Kingdom. I have met the Ukrainian community in my constituency, and just this week I met Ukrainian community members to discuss a range of issues, including the horrific abduction of children, which Russia has continued to perpetrate, one of the most shocking and heinous aspects of this conflict. I am really proud of what British communities have done across the country to support Ukrainians, and the strong ties that have been built. It is fantastic that we have signed a 100-year partnership, so that for 100 years into the future, we have that relationship and give that iron-clad support on every level—economically, diplomatically, militarily, and of course through crucial people-to-people links.
Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
Our international relationships the world over are dependent on partner countries’ confidence that we will stick by our word, and that our allies will do likewise. Will the Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), convey that message to the United States of America? The world—friends and foes alike—is looking at our willingness to stick by the commitments that we have made to Ukraine. If we renege on those commitments, every single relationship around the world will be undermined.
Stephen Doughty
Well, I am not my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy)—I represent Cardiff South and Penarth—but I thank the former Foreign Secretary for his comments, his continued support, and his engagement with me on these important issues when I was in opposition. The Government and I have been absolutely clear: our support is iron-clad, not only now, but for 100 years into the future. I was able to convey our support and our unity on this issue to a bipartisan delegation from the US House Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday. It was an excellent and productive discussion. There is strong unity on these issues. We need to continue to work together, across Europe and in our transatlantic and global alliances, to deter and defend against the threat from Russia, as well as other threats that we face together.
Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
I was also one of the Members on the list of people sanctioned by the Kremlin yesterday. I want to make it clear in this House that if Vladimir Putin thinks that sanctioning me will silence me, he is very, very wrong. It is no coincidence that the sanction came on the day when I launched a report that I co-authored with UK Friends of Ukraine on the issue of the stolen children. The report outlines in detail the systemic capture, re-education and conscription of Ukrainian children by Russia. Will my hon. Friend outline whether the issue of the stolen children was discussed yesterday? Does he support the campaign to return the stolen children? Will he join me in calling for a UK national day of action to recognise the issue of the stolen children of Ukraine on 17 July, the Day of International Criminal Justice?
Stephen Doughty
I thank my hon. Friend for her powerful points, and I condemn the sanction against her. She is right to raise the issue of the stolen children. I discussed the matter a short while ago with the Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister and representatives of the different campaigns on the issue. This is a personal priority for the Foreign Secretary and me. It is one of the most heinous and horrific aspects of the conflict, not only for those children and their families, but because it speaks to a wider attempt by Putin to subjugate the people, identity, culture, language and future of Ukraine. That should be clear for all to see. One of the most powerful reminders of that is a picture that I have in my office painted by one of the children, who was thankfully returned, but sadly there are still far too many children who have been taken by Russia. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend on this important issue, and I am very happy to discuss the event that she suggested.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
If the Government could persuade the Nobel peace prize committee to give the award to Donald Trump on condition that he stops siding with the aggressor against the victim, does the Minister think that American policy might revert to one of NATO deterrence, which prevented world war three for half a century after the end of world war two?
Stephen Doughty
The right hon. Gentleman, who I know well, will know that that is a matter for the Nobel committee, and not for me. I do not recognise his characterisation. We are working closely with the United States, Ukraine and all of our European partners to secure a just and lasting peace for Ukraine. We are very clear about who is on the side of peace—us—and who is on the side of war: Vladimir Putin.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
Members across this House who have been sanctioned by Putin and his flunkies should wear that as a badge of honour. It indicates just how Putin and his flunkies feel about the prospect of Russian assets being seized. Will the Minister update the House on the progress made in moving from freezing to seizing Russian assets to strengthen the hand of our brave Ukrainian allies?
Stephen Doughty
I condemn the sanction against the hon. Lady, and against other colleagues in the House. We have been very clear that Russia must pay for the damage it is causing in Ukraine and the destruction that it has wrought on the Ukrainian people and industries. I saw some terrible examples of that when I visited just a few weeks ago. I have spoken about the importance of the extraordinary revenue acceleration scheme and the moneys that are now available to Ukraine. The Government continue to work closely with allies on the issue that the hon. Lady references. I had extensive discussions with my G7 counterparts and others about considering all possible lawful avenues for making Russia pay for the damage it is causing, and we will update the House in due course.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for his statement. I also thank the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) for her statement, because it is important that this House speaks with one voice on this really important issue. On Tuesday, I asked a question to the Secretary of State for Defence about the changing nature of warfare. The Minister raised the terrible image of controllers for computer game systems being used as weapons. Has he had conversations with NATO partners and allies about the changing nature of warfare, and will that be fed into the strategic defence review?
Stephen Doughty
We certainly have had those conversations, and we have them regularly. I thank my hon. Friend for raising that point. The Minister for the Armed Forces is here with me; we regularly discuss these issues. I am sure all that will be considered as part of the strategic defence review. My hon. Friend rightly points out the efforts we are making to deny Russia any of the nefarious means it uses to prosecute its horrendous war in Ukraine. We have taken very specific action on some of those matters today, and we will continue to consider further measures.
Dan Carden (Liverpool Walton) (Lab)
I welcome the words of the Minister, and the UK Government’s steadfast support for Ukraine, and for further promoting European security. Will he say a little more about how he is working across Government Departments to support the efforts of civil society and businesses in the UK to ensure that, at every level, we offer the greatest support possible to Ukrainians?
Stephen Doughty
I point my hon. Friend to the important 100-year partnership that we signed. Engagement at every level between civil society and people in every community is crucial. I know that there are very important twinning arrangements between cities and communities across the UK, and we look forward to strengthening those, and working with those communities. I met Ukrainian civil society organisations in Kyiv just a few weeks ago, and I regularly meet organisations here in the UK. If all of us across this House can create more links, that will give true strength for the future to the foundation on which that partnership is built.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
The Minister’s confirmation that the coalition of the willing will not permit the concession of any Ukrainian sovereign territory to Russia is most welcome, but I am not sure that I understand how that squares with Mr Trump’s current negotiating position, which seems to be based entirely on that. Some 20,000 Ukrainian children have been stolen by the neo-Soviet Union and sovietised. That is a war crime. Did the meeting yesterday make it absolutely plain that no recognition of any concession based on war crimes will be admitted at any time?
Stephen Doughty
The right hon. Gentleman asks important questions. He has heard what I had to say about the abducted children, and I completely share his passion, and his horror at what has happened. I will not go into the details of what was discussed yesterday, but as I said, I spoke about this issue very recently with our Ukrainian counterparts, and I know that the Foreign Secretary takes a very keen interest in it. The right hon. Gentleman also asked about territory. I will repeat what I said: we do not recognise Russian sovereignty over any territory illegally seized from Ukraine, including Crimea.
Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)
I was also one of the Members sanctioned by Putin yesterday for calling for this House to do everything we can to stop him. The lesson of a century ago is that dictators like Putin cannot and will not stop unless we stop them, and the only way to stop him is through strength—through strong armed forces, a strong NATO and a strong nation. How will we invest in our strength to stop Putin and keep ourselves safe?
Stephen Doughty
Again, I condemn the sanction against my hon. Friend. He asks what we are doing to keep our citizens and all our allies safe, and to keep our shared security in place. Again, I am pleased to be joined by the Minister for the Armed Forces. This Government have stepped up resources for defence and security and UK support to Ukraine. We are increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, and have an ambition to reach 3%, and the UK is committed to providing Ukraine with £3 billion in military assistance this year and every year for as long as it takes. I mentioned the ERA loan, and we also have export finance support, £1.6 billion of which is going on supplying Ukraine with more than 5,000 air defence missiles. That is utterly crucial and makes a tangible difference, not least in the face of the barbaric attacks that we saw overnight.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
I welcome fresh members to the list of those of us who have been sanctioned. Why is President Trump treating Ukraine as the aggressor? Will the Minister remind US negotiators that—together with the United Kingdom—the USA signed the Budapest memorandum, assuring Ukraine of its territorial integrity and independence, when that country sacrificed unilaterally its position as the world’s third largest nuclear-armed power?
Stephen Doughty
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s support on Ukraine, but again, I do not share his characterisation of the United States’ position. We share President Trump’s desire to bring this barbaric war to an end, and we are working closely with the US and other international partners to secure a just and lasting peace. As I have said, it is very clear to us that President Zelensky and Ukraine are demonstrating and have demonstrated a clear commitment to peace, including through their participation yesterday alongside the US and our European partners. We know who the real obstacle to peace is: Vladimir Putin.
Mr Connor Rand (Altrincham and Sale West) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that, as other hon. Members have alluded to, last night’s brutal attack on Kyiv is a timely reminder to Governments and leaders around the world that Russia is and always has been the aggressor in this conflict? Does he agree that that perspective must be central to any talks, as we stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes?
Stephen Doughty
As I have said, we are absolutely unequivocal that Russia and Vladimir Putin are responsible for this war, and we are absolutely clear that they are responsible for the ongoing killing and aggression. That is why we stand four-square and iron-clad behind Ukraine, and we are working with the United States and our European allies to achieve a peace that is just and—most importantly—lasting. We know that Putin’s demands and intentions remain undiminished, and we need to ensure that Ukraine has the ability not only to defend itself, but to deter future aggression by Putin.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
This weekend, I will join with the Ukrainian community in Torbay to mourn the sad loss of a Ukrainian national who has died far from home. Almost 20,000 children have been stolen by the barbaric Putin regime; can the Minister advise the Chamber on what practical steps the Government are taking to get those children home?
Stephen Doughty
I was able to discuss some of the practical steps that we are taking on this important issue just a few weeks ago with the Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine and, indeed, with many of the organisations that are working on it. We are exploring further ways in which we can assist; we have already done a huge amount, and I look forward to seeing steps forward taken in due course. I am very happy to update the hon. Gentleman in writing with further details.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I am ashamed to admit that I have not yet been sanctioned by Russia—I am feeling a little bit lonely. Clearly, I have to do more to call out Putin’s barbaric war crimes. This House is always at its most united and its most passionate when we are talking about the need for a just peace in Ukraine, so can I ask the Minister very delicately whether he is convinced that all our international allies understand that for a peace to be lasting, it has to be just?
Stephen Doughty
I think that is well understood, and it is a point that we continue to underline in all of our conversations, whether across the Atlantic, across Europe or with other parties internationally. It is why we have supported the important work on the special tribunal on the crime of aggression; it is why we are supporting action on justice for crimes that have potentially been committed in Ukraine; and it is why we are continuing to support key institutions within Ukraine on these issues and have worked within the Council of Europe on these issues, too. We have been very clear that justice must come alongside sustainability and Ukraine’s ability to deter future aggression and of course to defend itself and its people right now.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The assistance that we have provided to our friends in Ukraine has included firefighting equipment, along with training on the use of that equipment. The devastation that took place overnight demonstrates that that assistance is still inadequate, so will the Minister undertake to review with the fire service Minister, the hon. Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris), what extra provision we can provide? If we cannot provide anything, will he reach out to our international partners to encourage them to supply equipment, so that the fires can be brought under control and people’s lives saved?
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Member raises an important issue, and I know the huge support that has gone in. Indeed, I worked with colleagues on some of that in the previous Parliament. One of my friends in Ukraine was called up as a military firefighter in responding to some of those attacks on the cities. The need is huge, and we have been giving a huge amount of support on reconstruction, energy infrastructure and other issues. I am happy to look at the issues he raises and to see whether there is more we can do in that regard.
Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)
Pope Francis described pride as the most devious of sins, but I wonder if we can be granted a little bit of indulgence and the Minister can take some pride in colleagues from across the House joining the fine group of those who have been sanctioned by Russia. However, those who are doing the hard yards are in Ukraine. Can the Minister assure us that he believes that the United States still believes in Ukraine’s territorial integrity, for which those brave Ukrainians are fighting?
Stephen Doughty
I have been clear that we are working closely with President Trump and the United States, our European partners and others. I refer the hon. Member to the comments I made just a short while ago in response to the shadow Foreign Secretary. We are clear that Ukraine must be at the heart of these negotiations. That is why we are working closely with the United States, with our European partners and, crucially, with Ukraine. That was exactly what was happening in the technical talks yesterday here in London.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
On Tuesday, I asked the Defence Secretary what our red lines would be at yesterday’s peace talks regarding any peace proposal from the US that required Ukraine to cede any of its sovereign territory to Russia. I did not receive an answer. Yesterday, US Vice-President J.D. Vance told reporters:
“Now, of course, that means the Ukrainians and the Russians are both going to have to give up some of the territory they currently own.”
Can the Minister now state that the Government will not support any US proposal that sees Russia make territorial gains at the expense of Ukraine upon any permanent cessation of hostilities?
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Member will understand that, like the Defence Secretary, I will not be drawn on the detail of the discussions yesterday. The only person that that would benefit is Vladimir Putin. We have been clear that we share the United States’ desire to bring this barbaric war to an end. Ultimately, though, it is for Ukraine to decide its future. Our position on that has not changed, and that is why we are working closely with Ukraine, our international partners and others to end the bloodshed and suffering caused by Russia. We are clear on who the aggressor is in this situation. We will continue to stand iron-clad with Ukraine.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
I have nothing new to say about this, but since I was one of those included yesterday in the list of those who were no longer welcome in the Kremlin—not that I had thought I ever would be—I feel compelled to place on record that my determination to oppose and expose the brutality and illegality of Vladimir Putin and his Government is greater today than it was yesterday. Can the Minister do what he can to make sure that our resolve in this House is heard in the Kremlin and also, if necessary, in the White House?
Stephen Doughty
I am absolutely sure that the voices in this House are heard across the world. I have no doubt that the Kremlin is watching what is being said. Again, I condemn the sanction against the right hon. Member and other Members across the House. This terrible aggression by Russia and by Putin has often had the exact opposite effect of what he intended; it has strengthened NATO unity, and we have new members of NATO, increased defence spending, increased resolve, increased unity, and increased willingness to stand with Ukraine not just now but 100 years into the future. That is the message that we continue to send from this House and that we continue to send from our allies. It is the message that we must continue to send.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
At the London talks, did the Government have the opportunity to discuss with allies the deployment of 155 members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in support of Russia against Ukraine?
Stephen Doughty
I am not going to get into the detail of the talks yesterday, but I will make it clear to the hon. Member that we are acting robustly against third-country support for Russia’s illegal war, including through our sanctions. We did so in relation to a series of matters, including the support of military industrial companies and others. The Foreign Secretary raised concerns with his Chinese counterpart on China’s supply of equipment to Russia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s relationship with Russia. We engage very closely on third-country support, in whatever form that takes, and we are not afraid to take action where that is necessary.
Llinos Medi (Ynys Môn) (PC)
I welcome the UK Government’s recent commitment to strengthening their energy partnership with Ukraine, which is crucial for Europe’s energy independence. I recently visited Urenco’s Capenhurst site, where an advanced nuclear fuels facility is being developed—a market that is currently dominated by Russia. Could the Minister outline how the UK Government are advancing this technology and what it means for the UK’s energy partnership with Ukraine?
Stephen Doughty
Diolch yn fawr; I appreciate the hon. Lady’s interest in these issues and her support. We have been doing a huge amount with Ukraine to support its energy sector against the terrible attacks that have been taking place, but we have also been working on how we might co-operate together on energy in the future. That is a crucial question for all of us across Europe. I continually raise with European and other counterparts the issue of removing the dependency on supplies from Russia and elsewhere. We need to look at new partnerships and ways forward in which we can support all our energy needs—whether that is through renewables, through nuclear or in other ways. This is an important issue, and I thank the hon. Lady for raising it.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
Can the Minister update the House on whether yesterday’s meeting involved discussion of any potential future co-operation between the US and Russia on energy? If it did, did he impart to his US counterparts that such an arrangement would be a folly?
Stephen Doughty
As I said before, I will not get into the detail of talks and discussions. We are very clear on our position, which is that we need to support and stand with Ukraine. We are having productive and constructive talks. Those continued yesterday with the United States, European allies and others, and I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Llinos Medi) a moment ago.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
How can the Minister describe yesterday’s talks as productive if the United States continues to make unreasonable demands of Ukraine that the United Kingdom does not support?
Stephen Doughty
I can describe those talks as productive and constructive because they were.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
It is being reported today that the White House is considering lifting its sanctions on the Russian Nord Stream natural gas pipeline —more evidence, in case it was needed, that this US Administration are increasingly siding with Russia. This is hugely concerning, as I am sure the whole Chamber agrees. May I please urge the Minister and the Department to use whatever leverage they have with the US Administration to prevent that from happening? If it does go ahead, what will the Government’s next steps be?
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Lady asks an important question about sanctions. The Prime Minister has been very clear that sanctions against Russia are a vital part of our armoury, and the UK is committed to maintaining our Russia sanctions—we are not considering lifting them. As the PM said in Paris, in order to get Russia to the table, we need to keep up the economic pressure to hinder its ability to wage war, and we need to deal with all the ways in which the war is being fuelled and supplied. The purposes of our sanctions are very clear: to stop Russia threatening and undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence; to help ensure that Russia pays for the damage it has caused; and to make sure that Ukraine is placed in the best possible position to secure a just and lasting peace. We will continue to work with the United States and all our allies on those important issues.
Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)
Further to the last question, there is rightly concern that Russia continues to bypass sanctions through its shadow fleet. What measures are the Government taking alongside our allies to prevent that?
Stephen Doughty
Since this Government came into office, we have ramped up our efforts, particularly on the issue of the shadow fleet, on which we first sought sanctions at the European Political Community summit, just days after coming into office. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the impact of those sanctions has been substantial in constraining and taking down Russia’s ability to wage this war. Collectively, the sanctions by the previous Government and this Government have prevented $450 billion-worth of support to fuel Russia’s war. That could have paid for another three or four years of military aggression against Ukraine. We will not hesitate to consider further actions in this area; indeed, we have announced some of the biggest packages in recent weeks.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister very much for his answers. I was one of those to be sanctioned, but what does that sanction mean? It means that my superyacht—I do not have one—cannot be taken to Vladivostok for the summer or for the winter, so I will have to take it to Ballywalter, the village where I was born and brought up, and put it alongside the rented rowing boat that I use now and again. The sanction will not stop me speaking up to tell it straight on Russia’s crimes, and let us remember what those are. There are the stolen children, whom the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) talked about. There are the thousands of men, women and children who have been murdered, and the church pastors who have disappeared. There was the massacre in Bucha. All those crimes anger us. This is about accountability: it is about making sure that the Russians who carried out those crimes will be held to account some day. By the way, I hope they are watching, because a sanction does not stop me, and it will not stop anyone else in this Chamber speaking up either.
I apologise for that introduction, but as I said earlier this week, peace is the goal, but not at any price. What discussions has the Minister had with the Ukrainians to ensure they understand that our support is there until the right deal is in place? What discussions have taken place with our American allies to ensure that we are still on the same page when it comes to making sure that Russian aggression is not rewarded and that Ukraine’s sacrifice is always remembered?
Stephen Doughty
I think the hon. Gentleman’s comments, like those of my hon. Friends, accurately capture the sentiments of this House. I condemn the sanction against him, but the reaction of him and other Members of this House should show everybody in the world—including Vladimir Putin, but also our allies and, most importantly, Ukraine—that our support remains ironclad and undiminished: it will strengthen rather than diminish.
I visited Bucha just a few weeks ago, and as with colleagues who have visited it, those scenes will never leave my mind. Let alone the horrific scenes we have seen over the last few weeks, the fact that that place has suffered so much—it is where priests were murdered and children were abducted, and just hours before I was there, further missiles came in and killed civilians—should leave nobody in any doubt whatsoever about who is the aggressor. It is Vladimir Putin and his regime. It is his war of aggression. Ukraine is the party that is serious about peace. We will work with Ukraine, the United States and our European allies in the endeavour to find that peace, but the ball is now very much in Vladimir Putin’s court.
London Sudan Conference
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if he will make a statement on the London Sudan conference.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr Hamish Falconer)
Co-hosted with the African Union, the EU, France and Germany, the London Sudan conference convened Foreign Ministers, major donors and humanitarian leaders to galvanise co-ordinated international action on the conflict. Discussions focused on ensuring humanitarian access, protecting civilians and supporting a Sudanese-led peace process that preserves Sudan’s territorial integrity. A co-chairs’ statement set out the shared principles of an immediate ceasefire, rejection of external interference, opposition to parallel Governments, a return to a civilian-led transition and a principled approach to full, unimpeded humanitarian access.
Although this was not a pledging conference, international partners did announce over £800 million of support to address the humanitarian situation. This includes a further £120 million in UK aid for this year, which will reach over 650,000 people with food, nutrition support and emergency assistance, including for survivors of sexual violence. It follows our sustained push to ensure aid reaches those in need, including through access corridors such as the Adré crossing from Chad.
The UK will continue to lead international efforts to end the conflict in Sudan. Our immediate goals are clear: to bring an end to this destructive war, to protect civilians and to get aid to where it is needed most. Our vision for Sudan is to work with the Sudanese people and international partners to deliver the democratic and peaceful future that they deserve.
David Mundell
I thank Mr Speaker for granting this urgent question. It is so important that we shine a light on this conflict, which is the worst humanitarian crisis in the world at this time. Sudan is experiencing the most extreme hunger crisis. Conflict-related famine, mass displacement, and extreme and sexual violence and killings continue to devastate millions of people. About half the population—24.5 million people—are experiencing acute food insecurity, with 650,000 facing catastrophic hunger. The conflict has led to an unprecedented displacement, with 8.6 million people internally displaced since the start of the conflict and nearly 4 million people forced to flee across borders.
Unfortunately, the crisis continues to get worse. In recent days, we have seen the Rapid Support Forces attack the Zamzam camp, which housed about 500,000 displaced people, and the Sudanese Government allegedly attack a market in western Darfur, which is speculated to be one of the worst single incidents of the conflict. I share the Minister’s aspirations, as I am sure does the whole House, but we cannot underestimate the scale of the challenge. I was pleased that the Government took part in the conference, but it was very disappointing that it was not possible to get the other participants, particularly the Arab nations, to sign up to an agreement at the end of it. It was also disappointing to find the RSF declaring an alternative Government within a few days of the conference.
What are the Government doing to encourage a greater role for the African Union, particularly in discussions at the United Nations? Generally, there is a view that if the African Union was more involved, it would be more difficult for Russia to veto UN resolutions. Secondly, what are we doing in relation to the United Arab Emirates and its role in the conflict, which has been significant?
Mr Falconer
This is a truly tragic sequence of events for the people of Sudan. The right hon. Gentleman has long had an interest and he is right to call me to the House to answer questions. We had hoped that at the conference last week, we would be able to issue a communiqué agreed by all parties. As he identifies, there is a whole range of countries with an interest in Sudan. We are at real risk at the moment not only of a further degradation of the situation for those in Zamzam, northern Darfur and across Sudan, but, as he says, of a declaration of parallel Governments, none of which will lead to the peaceful democratic future that the Sudanese have long hoped for.
The Foreign Secretary took the decision to try for this conference in an attempt to ensure wide agreement among the parties, because he recognises that there must be no hierarchy of conflict. The situation in Sudan is catastrophic and we are making every effort. The conference was the beginning, not the end, of our efforts to try to reduce the suffering in Sudan.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
Let me begin by supporting the remarks of my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) and congratulating him on securing what is a very important urgent question.
Many millions of innocent Sudanese civilians have been caught up in what is a barbaric conflict. They deserve peace and dignity. They are facing the most appalling, dire humanitarian crisis. It is a fact that red lines have been crossed in the conflict, and that cannot be allowed to stand. We all want to help chart a course to a meaningful peace for the people of Sudan, and we are aware of the various pillars articulated in the London Sudan conference statement. We all agree on the need for an immediate end to the fighting, on preventing the partition of Sudan, and on the need for urgent humanitarian access.
Crucially, the Foreign Secretary’s conference did not see any new practical measures agreed with the African Union and other partners to help the warring parties into a ceasefire and an end to the conflict, and, importantly, to deter the ways in which the conflict is being escalated, because there has been no de-escalation whatsoever. Supporting a transition to a civilian-led Government is clearly crucial, and it must be led by the Sudanese people. What practical diplomacy are the Foreign Office and the Foreign Secretary doing to help international processes such as Cairo to stay on track and to build confidence among the Sudanese civilian and political forces?
Finally, the Minister mentioned the additional £120 million in humanitarian aid announced by the Government for 2025-26. Will he inform us which organisations the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is partnering with for the delivery of this new aid, whether delivery has started and whether it is actually making any impact whatsoever? Will he also confirm that in parallel to announcing this new aid, he is working to keep border crossings open and pressing for the proper safety nets to ensure that this aid ends up with those who genuinely need it, and not in the wrong hands?
Mr Falconer
Like the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), the shadow Foreign Secretary raises important questions about the African Union. We thought it was particularly important that we co-hosted this event with the African Union; clearly, this is an important conflict with wide implications for those in the neighbourhood and in east Africa. We are taking practical steps, and we conducted the conference in closed session in order to enable the kind of frank discussion that is required to advance towards a more peaceful solution in Sudan.
I would not wish to give the House the impression that we have made dramatic progress towards an end to the violence in Sudan. We are all familiar with the terrible reports that continue to come in—even this morning—of events in Darfur and across Sudan.
Through the conference, we were able to bring greater unity among the international community on what the necessary next steps must be and on the importance of maintaining open border crossings, which, as the shadow Foreign Secretary sets out, are vital, in addition to trying to ensure that humanitarian access can be exercised right across Sudan. We have been in discussions with Tom Fletcher, the emergency relief co-ordinator, who has today spoken to some of the key participants. In terms of practical steps, I can confirm that we remain in direct contact, through our special envoy for Sudan, with both the RSF and the Sudanese armed forces. We are absolutely clear that we need a civilian process towards civilian Government.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The Government were right to co-ordinate this conference as a first step on the path to peace. It is obviously disappointing that it was not possible to establish a contact group at the end of the conference, but I know the Minister will be working hard to progress bilateral talks, not least with the external actors in this conflict such as the UAE and Egypt.
I want to put the spotlight on women and girls in this conflict, who are experiencing high levels of sexual violence. What discussions were there on the protection of women and girls, and on the further steps that could be taken both to ensure the safety of those experiencing trauma today because of their experiences and to protect women and girls in the future?
Mr Falconer
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to put the focus on violence against women and girls in Sudan. It is absolutely appalling—the latest reports are lurid and graphic in their details of what is befalling women and children right across Sudan. The Minister for Africa has been leading international efforts to maintain a spotlight on these questions. He chaired a UN Security Council briefing on conflict-related sexual violence in Sudan just last month, and was also at the UN Security Council in November further highlighting this issue. This conflict is disproportionately affecting women and children, and the UK will remain completely focused on doing everything we can to bring that to a close.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
The Sudan conference in London presented an opportunity to generate international consensus for a path to peace in Sudan’s civil war, the world’s largest conflict. It was deeply disappointing that the conference failed to establish a contact group for the conflict, as such a group could build international political will to move towards an end to the fighting. Will the Minister therefore outline what new diplomatic initiatives he will pursue to establish a contact group?
I welcome the announcement of £120 million more for humanitarian aid, but with aid access being wielded as a weapon of war on both sides, can the Minister assure us that it will reach civilians?
Gender-based violence is a terrible feature of the war, so what steps can be taken to protect women and children? I am also deeply concerned by reports that other nations are supplying arms to the warring factions, particularly the reports that the United Arab Emirates have provided weapons to the Rapid Support Forces, which are alleged to have committed mass civilian killings and are accused by the US of genocide in Darfur. Will the Minister outline what steps he has taken to stop the flow of arms to ensure that British exports are not used in Sudan?
Mr Falconer
The shadow Foreign Secretary also raised those questions. I am happy to write to the House with further details about aid delivery, both in relation to the £120 million in further funding and the concerning reports over recent days about restrictions in aid access, particularly in Darfur. Once the situation becomes clearer, I am happy to provide a full update to all parties on the practical questions about aid delivery.
The hon. Lady asks about the practical successes of the conference and what is next on the diplomatic front. The statement from the co-chairs, which include not just the UK, but the African Union, the EU and others, attempted to capture what was an important and frank set of discussions over the course of the day, and set out five principles. It went further than any other recent statement, calling for a ceasefire, rejecting external interference, opposing parallel governance and supporting a transition to civilian-led Governments. My Foreign Office officials have been talking to all parties with an interest in Sudan, including the two belligerents, to make it clear that the statement is the strong view of the international community and that we expect to see it put in place.
It is true, as the two most recent questions have set out, that we were not able to secure a contact group at the conference. I would not want the House to think that, as frank and behind closed doors as it was, the conference was therefore a failure. The fact that this is difficult is all the more reason why it was important for the UK to show leadership and to bring the African Union and others to the table to discuss these issues.
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
What is happening in Sudan should shock us all. UNICEF has warned that children as young as one are being raped. More than 220 cases of child rape have been reported since 2024, so we need outrage and, more importantly, action. Can the Minister confirm how much of our aid, if any, is being spent on supporting survivors of sexual abuse and violence, and also how we are using our role as penholder on Sudan at the UN to push for action specifically on sexual violence?
Mr Falconer
My hon. Friend has worked extensively on these issues, and I know her commitment to them. I will write to her with a full breakdown on which part of our aid programmes are working with survivors. As I set out in answer to an earlier question, the Minister for Africa has led efforts at the Security Council on ensuring that the whole international community is focused on the atrocities that she has just described. We are also leading efforts at the Human Rights Council to establish and renew the mandate for the UN fact-finding mission, which will be crucial to supporting future accountability efforts in Sudan.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I appreciate the pressures on the Minister’s officials, but does the Minister agree that this disaster playing out in Sudan is under-reported, and, therefore, may I encourage him in the future to take every opportunity to come to the House voluntarily with statements, rather than rely on urgent questions, to give him the opportunity, which he has quite rightly taken today, to spell out where we are in this awful situation?
Mr Falconer
I am always happy to come to the House, but let me just clarify that I am not the Minister with policy responsibility for Sudan; that belongs to the Minister for Africa in the Lords. Since taking office, the Foreign Secretary has shown strong personal commitment to this conflict. He is intensely aware of the many conflicts in the world, but appreciates that this is the one that is causing the greatest humanitarian disaster. There is a danger of appearing to create a hierarchy of conflict, and the Foreign Secretary is personally committed to ensuring that that is not the case, and that is why he took the leadership that he did last week.
Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)
Sudan is the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis, and we know that there has been a particular toll on women and girls, as other Members have mentioned. Some 80% of hospitals in conflict-affected areas are not functioning, and maternal deaths have spiked, so can the Minister say little bit more about how aid will support hospitals in the region?
Mr Falconer
I thank my hon. Friend for her important question. As I have said in previous answers, we are very focused on the fate of women and girls in Sudan. We have been working through the United Nations and with the emergency relief co-ordinator to ensure that the necessary aid is in place, whether that is for the function of hospitals, to support survivors or to protect the mechanisms to prevent civilian suffering. I will update the House once the position is clearer, given the events of the last few days.
Brendan O’Hara (Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber) (SNP)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) on securing this urgent question and laying out the unimaginable horror of what is currently happening in Sudan. There is a very real danger that the catastrophe in Sudan will spread to neighbouring countries. Since 2023, an estimated 800,000 Sudanese refugees have fled to Chad, which is already one of the poorest countries in the world and ranked No. 1 in the list of countries at risk of genocide. What assessment has been made of the impact of overseas aid cuts to the likelihood of genocide occurring in Chad, and what are the Government doing proactively to prevent a genocide in Chad?
Mr Falconer
The hon. Gentleman asks an important question. Since the conflict began, 3.6 million refugees have fled to neighbouring countries. That of course includes Chad, but also Egypt, South Sudan, Uganda and the Central African Republic. Many of these countries I know well, and I served in South Sudan for the Department for International Development for two years. These are countries with delicate political balances and that have seen recent incidences of severe conflict. What happens in Sudan makes a difference to neighbouring countries. I do not think that what is centrally at issue here is UK aid to Chad. What is centrally at issue is violent displacement from Sudan, and we will remain focused on those questions.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
I commend the Foreign Secretary for co-hosting the conference and for giving this situation the political and diplomatic attention that it warrants. The crisis in Sudan is awful. The UN has warned that
“never in modern history have so many people faced starvation and famine as in Sudan today”.
The UN puts that down to the deliberate starvation tactics by the RSF and the SAF. Can the Minister outline what further measures the Government are taking to end the deliberate obstruction of food aid by the warring parties?
Mr Falconer
The UK condemns the growing body of evidence of serious atrocities being committed against civilians in Sudan. The escalation of violence, killing of civilians, sexual assault of women and restriction of humanitarian access must end. That is why in January the Foreign Secretary visited the Sudan-Chad border and raised awareness of the conflict. It is why we hosted the conference last week and are in regular touch with both the parties themselves and all those with influence, including regional players, the United Nations and major donors. We are trying to do everything we can to ensure that humanitarian access is properly restored.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
Might it be expedient if we use our intelligence resources to expose and shame those who are fuelling the conflict through arming the antagonists?
Mr Falconer
We are clear that there should be no external interference in Sudan and that a continuation of this conflict serves no one. It is why we took the efforts last week that we did, and we held the conference in closed-door sessions in order to allow the frankest possible exchange of views on the way ahead.
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
The scenes from Sudan are beyond harrowing. There is brutal murder, millions at risk of starvation, and millions more have been displaced, with women and children watching their sons, fathers and husbands be brutally killed and many of those women and children being victims of the most horrendous sexual violence. In Newcastle-under-Lyme, I represent a number of people from the Sudanese community—either born in Sudan or whose parents were born in Sudan. They are watching the TV in horror, fear and sorrow. What we are doing to engage with and support the British Sudanese community here in the United Kingdom?
Mr Falconer
My hon. Friend speaks about the horrors for British Sudanese residents who are looking back at home and seeing such atrocious scenes. I am sure that the Minister for Africa will be happy to meet with my hon. Friend and his constituents to discuss the issue further. I have Sudanese constituents in Lincoln, and I know the horror that they feel each and every day looking at this imagery.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
Does the Minister agree that religious freedom must remain a key pillar of the UK’s foreign aid policy? That said, with Sudan now ranked as one of the worst countries in the world for Christian persecution according to Open Doors, will he confirm whether the protection of religious minorities will be a condition—indeed, a priority—of the distribution of foreign aid to Sudan?
Mr Falconer
Freedom of religious belief remains a real priority for the Government. On my way to the House, I was with our new envoy for freedom of religious belief, meeting with the Baha’i community, who have suffered in Yemen and Iran. This remains an important question for the Government, and we will remain focused on it through the envoy.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
The Minister rightly condemns the violence against women and girls in Sudan. Will he update the House specifically on what assistance is being provided to the victims of female genital mutilation? Those women are literally castrated. Will he ensure that we are providing assistance to those poor women?
Mr Falconer
I have heard the House’s interest in the fine detail of which elements of our aid programme are working with survivors, and I commit to providing that further information in due course.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
I am deeply concerned by the ongoing conflict in Sudan and in particular the sexual violence that was brought to light so shockingly by the hon. Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald). When the Minister next engages with his counterparts in South Sudan, will he raise the case of Dr Ding Col Dau Ding? He travelled from Norfolk to South Sudan to practise medicine shortly after independence and saved many lives across east Africa in his time there. Just a year later, he was shockingly murdered, and his family—my constituents—have been fighting for justice for almost a decade. Will he meet me and the family of Dr Ding to discuss how they can finally secure justice for their beloved brother and son?
Mr Falconer
I am not familiar with the case. I will discuss it with the Minister for Africa and ensure that the hon. Member gets a proper response.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
I thank the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) for securing the urgent question. Despite the barbarity of Sudan, it seems to be the forgotten conflict. What steps are being taken to investigate and prevent the transfer of arms to Sudan via third countries who may have been present at the conference over the weekend and are allies of the UK?
Mr Falconer
We were clear in the co-chairs’ statement, as we have been in many other places, that we do not want external interference in this conflict. We are taking every step we can to try to ensure that we get back to a diplomatic solution and back to a civilian transfer towards civilian rule, which is what the Sudanese so desperately need.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister clearly understands the issues and responds to our questions, so we thank him for that. Having, like others, raised the Sudanese war on numerous occasions and the acts of depravity and war crimes that have taken place over the last number of years, I and many others were disheartened to see the end to any semblance of peace talks. However, we must not lose heart and give up. The people of Sudan deserve a better chance of hope and a future without living in fear. How will the Minister facilitate further peace talks? What discussions have taken place with allies to produce a co-ordinated global effort to stop the torture, the maiming and the killing and to bring peace to all?
Mr Falconer
I say with regret that the two protagonists of the conflict do not appear prepared to enter into serious talks at the moment. That was why they were not invited to the conference. The conference was not an attempt to mediate a peace deal as that is not possible if neither participant is prepared to do so. We made the judgment that the conference was so important to try to cohere international support towards the next steps to try to reduce the violence. We are working with all our partners to try to do that.
Business of the House
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House give us the forthcoming business?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Lucy Powell)
The business for the week commencing 28 April includes:
Monday 28 April—Second Reading of the Football Governance Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 29 April—Remaining stages of the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill.
Wednesday 30 April—Committee of the whole House and remaining stages of the Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill, followed by motion to approve the draft Licensing Act 2003 (Victory in Europe Day Licensing Hours) Order 2025, followed by motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Crime and Policing Bill.
Thursday 1 May—General debate on Parkinson’s Awareness Month, followed by general debate on prisoners of conscience. The subjects for these debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
The House will rise for the early May bank holiday at the conclusion of business on Thursday 1 May and return on Tuesday 6 May. The provisional business for the week commencing 5 May will include:
Tuesday 6 May—General debate on the 80th anniversary of victory in Europe and victory over Japan.
Wednesday 7 May—Remaining stages of the Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords].
Thursday 8 May—Business to be determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 9 May—The House will not be sitting.
Jesse Norman
Could there be a local election coming up? I very much hope that you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and everyone here had a perfectly spectacular Easter. I am sure I speak for the whole House in recording my sadness at the death of His Holiness the Pope, who was, in his work and in his life, the embodiment of faith, hope and charity.
If I may, I would like to start with something small but important. My hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) recently asked the Secretary of State for Education, in a written parliamentary question, whether she had visited any private schools since July last year. The junior Education Minister, the hon. Member for Portsmouth South (Stephen Morgan), replied that
“the Secretary of State for Education and the wider ministerial team visit a wide variety of education settings, including private schools. The Secretary of State for Education prioritises visits to our state schools, which serve 93% of pupils in England.”
All that is no doubt true but it is not an answer to the question that was put. All ministerial visits are logged by the Department, so it would have been and remains easy to compile the numbers. The Leader of the House has made clear on many occasions her commitment and belief that Members of this House should receive proper answers to their questions. Will she take up the matter with the Secretary of State for Education and see that a proper answer is given?
A few weeks ago I talked about how the Prime Minister was steadily being mugged by reality, and we have seen this again in the last few days with the Government’s U-turn on the ban on sourcing photovoltaic cells built with slave labour in China. The same can be said for the Government’s energy policy as a whole. It is important to put before the House the fact that Labour’s 2024 manifesto promised to cut bills, boost energy security and create cheaper, zero-carbon electricity by 2030, accelerating to net zero by 2050. It tried to allay public concerns by promising
“a phased and responsible transition in the North Sea that recognises…the ongoing role of oil and gas in our energy mix.”
Nine months on, we can see how that is going. The Government have already had to U-turn on their infeasible commitment to zero carbon electricity by 2030. Most recently, the situation with British Steel in Scunthorpe has underlined the deeper incoherence of their overall approach. By banning new oil and gas licences and preventing new exploration, the Government are committing the UK to greater dependency on imported oil and gas at higher cost, with higher emissions and under less democratic control. In so doing, they are not advancing environmental justice or economic resilience; they are accelerating a decline in energy sovereignty that will leave this country more polluting, less secure and, ultimately, poorer.
If we do not produce our own oil and gas, we will have to buy it. The difference is that it will come from overseas, and imported energy is not only more expensive but has a far higher carbon footprint. I remind the House that, for example, importing liquefied natural gas involves cooling gas to 160° below zero, shipping it thousands of miles from Qatar and regasifying it at a port in this country. The net emissions are up to four times higher than those from North sea gas. Crucially, UK territorial emissions go down, but overall emissions, including imports, are higher than they would be. This is not an honest policy.
Labour’s manifesto talked about the importance of energy security, but refusing to allow new exploration does not reduce our vulnerability; it increases it. Energy, after all, is national security. It is industrial strategy. It is heating our houses and fuelling our cars. The idea that a major economy should voluntarily give up control of its energy supply before alternatives are well advanced is not progressive—it is reckless.
The problem goes somewhat wider. The Government talk about a green industrial revolution, but the more expensive imported energy we have, the harder that will be to achieve. Not just steel but chemicals, ceramics and fertilisers all require large amounts of gas and will do for years to come. If energy is unreliable or unaffordable, those industries will continue to struggle whatever the fond imaginings of the Secretary of State. Worse still, the Government’s policy will squander capital and skills that might have gone into safely managing the UK’s remaining hydrocarbon assets. The extra revenues that would have helped fund the transition will now be lost to the many other countries that welcome such investment, while the Government turn their back on a sector that still employs 200,000 people and contributes billions in tax revenue.
I ask the Leader of the House whether she shares my view that we badly need some common sense here. We all want an effective and just energy transition, but that starts with one principle: control what we can and use our own resources responsibly and transparently while building the clean energy system of the future. Instead, the Government have chosen a path that will increase emissions, raise costs, weaken the economy and tie Britain’s future to foreign powers and volatile markets. That is not leadership; that is an abdication.
Lucy Powell
I am sure the thoughts of the whole House will be with Catholics in this country and around the world as they grieve Pope Francis. As the shadow Leader of the House said, Pope Francis embodied the very best of us with his deep faith and commitment to the poorest, the weakest and those dealing with conflict and destitution. I once again put on the record my thanks to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, to Mr Speaker and to all the House staff for the professional and speedy way they recalled Parliament for us over the Easter recess. They have dedication and professionalism at their core.
I take this opportunity, which I do not think has been done yet in the House, to pay tribute to Rory McIlroy on finally getting one of the greatest sporting achievements —the golf grand slam—and being the first European to do so. The resilience and mental strength he showed was unbelievable, and he was a role model of great sportsmanship. I also wish good luck to all those taking part in the London marathon this weekend.
The shadow Leader of the House raises a number of points about the Government’s energy and climate change strategy, but he misunderstands the economics of the situation. The way we will get energy security and lower bills in the future and over the long term is by having our own energy security and our own clean energy supplies. We have to get ourselves off fossil fuels because to get that energy security, we have to become a price maker, not a price taker. Home-grown energy is the only way we will get control over our prices and get off the fossil fuel roller coaster. As a country, we have great assets: we are an island nation with an ability to generate offshore and onshore wind, tidal and nuclear energy.
This Government have wasted no time. We have lifted the ban on onshore wind. We have established Great British Energy. We have approved nearly 3GW of solar, delivered a record-breaking renewables auction, kick-started carbon capture and got the nuclear planning reforms under way. That is how this country will bring down energy bills and get the energy security we need. We have to get ourselves off the fossil fuel rollercoaster. The shadow Leader of the House needs to look at the economics of the situation.
I notice that the Chamber is very busy today—unlike many Members—as we look forward to the local elections. The shadow Leader of the House did not want to use this opportunity to make his party’s pitch for the forthcoming local elections, perhaps because the Conservatives are not quite sure what their pitch is. People have not forgotten the chaos and decline that his party left this country in after 14 years of failure and sleaze.
The Labour party is putting money in people’s pockets with our boost to the living wage, with wages rising faster than prices; we are fixing the NHS, with waiting lists down for six months in a row and cut by 220,000 since July; our new free breakfast clubs will give kids the start to life that they need; we are taking back control of our trains and buses; and, as I saw at the weekend, we are taking swift action to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour by seizing and crushing off-road bikes, which I did myself. That is the difference that Labour makes in power.
I am still not quite sure what the Conservative party’s strategy is at the elections. Perhaps the shadow Leader of the House would like to enlighten us. Is it what has been proposed by the shadow Justice Secretary, the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), in the form of an alliance with Reform? If that is not their strategy, why has he not been sacked? The Leader of the Opposition used her flagship election interview on the “Today” programme this week to tell us of her one big achievement: Tory party unity. I nearly spat out my tea! Tory Members can barely muster a cheer for her at Prime Minister’s questions, and the shadow Justice Secretary is in open leadership campaign mode.
In fact, this week I have seen a letter that the shadow Justice Secretary sent to all Conservative local election candidates with his clear leadership pitch and the offer of “lunch with Robert”. By the way, it was all on House of Commons-headed paper, Madam Deputy Speaker, which is highly questionable. It is blatant manoeuvring, and a strong leader would have sacked him by now. Is it not the truth that, at the elections next week, a vote for the Conservatives is a vote for Reform, and a vote for Reform is a vote for the Conservatives?
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
We have been dealing this week with the sad passing of Pope Francis. I was also deeply saddened by the shocking, cowardly and deadly terrorist attack on innocent tourists in Jammu and Kashmir. The victims and their families are very much in my prayers. I sincerely hope that the perpetrators are swiftly brought to justice. Will my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House take this opportunity to convey this Parliament’s heartfelt condolences to the Indian people and to condemn that callous attack?
Lucy Powell
That horrific terrorist attack in Kashmir was utterly devastating and, as my hon. Friend says, a cowardly act. My thoughts and those of the whole Government are with the affected, especially those who have lost loved ones.
Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)
Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) was denied entry to Hong Kong while making a private trip to see her son and meet her three-month-old grandson for the very first time. She was given no reason by the local authorities as to why she was refused, so it seems reasonable to assume that her only crime was being a British parliamentarian. She tells me that going all that way only to be bundled on to the next flight home with no explanation was a big shock, and that she was close to tears. Her son was waiting for her and her husband just a short distance away in the arrivals lounge, but she never saw him.
This is extremely worrying and has far-reaching and concerning implications. To be clear, my hon. Friend had not been made aware that she would not be welcome in Hong Kong, and it was a purely private visit. The Liberal Democrats are concerned that this could have a chilling effect on all parliamentarians who speak up for freedom and democracy. We cannot and must not accept our democracy being undermined by allowing the intimidation of UK parliamentarians. Will the Leader of the House ask the Foreign Secretary to make a statement on how the Government intend to engage in a clear-eyed manner with authoritarian countries that appear to be creating hidden blacklists of British parliamentarians?
Lucy Powell
I thank the hon. Member for raising this matter on the Floor of the House, because I know that it is of deep concern to all Members. I know the hon. Member for Bath well—I have known her for a number of years, and I enjoyed our exchanges when she was the hon. Lady’s predecessor—and I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear of this incident. She must be so upset not to have had the opportunity to meet her grandson, having been denied entry to Hong Kong in this way.
The hon. Member for Chelmsford (Marie Goldman) is right to say that it is unacceptable for a Member of Parliament to be denied entry to another country simply for being a Member of Parliament, albeit on a private visit in this case. The Government have relayed our deep concerns over this incident to the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities, and we will continue to press these issues with them over the coming months. She is right to say that our democracy and our ability as Members of Parliament to speak freely in this place, and to not have that jeopardised when we travel abroad, is fundamental to what the House of Commons is all about.
Liz Twist (Blaydon and Consett) (Lab)
I recently visited a great regional organisation, North East Youth, in my constituency and met members of the Peer Action Collective, an inspiring group of young people working to prevent violence within the education system. Lucy, Penny and Dan delivered a compelling presentation on the need for clearer communication and better listening to young people in schools. Can we have a debate in Government time on how we can implement more effective ways of understanding the causes of youth violence and disruptive behaviour and supporting young people before an escalation to violence?
Lucy Powell
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Lucy, Penny and Dan, and all those involved in the Peer Action Collective, which sounds like a very good initiative. The Government take youth violence incredibly seriously. We have established the Young Futures programme, and we want to bring all those partners together to take these issues forward. It would make a very good topic for a debate.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I join the shadow Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman), and the Leader of the House in expressing condolences to Catholics all over the world on the death of the Pope. His leadership of the Church will be sadly missed.
In terms of the business, I commend the Clerks who support our Committee on the work they have been doing to try to get colleagues to agree to having a debate next Thursday.
Bob Blackman
We managed to achieve it, thank goodness. May I ask colleagues who have made applications and are on our waiting list to respond speedily once they have been offered a date?
The business on Thursday 8 May will include a debate on St George’s day, which should have been held today, but for the fact that Government business takes precedence. On Thursday 15 May there will be a debate in the Chamber on solar farms. Next Tuesday there will be a debate in Westminster Hall on compensation for criminal injuries. We are not proposing to have debates in Westminster Hall next Thursday because it is the day of local elections. On Tuesday 6 May there will be a debate on parking regulation, and I remind the House that it will take place at 11.30 am, because we will be on Monday hours. There will be further debates in Westminster Hall.
On Tuesday we saw the systematic murder of Hindu pilgrims in Pahalgam in India. The sad reality is that the terrorist group thought to be responsible for this, Lashkar-e-Taiba, is a Pakistani organisation that deliberately targets innocent people in Jammu and Kashmir. Already the Indian Government have revoked visas, closed the border and expelled officials from Pakistan as a result. Probably most importantly, they have suspended the Indus waters treaty. We need the Foreign Secretary to make a statement to the House on what could end up being a quickly escalating situation between India and Pakistan.
Tonight there will be a vigil outside the Indian high commission. I will be representing the Opposition, and I understand that there will be representatives of the Government as well. We must give our reassurance and support to the Government of India in ensuring that they apprehend these terrorists and that those responsible for supporting them are also brought to justice. My understanding is that the Pakistani Government and the Pakistani military have condoned these attacks. I am sure the Leader of the House will join me in condemning these terrorist atrocities and will agree on the need to ensure that people who visit Jammu and Kashmir are held safely and do not have to suffer such incidents yet again.
Lucy Powell
I thank the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee for letting us know about future debates. Like him, I anticipate that next Thursday will not be as popular as today seems to be, for obvious reasons. I absolutely join him in condemning the terrorist attack in Kashmir. This country always stands shoulder to shoulder with other countries—in this case India—that suffer these horrific terrorist attacks, which are cowardly acts that we resolutely condemn. Conversations are ongoing, as he will know, to provide the support that we can, and we will also provide that support to any British nationals affected. I thank him for raising this important matter.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Members will see that there is a lot of interest in business questions today—about 80 wish to speak. I therefore ask any Members who have a long question to rewrite it. It should be no longer than two or three sentences.
David Williams (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
The good people of Kidsgrove were promised significant improvements to their town as part of the Kidsgrove town deal. However, Simon Tagg, the Conservative leader of Newcastle-under-Lyme borough council, alongside the former Conservative Member of Parliament, over-promised and under-delivered. They knew they did not have the funds available. They should now say sorry to the people of Kidsgrove. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on openness and transparency in public funding?
Lucy Powell
I thank my hon. Friend for once again raising this important matter with me. He is a strong advocate for Kidsgrove and his constituents. I am really sorry to hear about the frustrations with the town deal. He is absolutely right that things were over-promised and under-delivered, and that is why the people of his constituency rejected the Conservative party at the last election.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
Last month’s fire at Cirencester is at least the third at a battery energy storage system already this year and residents are understandably worried when they are constructed near to their homes, yet Labour’s planning reforms will make building them in villages such as Lower Penn, Swindon and Wombourne in my constituency even easier. May we have a debate in Government time on the safety of battery energy storage systems, on planning regulations and on how we can ensure that local communities have proper oversight and a real say?
Lucy Powell
I am sorry to hear about the fire in Cirencester. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to get the balance right by ensuring that such facilities are safe and are safely operated while at the same time ensuring that we have the infrastructure that we need, and not just today but in future, for battery storage and other clean energy supplies. We are taking steps to ensure that local communities are consulted on these matters and that they benefit from these facilities when they come to their local area, but we make no apology for saying that we have to sprint towards that clean energy superpower that we need to be.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)
Next week marks the beginning of Coeliac Awareness Month, a time dedicated to raising awareness about coeliac disease, a serious autoimmune disease for which the only treatment is a strict gluten-free diet for life—it is not a fad. While coeliac disease affects one in 100 people in the UK, just 36% are medically diagnosed, leaving an estimated half a million people potentially facing debilitating symptoms yet being in the dark as to their cause. So will the Leader of the House grant a debate in Government time to mark this important month and to help raise important awareness of this terrible disease?
Lucy Powell
Coeliac Awareness Month is an important time and I commend my hon. Friend for raising this issue in the House. She is right that we need to do more to raise awareness of that debilitating disease, especially in relation to treatment and access to affordable gluten-free food, and that would make a good topic for a debate.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
The Leader of the House will probably know that last night, elsewhere in this House, the campaign to return Ukraine’s stolen children was launched, with cross-party support and a very large number of people present. Some 20,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted and taken to the neo-Soviet Union. That is a war crime, as was the bombing of Kyiv and Kharkiv last night, and Putin is a war criminal. Will the Leader of the House consult the Leader of the House of Lords and try to ensure that no person who supports President Putin, however grand, is given a platform that would enable them to address these Houses of Parliament?
Lucy Powell
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising the issue of the stolen children of Ukraine and the event to launch that campaign in the House yesterday. There has just been an urgent question about this matter. The Minister of State in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), was very clear about our unwavering support for Ukraine and our condemnation of the continued actions of Russia and Putin, especially overnight but also over a long period of time. We stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine. We are establishing the coalition of the willing to support what Ukraine wants going forward. The only country that is stopping peace is Russia, under Vladimir Putin, who could stop this war tomorrow if he chose to do so. I am sure that we will continue to discuss these issues.
Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)
I am proud to be the MP for Crystal Palace. On Saturday, many of my constituents will travel to Wembley to see Crystal Palace take on Aston Villa in the FA cup semi-final. A win will see Crystal Palace continue their quest for their first major trophy since the 1991 Zenith Data Systems cup. Will the Leader of the House join me in wishing Crystal Palace football club good luck for the weekend?
Lucy Powell
I am often invited to support other football clubs, but my husband is an Aston Villa fan and, obviously, I am a Manchester City fan, so we have a lot of other stakes in the FA cup semi-finals this weekend. However, I am happy to join my hon. Friend in wishing Crystal Palace the very best of luck on Saturday.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
There are proposals by Scottish Borders council to close a number of local nurseries, including those at Channelkirk, Yetholm, Glendinning, Westruther, Ednam, Cockburnspath and Fountainhall. There is strong local opposition to those plans. Local nurseries are vital to rural communities such as mine, and keeping them open ensures that we can attract and retain young families in the Scottish Borders. Does the Leader of the House agree that nurseries throughout the United Kingdom should be protected, and will she allow time for a debate to discuss the importance of nursery provision in rural communities?
Lucy Powell
I am sorry to hear about that and the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The Scottish Government should be prioritising nursery provision and ensuring that people in rural constituencies such as his have access to that vital provision. He will know that, as the consequence of the Budget, the Scottish Government received a boon of over 20% more per person than the rest of the UK, so they have no excuses for the actions they are taking.
Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)
I am sure that everyone in the House is concerned about the use of public money. In my constituency, a council is employing leaf blowers to blow leaves around a redundant car park, and a county council has spent £11 million on levelling a field for a school playing field and £16 million on a bridge to nowhere, so may we have a debate on how we can better scrutinise the use of public money in local government?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend raises a really important matter. Local people want to know that their council tax is going towards the services that they want to see in their communities. Nothing frustrates our constituents more than seeing things in their area and their community that they perceive to be, frankly, a waste of money. This Government are committed to bringing more accountability and audit into local government, and we will bring forward legislation on that soon.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
Just over three weeks ago, the Minister for children and families had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the Dispatch Box to be forced into extending the adoption and special guardianship support fund, which had expired the previous day, leaving thousands of vulnerable children and their adoptive parents and kinship carers in limbo. Not once during that 45 minute urgent question did she say, when she triumphantly announced £50 million extra to continue the fund, that the individual support grants were about to be cut by 40%. That information was snuck out in a private letter last week, during recess, to local authorities and charities. Will the Leader of the House demand that the Education Secretary comes to the House, makes a statement, and takes questions from hon. Members who feel that they were, I am sure inadvertently, misled by the children’s Minister that day, so that we can understand the impact on some of the most vulnerable children in our society?
Lucy Powell
I know that this is a matter of deep concern to many Members across the House, and I commend the hon. Lady for continuing to raise the issue, which also affects a number of my constituents. The Government have ensured that we have the £50 million arrangement for this year, but she will recognise that the increased demand on the adoption system, which is a good thing, means that we have had to make money from the fund go a bit further for many families. However, I hear what she says about the Government’s accountability. There was a written ministerial statement on the subject on Tuesday, but I will ensure that she and other hon. Members are able to question and speak to the Ministers, as appropriate.
Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)
Dozens of families across Merseyside, including my constituents Gemma and Paul Lucas, have been left financially and emotionally devastated by the actions of a home improvement company, Celsius Home Improvements Ltd, and its director Frank Deary. Customers had to pay 60% of costs up front to Mr Deary, but have been left with homes that are uninhabitable and, in some cases, dangerous. The Liverpool Echo has reported that it has seen documents showing that Mr Deary’s companies were providing quotes post 2022 with Celsius branding, but were trading as Clearmetric Ltd. A winding-up order was made against Clearmetric Ltd in the Manchester district registry on 7 January this year, more than three years after Celsius Home Improvements was dissolved in February 2022. What can the Government do to prevent individuals like Mr Deary and his associate Liam McGrath from liquidating one company, which owes more than £1 million to customers, and going on to scam others by setting up other companies, one of which I am led to believe is called Merseyside Construction Ltd? Most importantly, what can be done to get justice and a full refund for my constituents Gemma and Paul?
Lucy Powell
I am really sorry to hear about this troubling case. My hon. Friend has used her voice and her platform as a Member of Parliament to raise some very serious issues, and I commend her for that. Phoenixing, whereby directors dissolve a company to avoid debts, only to set up a new one, is wrong. We are committed to stamping the practice out, and Companies House now has greater powers to do that. My hon. Friend is right that people like her constituents need greater recourse when services and products go wrong or are not delivered and they cannot get the accountability that they need.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I want to get as many people in as possible, so please keep questions short.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
Unitary council elections, county council elections and mayoral races are taking up a lot of the headlines at the moment, but in local government, there is an often regrettably forgotten subset of incredibly hard-working people who offer to serve on parish and town councils—people like Nic Brown, who, after 25 years, is standing down from Chearsley parish council in my village. The amount of work that people put in for no remuneration, just for love of a place, is extraordinary. In a lot of parish and town councils in my constituency, not only are the elections uncontested, but there will still be vacancies after next Thursday. Can we have a debate in Government time to thank everyone who puts themselves forward to serve on a town or parish council, and to discuss how we can encourage more people to come forward to serve their community through those councils?
Lucy Powell
I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to all those who serve on our town and parish councils—often, as he says, for little reward, in one sense. Our communities need them, and they are vital. As he will know, we are bringing forward changes to local government, because we want to ensure that people can represent their area and deliver the kind of change and services that people want. That is why we have the devolution Bill coming forward.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Tomorrow, we would have been debating the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. However, we have not seen the impact assessment, which I understand has been prepared but not published. Many of us have serious concerns about the safety of the legislation. Significant advance notice of what is in the impact assessment is really important for us, so that we can scrutinise it. Will the Leader of the House say when the impact assessment will be published? Now that it has been prepared, will she ensure that we can see it immediately, and that it is not withheld?
Lucy Powell
I reassure my hon. Friend that the impact assessment is absolutely not being withheld. I have been asked about this a number of times, and I made it clear on previous occasions that given the number of amendments to the Bill, the impact assessment would take some time. I am glad that in order to allow that time, the promoter of the Bill moved the date for its next stage to 16 May. The Government are absolutely committed to ensuring that the impact assessment is published imminently, long before 16 May, so that people can consider the issues in it.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
Businesses across my constituency, the wider west of England and south Wales were given a rather glum Easter present in the news that heavy goods vehicles will be banned from the M48 Severn bridge from the end of May. That will lead to expensive and environmentally damaging diversions, and one local haulier called it a “hammerblow”. National Highways estimates that the bridge will cost between £300 million and £600 million to fix. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Department for Transport brings forward a clear plan of action as soon as possible?
Lucy Powell
I will absolutely ensure that the hon. Lady gets a full ministerial reply about why that has happened, and when those repairs will be done, so that HGVs can get back on to the bridge as soon as possible for her constituents.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
May I ask the Leader of the House to join me in supporting the Football Governance Bill, which will have its Second Reading on Monday? I appreciate that she does not support Reading football club, but will she also offer her support to its fans at this very difficult time, as we wait to hear the outcome of the ongoing negotiations?
Lucy Powell
Absolutely. I am delighted that the Football Governance Bill will receive its Second Reading in this House next week; it is an incredibly popular piece of legislation among the many Members from across the House who, like my hon. Friend, have a club in their constituency. The Bill seeks to ensure that fans and communities are put at the heart of our football governance, and that protections are in place against rogue owners and those who do not have the financial means to support their clubs properly.
Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
May I associate myself with the comments about the passing of Pope Francis? As a Catholic, I very much appreciate them, and I wish the best to the conclave in selecting our new Pope. As was mentioned earlier, if the current trend continues, more than 1.5% of my constituency will be covered in solar farms. One of my main concerns is about the use of battery energy storage systems, which my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood) mentioned. Green Hill solar farm in my constituency will have a very large one. They pose a huge risk of fire. Those fires release toxic fumes, and putting them out pollutes the waters and takes days—if the solar panels can ever be put out. I know that there may be a debate on the issue, but I also ask the Leader of the House to speak to the Secretary of State about the severe risks posed by BESS, because applications are being pushed through that create serious risks for our communities.
Lucy Powell
As I said in answer to a previous question on this issue, we need to get the balance right: we need to ensure that these facilities are safe for local communities, and that the risk of fires is mitigated as far as possible, while also getting much-needed infrastructure for battery energy storage, which is absolutely critical to the future of our energy security and our economy. I will ensure that the hon. Lady gets a ministerial update on those matters.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
The new traffic calming scheme in Bierton has been causing chaos, noise pollution and danger in my constituency. Almost 2,000 people have signed Matthew Grolimund’s petition calling for an urgent review of the chosen layout. Will the Leader of the House join me in urging Buckinghamshire council to plan its road building and roadworks better, and will she reaffirm this Government’s commitment to improving our road infrastructure?
Lucy Powell
Poorly planned and delivered roadworks are of great frustration to my hon. Friend’s constituents, and to the constituents of Members from across the House. I join her in urging her local council to ensure that the roadworks do not cause the level of disruption that she describes, and this Government are committed to ensuring that.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
Families in Holt have been promised for years a new primary school to replace the current building, which is too old and too small to cater for this growing market town. However, the Conservative-led county council has broken promises and dithered and delayed, pointing to minor fluctuations in the birth rate as a pathetic cop-out. Will the Leader of the House consider scheduling a debate on investment in our primary schools? Also, how this decision reached? Will she facilitate a meeting with the relevant Minister to ensure that parents, pupils and staff in Holt get the new school that they need?
Lucy Powell
I am sorry to hear of the dither and delay in getting the school in Holt that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents have long been promised. As he knows, the provision of places is a matter for local authorities. They have been given the funding to provide places where they are needed, so the local authority really has no excuse but to get on and provide the school.
Naushabah Khan (Gillingham and Rainham) (Lab)
I recently visited the hygiene bank in Medway in my constituency. Its volunteers provide essential hygiene products to people who need them, restoring their dignity and confidence. Given that 4.2 million adults in the UK live in hygiene poverty, will the Leader of the House consider a debate on how we tackle this issue, and specifically on removing the 20% VAT on soap by reclassifying it as an essential hygiene item?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to highlight hygiene poverty, which is a real issue for many in this country. Tackling poverty in all its forms is a priority for this Government. I am sure that she would not expect me to make decisions on or talk about future levels of VAT, but this is a really excellent campaign that I think will get wide support from across the House, if she wants to take it further.
Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)
Yesterday, like many Members across the House, I attended the event staged by the MS Society in Portcullis House. I was given a handout that said that an estimated 3,770 people in my constituency suffer from multiple sclerosis. I have met a number of them and their support groups over the years, but that number is surprising. It is estimated that each year, another 179 will be added to that number. Next week is MS Awareness Week, so it would be an appropriate time for a ministerial statement on that subject, and I hope that the Leader of the House will oblige me with that.
Lucy Powell
I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for all the work he has done in supporting steel and British Steel in his constituency, and for his attendance at the recall. He makes a really good point about MS Awareness Week and the real challenges faced by people living with chronic diseases. Given that it will be MS Awareness Week, I will certainly bear in mind his request for a statement.
Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)
To get to school, William Cartwright, who is in year 6 at Thorn primary school in Bacup, has to cross the very busy Burnley Road at a point where there is no lollipop service, 20 mph zone or zebra crossing. That is his daily experience. He said:
“Cars travel very fast. We often run across the road, and I’ve nearly been hit several times.”
William has launched a petition calling for Lancashire county council to install a safe crossing. He says:
“We should not have to wait for an accident to happen before something is done.”
I could tell a similar story about the safety of roads around almost every other primary school in Rossendale and Darwen. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating William on his initiative? Given how oversubscribed Westminster Hall and Adjournment debates on this subject have been, will she agree to a debate in Government time?
Lucy Powell
I certainly join my hon. Friend in congratulating William on highlighting the issues of road safety in Bacup and across Rossendale and Darwen. He is absolutely right: road safety matters attract a great deal of interest in this House. We will soon deliver an updated strategic framework for road safety. I will ensure that that is brought to this House, and I will consider his request for a debate.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
Some 77% of LGBTQ+ millennials are considering starting a family, but only three out of 42 integrated care boards in England give female same-sex couples access to fertility funding. Others ask for six to 12 rounds of self-funded treatment before funding is considered. As we celebrate Lesbian Visibility Week, could we have a debate in Government time about the discrimination that same-sex couples face when accessing fertility treatment?
Lucy Powell
I join the hon. Lady in supporting Lesbian Visibility Week, and she raises a really important matter. We should be supporting all couples of whatever kind who want to start a family, with all the joy that that brings and all the support that those families can bring to the babies and so on. I will ensure that the hon. Lady gets a full ministerial reply, but I am sorry to hear about the postcode lottery she has described.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)
Last week, I co-hosted a youth engagement workshop at the brilliant Tokko youth hub in my constituency to help inform our Government’s national youth strategy. Young people from a range of organisations, including Luton’s children in care council, CHUMS, the Centre for Youth and Community Development, Luton Roma Trust and Luton Youth Council—to name but a few—all gave excellent feedback. Does the Leader of the House agree that it is vital to recognise a wide range of young people’s voices in developing strategies that affect their futures, in order to break down barriers to opportunity for all?
Lucy Powell
I thank my hon. Friend for facilitating that workshop. She is absolutely right; we want to co-produce the national youth strategy, and conversations and workshops like the one she has described—which are part of what I think is the biggest conversation ever with young people—are critical to ensuring that we design the services and support that young people want.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
I know that like me, the Leader of the House will be a massive fan of acrobatic gymnastics, so she will be aware that over the Easter break, Team GB went over to Luxembourg to compete with 22 other nations. What she might not be aware of is the outstanding contribution made by Spelthorne Gymnastics in bringing home five gold medals and three silver medals from the European championships. Will she join me and Members from across the House in congratulating Team GB and Spelthorne Gymnastics on this outstanding effort?
Lucy Powell
I thought the hon. Gentleman was going to ask me to perform a somersault—we will save that for later, maybe. [Hon. Members: “Oh!”] I was thinking more of the political variety—if you don’t mind! I absolutely join the hon. Member in congratulating Spelthorne Gymnastics on their fantastic achievement of five golds and three silvers in GB acrobatic gymnastics.
Shaun Davies (Telford) (Lab)
On a recent visit with the courts Minister, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Sarah Sackman), to Shropshire’s justice centre, I was reminded about the dedication of our magistrates. Can we have a debate in Government time about the importance of magistrates in the justice system? Since the 12th century, magistrates have played a critical role in delivering local justice, and now do so as volunteers, many with decades of service. Currently, there is not a long service medal award; does the Leader of the House agree that there really ought to be?
Lucy Powell
I join my hon. Friend in thanking all the magistrates—as he says, they are volunteers, and they are the backbone of our justice system in this country. I think the issue he has highlighted is one that would gather a great deal of momentum and support, and I implore him to continue campaigning for it.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
If the Leader of the House will indulge me, I would like to quote somebody who I suspect has read more books than I have: Albert Einstein. He said,
“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.”
Libraries are more than just a place of knowledge—they are the lifeblood of local communities, bringing people of all backgrounds together. However, in Leicester, the Labour mayor is looking to slash library services in some of the most economically deprived areas of my great city, and I know the same will be happening in other constituencies up and down the country. Cutting our library services disproportionately affects the most vulnerable in our society, so will the Leader of the House schedule a debate in which we can praise our public libraries and the work of our wonderful librarians across the country, and urge the Government to give more support to local authorities to protect those crucial services?
Lucy Powell
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Libraries are long-standing services in many of our communities, and they provide a great service to local people. They do not only provide access to books; these days, they provide access to services, the internet and all sorts of other things, to ensure that people have the knowledge and access they need. I am sorry to hear of the plans in Leicester, which I will look into for the hon. Gentleman, but we have given local areas a record settlement in the local government budget, which I hope means that they can keep their libraries open.
Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
Last week, I visited Papa’s fish and chip restaurant in Worksop, where I met the owner, Nick. He told me about his reconnect campaign, which encourages people to come off their screens and spend time in good company over a first-class plate of fish and chips. He also showed me the safe space he has created for SEND families. Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking Nick for running such a thoughtful and caring campaign?
Lucy Powell
Papa’s fish and chip shop in my hon. Friend’s constituency sounds like a great place to go and reconnect by putting away our phones and having a great plate of fish and chips. Perhaps I will join her there some time soon.
David Mundell (Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale) (Con)
Recently, the Bank of Scotland announced the closure of all five of its branches in my constituency. As part of the follow-through, the organisation Link makes an assessment of access to cash, and in particular whether a free-to-use cash machine should be provided. However, it is bound by very strict criteria, meaning that it has to take into account other cash machines—cash machines that might not be available 24/7, might not have disabled access, and might not be stocked up with cash on a regular basis. Will the Leader of the House ask Treasury colleagues to review those criteria to make absolutely sure that people have access to cash machines?
Lucy Powell
Access to cash in communities like the right hon. Gentleman’s is an issue that gets raised with me pretty much every week in this House. I will certainly make sure that a Minister comes back to him on those criteria and whether they are appropriate now that we are seeing more and more banks withdrawing from our high streets, and whether access to cash is really viable.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
My local authority, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar/Western Isles council is fast approaching its 50th anniversary. Formed in 1975, it brought together the many islands that make up Na h-Eileanan an Iar and gave the Outer Hebrides a unified identity. My father served as a councillor, and my brother currently serves; they are among many councillors and officials who have given service to the islands over the years. Our local authorities are not much loved, but by wishing Comhairle nan Eilean Siar a happy 50th anniversary, will the Leader of the House show that they are much appreciated?
Lucy Powell
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Western Isles council and wishing it a happy 50th anniversary. It sounds like he comes from a great dynasty of local politicians, and here he is as a Member of Parliament, representing his home area.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I thank the Leader of the House in advance for the very large number of follow-up letters she will be writing after this marathon session. I know that it is probably quite a chore, but we really appreciate that she does it so conscientiously.
In a brief exchange about NHS dentistry on 13 March, as part of the formidable campaign being waged by the National Federation of Women’s Institutes on that subject, I was quite impressed when the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said that the problem requires,
“not simply tinkering with the system as it is, but fundamentally rethinking it”—[Official Report, 13 March 2025; Vol. 763, c. 1298.]
I am sure he is absolutely right about that, so will the Leader of the House urge him to make a statement to the House on what progress he anticipates making on this very important issue?
Lucy Powell
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for thanking me for all the letters that my brilliant civil service team support me with, getting the answers to the questions that people ask me during business questions. Making sure that Members get answers to the questions they raise is something that I take incredibly seriously.
The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that dentistry has been broken in this country, that access to NHS dentists is not what we would want it to be, and that more fundamental change is needed to ensure that we get more dentist appointments and look at the dental contract—I am lobbied about this issue by my own dentist every time I go. I will ensure that the House is kept updated on progress.
Alex Baker (Aldershot) (Lab)
Aldershot Town football club are going to Wembley. The FA trophy final on 11 May will be the first time in the club’s history that the red and blue army have played under the arch, with over 17,000 fans there to spectate. That club is also the first football club in the country to achieve the armed forces covenant gold status award for the work it does in our community. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating everybody at the club on reaching this prestigious final, and for giving all of us in Aldershot something to cheer about?
Lucy Powell
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Aldershot Town on reaching the FA trophy final against Spennymoor Town. What a great achievement for her local club. A lot of football clubs are being mentioned today, and I am sure she might want to raise this next week on Second Reading of the Football Governance Bill. I also join her in congratulating Aldershot Town on being the first football club to get the armed forces gold standard achievement.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
Harrogate’s LGBT community was appalled by homophobic comments made by Anthony Murphy, a Conservative town council candidate, who described it as a “truth” that acts of homosexuality are of “grave depravity” and “intrinsically disordered”. An organisation he directs even claimed that AIDS is a disease spread by the depraved, and he called on the Church to “purge the filth”. This was not a vetting failure; the local Conservative association knew and selected him anyway. It has refused to withdraw support or answer whether he is the same Anthony Murphy who was linked to organising Enoch Powell rallies. The local association has either gone rogue, or the nasty party is well and truly back as the Conservatives chase votes from Reform. I have written to the Leader of the Opposition but have had no reply. Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on candidate standards and party accountability?
Lucy Powell
I am sorry to hear of the appalling homophobic remarks being made by a councillor, and a Conservative councillor at that. The hon. Member has raised them here this morning, and I hope that those on the Conservative Front Bench have heard his question, because action needs to be taken. The Conservative party needs to show, like the rest of us, that such remarks are completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated in our democracy or any of our parties.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Stoke-on-Trent has witnessed a proliferation of houses in multiple occupation in the city in recent years, with family homes being converted with little notice given to local residents. Working with Councillors Shaun Pender, Daniela Santoro and Adrian Knapper and with Labour’s Maggie Bradley, we are prosecuting a case for Stoke-on-Trent city council to adopt an article 4 direction, but this is proving more difficult than it should be. Can I encourage the Leader of the House to bring forward legislation to remove this permitted development right for everybody across the country, so that HMOs can be properly regulated and looked after in communities?
Lucy Powell
I know that HMOs are a big issue in my hon. Friend’s constituency, in mine and in many others. The Renters’ Rights Bill, which is now in the House of Lords, will take some action on regulating HMOs, but he is right that we could go further on these matters. I encourage him to continue to raise them, and I will make sure that he gets a ministerial reply.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
My constituent, Paul Pearson, tragically lost his granddaughter Lauren following an accidental drug overdose. He later discovered that she had been introduced to drugs by someone at her dance school. Safeguarding concerns were not passed to the Disclosure and Barring Service. It was suggested that the individual also was not DBS-registered. When I queried that with the Home Office, it said that Home Office legislation around regulated activity only provides eligibility for checks and does not make them a requirement. I am sure that the Leader of the House shares my concerns on this. Will she ask the Government to make time for a debate on DBS and how it can be strengthened to protect children?
Lucy Powell
I am sorry to hear of the case that the hon. Member raises. The question of whether DBS checks are wide enough, suitable and so on does get raised in the House regularly. I will ensure that she gets a ministerial reply, but she might want to apply for an Adjournment debate; I am sure that many people would attend.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
It was good to meet the Safeguarding Alliance this morning about its concerns, which I share, regarding the patchwork of different Departments, bodies and regulators with responsibility for safeguarding. That allows known offenders to slip through the gaps and continue offending. An overarching safeguarding regulator could close those gaps, and with a Cabinet Office review reportedly being undertaken on quangos and arm’s length bodies, will the Leader of the House arrange for Government time for MPs to be part of that? Can she advise when the Data (Use and Access) Bill, which might allow opportunities for better regulation around safeguarding data and information sharing, will be coming back to the House?
Lucy Powell
The Bill’s Report stage is on Wednesday 7 May, so my hon. Friend may want to raise some of these issues then. Tackling safeguarding and ensuring that we have the right safeguarding is a cross-Government issue, as she will know. It covers many Departments, but we have a number of measures coming forward in various pieces of legislation, which I hope will improve the safeguarding environment. I encourage her to raise these matters during the passage of some of those Bills.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The UK Government have a legal and moral duty to ensure that the Union succeeds. It is therefore imperative that Ministers do not go on solo runs and make unhelpful comments in the context of Northern Ireland’s place in the Union, given that support for Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK has remained unchanged in generations. Will the Leader of the House therefore consider providing time for a debate on the Government’s responsibility to speak with one voice and their commitment to upholding Northern Ireland’s place in this Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland?
Lucy Powell
I will certainly ensure that the Minister has heard the hon. Member’s question. This Government speak with one voice—we certainly try to—and I am sorry if that has not been the case in what she describes. This Government are committed to the Good Friday agreement in all its parts, and she will know that these issues are a matter for those who live in Northern Ireland.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
Residents of the Throston ward in Hartlepool, in common with communities right across the borough, tell me that they are fed up with crime and antisocial behaviour following 14 years of Tory failure that destroyed neighbourhood policing. Does the Leader of the House agree that Labour’s pledge to put a named police officer in every community, as championed by our brilliant council candidate, Lyndsey Allen, is a game changer in tackling antisocial behaviour and crime in Throston, Hartlepool and the country as a whole?
Lucy Powell
I join my hon. Friend in thanking Lyndsey Allen for supporting these issues. He is absolutely right that we have to put neighbourhood policing back in our communities. We are committed to get 13,000 more officers into neighbourhood policing over this Parliament, and that is what we will do. The Crime and Policing Bill is passing through Parliament, and it will give the police the powers they need to tackle antisocial behaviour.
Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
Just before the recess, I was unexpectedly a guest of the NHS at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Gateshead. It was a result of my delayed cancer diagnosis 17 years ago. I sometimes get cellulitis, and it needs very urgent intravenous antibiotics. I went in on Thursday night, and my records did not catch up with me from my local hospital until Monday. Can we have a debate in Government time, so that the Secretary of State understands the urgent need to have digital records, so that our local hospitals can pass on our details to hospitals in other parts of the country in a timely fashion, allowing treatment to be undertaken quickly?
Lucy Powell
I was sorry to hear of the hon. Member’s admission to hospital, and it is good to see him here in his place today as fit and well as ever. He is absolutely right, and people might not understand that hospitals hold individual records, and there is not a national database for data sharing across hospitals. Many people imagine it just happens, and it does not. I can assure him that the Health Secretary is committed to breaking down these barriers and making sure we have got the data sharing we need and the digital records that he describes so that people can get the appropriate treatment when they need it.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
Beira’s Place is a sexual violence support service run by women, for women. It opened in 2022 in response to the need for single-sex counselling services for survivors of violence against women and girls in the Edinburgh and the Lothians area, including West Lothian, which covers a large part of my constituency. Can we have a debate in Government time on the importance of single-sex counselling services for survivors of violence against women and girls? Will the Leader of the House join me in thanking the all-women team at Beira’s for the invaluable support they provide?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of single-sex spaces and counselling when it comes to tackling violence against women and girls and dealing with the aftermath of that. She will know that the Supreme Court ruling over Easter gave greater clarity on these matters for service providers, such as those in her constituency, and she might want to raise the great work that they do at the next Women and Equalities questions on 7 May.
Mr Will Forster (Woking) (LD)
The former chief executive of Woking borough council, Ray Morgan OBE, has been identified in a public interest report as the chief architect in bankrupting my council, leaving it with debts of £2 billion. Does the Leader of the House agree that the very least the Government could do is remove his OBE for services to local government, and will she agree to hold a debate in this House so that we can discuss Government policy on removing honours when wrongdoing has been committed?
Lucy Powell
I am really sorry to hear about the hon. Gentleman’s case. He may be aware that there is a special committee—it is not a Government committee—that looks at where there is a strong case for nominations to be removed. I urge him to contact that committee, and I will write to him with the details. He is absolutely right to say that we need to make sure that people are held accountable for their actions. Where they have received nominations, that is something that we should consider.
Mrs Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Like the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers), more than 3,000 people living in and around my constituency have multiple sclerosis, including Simon, who manages a full-time job only because his employer provides the flexibility that he needs to cope with this unpredictable and degenerative condition. Neurological conditions such as MS are lifelong and often invisible, and profoundly impact on people’s lives. Will the Leader of the House grant time for a debate on ensuring that neurology is a clear priority in the 10-year plan for the NHS?
Lucy Powell
I will absolutely join my hon. Friend in highlighting MS Awareness Week, which is next week. I thank her constituent Simon and his employer for being so flexible. As she describes, living with these chronic conditions requires good employers that are flexible, as well as a range of other support services. Given that it is MS Awareness Week next week, I will make sure that the relevant Ministers report to the House on what we are doing.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Nigerian Christians are at the forefront of Christian persecution across the world. As the majority of Christians worldwide enjoyed the start of Holy Week, many in the Plateau state of Nigeria had a different experience. On Palm Sunday, an hour-long massacre occurred in Zikke village, where some 54 people were killed and 103 households destroyed. The entire village was displaced. Eyewitnesses report military inaction, the selective disarmament of Christian youths, and violence by armed Fulani extremists. Will the Leader of the House schedule a debate or a statement to ascertain what steps the UK Government will take to support the protection of Nigerian Christian communities and to address the ongoing violence?
Lucy Powell
As ever, the hon. Gentleman raises the important issue of freedom of religion or belief for all—in this case, in Nigeria—which we raise with the Nigerian Government on a regular basis. We need to put an end to the inter-community violence that we are seeing in Nigeria.
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
I know the Leader of the House has a sweet tooth, so she may be disappointed that she missed out on the very first chocolate festival held by The Oxford pub in Shawclough over the Easter break. The festival was attended by 800 people, and it was held in conjunction with the chocolate maker Slattery. As well as having a great time, customers and the pub donated free Easter eggs to children in need in Rochdale. Will she join me in congratulating the McNeeney family on putting on the festival, and will she join me for a candy and a shandy in Rochdale soon?
Lucy Powell
I will certainly join my hon. Friend in congratulating the McNeeney family on putting on the chocolate festival, which sounds like a really great event. It ensured that those who perhaps could not afford to indulge over the Easter weekend had the opportunity to do so at The Oxford pub. I gently say to him that next time he should bring us back a few chocolates, so that we can make sure that they are up to the standard that the whole House would want.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
All of us made sacrifices when Parliament was recalled to save the steel industry, and mine was missing a slice of a cake that was baked to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Balerno farmers market. I met the baker, Emma Galloway, at St Mungo’s Easter service last week, and she explained to me that my slice was gone. The House can imagine how I felt. My low-calorie alternative is early-day motion 1091, on the 20th anniversary of the Balerno farmers market.
[That this House congratulates Balerno Farmers Market on celebrating its 20th anniversary on 12 April 2025, marking two decades of consistent service to the local community and surrounding areas; recognises the market’s vital contribution to promoting local food, sustainable farming and small independent producers, while strengthening the sense of community and supporting the local economy in Edinburgh South West constituency; commends the dedication of the organisers, stallholders, volunteers and community partners whose continued efforts have made the market a well-loved and successful monthly event since its founding in 2005, which helps define Balerno; acknowledges that the market has grown into a community hub, supporting not only local commerce but also arts, culture, fairtrade and environmental awareness, reflecting the values of resilience, sustainability and civic pride; and congratulates all those involved in the Balerno Farmers Market on this significant milestone, wishing it continued success in the years ahead.]
The early-day motion highlights that the market is vibrant and defines Balerno. It supports the local economy and, through the Fairtrade group, also supports sustainable farming right across the world. Will the Leader of the House join me in wishing Balerno farmers market a happy 20th birthday, and suggest that Emma bakes a slightly bigger cake next time?
Lucy Powell
I will absolutely join my hon. Friend in congratulating Balerno farmers market. It sounds like the bakers produce great cakes, which are so popular that none was left for him, so next time they definitely need to make a bit more.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. We have around 15 to 20 minutes left for these questions, so please help each other out.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating Labour’s brill and totally committed Greater Lincolnshire mayoral candidate, Jason Stockwood? He is truly putting Lincolnshire first, having just completed his countywide cycle tour, raising over £16,000 for charities across the area—and he is the only candidate to brave Lycra in public.
Lucy Powell
I will absolutely join her in wishing Jason Stockwood, whom I know well, all the very best in standing to be the first Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire. He will make a fantastic Mayor for Lincolnshire, and I hope people will vote for him next week.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
Fantastic local businesses, such as SugarBeat on the A140 in south Norfolk, are being hammered by drawn-out roadworks that have been signed off by Norfolk county council and carried out by EDF, with little care for the financial damage caused. Can we have a debate in Government time on holding utility companies to account when roadworks run riot?
Lucy Powell
There is nothing more frustrating than poorly delivered roadworks, especially roadworks that come on top of other roadworks or just after them. I think this would make a very popular topic for a debate if he were to apply for one.
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
Earlier this month, my hometown football club, Clydebank FC, were crowned West of Scotland premier division champions. On Saturday, they play their final home league game of the season at Holm Park, and it will be my pleasure to be there and see them lift the trophy. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating all the players, the manager, the coaches, the staff and the Bankies supporters on such a wonderful and successful season? Does she wish to join me—never mind the FA cup semi-final—in West Dunbartonshire on Saturday to celebrate the Bankies winning the league?
Lucy Powell
I will absolutely join my hon. Friend in congratulating Clydebank FC, known as the Bankies. What a great honour it will be for a new Member of Parliament to see their football club lifting the league trophy at their home ground on Saturday. I am slightly otherwise engaged this weekend with my own football interests, but I look forward to seeing him with the trophy at Clydebank on social media.
Oliver Ryan (Burnley) (Ind)
Burnley is a premier league town once more. I am sure the whole House—though perhaps not the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Hussain), who is not in his place—will join me in congratulating Alan Pace, Scott Parker, Josh Brownhill and all the lads at Burnley football club on their ascension to the premier league. They are back where they belong. Up the Clarets! Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating them?
Lucy Powell
We have really had a football theme today. I put on the record my congratulations to Burnley FC on getting promoted to the premier league. I look forward to Man City putting a few goals past them next season.
Elaine Stewart (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)
My constituents John and Evelyn Preston contributed to Digital’s pension scheme before 1997. They expected discretionary increases to counter inflation, but since Hewlett-Packard took over in 2002, their pensions have stagnated—in some cases, people have experienced 60% losses. Thanks to the Pre-97 Alliance, we know that this issue affects hundreds of thousands of people across the UK. Will the Leader of the House find time to discuss how this injustice can be addressed?
Lucy Powell
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important matter. There is nothing worse for pension holders than seeing the value of their pension eroded because uprating is not happening in line with inflation. Pension scheme trustees have a duty to act in the best interests of their members, and I will ensure that a Minister looks into this case for her.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
Just this morning, my office received notice of the intent to cancel two key bus services in my constituency—the 125, which connects Castle Donington to Coalville and into Leicester city, and the 129, which connects Ashby-de-la-Zouch to Loughborough and is the only service for some of my rural villages. Will the Leader of the House join me in expressing concern about these proposed cuts, and call on Leicestershire county council to work with me and local bus companies to save these services to keep my communities connected?
Lucy Powell
I am sorry to hear that Leicestershire county council is cutting vital bus services in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We have confirmed over £1 billion extra for local bus services such as those she describes, and we are bringing forward—in fact, it is passing through Parliament at the moment—the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill, which will give local communities much more say on bus services in their area.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
On 16 April 1850, the Cumberland Co-operative Land and Benefit building society first opened its doors. The Cumberland, which is headquartered in my Carlisle constituency, is celebrating 175 years of serving my constituency and the wider area. Will the Leader of the House please join me in wishing the Cumberland building society a happy birthday and thanking it for the part it is playing in supporting Labour’s pledge to build 1.5 million new houses?
Lucy Powell
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Cumberland building society on its 175 years—what a remarkable achievement—and on all the work it is doing in supporting house building and homeowners in her constituency and beyond.
Mr Connor Rand (Altrincham and Sale West) (Lab)
Bar Etna, a fantastic family-friendly restaurant in Altrincham, has suffered to the tune of thousands of pounds from a business rates scam. Thankfully, the licences of the fraudsters were suspended, but they have since changed their company name and are back scamming small businesses again. It was the fourth time they have pulled this trick. Can we have a debate on the business rates scams crisis in our country, so that we close for good the loopholes being exploited by these con artists?
Lucy Powell
I am sorry to hear that businesses in my hon. Friend’s constituency have been victims of business rates scams. We are committed to reducing the number of these scams, and we will take steps to do that, but I will ensure that he gets an update from Ministers.
Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)
Girlguiding and its volunteers provide endless opportunities for girls and young women in my constituency of Ribble Valley. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the Waddow Hall Trust group of Girlguiding members on successfully campaigning to secure Waddow Hall, which provides adventure and outdoor education for future generations of young people? Will she make time for this House to discuss the importance of outdoor education within the Government’s national youth strategy?
Lucy Powell
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating her local girl guides on their campaign to secure the future of Waddow Hall. The girl guides do a great job, and they are a vital part of the youth services and youth community activities that we want to see across the country.
Emma Foody (Cramlington and Killingworth) (Lab/Co-op)
Fly-tipping is a blight on local communities across Cramlington and Seaton Valley in my constituency, yet under Conservative-run Northumberland county council, fly-tipping has increased by a massive 76%. The Government have taken action to keep our communities safe and tackle fly-tipping. Can we have a debate on the action being taken to strengthen enforcement, and how we are clearing up the mess the Conservatives have left nationally and in Northumberland?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that fly-tipping is a blight on many of our communities, and we are determined to take further steps. We are currently seeking powers in the Crime and Policing Bill to issue statutory fly-tipping enforcement guidance, but I know she will want to raise these issues as the Bill passes through Parliament.
Jon Pearce (High Peak) (Lab)
The Hawthorns care home in Buxton recently celebrated 90 years of service to our local community. I am sure the whole House will want to join me in sending the warmest congratulations to the staff, the residents and their families. This stands in stark contrast to the Conservative-led Derbyshire county council closing care homes and adult day care centres across High Peak, including the sudden and shocking closure of Queens Court in Buxton earlier this month. Will the Leader of the House arrange a debate in Government time to consider the future of care homes and day centres run by local councils?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of care homes such as the Hawthorns in his constituency. I am sorry to hear that his local county council—the Conservative-run county council—is closing care homes at this time. We have seen a record settlement for local government, so the county council should really reconsider its decisions.
Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)
Getting a driving licence in Ilford South has become almost impossible. Learners are having to wait for more than 18 months to book their tests, because rogue individuals and unscrupulous driving schools are booking up the spaces and charging residents up to 10 times the cost of a single test. Learners are being exploited and honest instructors punished. Would the Leader of the House facilitate a positive outcome, including a meeting with the relevant Minister to discuss common-sense solutions for our constituents who are locked out of driving by these manipulative practices?
Lucy Powell
I thank my hon. Friend for raising that, and he is absolutely right that access to driving licence tests and other things are not what we would expect them to be. The Secretary of State has taken steps this week to address some of these challenges, and we can go further. I will ensure that he is given a ministerial update on these important issues.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
UK homes bin 1.7 billion pieces of plastic every week. Thanks to companies such as the British Dudley-based business Iron and Velvet, there are viable alternatives to using plastic in cleaning products. Would my right hon. Friend help encourage others and this place to ditch plastic, and could we have a debate about the importance of reducing plastic waste?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend highlights an important issue. We do need to reduce plastic waste, and I will ensure that the House plays its part in reducing plastic waste. We want to see a circular economy, which means more recycling and less use of plastic.
Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)
Engineers at JCB have pioneered the world’s first hydrogen combustion engines that can power heavy machinery. That world-leading British engineering has been developed and built by my constituents. These diggers are unable to drive on UK roads, but thanks to this Labour Government, that is going to change on 29 April. Will the Leader of the House join me in welcoming this change, which will bring increased jobs and investment?
Lucy Powell
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating the engineers at JCB in his constituency on their brilliant work. I am pleased that this Government have been able to unlock road access for these diggers, which will unlock further job opportunities in his constituency.
Lee Barron (Corby and East Northamptonshire) (Lab)
In Corby, residents of Hooke Close were denied the chance to object to plans for a huge warehouse to be built immediately next to their homes, and they now live under its shadow. This was due to admitted failures by North Northamptonshire council, including consulting the wrong streets. Residents took the matter to court, and the judge criticised the council, but the case had to be ruled out because it was out of time. The council—which did not consult the residents, but consulted the wrong streets, and which the judge criticised—is now pursuing the very people it failed for £5,000 in legal costs. Does my right hon. Friend agree that authorities should be held accountable when serious consultation failures occur, and that residents should not be financially penalised as a result of the incompetence of the consultation?
Lucy Powell
This sounds like a troubling case in my hon. Friend’s constituency. He is right that high-quality consultation for developments is imperative, and it does not sound as though that happened or that proper procedures were followed in this case. I will certainly raise it with Ministers for him.
Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)
Too many of my constituents in Bolton are trapped in overcrowded homes. As a result, too many parents are left with no option but to share rooms with their adolescent children. Outdated overcrowding rules and a shortage of housing mean that pleas for help are routinely dismissed. Does my right hon. Friend agree that families deserve better and that everyone deserves a decent home that is fit for purpose?
Lucy Powell
As my hon. Friend will know, this Government are committed to providing more affordable homes, so that we can tackle the issues of overcrowding and poor housing that she describes in her constituency. I think this would make a good topic for a debate.
Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)
I am sure the Leader of the House is tired of hearing about the constant road chaos in Stafford, Eccleshall and the villages, but my constituents and I are at our wits’ end. Conservative-run Staffordshire county council continues to ignore the chaos at the A51-A53 Blackbrook junction, failing rural areas such as Baldwins Gate yet again. Will the Leader of the House grant time for a debate on Labour’s serious plans for fixing our roads and how we actually get Conservative-led councils to do that?
Lucy Powell
I am sorry that my hon. Friend has yet again had to come to the House to raise with me the poorly managed roadworks in her constituency. Staffordshire county council really needs to get a grip on them, because it sounds like it is making a real mess.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
From conversations with my constituents, it is clear that after 14 years of Tory government there is a systemic issue of overcrowding in social housing. Under the Housing Act 1985, a living room is classed as sleeping accommodation, which means that many families in my constituency find themselves stuck on the housing register for extended periods, with no priority when bidding and often with teenage children having to share a bedroom with a complete lack of privacy. Will the Leader of the House allow a debate in Government time to address this critical issue?
Lucy Powell
Housing waiting lists are far too high in this country. That is why we need more social housing. It is why we need more housing, full stop. That is what the Government are committed to delivering.
David Pinto-Duschinsky (Hendon) (Lab)
Leaseholders in Hendon and across the UK are being ripped off by managing agents charging excessive fees while delivering poor service. That is why I, along with colleagues on the Labour Benches, have called many of those companies into Parliament to explain themselves. In the recent White Paper, the Government set out a strong plan to end the feudal leasehold system for good. May we have a debate in Government time on what can be done at constituency level to support the reforms, and specifically to help the Government hold managing agents to account while the reforms are enacted, lowering the unfair and unaffordable service charges that leaseholders are being forced to pay?
Lucy Powell
Leasehold and unscrupulous managing agents are a huge issue for many of our constituents. We are committed to ending the feudal leasehold system for good. We have the commonhold White Paper. The Minister has announced how he will bring into effect measures from the previous Government and we will have a leasehold reform Bill later in the Session. My hon. Friend’s constituents will get the recourse and the services they deserve.
Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
At the last session of business questions, the Leader of the House kindly joined me in congratulating one of my constituents, Jean Gallagher, who had just received a provost award from the Renfrewshire provost for her 25 years voluntary service at the Johnstone learning centre. Little did we know that at the same time as recognising Jean’s incredible service, the council was planning cuts to that vital service, leaving it in jeopardy. Will the Leader of the House join me in condemning those cuts, and does she agree that the local SNP-run council should instead be using the money it has been given by this UK Labour Government to invest in these vital services?
Lucy Powell
Absolutely. This Government have ended austerity in Scotland by giving the Scottish Government the biggest boost to their budget that they have ever had. They have the money; they have the powers. We really should not see services being cut like they are.
Chris Bloore (Redditch) (Lab)
Rob Oliver, Kevin Joynes, Matthew Humphries and Tom Hayward from Redditch will be rowing across the Atlantic ocean in December as part of a challenge known as “The World’s Toughest Row”. The challenge will involve them rowing 3,000 miles from the Canary Islands to Antigua to raise funds for three fantastic charities: the Frank Bruno Foundation, Arrive Alive, and Redditch Self Defence and Youth Engagement, which helps to educate young people in Redditch on the dangers of knives. Will the Leader of the House join me in commending these self-described “four ordinary blokes” for taking on such an extraordinary challenge to support these critical causes?
Lucy Powell
I thought there was an invite to Antigua coming there, Madam Deputy Speaker, but alas no. I absolutely join my hon. Friend in congratulating and wishing well those four blokes—Rob, Kevin, Matthew and Tom—on their amazing charitable endeavours.
Dr Jeevun Sandher (Loughborough) (Lab)
Potholes are a blight across my constituency and cost us £500 each time they damage our cars, and the reason is that our roads have not been maintained by the Conservative-run county council. Does the Leader of the House believe that on 1 May my constituents should vote to fix our potholes and vote for all the brilliant Labour candidates across Loughborough, Shepshed and the villages?
Lucy Powell
Absolutely. After more than a decade of Conservative chaos, our roads were left in a shocking state. If people want this country’s potholes fixed, they need to vote Labour at next week’s local elections.
Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)
Play spaces should be accessible to all regardless of ability or disability, but that is not always the case. Young people in my county of Norfolk are leading the charge to change that through the “MAP Right to Play” campaign. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the young people of Norfolk for pushing this issue, and will she make time for a debate on the importance of inclusive play?
Lucy Powell
Absolutely. The right to play is critical and I am really pleased to hear that young people in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and across Norfolk, and are making it such a priority.
Julia Buckley (Shrewsbury) (Lab)
Minsterley village has recently seen its rural outreach post office service withdrawn with just two days’ notice. The unplanned closure affects three villages. No explanation or consultation was given to residents, the postmaster, the council or the three Members of Parliament, in clear breach of the principles of engagement set out by the Government. Will the Leader of the House please raise with the relevant Business and Trade Minister my residents’ serious concerns and ensure that the Post Office is fulfilling its obligations to rural communities such as mine?
Lucy Powell
Post office closures are a really serious matter for this House. I implore my hon. Friend, as the local MP, to stand up for post office services in her constituency, as she is doing today, and campaign for them to remain open. I will absolutely ensure that she gets a ministerial reply about what is happening.
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker; all good things come to those who wait. Will the Leader of the House join me in paying tribute to my constituents Yvonne Yorke and Jackie Wood from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Sue Jackson from Stafford, and Linda Lock from Stoke-on-Trent South, all members of the Potteries branch of Alzheimer’s Research UK? They have raised more than £15,000 in many different ways, including their “human fruit machine”. Can the Leader of the House assure me and my constituents that conditions such as Alzheimer’s and dementia will be at the heart of our plans for early diagnosis?
Lucy Powell
Absolutely. Tackling Alzheimer’s and dementia is at the heart of our early diagnosis strategy. We are determined to expand research and innovation into Alzheimer’s across all areas.
Katrina Murray (Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch) (Lab)
Yesterday and today, hundreds of young people in my constituency celebrated their final day at school, with the Scottish Qualifications Authority exam period starting tomorrow. Leaving school and moving on is a big transition in life. Will the Leader of the House join me in wishing those young people all the best with their exams and what comes next, and may we have a debate on the importance of celebrating such transitions?
Lucy Powell
I absolutely join my hon. Friend in wishing all the young people in her constituency and across the House the very best of luck in all the exams they will be sitting over the coming weeks.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
For the final question, I call Chris Vince.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker—and congratulations to you on that. Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the players, staff and volunteers of a team often known as the “non-league Man City”, Harlow Town football club, on its promotion from the Thurlow Nunn first division? And as I have time, will she also wish the club luck to do the double in two weeks’ time in the league cup final?
Lucy Powell
My hon. Friend may be last, but certainly not least. I certainly join him in congratulating Harlow Town football club—maybe they have a Haaland as well, if they are bit like Man City—on its promotion and wish it the very best of luck in the league cup final in two weeks’ time.
Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill [Lords]
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
14:06 - The House divided: - Ayes: 88 / Noes: 212 - Question accordingly negatived.
14:20 - The House divided: - Ayes: 89 / Noes: 230 - Question accordingly negatived.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 1, in clause 1, page 1, line 20, at end insert—
“(2A) The Bank of England must not require the scheme manager to make a recapitalisation payment if it has directed the financial institution to maintain an end-state Minimum Requirement for Own Funds and Eligible Liabilities (MREL) exceeding minimum capital requirements.”
This amendment seeks to prohibit the use of FSCS funds to recapitalise large financial institutions, defined as those which have reached end-state MREL.
Amendment 3, page 1, line 22, at end insert—
“(3A) No application to the scheme manager for recapitalisation payments may be considered by the Bank of England for a financial institution which has been directed to maintain an end-state Minimum Requirement for Own Funds and Eligible Liabilities (MREL) exceeding minimum capital requirements, unless permission has been given, through regulations, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
(3B) Regulations made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, subject to subsection (4), shall be made through Statutory Instrument under the negative procedure.”
This amendment would ensure financial institutions that maintain an end-state Minimum Requirement for Own Funds and Eligible Liabilities exceeding minimum capital requirements are excluded from the provisions of the Bill, unless permission has been given through regulations.
Amendment 4, page 2, line 3, at end insert—
“(5A) As a further objective to the special resolution objectives in section 4 of the Banking Act 2009, when discharging its functions in respect of the exercise of recapitalisation payments under this section, the Bank of England must observe the competitiveness and growth objective.
(5B) The competitiveness and growth objective is facilitating, subject to aligning with relevant international standards—
(a) the international competitiveness of the economy of the United Kingdom, and
(b) its growth in the medium to long term.”
This amendment would place a further objective on the Bank of England to consider the competitiveness and growth of the market before directing the recapitalisation of failing small banks through a levy on the banking sector.
Amendment 2, in clause 5, page 4, line 14, at end insert—
“(2B) The code must include guidance to the Bank of England on the exercise of its functions in relation to building societies to ensure that, in circumstances where the use of a recapitalisation power may result in demutualisation, due consideration is given to the impact of such demutualisation on members and on the mutuals sector.
(2C) In preparing the guidance required under subsection (2B), the Treasury shall consider the feasibility of selecting a purchaser from the mutuals sector as a means of avoiding demutualisation, provided such a purchaser meets the resolution objectives.”
This amendment seeks to ensure that, where possible, the selection of a purchaser from the mutuals sector is considered to avoid demutualisation, provided this aligns with the Bank's resolution objectives.
Mark Garnier
Before speaking to new clause 3 specifically, let me reiterate that the Opposition welcome the Government’s decision to carry over the legislation from the previous Parliament, and that the principles underpinning the Bill continue to enjoy strong cross-party support. We all want and need confidence in our banking sector, yet the failure of Silicon Valley Bank UK exposed a gap in our resolution framework for smaller banks. Unlike larger institutions, they do not hold the bail and bond mechanism known as MREL—the minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities—reserves to facilitate recapitalisation in the event of a crisis. By providing the Bank of England with new tools to manage small bank failures, the Bill remains both prudent and necessary to protect financial stability and public funds.
Moving on to the amendments we have tabled on Report, I want to make it clear that our approach is constructive and focused on strengthening the Bill, not obstructing its progress. As the Bill has made progress through both Houses, our intention has been to address a series of smaller but none the less significant issues that we believe require further attention. I appreciate that this might be a conversation we can continue in today’s debate, or beyond it, and I would certainly welcome conversations with the Minister, who has been incredibly open to direct conversations in her usual pragmatic style, to further discuss these matters.
We have three measures selected for discussion today. I will speak first to new clause 3, which addresses a critical gap in the Bill’s scope: the protection of credit unions. These community-focused institutions have seen significant growth in recent years, driven in part by the eradication of predatory payday lenders, and they continue to provide a vital role in delivering affordable finance to those underserved by traditional banks.
Membership of credit unions rose from 1.89 million in 2019 to 2.14 million in 2024—an increase of more than 260,000. However, while their importance has grown, their inclusion in our resolution framework has not kept pace. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme has paid £10.1 million in compensation to credit union depositors over the past three financial years, primarily due to small-scale failures, underscoring their potential vulnerability and the need for a tailored approach as the sector expands.
The growth of credit unions is a success story, but it demands proportional safeguards. The Bill, however, excludes credit unions from its recapitalisation mechanism. While their smaller size and unique nature may differentiate them from banks, questions remain. How does the current resolution regime account for credit union failures as the sector scales up? Is there scope to develop a mechanism that protects members without imposing undue burdens on these community institutions? New clause 3 seeks clarity on this matter, requiring the Minister to produce a report outlining how the resolution framework can be adapted to protect credit unions, ensuring that their growth does not outstrip their regulatory safeguards. The vast amount of legislation for credit unions was written back in the 1970s. The previous Government made significant reforms for credit unions through amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Act, and I welcome the common bond reform consultation, which closed last month.
I know that the Government are giving the sector serious consideration, and I am sure the Minister will agree that this is not about applying bank-style rules to mutuals, but about recognising their unique role and risks. Credit unions are more than financial institutions; they are engines of financial inclusion. They often serve small, working-class communities, whom I know the Government want to support specifically. As the sector evolves, so too must our approach. We must ensure that our regulatory framework grows. I hope the Government will support this amendment, which simply seeks to look more clearly at the options available when a crisis happens.
Amendment 2 seeks to address a concern that has been raised with me by the mutual and building society sector. These institutions are not relics of the past, but vital components of our financial ecosystem. Although the first known building society was set up in 1775 by ordinary working people helping themselves to build their financial resilience and get a home of their own, they remain current today. Building societies today hold more than £360 billion in assets and provide mortgages for more than 3 million people in the UK. They represent a significant proportion of the housing market and are a trusted source of savings for millions more. They provide a clear and important diversification in our financial markets, offering a clear alternative to shareholder banks.
The Labour party stood on a clear manifesto commitment to double the size of the co-operative and mutual sector, which the Opposition agree is a very good policy. Today presents a good opportunity for Labour Members to demonstrate that commitment to the sector by enshrining in the Bill a requirement that the Bank of England consider the risk of demutualisation when using the mechanisms enshrined therein. There is a genuine fear in the building society sector that, without proper safeguards, the recapitalisation mechanism offered by the Bill could inadvertently become a back door for demutualisation. When a mutual institution faces resolution, the selection of a purchaser from the plc sector risks permanently dismantling its mutual status, undermining the very ethos that makes these institutions unique.
Our amendment would provide a proportionate solution, requiring the Bank of England to consider the impact of demutualisation on members and the sector as a whole, while also exploring the feasibility of selecting a mutual sector purchaser, if one exists and meets the resolution objectives. This is not about privileging mutuals at the expense of financial stability; it is about ensuring that the Bank’s resolution tools do not inadvertently homogenise our financial landscape. Silicon Valley Bank demonstrated the need for agile resolution frameworks, but it also highlighted the importance of preserving institutional diversity.
Mutuals and building societies often serve communities and demographics that larger banks frequently overlook. Their potential loss would leave gaps in financial inclusion and weaken the resilience of the sector. Importantly, without the millions of mortgages provided by the building society sector, particularly for first-time homeowners, Labour’s house building plans would be simply impossible.
I hope the Minister appreciates that our amendment strikes a careful balance between safeguarding financial stability and honouring our commitment to a pluralistic banking system—one where mutuals continue to thrive as a cornerstone of community-focused finance. I remind Labour Members that it will be much harder to double the size of the mutual sector if, in the event of a failure, recapitalisation defaults towards the banking sector. I hope the Government will therefore demonstrate their manifesto commitment to the mutual and co-operative sector by voting today for new clause 3 and amendment 2.
There remains genuine concern—shared across this House and reflected in the debates in the other place—over the risk of the recapitalisation mechanism being applied too broadly and potentially capturing larger banks that already hold substantial loss-absorbing resources, such as MREL. We continue to believe that the mechanism should be limited in scope and targeted at smaller banks that do not have the same capacity to manage their own failure. Amendment 1 would limit the use of the mechanism to what it was always intended to be: a mechanism for smaller banks outside the MREL regime.
I appreciate that new clauses 1 and 2 have already been ruled out of scope, but it may be worth noting a couple of points on these measures. I wish to place on the record today that the Opposition believe the time has come for a review of how we set the threshold for MREL, as well as the protection ceilings for depositors under the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. The current static nature of MREL thresholds disproportionately affects smaller and mid-sized banks, particularly challenger banks. By indexing MREL thresholds to inflation, we can ensure that the regulatory framework remains robust over time without stifling competition. These institutions often operate on tighter margins and face significant barriers in meeting rigid capital requirements, hindering their ability to scale and compete effectively with larger incumbents. While we appreciate that the Bank of England’s consultation on MREL closed earlier this year, we hope that the Government will consider these points. Threshold limits should not stay static with time.
Likewise, we welcome the Government’s recognition of the need to review the Financial Services Compensation Scheme deposit limit. The recent announcement of the increase of the deposit protection scheme from £85,000 to £110,000, although very welcome, is certainly overdue. It is worth noting that if the limit had kept pace with inflation, it would be nearly two thirds higher, at around £140,000, according to the Federation of Small Businesses. It is worth noting that only 4.6% of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK deposits were insured by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. May I just remind the hon. Gentleman that we are discussing what is in scope, rather than what is not in scope and has not been selected?
Mark Garnier
My apologies, Madam Deputy Speaker. These are points that we feel are worth noting, but I take your comments.
I will turn to amendment 3, tabled by the Liberal Democrats. Although we share the intent behind the amendment, which mirrors the Conservatives’ amendment on MREL limits for banks, there is a critical difference in its approach that gives us pause. Like us, the Liberal Democrats recognise that end-state MREL banks should not be the primary target of this legislation. However, their amendment introduces a requirement for a statutory instrument under the negative procedure that we believe would create more problems than it solves.
Our concern lies in the potential impracticality of this approach. Banking crises can unfold rapidly, as we saw with Silicon Valley Bank UK, where decisions were made in a matter of hours, not days. A statutory instrument subject to the negative procedure becomes law the moment the Minister signs it, which is a good thing, and it remains in law unless either House rejects it within 40 sitting days. That creates a window of uncertainty. If Members were to pray against the statutory instrument, particularly in a hung Parliament, it could trigger market instability, which is precisely what this Bill seeks to avoid, so although we agree with the principle of limiting the Bill’s scope, we worry that the mechanism could tie the hands of a future Chancellor, hindering their ability to respond swiftly and decisively in a crisis. For those reasons, we cannot support the Liberal Democrat amendment.
David Pinto-Duschinsky (Hendon) (Lab)
I rise to speak in opposition to amendments 1, 3 and 4. Under the previous Government, the country was subjected to years of economic chaos. This Government have made restoring stability a cornerstone of our strategy to boost long-term growth. Ensuring macroprudential stability, underpinned by an effective recovery and resolution regime, is a key part of that. Changes undertaken in the UK and globally through the Basel III reforms have made our large banks safer and more resilient, and we should welcome that. The reforms have improved solvency and reduced risks for the taxpayer.
However, the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023 has demonstrated the need for new tools to help minimise the risk to consumers, taxpayers and broader financial stability posed by small bank failures. We need an approach that goes beyond the bank insolvency procedure, and that is why the proposals in the Bill enjoy so much support across our financial services sector, as I know from my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on financial markets and services. But in designing this new approach, we must make sure that the proposals reflect the lessons of experience. In all candour, I am concerned that the amendments do not do that, and will impede the functioning of the new regime, rendering it less effective at moments of crisis.
I was an adviser in the Treasury to Alistair Darling during the global financial crisis, when we had to resolve and recapitalise a number of major banks. The action that the Labour Government took then—often in the face of resistance from Conservative Members—helped to save our financial sector from catastrophe and stabilise not just the UK, but the global economy. There are many lessons to be learned from that period, but in relation to the Bill, one stands out. When we had to act to save our banking sector, we learned that successful resolution relies, among other things, on two key factors: speed and flexibility. It was the combination of those factors that was so important in 2008, and since then, I would argue, they have only become more important.
In 2008, we watched banks’ liquidity and solvency deteriorate by the day, but now, as the collapse of Signature Bank in the US in 2023 shows, the combination of banking apps and social media mean that a full-scale banking run can develop in hours or even minutes. If we are to resolve banks successfully, regulators must be able to move as quickly. Speed has become more important than ever. So, too, has flexibility. As we see increasing financial innovation and diversification among banks, with new challengers, new forms of institutions and new types of markets and assets emerging, allowing regulators sufficient flexibility has become more essential, not less.
The value of flexibility was demonstrated in the case of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK subsidiary. The creative use of powers to resolve that bank through a sale, rather than putting it into the bank insolvency procedure, protected consumers, minimised market turbulence and shielded the public purse. Contrast that with the US regulators’ approach to the parent company, SVB. There, rigidity and a mechanistic failure to apply major bank rules led to failures of regulatory oversight that contributed—as US regulators have acknowledged—to the bank’s failure. I raise this matter because I fear that amendments 1, 3 and 4 will militate against speed and flexibility, and will reduce the effectiveness of the Bill, especially in acute crisis situations.
Let me start with proposed amendment 4. This would require the Bank of England to consider competitiveness and the growth impact on the market before directing resolution through the FSCS. However well-intentioned the amendment is, it could have a catastrophic effect. At a time of crisis—policymakers have sometimes just hours to act—it would place a duty on them to make a market assessment, which, by the way, could presumably be challenged. This is simply impractical and could fatally slow down action to restore financial stability. As someone who has sat in the room during a bail-out process, I have to tell the proposer of the amendment that spending time on this kind of exercise during a disorderly bank failure is simply a luxury that we do not have.
I am also concerned that such a requirement would have a chilling effect, staying regulators’ hands when they have to act quickly. This could not only increase the risk of disorderly collapse, but raise the cost to the FSCS of a recapitalisation if it does proceed. Experience tells us that the longer we put off a resolution, the more expensive it becomes. This is a recipe for higher risk and higher cost. Moreover, leaving aside the practical difficulties, the underlying logic is flawed. First, in seeking to analyse the market before deciding on whether to resolve an institution or wind it up, we are putting the cart before the horse. Surely a much better course of action is to prevent the potentially disorderly collapse of the institution, and then to work out its long-term future and the role, if any, it should play in the market.
Secondly, the amendment fails to take into account other objectives that the Prudential Regulation Authority should properly consider in deciding whether to act, including the protection of retail savers, the prevention of contagion and the safeguarding of macroprudential stability. As drafted, the amendment, however well-intentioned, could distort PRA decision making. Its intentions may be good, but its impact might not be.
The same is unfortunately true of amendments 1 and 3. Both seek to circumscribe the use of the FSCS via statute, to prevent it being used to bail out larger institutions. The amendments would rob regulators of the flexibility to use the instrument in unusual or unforeseen circumstances, in the name of solving a problem that does not exist.
The powers provided by the Bill are already aimed squarely at smaller banks, and there are various safeguards in the Bill to prevent the use of those powers for larger banks in most scenarios. For example, the Bill states that the FSCS-funded resolution may be used only for institutions that are placed in a bridge bank or transferred to a new institution, and this would not be applicable for larger bank in most scenarios, as they are expected to be resolved through an MREL bail-in. The Bill also provides for de facto Treasury sign off, requires the Chancellor to report to Parliament on the use of the powers and mandates the bank to inform the Chairs of the relevant parliamentary Committees whenever an FSCS-funded resolution is undertaken. As such, it is already well-policed and circumscribed. There is little danger of this approach being regularly or routinely used with large banks. Adding a statutory prohibition on using this approach with firms meeting their minimum MREL thresholds would add little, but it would create risk.
My experience in the Treasury during the global financial crisis, and in my work across financial services since then, is that we cannot say that the highly improbable will never happen, and we cannot always predict what form the next crisis will take, or what will trigger it. Conservative Members should surely understand this lesson better than most. After all, it was Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget that sparked market chaos through a product—liability-driven investments—that most people had never even heard of, and were thought to be very stable and low risk. Given this, it would be exceptionally unwise to statutorily bar the Bank from being able to use all the tools at its disposal in exceptional circumstances. There are eventualities that, however unlikely, are possible, such as a well-capitalised bank suffering a very rapid deterioration of its position due to a mass redress event. We must allow the Bank flexibility to access the tools that the Bill provides in exceptional circumstances, in order to ensure stability and protect the taxpayer. We must not bind its hands in a crisis.
The power of the Government’s proposals lie in their ability to be deployed rapidly and with flexibility. That is what will give them their traction and help safeguard our financial stability. It is critical that we preserve those facets of the Bill. For that reason, I urge the House to join me in rejecting the amendments.
Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats are supportive of the Bill, because the last thing taxpayers need to worry about are the consequences of an under-regulated banking sector. I have brought amendment 3 back from Committee, because the size of banks eligible for the new mechanism has been a key debate through the Bill’s passage.
The Minister has regularly set out that the Bill’s stated aim is to enhance the resolution regime, so that we can respond to the failure of small banks. However, the Bill does not restrict the regime to small or medium-sized banks. If applied to large banks, it would create high costs for banks and customers. The costs would persist for many years, adding a significant long-term burden on the banking sector and consumers. Amendment 3 would ensure that the Bill does not apply to banks that have reached the end-state minimum requirement for own funds and eligible liabilities—put more simply, the largest UK banks. That would mean that only small and medium-sized banks could be supported by the mechanism. That would protect consumers and the banking sector from unnecessary financial burden.
Amendment 4 has also been brought back from Committee. It would place a further objective on the Bank of England to consider the competitiveness and growth of the market before directing the recapitalisation of a failing small bank through a levy on the banking sector. We believe that further consideration of the effect on the competitiveness and growth of the market is important before directing the recapitalisation of failing small banks.
To conclude, I would be grateful if the Minister could expand on the remarks made in Committee and explain how precisely the amendment would complicate the process of managing a bank failure.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Emma Reynolds)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Cummins. I thank the hon. Members for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) and for Wokingham (Clive Jones) for their amendments and their constructive engagement throughout the Bill’s passage. The Bill will ensure that the Bank of England remains equipped with the necessary tools to effectively manage bank failures in a way that minimises risk to the taxpayer and to UK financial stability, protecting the taxpayer.
While there may be some disagreements on the finer detail of the Bill, what we have heard today, and on Second Reading and in Committee, demonstrates that there is cross-party support for the principles and overall objectives of the Bill. I thank the hon. Member for Wyre Forest and the hon. Member for Wokingham for supporting those.
The amendments cover a broad range of issues, and I will explain the Government’s position on them in turn, but first I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (David Pinto-Duschinsky) for setting out his experience of the banking crisis and stressing that the mechanism we are seeking to provide through the Bill must allow the Bank of England, in close consultation with the Treasury and other financial services regulators, to act with speed and flexibility at times of crisis. There are hours, not days, in which to make decisions during crises, and at the forefront of our minds when discussing the Bill should be that they often happen over the weekend, as happened under the previous Government with Silicon Valley Bank. I will turn to that example shortly, but I wanted to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon for setting out his concerns about the amendments that would essentially stymie the effectiveness of the Bill.
I note that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest, raised a number of issues on new clause 3, on the Bill’s impact on credit unions. Some were not strictly relevant to the Bill, but I will come on to them. As he noted, the Government absolutely support credit unions. They play a vital role in providing saving products and affordable credit in local communities across the country. However, they are not in scope of the resolution regime that we are discussing, and therefore not in scope of the new recapitalisation payment mechanism introduced by the Bill. That is a benefit to the credit union sector. Indeed, it asked the Government to ensure that it was not included in the payment mechanism. Credit unions will therefore not be liable to pay towards the cost of a failure where the mechanism is used.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I support wholeheartedly what the Minister has said about credit unions, because credit unions have a big role to play in Northern Ireland, as they do in other parts of the United Kingdom. My concern when it comes to crises in banks is that credit unions belong to their members, but banks have a different hierarchy—they have chief executives and directors to pay. I believe it is unfair for bankers to retain their bonuses while the pensioner who has saved his pennies all his life suffers. No matter what the crisis is, the executives still get their dividends and bonuses. I have a simple question: within this legislation and the rules we have here, can we be assured that the bankers—the ones at the top who may be responsible for the banks, or certainly act responsible for them—will find that their bonuses are not delivered to them?
Emma Reynolds
The hon. Gentleman draws me on something that is not pertinent to the amendments, but I understand why he has asked the question. When a bank fails, there is a hierarchy of creditors. I can write to him with that hierarchy, as I do not have it in my head at the moment. The hierarchy ensures that if, for example, the bank is bailed in, those who have already invested in the bank become stakeholders, although it depends on the resolution scenario and where they are in that process. The people who have deposits in the bank—in more simple language, people who have bank accounts—are protected up to £85,000. Soon that will increase in the way that the shadow Minister suggested.
Amendments 1 and 3 in the names of shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest, and the hon. Member for Wokingham respectively both relate to the scope of the Bill, which has been discussed at length during the Bill’s passage through this House and in the other place. The Government’s position remains that the mechanism in the Bill is not intended to support the resolution of the largest banks. The hon. Member for Wyre Forest set that out in his speech, as did the hon. Member for Wokingham. The largest banks will continue to be required to hold MREL to self-insure against their own failure. For banks that are required to hold MREL, the Bank of England should in the first instance use those resources to recapitalise such a firm in resolution rather than resorting to the new mechanism in the Bill. It is right that shareholders and investors in the firm should bear losses before anyone else, which goes to the point made by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon).
I return to the primary purpose of the Bill, which is to protect the taxpayer. Bank failures are by their nature highly unpredictable, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon said. In the unlikely circumstances where a top-up is needed to resolve a bank once all its MREL resources have been used, hon. Members must consider whether they want those costs to be borne by the taxpayer. It is the Government’s belief that the taxpayer should not be on the hook for those costs.
I made the point in Committee, and do so again today, that safeguards are in place to prevent inappropriate use of the mechanism. The Treasury, for example, is involved in the exercise of any resolution powers through being consulted about whether conditions for resolution have been met. It would also need to approve any resolution action with implications for public funds. If the Bank of England requested a large sum from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme that the scheme could not provide through its own resources, additional amounts would need to be borrowed from the Treasury and would therefore require the Treasury’s approval. Therefore, in practice, Treasury consent would be required if the Bank of England had requested a large sum.
The shadow Minister attempted to draw me into many different subjects related to MREL. You rightly reminded him, Madam Deputy Speaker, of the scope of the Bill and the amendments under discussion. I will always be happy to have those discussions with him—as he knows, the Bank of England recently consulted on the thresholds—and I note what he said before he was called to order. He also tried to draw me into questions about the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which are also for a different day; as he said, there will soon be increases.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
I appreciate that the Bill’s scope is limited, and the Minister is making an excellent case for the Government. I realise that bank collapses are unusual and that the Government take a range of steps to try to protect the interests of consumers, but could she write to reassure me on the related point of bank branches there were a bank collapse?
Emma Reynolds
Perhaps my hon. Friend and I could have a discussion outside the Chamber so that I can better understand his question. The mechanism in the Bill is about what happens when the resolution regime is triggered. Four different conditions have to be met for that to happen. The Bill seeks to continue the work that the Opposition started to take forward when they were in government before the election about what we do in cases like that of Silicon Valley Bank. In that case, there was not any recourse to public funds, but this is about how we protect the taxpayer in a scenario where there is. Perhaps we can have a discussion about bank branch closures, which is obviously of great concern to Members across the House.
I appreciate that amendment 3, tabled by the hon. Member for Wokingham, aims to introduce an additional safeguard by permitting the Bank of England to use its new power on the largest banks only if the Treasury permits that through regulations. He talked about that in his speech. However, there may be risks associated with that approach, particularly if the Bank of England needed to take a decision at pace in a crisis. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon was in the Treasury when many such situations arose. [Interruption.] Well, let us not rake over the history. We discussed some of these issues in Committee.
As the shadow Minister suggested, we are trying to avoid a window of uncertainty during which a statutory instrument would be laid. The Bank of England, working in close partnership and consultation with the Treasury and the other financial services regulators, needs to be able to act swiftly and decisively—often over the weekend. I ask hon. Members, and the hon. Member for Wokingham in particular, to cast our minds back to the weekend when Silicon Valley Bank UK was failing. The Bill derives from the lessons learned from that event.
What we saw from that incident is how quickly the authorities—the Bank of England in consultation with the Treasury, the PRA and the FCA—must move to find a solution before markets open and resolve a failing firm in a way that protects financial stability, depositors and the taxpayer. That has to be at the forefront of our minds when we are thinking about the amendments.
Amendment 3 could add a further stage to that process, whereby the Treasury must lay regulations to enable the Bank of England to act. That may well—it is most likely that it would—hamper those efforts to implement a solution swiftly to achieve those objectives. Had Silicon Valley Bank UK been caught by such requirements, that certainly would have made achieving the solution by Monday morning, before the markets opened, much more challenging. Again, the priority is to protect the depositors and to protect financial stability.
Overall, the Government firmly believe that it is better to leave flexibility for the Bank, noting the safeguards in place that I have already mentioned. On the basis of those points, I hope that hon. Members will be persuaded to support the Government’s position on this matter; I know that it is an issue of some contention.
Amendment 4, also in the name of the hon. Member for Wokingham, is on whether the Bank of England should have a growth and competitiveness objective when exercising its new power—another topic that we have discussed previously during the Bill’s passage. Growth and competitiveness are fundamental priorities for the Government, and as I stated in Committee, a disorderly bank failure could pose a serious risk to the growth and competitiveness of the sector and to the UK economy. The Bill seeks to mitigate that risk.
Bearing that in mind, the Government do not believe that they should impose a requirement on the Bank of England to consider growth and competitiveness when it is taking urgent crisis management action in relation to an individual distressed or failing firm. At such a time, the situation that it would have to manage would be challenging enough without an additional broad objective of that kind. The resolution objectives set out in the Banking Act 2009 already provide a solid basis on which it must make its decisions, including protecting financial stability, protecting covered depositors and protecting the taxpayer. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon reminded us, the Bank of England, in close partnership with the Treasury and the other financial services regulators, needs to act with speed and flexibility to maintain financial stability. Those considerations are very different from those that the PRA and the FCA make in their policymaking roles. The Government strongly support the existence of their secondary objective on facilitating growth and competitiveness.
I note and accept that there is a broader question about how the Bank of England can support growth and competitiveness, but this is a complex matter, and one that is well beyond the scope of the Bill. We will be resisting the amendment for those reasons.
Finally—[Interruption.] I see that our debate has attracted quite a lot of discussion around the edges; if I could hear myself think, it would be nice. I turn briefly to amendment 2, tabled by the shadow Minister. First, I reiterate that the Government have made clear their strong commitment to support the mutual sector, and I reassure him that we take our commitment in the manifesto to double the size of the mutual and co-operative sector very seriously. Many hon. Members on the Government Benches who serve as Labour and Co-operative MPs have a great interest in this matter, as has been demonstrated.
I also direct the shadow Minister—to be fair, he referred to a couple of them—to the package of measures that the Chancellor set out at Mansion House, which included the consultation on the potential to reform common bonds for credit unions in Great Britain. The Chancellor asked the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority to produce a report on the mutuals landscape by the end of the year. She also welcomed the establishment of an industry-led mutual and co-operative business council, the first meeting of which I attended earlier this year.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister give way?
Emma Reynolds
I am afraid I am being urged to wrap up. I remind Members that the Bill is fundamentally about protecting the taxpayer—
Emma Reynolds
We have not come to that yet; my hon. Friend can intervene on Third Reading. [Laughter.]
Taking what I was saying into account, although the Government appreciate the point raised by the sector and by the shadow Minister, we do not believe it is necessary to hardwire in legislation a requirement to update the code of practice on this matter. I understand, however, that the mutual sector feels strongly about this issue, and my officials and I will continue to engage with the sector on it. I commend to the House our position on the new clauses and amendments, which is to resist them.
Mark Garnier
With the leave of the House, I wish to address one or two of the points made in the debate. The hon. Member for Hendon (David Pinto-Duschinsky) is an incredibly valuable contributor to the debate because of his experience back in the days of the 2008 financial crisis. If I remember correctly, that was largely a result of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, which almost compounded the problem by having a tripartite regime that looked after the banking sector at the time. If I remember rightly, the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time found it so scary that his eyebrows nearly turned white. One of the surprising things about that crisis was that just 10 years earlier we had seen the Asian banking crisis, which basically laid the groundwork for what subsequently happened in the west. Perhaps we in the west were too arrogant to believe that it could happen to us, yet it sure did.
In my role as a member of the Treasury Committee from 2010 to 2016, and on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, I looked at all these issues very extensively. It is incredibly important that we resolve the issue. As it has turned out, the Financial Services Act 2012 and the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Act 2013 have worked well in respect of some of this resolution.
On the point about LDIs and the financial crisis as a result of the Budget, we dealt with the problem pretty swiftly and pretty brutally. When one of our leaders gets it wrong, we get rid of them fairly quickly. I suggest to the Labour party that if Government Front Benchers get things wrong, it is worth cauterising the problem and moving on.
On credit unions and mutuals, we absolutely recognise the point about the mutual sector. We are not asking for demutualisation to be ruled out; we are asking for the prospect of avoiding demutualisation to be part of that very swift process. That is why we will press amendment 2 to a Division. I met the credit unions yesterday, and they are keen that the principle of new clause 3 is voted on, so we will press that as well.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Emma Reynolds
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
We can hopefully do Third Reading in a more relaxed fashion. As we have discussed through the Bill’s passage, the Bank Resolution (Recapitalisation) Bill will strengthen the UK’s bank resolution regime by providing the Bank of England with a more flexible toolkit for responding to the failure of banking institutions.
As volatility over recent weeks has shown, global uncertainty can have a real impact on financial markets across the world. That is why it is important that the UK remains equipped with an effective financial stability toolkit. The primary objective of the recapitalisation mechanism introduced by the Bill is to protect the taxpayer; it will provide more comprehensive protection for public funds when banks fail. I think both sides of the House can agree that this is of vital importance to ensure that our constituents are not left on the hook when a bank collapses. The Bill achieves that without placing new up-front costs on the banking sector, and therefore strikes the right balance between protecting financial stability and supporting the Government’s No. 1 priority of driving economic growth.
I would like to thank all those in this House and the other place who have contributed to the scrutiny of the Bill. In particular, I would like to thank the Opposition for their constructive engagement. As I said on Report, there is broad agreement on the primary objectives and principles of the Bill, but differing views have been expressed on the scope of the mechanism and certain finer details. I reiterate the Government’s position: it is important to learn the lessons from the case of Silicon Valley Bank UK, which demonstrates that the implications of a firm’s failure cannot always be anticipated, and things move very quickly. It is important that the legislation avoids overly restricting the Bank of England’s ability to use the mechanism in unpredictable and fast-moving failure scenarios, and can achieve its primary objective of protecting the taxpayer. I hope that those in the other place will agree with the Government’s position when the Bill returns there for their consideration.
I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), the hon. Members for Dorking and Horley (Chris Coghlan) and for Wokingham (Clive Jones), and others who were on the Committee. I thank the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Kit Malthouse), and the hon. Members for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) and for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), for their contributions on Second Reading. I thank the Minister with responsibility for pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea West (Torsten Bell), who assisted me on Second Reading, and my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee) for his input. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (David Pinto-Duschinsky) for his speech on Report.
I would like to extend my gratitude to my officials in the Treasury for their hard work in developing this highly technical Bill, which could not easily be rushed, and for supporting me throughout the Bill’s passage. I am also grateful to the House staff, parliamentary counsel and all other officials involved in the passage of the Bill.
This Bill supports the UK economy’s resilience to the risks posed by bank failures. We all remember the damage caused by the financial crisis, and the Bill, alongside other measures that allow failures to be managed in an orderly way, upholds the economic and financial stability that will deliver on the Government’s growth mission. I am pleased that the Bill has received broad cross-party support in this House and the other place, and I look forward to its enactment. I commend it to the House.
Mark Garnier
May I first say a hearty congratulations to the Minister on bringing through her first Bill in the new Government? She was parachuted into the job rather recently, but she has done a magnificent job, and it has been a pleasure to engage with her. We share the aim of working in the interests of the wider economy, and we have worked together on the Bill. We may differ on a few tiny details, but we agree on its overall objective.
As I mentioned on Report, I spent some time on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards looking at how we can stop another banking crisis, and on the Treasury Committee doing pre-legislative work on the Financial Services Act 2012. This is an iterative and organic process. We will never be able to stop financial crises happening, but working together, we can ensure that there are no more instances of contagion flooding through the system. This Bill is extraordinarily good in following that iterative process, in order to make the banking system unsinkable, I hope—and I do not use that term lightly, as someone might have done in the film “Titanic”; this is genuinely very important.
I pay credit to the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), and the former Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), and their officials, who worked tirelessly to ensure that Silicon Valley Bank UK was transferred to HSBC over that weekend, which undoubtedly avoided wider disruption to the financial system. We are delighted that the Bill was introduced in the previous Parliament, and we welcome the Government’s decision to carry it over into this Parliament. I was about to say that our swords will cross in the coming months and years, but I do not think they will; I think we will almost certainly agree on things. We will engage with the Minister and her officials to ensure that we have a world-class financial system that is the envy of the world.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Flood Preparedness: Carlisle
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
I am pleased to have secured an Adjournment debate on a topic that is so important to my constituency of Carlisle. In the last two decades, Carlisle has suffered two devastating floods, which have left local people fearful whenever there is a forecast of heavy rain.
In the flood of January 2005, which was the worst flood since 1822, three local people—Margaret Threlkeld, Margaret Porter and Michael Scott—tragically lost their life. Thousands were forced from their homes as 1,800 properties were overcome by water from the three rivers that converge in the centre of Carlisle. Power and telephone lines were disrupted. Road and rail networks were closed. All the city’s buses were damaged. The civic centre, designated as the emergency control centre, along with the police station, the fire station, the main electricity substation, the telephone exchange and the sewage treatment works, were all severely flooded.
It was record rainfall that caused the flood of 2005, but just 10 years later that record was shattered, and Carlisle was flooded again. This time, 2,200 properties were breached with floodwater. Given that the floods were in 2005 and 2015, I think the Minister will understand why many of my residents are concerned that 2025, another year ending in a “5”, might bring further devastation to our city. That fear is heightened, because the defences promised by the previous Government following the 2015 flood were never completed.
It is a fear I can personally relate to. In 1985, my family’s home in the Denton Holme area of Carlisle—one of the areas still at risk because of those incomplete flood defences—was flooded when the River Caldew burst its banks. I can personally testify to the terror and helplessness that people feel when their home is invaded by water. We waded through what was once our living room, surveying possessions and furniture destroyed beyond repair. It is a horrible, crushing feeling, and even after the water subsides, the smell of damp and sewage remains. Returning to any sort of normality can take months, even years. My parents had spent the best part of two decades creating a home in Denton Holme that they loved, and my mam—who, incidentally, will turn 91 on Saturday—still talks of it. After the flood, she said she could never shake the sense or smell of damp, and within 18 months we had moved house.
In response to the 2005 flood, the then Labour Government commissioned and completed new flood defences, and over the next five years, £38 million was spent on the design and construction of flood defences at the Eden, Petteril and Caldew rivers. These were designed to protect Carlisle from a storm with a one in 200 chance of happening, and they did make a major difference. In 2012 and 2013, the defences were estimated to have prevented in excess of £180 million-worth of flood damage to the city. But on 5 December 2015, Storm Desmond hit Carlisle. It was a storm with a one in 333 chance of occurring. The rainfall triggered the highest level of flow ever recorded on the River Eden. In some locations, flood levels were approximately 600 mm higher than those experienced in 2005. Such was the extent of the flood that the crossbar posts at Brunton Park, Carlisle United’s famous stadium, were submerged under water. Fortunately, no one lost their life in 2015, and while the recently constructed defences were effective at reducing damage and delaying flooding in some locations, it was clear that more needed to be done.
Progress has been made in subsequent years, and I commend the Environment Agency for that. Since the catastrophic floods of 2015, some 1,650 homes are better protected, thanks to over 6 km of new or raised flood defences. There have also been improvements to two culverts and their associated inlet or outlet structures. The Carlisle phase 1 and 1a schemes, completed in 2021, have increased protections for homes and businesses around the Warwick Road and Botcherby areas of Carlisle. The Carlisle phase 2 scheme, also completed in 2021, raised the flood defences along the River Eden, providing further protection to the Hardwicke Circus and Castle Way areas. The Rickerby and Low Crosby schemes have also reduced the flood risk to local communities. It is particularly excellent that the latter took an award-winning, innovative, low-carbon approach; it removed historical embankments to increase the effectiveness of natural floodplains.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent and powerful speech about this awful problem that affects so many people, particularly in her part of England. Can wider lessons be learned from the techniques she is describing—for example, lessons about the use of natural materials, and about changes in land use, particularly in a range of river catchments? In my area in the Thames valley, both the Thames and the Kennet have flooded; as a result of climate change, they pose much greater risk than they did. Many residents have concerns about a range of issues, and I wonder if my hon. Friend thinks there is a wider national lesson to be learned.
Ms Minns
I do think there are lessons to be learned, not least because Carlisle has been so badly affected by flooding and it is so devastating. Lessons could be shared from the schemes that have been introduced in the city, particularly in relation to maximising the use of the floodplains. In a short while, I will discuss more generally some of the natural flood defence work that has happened on the outskirts of the city.
There have been a number of schemes to the north of Carlisle. In the town of Brampton, natural solutions like tree planting and the creation of wetlands have been used to mitigate the risk of flooding from the Brampton beck, all while providing wider environmental benefits to the community. A new natural flood management scheme is currently being delivered at Brampton Fell farm, offering further protection to the town. There has also been the return of the “wiggling river” at Howgill beck, which was straightened more than 200 years ago. Thanks to the work of RSPB Geltsdale warden Jen Selvidge, a 1.8 km stretch of the beck has been returned to its natural wiggly state. During heavy periods of rainfall the river can now spill out on to the natural surrounding floodplain meadows, helping to reduce the chance of flooding downstream towards Carlisle, as well as having the added bonus of creating vital pools and damp patches for wading birds to feed on.
I am delighted that earlier this month the restoration project won the prestigious UK river prize project-scale award for 2025. Natural flood management schemes like these have an important role to play, and I urge the Minister to look closely at how a redesigned sustainable farming incentive can best encourage and compensate farmers who do the right thing by their local community for the loss of the income that they might otherwise have earned from the farmland that they have given over to natural flood management schemes.
One of the groups that particularly deserves praise in keeping Carlisle’s flood preparedness under the spotlight is the Carlisle Flood Action Group. Since its founding in January 2016 in the wake of the December flooding, it has done an excellent job of campaigning for the defences that our city needs. Indeed, it is one of many examples that show Carlisle at its very best. Our community is one that pulls together, and nothing encapsulates that better than it taking just 49 days from the 2015 floods to get the aforementioned Brunton Park back up and running and ready for matches once again. Some might say that, given our form this season, we could use a little bit of a delay to the end of it, but I will not dwell on that point.
Let me be clear: more needs to be done. In January last year river levels threatened to overwhelm the city again. Last May, rainfall equivalent to a one-in-300-year storm led to the flooding of 100 properties in the village of Scotby, just outside Carlisle. Our changing climate only makes these sorts of storms more common. Indeed, the Environment Agency believes that the impact of climate change in the River Eden catchment, which covers near the majority of my constituency, will be more severe than in the vast majority of river catchments in England.
At the very top of the list of what must be done is the Caldew flood risk management scheme, which many people in my constituency will know as the long-promised Carlisle phase 3 scheme—the one that was not delivered by the last Government. The scheme’s objective is to reduce flood risk to over 1,700 properties in the Denton Holme, Caldewgate and Willowholme areas of the city. I was grateful to Carol Holt, the Environment Agency area director for Cumbria and Lancashire, for accompanying me on a tour across the area in February this year, but despite assurances dating back years, residents have become frustrated by a lack of communication from the EA since the project was first paused in 2021 due to viability concerns.
We are not the only community waiting for defences or even trying to get maintenance done to existing defences. After 14 years of Conservative dither and delay, some 3,000 Environment Agency high-consequence assets were below the required condition. That is one of the reasons that I am glad we now have a Labour Government, and an especially responsive Minister for Water and Flooding. I welcome the planned investment of a record £2.65 billion in the next two years to build and repair over 1,000 flood defences, better protecting 52,000 properties across the country.
Last month, over £1 million was pledged towards a number of schemes in north-west Cumbria, including road surface work at Etterby Terrace and Wigton Road in Carlisle, and a property flood resilience scheme at Warwick Bridge, just outside the city, which I have been pushing the EA to deliver since I entered this place and which is planned to be finished by winter 2025. Some £300,000 was secured for the long-mooted Caldew scheme; I have been told that feasibility studies are due by the end of the summer, and although I look forward to their conclusions, I am concerned that even if a path is identified, it may be five to 10 years until the scheme can be delivered.
Tackling the risk from the Caldew cannot just be about creating ever higher and more expensive and imposing flood defences. Instead, we need a range of measures, both in Carlisle and outside it, to help slow and hold the water away from the city, buying precious time for the river levels to ease. I understand that the Caldew scheme will be one of the largest schemes that the Environment Agency has ever undertaken, but it is vital to the lives of over 100,000 residents in Carlisle and to the prosperity of a place that has been the centre of trading in north-west England since before Roman times. I recognise that delivering the scheme will not be quick and I urge the Minister to ensure that a suite of measures is employed in the interim to mitigate the immediate threat from the River Caldew. Those measures could include a plan to remove aggregate and vegetation build-up that slows the flow of the river through the city.
I wish to address one other aspect of flood preparedness: emergency planning. I am glad that further expansions of the flood warning provision have taken place in Carlisle, including two new flood warning areas at Warwick Bridge and Parham beck, covering a combined 330 properties. I am also grateful for the flooding text alerts that I receive on a regular basis, but one issue that has been pointed out to me, particularly by the Carlisle Flood Action Group, is the need for more information to be made available to the public ahead of an incident, so that people can see where their nearest emergency shelter is planned to be in the event of a flood. I understand that such information is not currently available, so the first time the public hear of those locations would be when a flood occurs.
Matt Rodda
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. In my own experience and that of local residents, alerts sometimes happen in the middle of the night, so it is extremely worrying and difficult for residents to respond quickly. She is right that there needs to be a proactive element, but does she also believe that there needs to be better co-ordination between private landowners, local authorities and the EA to tackle this issue? Particular concerns about private landowners have been raised with me. Will she comment on that point?
Ms Minns
I am aware, certainly in the Denton Holme area, that a number of different landowners have responsibility for the maintenance of the river banks. As my hon. Friend identifies, that patchwork of responsibilities gives rise to a number of issues. It would be desirable for more information about flood alerts to be available in advance, so that people could plan for such an eventuality, but I recognise that those plans need to be dynamic; as I highlighted, in 2005 people could not get to the emergency centre because it had been cut off by the flood water. I recognise that providing that information in advance will not be absolutely perfect, but it would be beneficial for it to be made available.
If emergency locations were known, residents would have a better understanding of where to move to in the event of an emergency and would begin to do so, as my hon. Friend the Member for Reading Central (Matt Rodda) indicates, when that all-important flood alert came through. I would be grateful if the Minister could consider that point in her response.
In summary, I urge haste. I have already said that we are in another year ending in a “5”, and that does present concerns for my constituency. We passed the 20-year anniversary of the tragic 2005 floods in January and we approach the 10-year anniversary of the 2015 floods in December, so it is vital that we get on with delivering the schemes needed to keep our great border city safe and secure for many years to come.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Emma Hardy)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (Ms Minns) for securing this debate. I wish a happy birthday to her mam, who I believe has her birthday at the weekend. I am really delighted to have the opportunity to hear about and discuss the steps being taken to prepare for flooding in Carlisle and across England. On a personal level, I have to say that my hon. Friend’s constituents made an excellent choice in making her their Member of Parliament, because she always lobbies me so nicely. That is always nice, but it also makes it very difficult for me ever to say no. I spoke with the Environment Agency earlier, and its representatives also told me how engaged my hon. Friend has been on flood risk reduction in Carlisle and were very complimentary about her persistent and kind lobbying.
Protecting communities, homes, businesses and farmland is our priority, and that is more important than ever as climate change brings more extreme weather to the nation. I have met my hon. Friend twice in the last year formally, and many times informally, to speak about some of the challenges that her constituency faces. I understand the awful experience of flooding, and I know full well that flooding of any kind is devastating for those affected. My hon. Friend has spoken in this House on the issue of flooding 20 years after the terrible 2005 floods, which are considered the worst in Carlisle since 1822 and, as she said, tragically claimed the lives of three people. In 2015, Carlisle saw further devastation from Storm Desmond. I know that she raised that issue last December, asking the Prime Minister what assurances could be given on delivering flood defences that might prevent a repeat. Only last year, Carlisle was badly affected again, so I understand my hon. Friend’s urgency.
Unlike the last Government, who left our defences in a state of disrepair, I am pleased to share that the investment for this year between April ’25 and March ’26 includes more than £1 million across nine schemes in my hon. Friend’s constituency alone. Her constituency is receiving £1,015,000 this financial year, of which £660,000 is allocated to the city of Carlisle itself. I know that she has expressed particular concern about the delays to the Caldew flood risk management scheme, which I am delighted to confirm has an investment of £300,000 this year for further development. I hope that reassures her that efforts to reduce flood risk to more than 1,700 properties in the Denton Holme, Caldewgate and Willowholme areas of the city are firmly in motion.
My hon. Friend mentioned the Caldew flood risk management scheme, which in ’25-26 will receive an investment of £300,000, in relation to feasibility studies. In 2021, Environment Agency consultants carried out a feasibility study on further flood risk management options for the city of Carlisle, the outcome of which was that that option was not viable. However, another feasibility study is live on other potential options for flood risk management schemes, including, as my hon. Friend mentioned, work upstream of the city. The EA expects that study to conclude this summer.
Great progress has been made in Carlisle in recent years. Parts of the area have some of the highest standards of river and flood protection anywhere in the country, with new flooding schemes designed with a 0.5% annual probability of flooding. My hon. Friend highlighted the work of Jen Selvidge, the RSPB Geltsdale reserve warden, in helping to return 1.8 km of Howgill beck to its natural state of wiggliness, and the work of the Carlisle Flood Action Group to keep Carlisle’s flood preparedness in the spotlight. Local flood action groups play such an important role across this country. Led by the communities themselves, those groups give a voice to local areas and allow communities to work in partnership with local authorities and the Environment Agency. I pay tribute to all of them up and down the country.
Turning to the use of emergency shelters in a flooding event, it is of course local authorities that are responsible for setting up and managing rest centres during evacuations, providing temporary shelter and support for those who have been evacuated. Typically, those locations are not published in advance, as the locations in use will depend on availability, the location of the emergency, and the number of people who may need to use them. The concern is that publishing in advance could risk people attending an inactive location, or one affected by the emergency itself—my hon. Friend mentioned one of the emergency centres itself being flooded, and therefore unable to be used. We will, however, work with the local authority to ensure that a list of potential shelters is published, which can provide residents with notice of where their nearest shelters may be set up.
During a flood emergency, local authorities and the Environment Agency work closely with other emergency partners to co-ordinate messaging—including the possible use of emergency alerts—to affected communities and local flood groups, to ensure that residents have timely and consistent guidance during an emergency. I spoke to the Environment Agency this morning, which informed me that it would contact my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle to discuss the location of emergency shelters in Carlisle and how to make people aware of where they could be, while taking into account that in an emergency, some of them might not be able to be used. We do not want people going to the wrong place, so there is a balance to be struck, but the Environment Agency is happy to talk to my hon. Friend in more detail.
Carlisle is one of the many areas in England that will be receiving investment this year. I am therefore proud to share that in delivering on the Government’s plan for change, we are investing a record £2.65 billion over two years in the construction of new flood schemes and the repair and maintenance of existing ones. With that funding, 1,000 flood schemes have been supported or will continue to be supported, helping to protect 52,000 more homes and businesses. Maintenance of existing flood defences is also being prioritised, ensuring that a further 14,500 properties will have their expected level of protection maintained or restored. In total, 66,500 properties will benefit from that funding, helping to secure jobs, deliver growth and protect against economic damage.
We recognise that many flood defence projects have stalled over time, due partly to an outdated formula for allocating money. We have therefore made available £140 million from the £2.65 billion investment programme, which has been prioritised for 29 projects that are ready for delivery, ensuring that nearby communities are protected as soon as possible. The full list of schemes to receive funding in 2025-26 was announced on 31 March and can be found online, and we will of course continue to invest in new defences.
Because we have inherited flood assets that are in the poorest condition on record following years of under-investment, 3,000 of the Environment Agency’s 38,000 high-consequence assets have been left below the required condition. In a November 2023 report, the National Audit Office recognised that increasing investment in operating and maintaining existing flood defences was critical to reducing the frequency and impact of flooding. As such, we are taking decisive action to fix the foundations, giving communities confidence that flood defences will protect them. To support that action, we are re-prioritising £108 million of investment in repairing and restoring critical assets: £36 million in 2024-25 to target repairs towards assets damaged in storms last winter and ongoing flood events; and a further £72 million this year to continue repairs and ensure that assets are as resilient and reliable as possible, and that they operate as expected in flood events.
In addition, the environmental land management schemes present a valuable opportunity to support flooding and coastal erosion risk management aims through direct funding of actions, providing a revenue stream to support landowners working with EA capital schemes, and indirect actions, which will lead to reduced watercourse maintenance requirements and increase the lifespan of our assets. I would like to reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle that the EA actively monitors aggregate and vegetation throughout the year for critical locations that are trigger points, and when those trigger levels are met, gravel and vegetation is removed when timing allows. If she has any concerns about those levels —if she believes they have already been met—that can be another conversation to continue with the Environment Agency.
Protecting communities around the country from flooding is one of the Secretary of State’s five core priorities, which is why we set up the flood resilience taskforce to provide oversight of national and local flood resilience and preparedness. That taskforce brings together Ministers from DEFRA, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Transport—the fact that we have so many Ministers in the same room to discuss flood resilience demonstrates the priority given to that issue across Government. It marks a new approach to preparing for flooding by bringing together representatives from national, regional and local government, the devolved Administrations, the emergency services, charities and environmental interest groups. I was pleased to chair the taskforce when it met on 5 February to look at learning from flooding since last September and longer-term funding and investment reform. The discussions from that meeting are now being taken forward through collaborative action groups of taskforce members, and we are looking at flood warnings, flood recovery and flood insurance. The next taskforce meeting will take place in May 2025, where the action groups will report back on their work to improve flood resilience and better protect and support vulnerable communities, because flood warnings are frequently mentioned as a concern after flooding events.
We are also providing vital funding to support greater resilience for farmers and rural communities. The Government announced last month an additional £16 million boost to the internal drainage board fund, which has been bolstered to a total of £91 million from the previously allocated £75 million. It will enable investment in modernising and upgrading IDB assets and waterways to ensure they are fit for the future. More than 400,000 hectares of agricultural land and around 91,000 homes and businesses across England are expected to benefit from the IDB fund.
Turning to the sustainable farming initiative, more than half of all farmed land is now being managed in environmental land management schemes. That includes more than 37,000 live SFI agreements undertaking a range of actions, including to strengthen natural flood defences. We announced on 11 March that the current SFI budget had been fully allocated, and we will continue to support farmers to transition to more sustainable farming models, including through the thousands of existing SFI agreements over the coming years, and a reformed SFI offer.
Now is the right time for a reset of SFI, supporting farmers, delivering for nature and targeting public funds fairly and effectively towards priorities for food, farming and nature. The Government will work with the farming sector to prioritise funding for future years, so that we can target those who will benefit most before reopening to new applicants. There will be a new and improved SFI offer, with details to follow in summer after the spending review. The improved SFI scheme will be another step in this Government’s new deal for farmers to support growth and farm profitability. If my hon. Friend would like, I can share details highlighting her interest in providing views to the officials responsible.
Looking ahead, I have set out plans to consult on a new strategic vision for floods investment. I am pleased to say that a consultation on reforms to the funding formula will be launching shortly this spring. We will ensure that the challenges facing businesses and rural and coastal communities are adequately taken into account when delivering flood protection. Flood schemes proceeding in 2026, 2027 and beyond will continue to be subject to the annual regional flood and coastal committees consenting process, with local elected representation, and to decisions from the upcoming spending review.
Matt Rodda
I appreciate the work that the Minister is doing in this area. She is proving herself to be an excellent Minister who is willing to listen to those of us with concerns about flooding. As part of the review, is it possible to investigate the role of locks and weirs in river catchments and how they are maintained and operated when rivers are at a high level? Concerns have been raised with me by local residents that some weirs or locks—this is an issue within the community, which I have not yet been able to fully check out—may have been opened at times of high flow, when perhaps it might have been better for the water to have been managed in a different way. Is it possible to have further consultation on that?
I understand that in some catchments there are different ways of locks and weirs being managed, and it may be that there is no national standard. On the Thames, there are often lock-keepers who are paid employees, but with some tributaries, it is not as organised as that, and it may be individual landowners who are responsible. In our area, the way that the Kennet—it is a large tributary, but still only a tributary—is managed is different from and less professionalised than the Thames, and concerns have been expressed about that.
Emma Hardy
I thank my hon. Friend for his thoughtful contribution as always and for his interest in this area. The management of locks and weirs probably does not come into the scope of the flooding formula review, but I have heard the point he is making, and I will talk to officials about whether the management of locks is taken into account with flood plans and how that is managed consistently around the country. I will write back to him on that, if that would be useful.
The Government’s record two-year investment in our flood defences will better protect communities across the country from flooding. It will also boost economic growth in local communities by protecting businesses, delivering new jobs and supporting a stable economy in the face of the increasing risk of flooding as a result of climate change.
Through our plan for change, this Government will deliver a decade of national renewal and economic growth, and we are committed to ensuring that communities are better protected from flooding in the first place. We will continue to deliver and repair flood defences, improve drainage systems and develop natural flood management schemes. As ever, the emergency services, the Environment Agency, local authorities, voluntary organisations and Government Departments stand ready to support affected people in any future flooding event, and I pay tribute to them all. It is a personal priority and a privilege to be the Minister responsible for flooding, and I will continue working to ensure that this country is more resilient to floods.
Madam Deputy Speaker
As the Member for Carlisle mentioned her mother’s 91st birthday, it is only appropriate that I wish Freda Minns—what a beautiful name—a very happy birthday.
Question put and agreed to.
Planning and Infrastructure Bill (First sitting)
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
The Committee is now sitting in public and the proceedings are being broadcast. Before we begin, I remind Members to switch electronic devices to silent, and that tea and coffee are not allowed. Date Time Witness Thursday 24 April Until no later than 12.05pm National Infrastructure Planning Association; Sir John Armitt CBE, former Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission Thursday 24 April Until no later than 12.45pm Energy UK; National Grid; Ofgem; Scottish & Southern Electricity Network Transmission Thursday 24 April Until no later than 1.00pm Natural England Thursday 24 April Until no later than 2.35pm Royal Town Planning Institute; Town and Country Planning Association; Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors Thursday 24 April Until no later than 3.00pm Public First; Britain Remade Thursday 24 April Until no later than 3.25pm NFU; CPRE Thursday 24 April Until no later than 4.00pm Local Government Association; County Councils Network; District Councils Network Thursday 24 April Until no later than 4.15pm Herbert Smith Freehills Thursday 24 April Until no later than 4.40pm Wildlife and Countryside Link; Forestry England Thursday 24 April Until no later than 5.05pm Home Builders Federation; National Housing Federation Thursday 24 April Until no later than 5.25pm Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government; Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
We will first consider the programme motion on the amendment paper. We will then consider a motion to enable the reporting of written evidence for publication, and a motion to allow us to deliberate in private about our questions before the oral evidence session. In view of the time available, I hope we can take those matters formally without debate. The programme motion was discussed yesterday by the Programming Sub-Committee of the Bill.
Ordered,
That—
1. the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 11.30 am on Thursday 24 April) meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Thursday 24 April;
(b) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 29 April;
(c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 13 May;
(d) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Wednesday 14 May;
(e) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 15 May;
(f) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 20 May;
(g) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 22 May;
2. the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following Table;
3. proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clauses 1 to 19; Schedule 1; Clauses 20 to 37; Schedule 2; Clauses 38 to 47; Schedule 3; Clauses 48 to 61; Schedule 4; Clauses 62 to 72; Schedule 5; Clauses 73 to 76; Schedule 6; Clauses 77 to 93; new Clauses; new Schedules; Clauses 94 to 97; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
4. the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Thursday 22 May.—(Matthew Pennycook.)
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Matthew Pennycook.)
The Chair
Copies of written evidence will be made available on the desk in the Committee Room.
Resolved,
That, at this and any subsequent meeting at which oral evidence is to be heard, the Committee shall sit in private until the witnesses are admitted.—(Matthew Pennycook.)
The Chair
We are now sitting in public again and the proceedings are being broadcast. Before we start hearing from the witnesses, do any Members wish to make a declaration of interest in connection with the Bill?
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
I am a Hertfordshire county councillor until 1 May.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
I was a planning consultant until the general election, but not any more. I am a chartered town planner member of the Royal Town Planning Institute and a chartered architect member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. I am a vice president of the Town and Country Planning Association, but that is an honorary position, so I have no pecuniary interest.
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
Until the election I was a commercial property solicitor acting for a number of residential and commercial property developers. I was also a North Warwickshire borough councillor until I resigned a couple of months ago.
Gideon Amos
I am also a member of the National Infrastructure Planning Association.
Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)
I was a local councillor until I resigned last May, but I am not sure whether I need to declare that. I am a vice president of the Local Government Association, which will be relevant for the panel this afternoon.
John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
Until the general election I, too, was a solicitor and I had a practice for many years in the energy sector.
The Chair
I thank all Members for declaring their interests, which have been noted.
Examination of Witnesses
Robbie Owen and Sir John Armitt gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Robbie Owen, board secretary and director at the National Infrastructure Planning Association and head of infrastructure planning at Pinsent Masons LLP, and Sir John Armitt CBE, former chair of the National Infrastructure Commission. Before calling the first Member to ask a question, I remind Members that questions should be limited to matters within the scope of the Bill. We must stick to the timings in the programme motion that the Committee has agreed for this panel. We have until 12.05 pm. I call the Opposition spokesperson.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
Q
We remain consistent in our concern about democratic accountability and processes, and about the balance between speeding up planning delivery and retaining the power of local people to make differences and have their say on nationally important critical infrastructure. First, do you think that these proposals strike the right balance between speeding up the delivery of national infrastructure projects and public accountability? Do you think that democratic and public accountability will remain at the heart of the delivery of that national infrastructure under the Bill’s proposals?
Sir John Armitt: Yes. I think this is a reasonable attempt to address the fundamental question of getting the balance right between taking forward the critical national infrastructure that the country needs and local interest. Consultation has always been an essential part of that, and the ability of people to express their views is important. Having said that, it is and will continue to be a very complex area. People on the receiving end of new infrastructure will naturally seek every mechanism in their legal right to challenge where they feel that they will be adversely affected. The Bill seeks to set out a number of remedies for that, and I think one could reasonably expect to see some acceleration, but just how much acceleration there will be in the process only time will tell.
Robbie Owen: I broadly agree with that; I think the Bill largely strikes the right balance. Let us not forget that even in the light of the amendments tabled by the Minister yesterday in relation to consultation, there will still be an extensive amount of consultation required—justifiably so—in relation to these projects, involving, among others, the local community. The examination of applications for consent takes place over a maximum of six months, which is a very long time, within which the local community can express their views. The Government are retaining the ability for local impact reports to be produced, which I think is important. I have no fundamental concern that democratic and public accountability will be lost by these changes. I actually think they do not quite go far enough in some respects, but we may come on to that later.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
Q
Sir John Armitt: The Bill seeks, to a large extent, to provide a regime of compensation to offset where people are going to be affected. That, in a sense, is no different from what we have seen in the housing sector in section 106, for example, for a very long time. The real challenge here is the ability of the process to actually slow things down. We know that judicial review is one of the big difficulties in this area. You could argue that the recent recommendations made for judicial review do not go that far. The only way in which it can be held back is where the court decides that the issue being raised is, perhaps not frivolous, but immaterial. But I would imagine that the nature of the legal system is such that people will find ways around that.
Judicial review constantly acts as a brake, and influences those who are developing projects to try to cross that bridge before they get there: you put in more mitigation than ideally you would wish, which raises the cost, and you potentially finish up with a more expensive project than ideally you would have had. That is the nature of people trying to second-guess what is going to be raised and how the judicial review will be handled.
I am not sure that the recommendations will go far enough to have a serious impact on that aspect, which is one of the central aspects of what has been holding up these schemes quite significantly. Each year of judicial review is likely to potentially add a year to the process, and that is why it is difficult to see that these changes will benefit the overall process by more than six to 12 months, at the end of the day. Robbie and I were talking about this before we came in; he is more of an expert in it, so I will turn to him for any other observations.
Robbie Owen: Minister, I absolutely support what is already in the Bill. I think that every provision on national infrastructure planning is appropriate, including what I hope will be added to the Bill through the amendments that you tabled yesterday, in relation to pre-application consultation and some other measures. As you say, those are all good measures that have followed extensive consultation and engagement.
There are two areas where I believe the Bill needs to go further, be bolder and be strengthened. The first relates to the further streamlining of the development consent order process. That should focus on allowing the standard process to be varied, on a case-by-case basis, where there is justification for doing so. That was trailed in your planning working paper in January; I encourage you and your officials to have another look at that, because there is a justification for giving some degree of flexibility to reflect the nature and requirements of individual projects and how the standard process might need to be adapted to them.
Secondly, we need to look again at the ability of the DCO process to be a one-stop shop for all the consents you need for construction of these big projects—that was the original intention back in 2008. All the discussions around that have yet to fully come to a conclusion. I note the review by Dan Corry, published a couple of weeks ago, but I do not think that it provides a full answer to allowing development consent orders to do more than they have been doing in practice, in terms of all these subsidiary consents, which, beyond the development consent order itself, are quite important for some of these big projects.
The other area where the Bill should and could go further relates to the whole area of judicial review. The changes that were announced in January, following the call for evidence off the back of the Banner review, are not particularly significant. They are really quite modest, and relate largely to the permission stage of judicial review. Approximately 70% of judicial review applications get permission and go forward, therefore we need to focus beyond the permission stage.
There are two other areas where the Bill could make some worthwhile changes. The first relates to the interaction between judicial review and national policy statements. As you will know, national policy statements are approved by Parliament, and the Bill contains some proposals to change that process. It has always struck me as strange that national policy statements can nevertheless still be, and are, judicially reviewed.
The final point on judicial review is that Parliament should be able, if it wishes, to use a simple one-clause Bill to confirm decisions to give development consent for projects of a critical national priority. This used to be the case: we used to have lots of provisional order confirmation Bills. I think that is a very good way for Parliament, where it wishes, to express its support for a big, critical project. That could easily be done through some amendments to the Bill.
The Chair
I remind everybody that we only have another 15 minutes for this panel, so please be as succinct as possible.
Gideon Amos
Q
Sir John Armitt: I would argue that local planning committees are not really professionally equipped to deal with NSIPs. As I said at the beginning, these are very significant projects. They are likely to be in the interests of a much broader area than that which any single planning committee is going to be taking an opinion from. The planning committee inevitably finishes up looking at things through a local lens, and I would argue that that is not really appropriate for projects of national significance. Clearly, their views can be taken, but one should recognise that local interest when doing so, and that should be set alongside the much broader considerations, recommendations and advice that could sometimes be received from much larger statutory bodies that clearly have a much more national interest.
Robbie Owen: Certainly, I do not see local planning committees as being particularly problematic so far as responding to proposals for national infrastructure projects is concerned. That is a segue into a broader point: improved guidance could be given by Ministers, not just to applicants about how they should go about their pre-application consultation and engagement, but to local authorities and other public bodies about how they should respond to proposals for national infrastructure.
Response performances, if I can put it that way, from local authorities differ markedly across the country. More uniform guidance would be really helpful there. The changes that the Government heralded yesterday in terms of pre-application consultation pave the way for a new set of guidance dealing with the pre-application period, because that is where most of the delay rests at the moment. As the Government said, and I agree with them, yesterday’s changes should really help to about halve the pre-application period, and that would be very welcome.
Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)
Q
Sir John Armitt: There are two things there: what should the target be, and will the Bill deliver it? I think the target clearly should be to try to get back to what we were handling and seeing back in 2010 to 2012. That was just over a two-year period. These projects are getting more complex and getting a lot larger—there are some very big ones coming down the line in the next 10 years—but if we could get back to that sort of level, clearly that would be welcome. Would the Bill deliver that degree of improvement? Frankly, I would be surprised.
Robbie Owen: We should not forget the role of national policy statements. They became rapidly yellowed at the edges in the late 2010s, which led to a dramatic increase in judicial review of decisions. The Bill does include a number of valuable proposals to improve how national policy statements are kept up to date. It is really important that they are, because they are the basis for decisions that are then taken on individual projects.
As a rule of thumb, we should really, at the very least, be aiming to be getting back to the performance levels in about 2015, which were approximately 12 to 18 months for pre-application and then around 15 to 18 months from application to decision. Obviously, if we could improve on that a little bit, that would be ideal, but if we could get back to that, that would be my rule of thumb.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Q
My question is for you both. One challenge for the planning system element of this Bill is that the local authority has a quasi-judicial role in administering planning law, and then statutory consultees and other organisations might be required to give consent for something, so the local authority has consented but Natural England, the Environment Agency or someone else needs to sign off. First, does the Bill strike the right balance in streamlining the different parts of that process, so that nationally significant infrastructure can make its way through quickly and efficiently?
Secondly, as well as judicial review, I am always conscious that a local authority may be subject to a maladministration complaint if it fails to take into account the legal obligations that Parliament has placed upon it. While the system may seem bureaucratic, the bottom line is that Parliament requires councils to go through that process when considering planning applications. Do you think there is a need to remove not so much the ability of others to challenge, but some of the requirements we place on local authorities, so that there are fewer loopholes and less complexity in administering that quasi-judicial role?
Sir John Armitt: That is a very complex question. I shall pass to my legal friend.
Robbie Owen: It is a complex question. On the balance and restricting this to national infrastructure, where the role of local authorities is among the role of many public bodies, as I touched on earlier, I do not think that we have yet got to a balance where the development consent order contains the principal consents and leaves subsidiary ones to be dealt with later.
I would like to see the Bill repeal section 150 of the Planning Act 2008 so that decisions can be taken on a case-by-case basis by the deciding Secretary of State on what they consider to be appropriate to put into the development consent order by way of other consents. I do not think it is appropriate for that decision to be subject to the veto of the relevant regulatory bodies, which it is at the moment. That is inappropriate.
If I understood the question on maladministration correctly, I am not sure that is a particularly relevant process for national infrastructure. My own experience is that it is quite ineffective generally. In terms of the role of local authorities in downstream supervision of the implementation of these projects, the answer is to make sure that the development consent order is very clear on the requirements and the conditions to the consent, which the local authority then needs to police and give approvals under. I think that is the way forward.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
Q
Robbie Owen: I would say two things. First, any right-minded applicant for a development consent order is clearly going to continue to consult formally and then engage informally with local communities, even with the changes that the Minister tabled yesterday. The role of the new guidance heralded by yesterday’s written statement is going to be critical in setting very clear guidelines in terms of what the Government think is appropriate by way of consultation and engagement. It is critical, though, that the guidance is not so specific that it almost undermines the effect of removing the provisions from the Act, as the amendments would do.
The second way in which the local community is involved is the public examination of proposals for up to six months—it normally is six months—once the application has been made and accepted. Compare that with the process for major planning applications, where communities may be given three minutes to address a planning committee: it is a much more inclusive process for local communities to take part in. Work is always ongoing to try to improve the usability and experience of the examination process, and hearings within that, and I support ongoing refinement there. But, fundamentally, those elements will completely remain—there is nothing in the Bill to remove them—and that is quite right.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
Q
Sir John Armitt: It is worth saying first that the Government have announced that they intend to publish a 10-year infrastructure strategy later this year. That will be the first since 2020. We are working with Government Departments on that at the moment, but it is vital that there is a clear, long-term infrastructure strategy. As Robbie said, the other key ingredients to implement that strategy are the national policy statements related to the different sectors, and the regular updating of them.
We recently went almost 10 years without an update on the energy strategy. In rewriting that strategy, the challenge is that you start with a large strategic ambition that can be contained in half a page and, if you are not careful, you finish with 25 pages that follow on and set out all the ways in which that ambition must be satisfied while dealing with environmental, community or any other concerns. The challenge will remain that we are trying to do two or three things at once here: we are trying to deliver major economic growth and infrastructure that will enable us to be resilient, to deal with climate change, to reduce the impacts of carbon and so on, while also recognising that local people will always have concerns about the impact of that infrastructure on their lives, and the—in a sense—compensation that they may face from that.
We have a live debate at the moment about whether we should all pay a different rate for our electricity according to whether we are close to the generating infrastructure or not. There are many ways these issues could be addressed, and they will not be simple. We should not kid ourselves that we are going to wave a magic wand and all of a sudden everything will change. We are a very democratic society; we are not like others who can steamroller these things through. That is the major challenge, and I argue that that challenge sits, in the first place, with the promoter.
The promoter has to get out there and be willing to be open and frank about what they see as the opportunities, broad advantages and local challenges, and demonstrate a willingness to enter into relevant consultation with local people. At the end of the day, there will be people who do not change their minds. Noting some of the remarks that Robbie made, you will always need the Minister to have the ability to step in when appropriate and make the appropriate decision, given the scale of the challenge.
The Chair
Order. We are nearing the end of the time allotted for this panel. These shall be the last questions.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
Q
Sir John Armitt: In the circumstances, the Bill is a good first attempt to deal with those issues. As I have said, it is very complex—you are trying to trade off very different interests. That will not disappear overnight, and even with the new Bill people will seek to challenge its workings, but this is a good first attempt and, as we have both said, more needs to be done.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions. On behalf of the Committee, I thank our witnesses for their evidence.
Examination of Witnesses
Dhara Vyas, Charlotte Mitchell, Beatrice Filkin and Christianna Logan gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Dhara Vyas, the chief executive officer at Energy UK; Charlotte Mitchell, the chief planning officer at the National Grid; Beatrice Filkin, the director for major projects and infrastructure at Ofgem; and Christianna Logan, the director of customers and stakeholders at Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks Transmission. I call the shadow Minister.
Paul Holmes
Q
Charlotte Mitchell: The set of connection reforms underpinned by the Bill are really welcome. They will move us from a “first come, first served” system to a “first ready, first needed, first connected” approach. Under the “first come, first served” system, we have seen a proliferation of projects in the queue. To bring that to life, there are about 450 GW of capacity in the queue at the moment, and that is about three times what we would need to achieve net zero. It is fair to say that not all of those projects will come forward, and they certainly will not come forward at the pace at which we originally envisaged when they found their spot in the queue. That ultimately means that it is taking a really long time to connect the grid to new projects coming forward, and promoters of those projects are quoted decade-long connection timeframes.
We welcome the reforms; we have been part of the discussions and have had a seat at the table, with the National Energy System Operator leading the approach to the reforms. For us, it is really important that the legislation comes forward quickly enough that we can move across to that new system and refocus our resources and priorities on connecting those projects that are ready and have the highest need to be connected to the grid.
Paul Holmes
Q
Do you have any concern, or do you think that that is the result of the industry not doing enough to consult local people when infrastructure was delivered previously? Will an unintended consequence of direct payments to consumers be to undermine your members’ emphasis on making sure that community benefit and community consultation are done adequately?
Dhara Vyas: Thank you for the question. I do not think it is a failure of the industry. I think it is a series of consecutive failures of regulation and policy over the past decade, if not longer, that goes beyond the energy industry.
It is really welcome to have this unified vision in the energy space for infrastructure build-out, and that goes across the Department, the National Energy System Operator and Ofgem. It is critical that we use all the levers we have to engage with people. The reality is that transmission network operations is a very specific piece in the Bill, and that is the large stuff—the bigger stuff—but it has to be part of the broader conversation that we need to have with people about the placement of assets. Infrastructure is part of that, with substations and of course generation assets. It is about the changes we are going to be making to homes and businesses across the country, and it is also about the difference that investing in this will make for future generations.
So, to answer your question about whether it is specifically a failure of industry, I do not think so. It is a failure, and I think we share the blame, but I am really positive about the steps set out, both in this Bill and more broadly, for the energy policy space.
It is worth being really clear about the context, which is that we need twice as much transmission network build-out as we have had in the last 10 years. That is a huge scale of work, and we need speed in doing it. The reality is that different communities will have different priorities. For some communities, investment in community spaces might be the right conversation to have; for others it will be about direct payments, or investing in community ownership of assets. It is really about tailoring.
Last, and you will all know this far better than I do, while having a significant conversation about how you balance national equity and local diversity is not unusual, it is a newer conversation for the energy industry. As we navigate this, we and all my members intend to work very closely with partners, including Natural England and other environmental groups, as well as local and regional government. It is important that we are honest and open about this shift in the way of working and not fall into the trap of assuming that one size fits all.
Christianna Logan: Our research has shown that, in areas where we have previously developed projects, perceptions of the benefits of projects are much stronger and more positive. The big challenge for us now as an industry is the scale—the magnitude—of what we have to deliver, when in many cases, the local communities likely to be impacted have not seen this scale of infrastructure before.
We have developed a package of local benefits that come with these projects, whether that is local jobs, contracts for local supply chains or, in fact, new permanent homes that will initially be used to house workers on the project, but then used by communities for their own needs after the projects are completed. Community benefits are an important part of that package, but so too is the very real engagement that we do with local communities. We have made changes around things such as substation locations and overhead line routes as a direct result of that engagement. That is what is building trust around these projects.
As Dhara said, we all need to work together to increase understanding of the benefits that the projects bring. Our recently produced national campaign, on which we collaborated across the sector, will help with that. Our own media campaign in the north of Scotland has resulted in a double-digit shift from neutral to positive around these projects among those who have seen the campaign. We cannot achieve this on our own, as transmission owners; we need to work cross-party, cross-Government and cross-sector to be able to help people to understand the real imperative and benefit of undertaking these projects.
Paul Holmes
Q
Christianna Logan: Genuine community benefits are the most important part of these projects. I think it would be risky to see direct payments as a silver bullet to reduce objection to projects. When you are delivering new infrastructure across hundreds of miles in these types of areas, there will be objections. In this endeavour, we all have to show courage to take forward well-designed projects that have been developed with local communities in mind, taking on board their challenges where we can, while recognising that that will require trade-offs and that we will not be able to appease all objections.
Paul Holmes
Just for the record, that is not my view. There are some concerns. I was not castigating you.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)
Q
Beatrice Filkin: As you said yourself, Minister, we have not seen any large scale, long-duration energy storage built in this country for decades now. We know that the market is not willing to take on those risks at the moment and it is absolutely right that the Government are instructing us through this Bill to expand the regimes and protections.
We support the proposed introduction of a cap and floor regime for long-duration storage. We have seen NESO’s advice to you as part of the development of the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan—that increasing the amount of flexible storage on the system is critical to getting through your clean power targets. We are very keen to be part of supporting that. We think the cap and floor regime has proved its worth over the last decade or so through interconnectors, and obviously, we are adjusting it now with input from a wide range of stakeholders to make it appropriate for the long-duration storage schemes.
Michael Shanks
Q
Christianna Logan: We really welcome the powers in the Bill that create that framework to increase the timeliness and effectiveness of consenting in Scotland, particularly around introducing timescales for determinations and replacing automatic trigger of public local inquiries with a reporter-led process.
Public inquiries are one of the main causes of delay to consent decisions in Scotland, with the impact and cost of that borne ultimately by bill payers and local communities through local authority investment. We believe that to make the powers in this Bill effective in practice, the secondary legislation will be critical. We ask that the secondary legislation providing the details of implementation is delivered in parallel with the Bill, so that it can be laid as soon as decisions are made, and that within determination, timelines are set at 12 months to make sure that we can get timely delivery.
We welcome all the joint working between this Government and the Scottish Government, and we would like to see that continue for that secondary legislation. We welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to a 12-month determination for projects, but we are not yet seeing that in practice. For example, our Sky project, which is both an energy security and decarbonisation project, is still awaiting determination more than two and a half years on. That is why the ask is so important.
Michael Shanks
Finally, Dhara, picking up on the questions on connections reform and the wider push in the Bill on how we build network infrastructure more quickly and the ambition of that, how critical is it to the broader energy space—particularly on the questions of energy security, bringing down bills and the wider space on our energy mix going forward—that we build more network infrastructure and get the grid working? How critical is that aspect to delivering in the 2020s, and in the 2030s in particular, to meet the demand that we are going to see, and the Government’s other objective of bringing down bills?
Dhara Vyas: That is absolutely the right question to be asking, because we will not achieve any of it unless we unblock the issues we are seeing within the infrastructure space. The reality is that with these so-called zombie projects, at least half of them are ready to move on to the next stage. In large part, that is down to the work that has been happening as part of the connections reform project. It is really important that we keep on moving with the momentum we have right now, because gaining planning permission and making progress through the new milestones that the National Energy System Operator has set out is the next big challenge for us.
We are in a really difficult position right now. Bills and debt owed by customers to energy suppliers are at a record high. We are still really feeling and living in the long shadow of the cost of living crisis, which was partly down to the energy security crisis following the illegal invasion of Ukraine. Investing in an abundance of clean power will be completely pointless unless we have the infrastructure to move it around the country, and unless we invest in clean power, we will not ultimately bring down bills to the extent that we need to. The other part of that is demand. We will see demand increase by at least sixfold. We are going to have electrification of our homes and our transport, which brings us back full circle to the need to be able to move the electricity around.
John Grady
Q
Christianna Logan: Our programme of projects to deliver for 2030 is a £22 billion investment. It is the biggest investment that we have seen in the north of Scotland probably since the second world war, so it is really significantyou’re your constituents. Our colleagues in ScottishPower have their investments in your area as well. Alongside that, there is a significant number of jobs—we expect around 6,000 jobs enabled through our investments in Scotland specifically. Just this year, we will be recruiting another 600 people into SSEN transmission to help with this transformation of our grid network.
All of that, as you say, is dependent on us getting consent to progress all these projects and the necessary regulatory approvals for the investments. We have been working very closely with Government and Ofgem on the reforms, and we believe that the proposals put forward in the Bill will take us forward in that regard. As I said earlier, the secondary legislation and the work with the Scottish Government will be critical to capturing those benefits.
John Grady
Q
Charlotte Mitchell: Yes, more jobs and more activity. Picking up on the point about consenting, we have similar yet different challenges in England and Wales. As you note, the Bill looks to streamline the NSIP regime. That is incredibly important for us at National Grid. We are very supportive of the measures in the Bill, and there are three in particular that I would like to namecheck as helping us to accelerate the projects that we need to move that power around, as we have been discussing.
The first one is the commitment to refresh the national policy statements every five years, or more frequently. We really welcome that, because it is incredibly important that we have policy stability for our projects. I would just caution that we do not update them so frequently that the policy landscape moves, but five years feels like the right cadence for refreshing those.
Another measure in the Bill that will help is the ability to opt out of the NSIP regime, where that is more appropriate for particular projects. At National Grid, for example, sometimes when we are upgrading a substation we need to move some overhead lines around. You can trip that threshold and end up in the NSIP regime, where really that does not feel like the spirit of the regime—that is not what it was set up to do. The ability to write to the Secretary of State and explain why it is not the most appropriate regime is really helpful for us, and we really welcome that measure.
The third one was spoken about by the previous panel: yesterday’s announcement of looking again at the consultation requirements and moving to a non-statutory footing for consultation on NSIP projects. Again, that will help us to engage in a more targeted, effective and proportionate way, so that we can bring projects forward while continuing to engage communities. That will help us to ensure that we have the right projects in the right places.
Gideon Amos
Q
Dhara Vyas: It is a fair question, but I would reiterate the point made in response to the earlier question about ensuring that community benefits are tailored to the community around the infrastructure. Different communities will want different things. In some of the conversations and in the guidance, there are explicit examples of proximity and the amount that would be paid out. The reality is that this is not a one-size-fits-all conversation, and nor should it be. We would be doing the country, and people across the country, a disservice if we took a one-size-fits-all approach to this.
It is right to have guardrails and guidance, but responding to what people need and want, and what is lacking in a community that the industry could potentially support and provide, will be the best route to bringing people with us on this fairly significant journey. In my view, it is important that there are parameters. We need the guidance from Government, and we certainly cannot do this alone—this is definitely something that we need to do in partnership—but to fully respond to and get holistic, close working with the communities that will be hosting infrastructure, we need to have that conversation. Having that conversation takes more effort from the industry, but it is the right approach.
Gideon Amos
Q
Dhara Vyas: You are absolutely right, and I think that is where the guidance from the Department has been really welcome.
Rachel Taylor
Q
Beatrice Filkin: I am very happy to take that question. We have had an ongoing process of reform to the approach to the connections queue with NESO and Government for quite a while now. We reached our conclusions last week and made a decision on how the reordering of the queue should work. As part of that, as Charlotte mentioned, we have been looking at how we move away from the idea that we had previously—a first come, first served application process—to looking at what we need as a country and which projects are most ready.
The decision we have taken on how that process will work now needs to be implemented by NESO. It will be implemented very rapidly over the next year, with the network operators, to give industry confidence and security that it can continue to invest to deliver clean power targets, as well as all the growth targets that we want.
One point that we did not touch on previously was that the demand connections are really important for the growth story. The queue connections reform deems all the connections that are already in the queue as needed, so they pass the first test. That is very important in making sure that we are prioritising access to our network, and that will enable growth in the country.
Charlotte Mitchell: Bringing forward the legislation at pace will enable us to move to the new system. It is important that measures in the Bill are brought forward quickly, so that we can move towards the new reordering and prioritisation.
Rachel Taylor
Q
Beatrice Filkin: One of the purposes of the queue reform is to make sure that the projects that we need and are ready earliest get earlier access to the network. At the moment, we have a lot of projects in the queue that are at an early stage of development, and are not so critically needed by the strategic plans that we are setting out. Projects such as connections for demand or for factories are already in the queue and are deemed as needed. They will therefore be prioritised for the queue, and we expect their connection dates to improve as a result of the connections reform process.
Luke Murphy
Q
Dhara Vyas: I think that the Bill is going to be crucial. It was as true for the previous Government as it is for this Government that clean energy and investment in clean power is seen as the safest and surest way to ensure the UK’s energy security. There is a programme of work for investing in clean power, but there is absolutely nothing to be gained from all of that net investment unless we can move it around the country. That is why this part of the energy industry is so crucial.
In terms of the impact on bills, the reality is that, at one point, energy bills were four times what they were in 2019. We are now seeing bill debt of £3.8 billion and growing. It is also important to note, generally speaking, that households are under more pressure now than they have been for well over a decade. I think more than half of households who go to Citizens Advice have a negative budget. Households are really feeling the pressure, and the conversation about energy bills has not really been off the front pages for the last four years.
As for being able to expedite the investments in clean power and make sure we are reducing the amount we are spending on curtailment costs, that should mean that in the future, if we experience an energy shock again, we will not spend the £40 billion that was spent in 2022-23 to support people. That is why this is so important.
Luke Murphy
Q
Dhara Vyas: I think it links neatly to the last question around demand. The reality is that we need to decarbonise business in a significant way. Right now, what businesses in this country are paying is among the highest of OECD countries, if not the first or second highest in that group. This is a big part of the discussion with the Department for Business and Trade around the industrial strategy.
Energy and the price of energy is hugely significant to business users, as well as to households. So while we need to be having conversations about linkage with Europe, we also need to be having significant conversations here about how we can speed up demand and connections for demand—and have that conversation for both homes and businesses. More broadly, we also need to be having a conversation about how we support businesses to consider how they can move off their dependence on gas.
Lewis Cocking
Q
Beatrice Filkin: What has happened to date is that NESO has done some preparatory work assessing options. We have made a decision about how they should go about reordering the queue based on need and readiness —that is the decision we made last week. NESO now needs to implement that decision, which is what they will be doing rapidly over this year to make those choices.
For the reordering of the queue, it will prioritise the projects that were due to connect in the next year or two, first of all, and then the completion of all the projects that are needed for clean power by the beginning of 2026. That is the process. We are not walking away from that. We are regulating NESO, but also working with them on this process. We see this as a very critical enabler of clean power. Working through this year of that process, we will be a partner alongside them. That is also why we very much welcome the provisions in the Bill to provide the legislative security of what they are looking to do.
Lewis Cocking
Q
Beatrice Filkin: We have made a decision about the way in which NESO now prioritises the queue. They are doing that going forward. Our decision-making process was finished last week. That is the process by which they make those decisions. They are now going to implement that decision and do that re-ordering decision—individual decisions—over the year.
Lewis Cocking
Q
Beatrice Filkin: We have set out in our decision the way in which NESO should assess the queue. They will use the information that we set out last week—that guidance—to implement and take each individual project, weigh it up against the criteria, decide whether they meet the need and the readiness requirements and use that to sort through the queue. That is a process. They will operationalise our decision of last week.
Christianna Logan: On the practicalities of how that will be approached, NESO’s proposal is that the customers with connections contracts will provide evidence of their readiness to meet the criteria, in terms of things like submission of planning consents and land rights—ways that they can evidence they are progressing their projects at the pace necessary to achieve the 2030 goals and, as Beatrice said, against the strategic alignment of different technology types with the needs of the clean power plan. Customers will put forward their evidence that their projects are best placed. NESO will use that to assess which ones should go forward. Within that, there is some protection for projects that are already well progressed, so that we do not impact investments that are ready to be deployed to hit those targets.
Lewis Cocking
Q
Beatrice Filkin: What we set out in the decision last week sets off the piece of work that NESO are doing over this year. That helps projects, because as we have talked about, there are a number of projects in the queue that are either nowhere near ready or are not deemed needed for the overall strategic plan. So the process of sorting through the queue will speed up that very constrained access to the network to enable those projects that are needed and ready to join and connect to the network earlier.
John Grady
Q
Beatrice Filkin: Are you asking whether it provides an opportunity to local communities?
John Grady
Yes.
Beatrice Filkin: Absolutely. We see this in terms of not only the build process, but the operations of these pieces of infrastructure.
John Grady
Q
Beatrice Filkin: Yes.
Christianna Logan: Investment in things like ports infrastructure comes directly as a result of the investment in these projects, and that investment is not secured until we achieve consents, whether that is networks or offshore wind as our customer. So absolutely there is a benefit. There is also the community benefit that will come as a result of these projects.
Beatrice Filkin: There are also the wider supply chain opportunities. Obviously, we want to see the international and UK supply chain relocating here and providing degrees of the supply chain directly for these projects from our home communities.
Amanda Martin
Q
Dhara Vyas: Yes, because access to clean power should eventually result in lower bills. In making progress in this space, you ultimately unlock economic opportunities and growth and increase productivity. The dividends of this investment are felt right across the country.
The Chair
That brings our second panel to a close. I thank the witnesses for their evidence.
Examination of Witness
Marian Spain gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Marian Spain, chief executive of Natural England. We have until 1 o’clock for this session. I call the shadow Minister.
Paul Holmes
Q
In particular, the Royal Town Planning Institute has said that it is concerned about whether you will be adequately resourced. The Institution of Civil Engineers is worried about a two-tier system and stakeholders and organisations being resourced adequately. The County Councils Network has also said that it remains concerned over the resourcing of Natural England. Do you believe that Natural England is adequately resourced and has the management structures and systems in place to cope with the extra responsibilities that it will take on?
Marian Spain: Yes. We very much welcome this Bill. We think this Bill is absolutely the right thing to give us the growth the nation needs, while not just protecting nature but giving the opportunity to restore nature. My answers will be in that context. This is a Bill we very much welcome, and it is something we have worked very closely with Government on.
In terms of resourcing, in principle, yes, the resourcing should be adequate. We have £40 million in this financial year to begin the preparatory work for the environmental delivery plans and the nature restoration fund. That will enable us to start on the first of those EDPs, and I can say a bit more about what we think those will be, if that is helpful. In future, the levy arrangement should allow us to fully recover our costs. It should allow us to recover the costs of doing the work on the ground and also the overheads that we will need to incur to work with developers to do the monitoring, reporting and so on.
I think the risk is in the early years of the scheme, when the levy is not yet flowing, but we need to get up front and do those delivery plans so that they are ready when the developers are ready to contribute. We are working with our parent Department, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and our colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on a bid for next year’s spending review. The limiting factor will be whether Government are able to put in initial preparatory money. For the district level licensing scheme, we had effectively a rolling fund—Government put money in up front that we then rolled over as the levy came in to fill the gap behind it.
Paul Holmes
Q
Marian Spain: To reiterate, the unknown that I cannot answer is the outcome of the spending review and how much the Government as a whole choose to invest in the next financial year. The other thing that this Bill and the other associated planning reforms coming forward will do is to allow Natural England to relieve some of its existing resources from lower impact work and move them into this. It is not all just about new resources.
I am confident that we can make that change. I am confident that this will be one of the most important things that Natural England does for the next five years or so. You had another question that I have forgotten.
Paul Holmes
Q
Marian Spain: Work is under way now. As I mentioned earlier, we are doing two main things. We are thinking about the first two environmental delivery plans. This is an opportunity to mention that they are almost certain to be improving the existing nutrient mitigation scheme and turning that into a full-blown EDP and NRF system, and also consolidating the district level licensing scheme—the scheme for great crested newts that we set up five or six years ago. Those can be relatively quick wins, done within this calendar year we believe.
We are then looking at what the next EDPs are likely to be. That conversation is live at the moment with our colleagues. We are looking at three issues. We are looking at where development will most need it. Where are the development pressures? That might be major infrastructure or the new towns. Where are the places that are going to most need it? Where is it going to be most feasible—where do we believe we have sufficient evidence to have robust plans that will work and where is the meeting of those two points? That thinking about the EDPs is under way.
We are also using this year’s Government investment to set up the systems and the digital systems we will need. The systems developers will need to test their impact and decide if they want to participate. That is the systems we will use to handle the money and to do the essential transparency reporting and monitoring. That will be in place this financial year.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Can I get you on the record in terms of the objectives of part 3 of the Bill? Is Natural England confident that the nature restoration fund will deliver better outcomes for the environment than the status quo? Specifically on the powers that will be available to Natural England in bringing forth EDPs, do you think the Bill gives you enough flexibility to consider a wide enough range of conservation measures to deliver those plans?
Marian Spain: We are confident that this will be an improvement on the current system. We have already run versions of the nature recovery fund for recreational impact, for great crested newts and for nutrient mitigation, so we have seen enough that these schemes can work. We are confident that they will work.
We are also clear that it is an improvement because at the moment the current arrangements are sub-optimal for developers and for nature. We see that developers are investing disproportionate amounts of time on data gathering that could be better done once and centrally. We see that investment in mitigation and compensation in the sequential scheme slows things down and does not always create the biggest impact. We also see that there is less transparency than the public and indeed developers themselves sometimes want about how the money is being spent. We are confident this will be an improvement.
The other important point to note is that many of the pressures nature is facing now, particularly water quality, air quality and recreation, are diffuse. They are not specific. They are widespread. They are cumulative. It is impossible for an individual developer to adequately consider, mitigate and compensate. We need to do that at much more of a scale. We think the measures in the Bill and the associated measures of having more robust spatial development strategies that look at nature and development together, and of having the plan up front that tells us what the impact will be and how to mitigate it, and then the fund to allow that discharge, is a major step forward.
It is unknown—well, it is not unknown, forgive me. It is a risk, of course, and people will be concerned that it will not be regressive and that it will not be a step back, but we think there are enough measures in the Bill that are clear that this is about improvements to nature—maintaining the current protections, but also allowing development to make its adequate contribution to restoration of nature.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
Q
Marian Spain: I cannot yet give you specifics. This is thinking that is happening now. We have not yet made any decisions. I have mentioned that we are looking at feasibility, demand, and ability to deliver. I think that where we will look next, the areas that are at the top of our minds in our conversations with fellow officials, will be air quality; the impact of nitrogen deposition on nature, which we see as a major risk; water quality; water quantity —the availability of water for both nature and development is high on the list; and a certain number of protected species. The commoner species of bats are likely to be able to benefit from the measures—similar measures as for newts. It is not yet all protected species, and we do not yet know which, so I cannot give you a definitive answer. I think it will be the next financial year when we start to roll out those further plans.
It is also quite hard for me to give you any certainty about exactly how long the plans will take, because they will vary, of course. Some of them will be geographically defined; some will be subject defined; and some might be species defined. They will be varied and mixed. But we are conscious that we need to move quickly on this, because we need to give developers a better solution than they currently have.
Olly Glover
Q
Marian Spain: I suppose there are two parts to that answer. One is the success we have seen of the similar schemes already running; I could expand on that if you wanted any specifics. Also, the Bill contains a number of safeguards. I think the first thing that the Bill does is that it effectively maintains the mitigation hierarchy, because the best way to protect nature is to avoid damaging it in the first place. The obligations on developers and the legal protection for sites and species remain. The Bill does not remove those. The Bill maintains that obligation, but makes it easier and simpler for developers to discharge, and the fact that a developer will have to pay a levy will in itself make them think, “Am I better off avoiding this and therefore the cost, and building somewhere else?” There is a safeguard there.
The other really important safeguard is that the Secretary of State is the ultimate arbiter of whether an EDP will be adequate and will produce the net overall improvement. That is the other reason why it is hard to be very specific about EDPs—because until we start to develop them in earnest, it is hard to see. There will need to be a fairly robust evidence base for the Secretary of State to be confident that the measures will have a positive impact and we will have a net overall improvement.
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
Q
Marian Spain: Nearly all our work is done in partnership anyway. Perhaps I will just expand on what I think the crucial partnerships are for the Bill to succeed. Actually, before I do, I will say one other thing. The Bill will require us to not produce the EDPs in isolation. They will require us to do public consultation. They will require us to work with others. We will need to work with the local planners. We are also highly likely to need to work with those who already have the data. That might be the voluntary sector; it might be the professional ecology sector that we rely on heavily to provide us with the data to have the confidence to recommend a robust plan to the Secretary of State.
The other part very much on my mind at the moment is that one of our jobs will be to give confidence to everybody who needs to be involved in making this work that the plans are robust and adequate and will have the impact intended. One thing that developers say to me is that they want confidence that if they are going to pay money, it will be well spent. A developer said to me the other day that the thing he finds most frustrating is that he puts money into the community infrastructure levy and he never sees what it is spent on, so I think there is something about giving developers confidence that if they participate, they can see they have done some good. Planners will need a fair degree of confidence that they are giving planning permission that is within the overall planning laws still.
We need our wildlife groups to work with us on this. We need to give them confidence, because they will own a lot of the land on which we will make the improvement. But as important—a group that we have not often talked about in these conversations—are the private landowners, who we will also need to have confidence that they are participating in a fair market where they will be adequately rewarded, should they choose to put their land in, and that they will also see that they are doing something for the public benefit.
The final group, if I dare say it, will be parliamentarians, who need to have confidence that these measures will contribute to the statutory climate and nature targets. It is all about how we work with all those groups to show that this is better.
Lee Pitcher
Q
Marian Spain: We are already having those conversations as part of the preparatory work.
Ellie Chowns
Q
“the Bill will not have the effect of reducing the level of environmental protection provided for by any existing environmental law.”
You have spoken about how you think that there will be improvements. Are you absolutely confident that that holds, and that there is no way in which the Bill could result in a reduction in environmental protection—for example, in relation to irreplaceable habitats?
Marian Spain: I am trying awfully hard not to say that that is something for Parliament to be keeping a close eye on as the Bill goes through. There are risks. This is a very different system, and it will be embedded in legislation—theoretically, in perpetuity.
Again with our colleagues from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, we are watching issues that are being raised by others, including by parliamentarians and the third sector. We are conscious that the Bill needs to have those robust safeguards, and there may be drafting amendments that make those even more robust. The basic premise of the Bill is clear, as I have said already—that basic idea that the plans can be approved by the Secretary of State only if he or she is satisfied.
The bit that we want to keep an open mind on, however, is the fact that we need to have a system that is robust enough and has those safeguards, but that also allows flexibility in how we operate it for years to come. Nature is changing in the way it responds to climate change. Society is recognising that it needs different things from nature, with nature-based solutions to climate change and more nature for health and wellbeing, as well as just the protection of rare species. There is something about getting that balance right to have a system that is workable in a place, and that is adaptable to what a community needs and to a particular development, but that maintains that overall aim to make nature better.
Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)
Q
Marian Spain: We are confident that the model works. The detail will come as we work through which topics and which situations we actually apply the environmental delivery plans to. It is perhaps also a version of the answer to a previous question; the plans themselves can rule things in and out. We may decide, for example, that a piece of ancient woodland cannot be replaced and would therefore not be subject to these measures, so that is another safeguard.
David Simmonds
Q
Marian Spain: I cannot tell you about modelling that we are doing for the future—that work has only just started—but I can refer back to what we have already. For example, with district level licensing, the formula is quite simple: how much does it cost to build a pond and how much does it cost either Natural England or, in that scheme, a third party, including private businesses, to deliver that? That is what drives the levy and that is what developers pay. They pay the cost of administration and the cost of delivery, and that is the model we will use for this. Those costs will, of course, vary—there will not be a single cost—because it will depend on the complexity of the issue and possibly even the geography, land price and so on.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions. On behalf of the Committee, I thank Marian Spain for her evidence, and I thank all our other witnesses so far today for theirs.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Gen Kitchen.)
Crime and Policing Bill (Ninth sitting)
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
We continue line-by-line scrutiny of the Crime and Policing Bill. Before we begin, I have a few preliminary reminders for the Committee. Please switch electronic devices to silent. No food or drink is permitted during sittings of this Committee, except for the water provided. Hansard colleagues would be grateful if Members can email their speaking notes to hansardnotes@ parliament.uk or alternatively pass on their written speaking notes to the Hansard colleagues in the room.
Clause 56
Offences relating to intimate photographs or films and voyeurism
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I am very pleased to be able to speak to these provisions.
We live our lives surrounded by technology that allows us to take photographs or record film at the click of a button. Laptops, tablets, smartphones, smart TVs and minute cameras and recording devices have revolutionised our lives, but they do not come without the very real risk that they can be used for nefarious purposes, such as taking intimate images of a person without their knowledge or consent.
The scale of this problem is growing. When the Law Commission carried out its detailed review of the law in this area in 2020 to 2022, it found that the police recorded at least 28,201 reports of disclosing private sexual images without consent between April 2015 and December 2021. Only three years later, a Women and Equalities Committee investigation showed that the Revenge Porn Helpline went from receiving 3,200 cases in 2020 to 22,276 in 2024. Those figures include only those reporting to the helpline. As we are all aware, many, many more individuals may not report.
I have huge respect for the work of the Revenge Porn Helpline, which is committed to supporting victims. The Government and the wider violence against women and girls sector have moved away from using the terminology “revenge porn”. Let us be clear: it is not revenge. Nothing a victim could ever do justifies any kind of abuse. It is not an act of revenge; it is an act of abuse. It is also not pornography. The participant is not consenting, and the subject never intended it to be available for public viewing. It is non-consensual intimate image abuse.
The Government share the Women and Equalities Committee’s concerns. We have committed to halving violence against women and girls, who make up the majority of victims of intimate image abuse. Taking an intimate image of someone without their consent is a violation. Victims can experience significant harm and trauma. It can impact every aspect of their lives, from their physical and mental health to their relationships and careers. It is therefore vital that our legal framework deals effectively with that behaviour.
That type of offending needs to be seen as part of the wider landscape of sexual violence and sexual offending. It may be carried out by those who are also committing the most abhorrent physical sexual offences. That was so in the case of Gisèle Pelicot, whose husband was caught because he was taking photographs under women’s clothing—an act similar to those covered by the upskirting offence in England and Wales. As is evident in that case and many others, intimate image abuse can be the beginning of an escalation, or can go hand in hand with those already perpetrating violent sexual crimes. If we can catch it early, perhaps we can prevent or stop further abuse in its tracks.
We know that there is a relationship between online and offline violent misogyny. We also know that many perpetrators start their campaigns of abuse with apparent low-level sexual offences. Sarah Everard’s murderer had indecently exposed himself before he went on to brutally rape and murder her. The escalation is clear in both the online and the offline world. The Pelicot case shows that intimate image abuse cannot be viewed in isolation; it is part of wider violence against women and girls. That is why the Government, in this clause, are cracking down on the perpetrators of violence against women and girls in all its forms. Those perpetrators need to be stopped and held accountable for their crimes. As Gisèle Pelicot said:
“it’s not for us to have shame—it’s for them”.
Existing law does address some of that behaviour, but it is far from comprehensive and effective. The previous Government introduced some new offences in this area to tackle sharing intimate images without consent, but they did not go far enough. They did not have the bravery or political will to take a real stand against this type of abuse, introducing offences on intimate image abuse in their Criminal Justice Bill, which they allowed to fall in favour of attempting to re-elect a failing Prime Minister and a failing Government. This has gone on long enough. That is why, in our first year in office and in our first crime and justice Bill, we are now doing what they should have done and are addressing the taking of those images, the first step in this type of offending.
The clause and schedule we are discussing build on what we have already done in the Data (Use and Access) Bill, fulfilling our manifesto commitment to ban the creation of sexual deepfakes. In that Bill, we introduced a new offence of creating purported intimate images—more commonly known as deepfakes—without consent, or reasonable belief in consent. We have also introduced an offence of requesting the creation of such an image without consent or reasonable belief in consent. Those new offences will tackle a rapidly proliferating area of offending, providing further protection for victims.
The taking of real intimate images needs to be tackled as well, however. The taking of intimate images without consent is not new. It has been possible for many years, from analogue cameras through digital cameras to the ease of the smartphone. The law has rightly criminalised some of that behaviour, but changing technology has made it even easier to take such images. Only last week, The Sunday Times reported on the widespread practice of individuals installing covert cameras in order to secretly record intimate images of women getting changed at swimming pools. Some of that behaviour is already covered by existing offences, but we want to ensure that the law is consistent and comprehensive, and captures all the behaviour that it should, giving the police and the Crown Prosecution Service the tools to tackle it.
At the moment, taking such images is covered by the offence set out in section 67 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. It is part of a wider set of offences in sections 67 and 67A, which cover “observing” and “recording” of individuals in certain intimate circumstances without their consent. Section 67(3) provides for an offence of recording images of a person “doing a private act” if the person recording it intends that he, or a third party, will gain sexual gratification from looking at the image, and the person recording knows that the person in the photo does not consent to being recorded with that intention. That means that the prosecution has to prove the perpetrator’s intent and that they knew that the person in the photo had not consented to being recorded for that purpose.
The voyeurism offences also include the so-called upskirting offence in section 67A of the 2003 Act, which covers recording images, without consent or reasonable belief in consent, of a person’s genitals or buttocks, or underwear covering them, under a person’s clothes. The offence has different intent elements from the section 67 offence and a different definition of the photographs taken. Those differences were among many issues looked at by the Law Commission, which in 2019 was asked to review in detail the law on taking, making and sharing intimate images without consent. The commission submitted a final report in 2022, “Intimate image abuse”, which recommended a comprehensive suite of intimate image abuse offences to ensure that the law was consistent and coherent. We agree that that is what is needed. Consistent law will be easier to understand and to work with, ensuring that perpetrators are brought to justice.
As I mentioned, the previous Government made some changes on sharing offences, but they left the law in a mess. We now have a situation where the offences relating to taking and to sharing intimate images without consent are not consistent. Different definitions of the images are covered and they include different intent elements. The Government will not tolerate that.
To address such offending properly and consistently, we will repeal two of the existing voyeurism offences, relating to
“recording a person doing a private act”
and
“recording an image beneath a person’s clothing”—
the so-called upskirting offence—and replace them with three new criminal offences to tackle the taking or recording of intimate images without consent.
The base offence will be of taking or recording an intimate image without consent or a reasonable belief in consent. That offence carries no requirement to prove that the taking or recording was done for a particular reason. There will also be two more serious offences of taking or recording an intimate image without consent and with the intent to cause alarm, distress or humiliation, or without consent or reasonable belief in consent for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification.
Consent must be at the heart of this new offence. It is the key element, and one that is long overdue. Previously, the onus was on the defence to prove that the accused intended to cause harm. Now, we are moving to a consent-based model that centres the autonomy of the victim. Consent is the most important element of any law of this nature. I am not interested in what consenting adults get up to in the privacy of their own relationship; what this Government are interested in is that, where consent is not given, the perpetrators are punished appropriately and the victim receives the justice they deserve for the violation and abhorrent abuse that they have experienced.
Crucially, these offences will all use the definition of a person in an “intimate state”, which covers images in which the person’s buttocks, genitals or breasts are exposed or covered with underwear; images depicting the person engaging in a sexual act of a sort not usually seen in public; and images showing the person using the toilet. That is broader than the current definition and provides a consistent definition across all the intimate image abuse offences, providing a package of offences.
These changes are important and overdue, but we will not stop there. One of our other concerns about the current law relates to people installing equipment in order for them, or someone else, to take an intimate image without consent. Section 67(4) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes it an offence for someone to install equipment, or construct or adapt a structure, or any part of a structure, to enable someone to commit the offence of observing a person doing a private act. That means that I commit an offence if I drill a hole in a changing room wall to allow myself or someone else to spy on people getting changed for sexual gratification, knowing that those getting changed do not consent to being observed for this purpose. That is currently an offence even if I never actually use the hole to spy on those people—merely adapting the structure is sufficient.
However, the offence in section 67(4) of the 2003 Act is limited to installing equipment or adapting structures in relation to observing victims, not recording photographs or videos of them. That means that if I install a spy camera in the wall of a changing room so that I, or someone else, can remotely take photographs or videos of people getting changed, I am not committing that offence. I would have to have actually taken the photographs for that offence to have been committed. That cannot be right.
The new offence to be inserted at section 66 of the 2003 Act will change that. To address concerns about the increasing use of spy cameras to record people in public bathrooms, changing rooms, hotel rooms or holiday lets, it will be an offence to install equipment with the intention to enable anyone, whether the installer or a third party, to commit one of the taking offences. To address the harmful and culpable nature of that behaviour in and of itself, it will not be necessary for any images to have been taken using the equipment.
These offences will build on the sharing offences in the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to provide a holistic package of offences using the same definitions and core elements. That addresses the criticisms of the patchwork nature of the existing law, which has resulted in gaps in protection for victims. On top of that, we know that being a victim of one of these crimes can be humiliating and degrading, and that victims can be overwhelmed by shame and embarrassment despite having done nothing wrong. It is therefore vitally important that victims will automatically be eligible for lifelong anonymity.
We are also ensuring that those convicted of the new offences of taking or recording an intimate image for sexual gratification, or installing with the intent to enable the commission of that offence, may be subject to notification requirements. That means that they can be monitored in the community, helping the police to keep the public safer from these predators. The courts can already deprive offenders of the images and the devices on which they are held upon conviction for non-consensual sharing of an intimate image. We will update the sentencing code to give courts the same powers, upon conviction, for intimate images taken without consent. I am grateful to the Law Commission for its extensive review of the law relating to intimate images and its well-considered recommendations upon which these new provisions are based.
I also extend my gratitude to all those who took the time to contribute their views, knowledge and experience, particularly the victims. The courage needed to speak out about these crimes cannot be overestimated, and we are indebted to those brave victims who have shared their experiences so powerfully. We are also grateful to the bodies representing the police, prosecutors and legal practitioners. This allowed us to hear from experts in this area, from those supporting and campaigning on behalf of victims.
Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)
It is a pleasure to have you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. Clause 56 introduces schedule 8, which sets out new or amended provisions concerning criminal offences related to the taking, sharing or misuse of intimate photographs without consent, as well as acts of voyeurism. We very much welcome the measures being brought forward.
Many members of the public may be surprised that there is currently no single criminal offence that covers intimate image abuse. In July 2022, the Law Commission completed its review of the laws surrounding the taking, creation and distribution of intimate images without consent. It described the current legal framework as fragmented and outdated, highlighting the fact that existing offences had not kept pace with advances in technology or changes in patterns of sexual offending.
The then Conservative Government intended to use the Criminal Justice Bill to introduce a range of complementary offences to tackle the taking or recording of such images, as well as installing equipment to enable a person to commit a taking or recording offence, before the Bill fell ahead of the 2024 general election. As such, we welcome clause 56 and the measures in schedule 8. Schedule 8 is intended to strengthen legal protections against such offences, reflect modern technology and behaviours, and ensure that victims of these deeply intrusive acts are better safeguarded and supported through the criminal justice system.
These offences aim to address harmful behaviours such as secretly filming or photographing someone in a sexual or private context without their knowledge or consent. There are three main offences: one for taking or recording an intimate image without consent; one where the act is done to cause distress or humiliation; and another where it is done for sexual gratification. The legislation also provides certain exemptions, including where the person had a reasonable belief in consent, or where images were taken for legitimate purposes, such as medical care or by family members in certain situations. It also clarifies that images taken in public, where a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy, are generally excluded.
The new offences carry different penalties depending on the intent behind the act. The general offence is punishable by up to six months imprisonment or a fine, while the more serious offences, involving intent to harm or sexual gratification, carry a maximum sentence of two years. Clause 56 also introduces offences for installing or maintaining equipment, such as hidden cameras, with the intent to commit these acts. This ensures that preparatory behaviour intended to facilitate such invasions of privacy is also criminalised. Overall, the clause rightly strengthens the legal framework around image-based abuse and helps to protect people from intimate violations in both private and public settings.
Being filmed or photographed in an intimate or vulnerable situation without consent is a deep violation of privacy and dignity. Victims often experience long-lasting emotional and psychological effects. In some cases, the fear of images being shared online can lead to isolation, damage to personal relationships, and even job loss or reputational harm. We know how much that particularly impacts specific groups—research suggests that up to 90% of victims of intimate image abuse are women. By criminalising not only the taking and sharing of intimate images without consent, but the installation of equipment intended to facilitate such acts, the law sends a clear message that those behaviours are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
These changes also help to close existing legal gaps, offering victims stronger protection and greater confidence that their experiences will be taken seriously. Importantly, the new offences allow for appropriate punishment that reflects the severity of the harm caused while also deterring future offenders. This is a vital step in modernising the law to reflect the realities of abuse in the digital age.
It would be useful to understand whether the voyeurism element of these proposals is sufficient in cases of extortion. The National Crime Agency and other organisations have launched campaigns to highlight the dangers of extortion involving intimate images. The Law Commission’s study highlights reports of its prevalence among young men, with some estimates suggesting that young men account for 90% of victims. In cases where consent is initially given, does existing law sufficiently protect individuals who are subsequently extorted? It may be the case that this clause is not the place to address that, and that the Government feel that sufficient powers already exist. I am keen to hear the Minister’s views on that.
Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan.
I rise in full support of the Government’s action to tackle internet image abuse through clause 56 and schedule 8. As the Member of Parliament for Gravesham, I have heard how digital abuse and coercion are becoming increasingly common in our schools, in our relationships and even in our homes. This measure is not just a policy update; it is a legal correction, a turning point in how the law confronts modern abuse. It stands in defence of dignity, particularly for women and girls who have borne the brunt of silence, shame and victim-blaming for far too long.
The abuse we are addressing through this Bill is often hidden, carried out online without witnesses but with devastating consequences. Victims are often blamed, disbelieved or told that they brought it on themselves. Clause 56 and schedule 8 will take a powerful step in changing that narrative, and I place on record my strong support for the Government’s proposals. I also want to highlight why these offences are so necessary, how the cultural context has changed, what impact this Bill will have on real people, and why this is a turning point in our fight to end violence against women and girls.
As the Minister described, clause 56 and schedule 8 add the base offence of taking and recording intimate images without consent, regardless of motive, to the offences of doing so with intent to cause alarm, distress or humiliation, and of doing so for the purpose of sexual gratification. These offences are key to reflect the reality of modern abuse. The base offence rightly does not require intent, because the harm is real whether or not it was intended.
Unfortunately, we live in a world in which private moments can be turned into weapons, where trust can be shattered with a click and where a single image taken without consent or shared perniciously can spiral into shame, harassment and lifelong trauma. The Law Commission describes our current legal framework as a “patchwork,” unable to keep up with the evolution of technology or the disturbing ways in which people are exploiting it, and the Law Commission is right. Until now, there has been no clear, single criminal offence of taking or recording intimate images without consent. Offences exist for sharing such images, but even then the law requires intent to cause distress or humiliation to be proven. The result is that many perpetrators escape justice while victims suffer in silence. This Bill changes that.
For the first time, we have a clear set of offences that target the taking of intimate images without consent whatever the intent behind the action, whether it is humiliation, distress or sexual gratification, and the installation of the hidden recording devices that enable abuse. It addresses that breakdown in trust.
The Kaspersky report “The Naked Truth” sets out the scale of the challenge. In a global survey of 9,000 people, 22% of respondents had saved explicit images of themselves on their devices and 25% had shared images with people they were dating—among 16 to 24-year-olds that figure rose to 34%. It is this younger generation who we must protect. Some 46% of people globally are either survivors or know somebody who has been a victim of intimate image abuse. That number rises to 69% for 16 to 25-year-olds. We really must act now to prevent this from continuing.
The need for reform has been recognised for some time, but the legislative space did not allow it to move forward. This Labour Government are now picking up the mantle and delivering on that commitment. Clause 56 and schedule 8 build on the groundwork of the Online Safety Act 2003, which acknowledges image sharing. The Bill addresses the act of recording, closing another legal gap. This Government will not stop there: deepfakes and AI-generated sexually explicit images will also be addressed in clause 135 of the Data (Use and Access) Bill. That shows a serious, layered, long-term response to a serious, layered, long-term problem.
We owe it to the survivors, to the next generation, and to every woman and girl who has ever been told that she should have known better. This Government will not look away; we will act, protect, and make it clear that everyone has the right to their own body, their privacy and their peace of mind.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats are very supportive of clause 56 and schedule 8, which tidy up existing measures, including those previously implemented by the Liberal Democrats. That includes our campaign to ban revenge porn—we note the excellent points made by the Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd, regarding both “revenge” and “porn”—which elevated the taking of intimate images to a criminal offence in 2015, with sentences of up to two years in prison for those convicted.
We also note the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on the Voyeurism (Offences) Act 2019, so shamefully blocked by the hon. Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope) in 2018, which made upskirting a specific crime. We congratulate the Government on bringing forward measures to combat these upsetting, intrusive and insidious crimes.
David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan.
Violence against women and girls is not just a societal problem—it is a national emergency. I am proud of the action that this Labour Government are taking in our Crime and Policing Bill to tackle it. Tough new action is needed, and we are bringing it. The Labour Government have set out an unprecedented ambition, as we heard from the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd, to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. We will use every lever available to deliver this change.
The commitment goes beyond promises. One of the deliverables is the inclusion of new offences for the taking of intimate images without consent, as we have heard. These steps are crucial in addressing the evolving nature of sexual offences, which have outpaced existing laws. We must address this issue—it demands action and our unwavering commitment. Unlike the last Tory Government, which failed to keep up with developments in technology and sexual offending, we are taking tough action against perpetrators and ensuring that protections are better for victims—that is paramount. The consequences of this abuse can be life-changing and tragic. We must take the steps outlined in clause 56 and schedule 8 to ensure that we do not miss the opportunity to protect people from this rapidly growing harm.
The Women and Equalities Committee, which I sit on, has heard evidence from victims of non-consensual intimate image abuse. They have described the far-reaching and continuing impact that the abuse has had on their lives, confidence and relationships. I have heard from the witnesses how this has affected them. Unless we meet the victims and hear it from the horse’s mouth, the deep impact on them does not become real. Many of them are still suffering today. It has even pushed some to the brink of suicide. TV personality and campaigner Georgia Harrison told our predecessor Committee what happened in her case. She said:
“It impacted me in every way you could imagine. So I always sort of compare it to grief: you have to actually grieve a former version of yourself, you feel like you lose your dignity and a lot of pride, there is so much shame involved in it...It got to the point where I was so emotionally affected by what happened to me that I ended up being physically ill as well, to the point where I was in hospital”.
Jack Rankin (Windsor) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan, and to follow the powerful and well-researched contribution from the hon. Member for Southend West and Leigh.
In the digital age, the non-consensual capture and distribution of intimate images and the act of voyeurism have become all too common. Clause 56, which seeks to confront these violations and better protect individuals’ privacy and dignity, is one that I am happy to support, and I thank the Minister for so clearly setting out the case. The clause expands existing laws to criminalise the non-consensual taking of intimate images, including instances such as downblousing, the creation and distribution of digitally altered images such as deepfakes without consent, and the installation of equipment intended to capture intimate images without consent. All are in response to the recommendation from the Law Commission’s 2022 report on intimate image abuse.
The digital landscape has facilitated new forms of abuse, often with devastating consequences. Refuge has reported that one in 14 adults in England and Wales has experienced threats to share intimate images—that is 4.4 million people. The Revenge Porn Helpline has detailed the rise in those figures—it received nearly 19,000 reports in 2023, marking a 106% increase from 2022, and a tenfold rise over five years.
I also welcome the Minister framing this crime in the Government’s violence against women and girls strategy. There is a clear gender disparity when it comes to this crime. In 71% of cases, the victim is female and in over 81% of cases, the perpetrator is male. Those statistics underscore the urgent need for legal reforms to address and deter such abuses effectively, and to protect women and girls overwhelmingly. However, as we have heard frequently in Committee, it will also be critical that the measures are matched with improved enforcement. The sharing of intimate images has been illegal since 2015, and threatening to share intimate images has been a crime since 2021 but, shamefully, perpetrators are rarely held to account.
Data published by Refuge in 2023 showed that conviction rates for intimate abuse remain woefully low, with only 4% of cases that are reported to the police resulting in perpetrators being charged. I share Refuge’s view that that must improve. I was also shocked to learn that there remains a gap in the law where non-consensual images remain on perpetrators’ devices even after a conviction. That must be incredibly distressing for those affected by this crime. I ask the Minister to outline what provisions are in place to protect the dignity of victims, so that perpetrators are compelled to delete any non-consensual images.
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank the hon. Members who have contributed to the discussion, which has been deeply moving at times, particularly when it has touched on the impact on victims in all our constituencies and how widespread and horrific the problem is. That stresses the importance of us tackling it in the Bill.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stockton West, mentioned sextortion, as did other hon. Members. It is a growing problem. Just this week, its impact—on young men as well as young women—was highlighted on “Good Morning Britain”. Sextortion is already covered by existing offences; we feel that it is already tackled. We are aware that it happens primarily online on social media platforms. Thankfully, the codes of practice that Ofcom is introducing under the powers in the Online Safety Act 2023 will compel platforms to do more to tackle this horrific abuse. However, it is already a crime, and I stress that any victim or survivor who is struggling with it should report it to the relevant authorities—to the police and to the social media platforms directly—because action should be taken to tackle it and the powers and offences to do so are available. These crimes have caused tragic suicides, and I would encourage anyone struggling to reach out and tell someone to contact the Revenge Porn Helpline, which is there to offer assistance and support. It is a brilliant resource, as has been highlighted.
The hon. Member for Windsor asked about deprivation orders, I believe, and how we can ensure that these images are removed from devices so that victims are not retraumatised but protected. We are updating sentencing guidelines, to ensure that that measure is available to the courts—that devices can be taken off perpetrators and the images removed so that victims retain their dignity and are not being revictimised consistently.
This has been a very important discussion, highlighting just how important these measures are. I commend this clause and schedule to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 56 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 8 agreed to.
Clause 57
Exposure
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Alex Davies-Jones
The clause provides for a modest but important reform to strengthen the offence of exposure in section 66 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Currently, the offence, which carries a two-year maximum prison sentence, is committed when a person intentionally exposes their genitals and intends that someone will see them and be caused alarm or distress. Importantly, the offence—subject to certain conditions—attracts sexual offender notification requirements. That means that qualifying offenders released into the community will be required to notify the police of their personal details. Offenders have to provide their local police station with a record of, among other things, their name, address, date of birth and national insurance number.
In “Modernising Communications Offences: A final report”, published in 2021, the Law Commission noted evidence in response to its public consultation that suggested that the intention to cause alarm or distress was “too narrow” a mental element for this offence. The commission highlighted the fact that sexual gratification and a desire to humiliate the victim were among the major drivers of exposure. Under the existing criminal law, if a person exposes their genitals to another with the intention to humiliate, or for the purpose of obtaining sexual gratification, and does not also have an intention to cause alarm or distress, the behaviour is not captured by the exposure offence in section 66 of the 2003 Act. If a person is exposing themselves only with the intent of obtaining sexual gratification and with no intent to cause alarm or distress, that is currently insufficient to commit the section 66 offence.
Crown Prosecution Service guidance makes that point clear and suggests that, in such cases, charging with the offence of outraging public decency should be considered. However, depending on the circumstances, outraging public decency might not be an appropriate or valid charge. That offence is committed only when someone does something lewd, obscene or disgusting in the presence of at least two members of the public. The offence requires at least two people to have witnessed the act or been capable of witnessing it, so if, for example, someone exposes themselves to a lone woman for sexual gratification, that very disturbing behaviour would not currently be captured by the outraging public decency offence—and it would not be captured by the existing sexual offence of exposure. If someone were to expose themselves, for sexual gratification, to a person in a private dwelling rather than in public, the behaviour would not fall within the terms of that offence, either. Furthermore, and very importantly, the offence of outraging public decency does not attract sexual offender registration requirements. On release, therefore, the additional protection to society that effective sex offender management provides would not apply to such an offender, even if they carried out the behaviour specifically to obtain sexual gratification.
It is important that we recognise the seriousness of the offence of exposure in the 2003 Act. For victims, it is clearly a disturbing and frightening experience, which can have lasting effects. It is a serious sexual offence that can be identified as a signal of potential for escalation towards even more serious and violent offences. Sadly, we have seen that time and again. Although what I am about to discuss is by no means the only example of escalation of sexual offences, it is perhaps one of the most prominent in recent history. It is one that I know has stayed with all of us across the House, and no one more so than the Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention, my very good and right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham. I pay tribute to the way she and her community have coped with the devastation of this tragic event five years ago.
Matt Vickers
The clause updates the offence of exposure set out in section 66 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The current legislation criminalises a person who intentionally exposes their genitals intending that someone will see them and experience alarm or distress. With technologies ever expanding, the last Conservative Government’s efforts to modernise the legal framework in response to the Law Commission’s 2021 report “Modernising Communications Offences” included the addition of a cyber-flashing offence aimed at better addressing the realities of digital abuse and ensuring that the law keeps pace with the increasing use of technology to commit sexual offences.
The clause rightly expands that to cover not just situations where the individual exposes their genitals to cause alarm or distress, but those where they do so for the purpose of sexual gratification and are reckless as to whether the exposure may cause alarm, distress or humiliation to someone who sees it. That follows the Law Commission’s reporting that it had received evidence indicating that limiting the offence to cases where there was intent to cause alarm or distress was too restrictive. It found that motivations such as seeking sexual gratification or aiming to humiliate the victim were also significant factors behind exposure-related behaviour. The Minister made a clear case for this change to the law, but also set out the impact that such behaviour can have or lead to.
Exposing yourself in public, often referred to as flashing, is a serious and unacceptable criminal offence. It is not just inappropriate; it can cause genuine fear, distress and long-term psychological harm to those who witness it, especially when the victim is a child or vulnerable person. Flashing is not a harmless prank or joke; it is a violation of personal boundaries and can be deeply traumatic. It demonstrates a lack of respect for others and a disregard for the basic right to feel safe in public spaces. This kind of behaviour erodes trust in the community and contributes to a culture of intimidation and discomfort. It is right that we take every measure to stop indecent exposure.
Proposed new section 66(1A) of the 2003 Act aims to introduce a safeguard by excluding certain scenarios, where the exposure is intended only for a specific person or group, from the offence. In such cases, the offence will not be committed under the sexual gratification limb unless the individual is also reckless as to whether one or more of those people will be caused alarm, distress or humiliation. This provision seeks to ensure that consensual acts of nudity—for example, between partners in a secluded area—are not criminalised simply because they are accidentally witnessed by a third party.
The clause will help to ensure that perpetrators of sexually motivated public exposure, such as flashing, can be held to account even if they deny intending to cause harm. The revised wording offers greater clarity for law enforcement and the courts, ensuring that such harmful behaviours are prosecuted more effectively while also providing reasonable protections for consensual and private conduct.
It has been reported that flashing offences have doubled in a decade, with more than 1,000 instances of indecent exposure being reported to the police every month, but barely one in 10 leads to a charge. In the light of that, can the Minister confirm whether she is confident that new subsection (1A) will not inadvertently create a loophole for perpetrators to evade accountability by claiming that their exposure was intended for only a particular person?
Jack Rankin
The clause aims to strengthen the protections for individuals from indecent exposure, and to ensure that our communities remain safe and respectful spaces for all. It seeks to provide clearer definitions and stricter penalties for offences involving indecent exposure so that perpetrators of such offences are held accountable and victims receive the justice that they deserve for this sexual crime.
While sometimes dismissed as minor, exposure of this kind can have a significant psychological and emotional impact on victims. It is not a trivial matter and can often be a precursor to more severe offences, as we saw with the tragic murder of Sarah Everard, and it contributes to a climate of fear and discomfort in public spaces. Multiple incidents of indecent exposure were linked to the convicted murderer of Sarah Everard before the tragic events of her death in March 2021. In 2015 and 2020, allegations of indecent exposure were made against him in Kent, where he was said to have exposed himself in public. Those reports were not fully investigated at the time. In February 2021, just days before he abducted and murdered Sarah Everard, he was reported to police for exposing himself to staff at a McDonald’s drive-through in Kent. Despite that report being made on 28 February, no meaningful action was taken prior to the murder, which occurred on 3 March. Those incidents have since been heavily scrutinised during inquests and reviews, revealing systematic failures in policing responses to sexual offences, especially so-called lower-level offences such as exposure.
While I welcome the expansion of the scope of this offence through clause 57, I urge police to use the new powers and treat these crimes as the serious crimes that they are. They can be a warning of even worse crimes to come. I welcome the Minister’s statement that the College of Policing guidance is being changed appropriately. Being subjected to indecent exposure by a stranger while walking home can leave a woman with lasting trauma. Such behaviour is unacceptable and should be met with appropriate consequences.
Alex Davies-Jones
I thank the hon. Member for Windsor for his important contribution. It is right that we expand the scope of the offence to ensure that all victims are properly protected and that perpetrators are brought to adequate justice. As he rightly pointed out, justice is a system; it needs every part to work. We need to ensure that the police are equipped with the guidance, training and tools to go after these foul perpetrators—they need to know what to do, what to look for and who to find. They should be taking this seriously, so I am glad that the College of Policing guidance is now in place. We need the CPS to have the offences available to charge the perpetrators—that is what this Bill will provide—and then we need the court system to be available to hear the cases so that justice can be brought.
The shadow Minister sought reassurance that perpetrators would be brought to justice. As I have just outlined, we are assured that we have all the tools available; we just need to stop these acts taking place. This modest but vital step is part of our wider strategy to halve violence against women and girls. These crimes may be low level and classed as non-contact, but sadly we all know what happens when they escalate. It is important that we take them seriously and have robust laws in place to deal with them.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 57 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 58
Sexual activity with a corpse
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Alex Davies-Jones
I feel that I should provide hon. Members with a content warning before I discuss what this new offence does, and it is probably quite important that we are doing this before lunch. Clause 58 is on a gruesome but none the less important issue. The clause introduces an amendment by expanding the law on sexual activity with a corpse—a distinct and abhorrent type of offending, as shown in the recent case of David Fuller. The sheer horror and repulsiveness of the crime cannot be overstated. My heartfelt condolences go out to the families of those subject to the offence, who have been profoundly affected by these unimaginable, heinous acts. The clause will address a wider range of such despicable behaviour and mark the beginning of a very important step towards ensuring justice for all. We are committed to stopping all such behaviour by making a significant change today. I would like to take a moment to set out the history of the offence.
The Labour Government introduced the Sexual Offences Act 2003 after a full and extensive consultation called “Setting the Boundaries”. It significantly modernised and strengthened the laws on sexual offences in England and Wales. One of the key recommendations from “Setting the Boundaries” was the inclusion of the offence of sexual penetration of a corpse, in chapter 8, “Other Offences”. At the time, the consultation said:
“It came as a surprise to most members of the review that there was no such protection in law for human remains and that necrophilia was not illegal.”
That is why the recommendation was simply put that sexual penetration of a corpse needed to be a criminal offence. Then and now, a Labour Government have demonstrated the importance of getting such legislation right to prevent such heinous behaviour. The commitment was evident then and remains even more crucial now.
I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the independent inquiry for its thorough investigation into the horrific acts committed by David Fuller in the mortuaries of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospitals. The interim report, published on 15 October 2024, provides essential preliminary findings and recommendations for the funeral sector, highlighting areas that require attention. We eagerly await the final report and will carefully consider its findings to ensure that such atrocities are never repeated. At the core of our efforts, we remain deeply mindful of the families of those subjected to the offence. Their pain and suffering are unimaginable, and our thoughts are with them. We are grateful to the families of the deceased who have bravely come forward to speak publicly about their experiences in the hopes of making lasting change. We understand that revisiting these traumatic events is incredibly painful, and we are truly sorry for any additional distress caused by bringing these matters up in Parliament, but their voices are vital in ensuring justice.
Police officers have played a vital role in explaining the immense challenges faced while gathering evidence for the courts. Their painstaking work in sifting through the horrific images and explaining the evidence was crucial. Without their efforts, we might not have fully understood the importance of broadening the offence to include sexual touching. Their dedication and professionalism have been instrumental in bringing David Fuller to justice. David Fuller is serving a whole life sentence for his abhorrent crimes. As Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb stated during the sentencing, his
“actions go against everything that is right and humane. They are incomprehensible”
and
“had no regard for the dignity of the dead.”
These words resonate deeply with all of us, reinforcing the importance of upholding the dignity of, and respect for, those who have passed.
We are committed to ensuring that justice is secured for the families of the deceased in all cases of sexual activity with a corpse, not just in cases of penetration. That is why the clause repeals the existing offence of sexual penetration of a corpse in section 70 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, and replaces it with a broader offence of sexual activity with a corpse. The broader offence still criminalises sexual penetration of a corpse, but it also criminalises non-penetrative sexual touching, adding it into the criminal law for the first time. It increases the maximum penalty for sexual penetration of a corpse from two to seven years’ imprisonment. Where penetration is not involved, the maximum penalty will be five years’ imprisonment. The new offence will be committed whenever a person intentionally touches the body of a dead person if they know they are dead or are reckless as to whether the person they are touching is dead, and the touching is sexual. Touching is already defined in section 79(8) of the 2003 Act.
We want to ensure that criminal law is robust and comprehensive, effectively addressing the harm caused by this reprehensible behaviour. It is imperative that our criminal law evolves to encompass additional forms of abuse, particularly those that violate the dignity and sanctity of individuals both alive and deceased. By broadening the offence to include non-penetrative actions, such as the sexual touching of a corpse, the law will be more robust, ensuring that perpetrators cannot escape justice.
Our commitment extends beyond merely updating the law and involves a holistic approach to justice that prioritises respect for those affected. We strive to create an environment in which such heinous acts are met with the strongest possible legal repercussions, ensuring that justice is served and, importantly, that the families of the deceased receive the support and closure they so rightly deserve. I commend clause 58 to the Committee.
Matt Vickers
The clause updates and strengthens the current offence of sexual activity involving a corpse, as set out in section 70 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The revised provisions broaden the scope of the offence by replacing the term “sexual penetration” with the more encompassing term “sexual activity”. The clause replicates a provision of the Conservative Government’s Criminal Justice Bill, which fell due to the 2024 general election. The change ensures that any form of intentional sexual touching of a dead body—not just acts of penetration—will be captured by the law.
Many members of the public are shocked to hear that these vile and horrific offences take place, and will be further shocked that some of this activity is not covered by the law. Currently, section 70 of the 2003 Act defines the offence of sexual penetration of a corpse. That offence applies when a person intentionally sexually penetrates the body of a deceased individual, and knows or is reckless as to whether the body is that of a deceased person. The offence carries a maximum sentence of two years’ imprisonment.
As the Minister mentioned, the provision was notably used in the high-profile case of David Fuller, a former hospital electrician who was convicted under section 70 for multiple instances of sexual penetration involving the bodies of at least 100 women and girls in hospital mortuaries. However, the current scope of section 70 does not extend to non-penetrative sexual acts, so it could not have been used to prosecute further allegations against Fuller relating to other forms of sexual activity with the bodies of his victims. Under this legislation, a person commits an offence if they intentionally touch a part of a dead person’s body, with that touching being sexual in nature, and if they either know or are reckless as to the fact that the body is that of a deceased person.
The clause also provides a new, tiered sentencing structure. Where the sexual activity involves penetration, the offence carries a maximum penalty of seven years’ imprisonment. In all other cases, the maximum penalty is five years. These sentencing thresholds aim to reflect the seriousness of the conduct, while allowing courts flexibility to reflect the nature of the offence. The new offence introduces different maximum sentences depending on whether penetration is involved. Can the Minister explain how these sentencing thresholds were determined, and have the Government considered how the updated offence aligns with comparable offences in other jurisdictions? Does this bring us into line with international best practice?
Jack Rankin
There have been some truly harrowing cases that have exposed the inadequacies of our current legal framework in this regard. As both the Minister and the shadow Minister highlighted, the case of David Fuller is the obvious and most extreme example—a hospital electrician who, over 12 years, sexually abused the bodies of more than 100 women and girls in women and mortuaries. His crimes went undetected for decades, revealing significant systematic failure. I fully support the clause that the Minister has outlined, particularly because, as Baroness Noakes has highlighted during parliamentary debates, had Fuller not been convicted of murder, he might have faced only a minimal sentence for his other offences.
I have several critical questions on clause 58. I appreciate that the clause would significantly increase the penalty, but are those proposed penalties sufficient? Given the gravity of these offences, should the maximum sentence not be even higher, so that it serves as a stronger deterrent? Take the example of David Fuller. If we had caught him before the murder, under the provisions of the Bill, would he have been given seven years, and is that enough? What safeguards are in place? How can institutions, especially hospitals and funeral homes, implement stricter protocols to prevent such abuses? Perhaps the Minister can comment on that. How do we support the victims’ families? Beyond legal measures, what support systems are available to help families to cope with the trauma inflicted by disgusting crimes such as this? Clause 58 is clearly a necessary and long overdue reform that acknowledges the sanctity of the deceased and the rights of the families, and provides greater justice for those who can no longer speak for themselves. I welcome it.
Alex Davies-Jones
I welcome the comments from the shadow Minister and the hon. Member for Windsor. Both touched on sentencing, and I am happy to address their questions. We have considered a range of options. Increasing the statutory maximum for section 70 to seven years is in keeping with the other serious contact offences in the Sexual Offences Act, while it remains lower than most of the serious contact sexual offences against living victims. Sexual assault and rape, for example, have a maximum penalty of 10 years and life imprisonment respectively. The statutory maximum set out in the clause is for a single offence. If a person receives multiple convictions for this offence, or if that offence is committed alongside other offences, then the court may adjust the overall sentence to reflect the totality of the offending in the ordinary way.
We also heard strong evidence of the harm caused by this offending to victims’ families and believe that two years does not reflect the harm caused. We have, therefore, considered, in particular, the serious emotional and psychological distress and the feelings of shame and embarrassment that the families undergo, knowing that the bodies of their loved ones have been sexually abused. It is therefore right that the new law takes
“Concealment, destruction, defilement or dismemberment of the body”
as a factor that indicates high culpability on the part of the offender, and that a more serious punishment may, therefore, be appropriate.
I remind hon. Members that we currently have a sentencing review in place, which is reviewing all the offences available and looking at this. That independent review is ongoing and we anticipate that it will report this year. We are also aware that the Law Commission is considering a review of the criminal law around the desecration of bodies as part of its next programme of law reform. We are currently discussing the possibility of looking into this with it. Let me reassure Members that we are not stopping and that we will not hesitate to go further if required.
On the support available for victims, I would like to reassure the hon. Member for Windsor that victim support is always available for anyone who has been a victim of crime, whether or not that crime has been reported to the police. I encourage any victim, survivor or family to reach out to victim support. The Ministry of Justice funds a number of victim support organisations and provides grants to local police and crime commissioners to provide tailored support in their areas for whatever they feel is necessary. We also have the victims’ code, which outlines exactly what victims are entitled to if they have been a victim of crime, and support is one of the many elements available to them there. I encourage anyone to reach out and seek the support that is available.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 58 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 59
Notification of name change
Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 36, in clause 59, page 59, line 11, at end insert—
“(11) If a relevant offender does not comply with the requirements of this section, they shall be liable to a fine not exceeding Level 4 on the standard scale.”
This amendment imposes a fine of up to £2,500 if a registered sex offender does not notify the police when they change their name.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 50, in clause 59, page 59, line 11, at end insert—
“(11) Police must notify victims of relevant offender’s new name—
(a) No less than three days before an offender intends to use it, or
(b) If that is not reasonably practicable, no less than three days after the date the offender began using it.”
This amendment would place a duty on police forces to notify victims if their abuser legally changed their name.
Clause stand part.
Amendment 37, in clause 60, page 60, line 25, at end insert—
“(10) If a relevant offender does not comply with the requirements of this section, they shall be liable to a fine not exceeding Level 4 on the standard scale.”
This amendment imposes a fine of up to £2,500 if a registered sex offender does not notify the police when they are absent from their sole or main residence.
Clause 60 stand part.
Amendment 38, in clause 61, page 63, line 4, at end insert—
“(9) If a relevant offender does not comply with the requirements of this section, they shall be liable to a fine at Level 5 of the standard scale.”
This amendment imposes an unlimited fine if a relevant registered sex offender does not notify police if they are entering a premises where children are presented.
Clause 61 stand part.
Clause 66 stand part.
New clause 55—Annual statement on employment status of sexual offenders—
“(1) The Secretary of State must publish an annual report on the employment status of convicted sexual offenders at the time of their offence.
(2) For the purpose of subsection (1), ‘Sexual offenders’ means any person found guilty of an offence stipulated in the Sexual Offences Act 2003.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to release an annual report on the employment status of convicted sexual offenders.
Matt Vickers
Opposition amendment 36 introduces a financial penalty for a registered sex offender who fails to notify the police of a name change. The penalty, set at a fine not exceeding £2,500, aims to ensure that offenders remain fully accountable for complying with the notification requirements under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The failure to notify the police of a change in name could undermine the effectiveness of the existing system designed to monitor and track sex offenders, making it crucial to incentivise full adherence to the notification process.
Sexual offences are among the most serious and traumatic crimes, leaving deep and lasting harm on victims, emotionally, psychologically and socially. These offences often involve a profound breach of trust and personal safety, with long-term consequences for victims’ wellbeing and mental health. The most severe cases can shatter lives and destroy families. Because of the gravity and impact of these crimes, it is vital that society sets a clear and uncompromising message that such behaviour will not be tolerated, including in the conditions and requirements that follow conviction.
Planning and Infrastructure Bill (Second sitting)
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
We are about to have a vote, so we are going to be interrupted very shortly, but let us crack on as quickly as we can. We will now hear evidence from Victoria Hills, the chief executive officer of the Royal Town Planning Institute; Hugh Ellis, the director of policy at the Town and Country Planning Association; and Faraz Baber of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. For this panel, we have until 2.35 pm, unless of course we have a vote, as we are expecting, which will change the timing. I call the Opposition spokesperson to start the questions. If Members could indicate to me early that they want to ask a question, that would be helpful to me and the Clerk.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
Q
I want to ask a question of the Town and Country Planning Association about the level of public trust in the planning system. The Opposition consistently outlined on Second Reading that we are concerned about democratic oversight and the right of the public and local planning committees to have a decent and worthwhile say on the way in which developments are allowed to go ahead in their own remits and jurisdictions. I notice that your written evidence states of public trust:
“If the planning system is to be democratic it is essential that the public has a voice during the examination of plans. This includes for the new, and powerful, spatial development strategies”.
Could you elaborate on that view and outline to the Committee what amendments you would like to see, or what emphasis you would like changed, to address your concerns in this area?
Hugh Ellis: Certainly. There are two aspects to it. One is that public trust is at a very low level. There has not been a full examination of public participation in planning since the late 1960s. Wherever we go, we find people who are struggling to understand the system, very often struggling with the asymmetry when they come up against the development industry, and struggling with the very limited opportunities that communities have to participate. Those opportunities are described in statute both for national infrastructure and for local planning applications; people are given three weeks.
The most important thing to stress is that people are not a source of delay; their voice in planning is due process. Taking out democratic opportunities in the cause of speeding up the process is utterly counter- productive, because where communities resist, they create delay anyway—outside the system. For us, there needs to be a respectful conversation. Of course, we are not arguing for a veto; we are arguing for meaningful opportunities for communities to be involved. That leads to better development, more accepted development and better placemaking.
Our concerns about the Bill relate particularly to the scheme of delegation and the shortened consultation periods for national infrastructure. To put that right, we are suggesting that things like the scheme of delegation are not really necessary. Certainly, if you are going to do it, you have to preserve local democratic oversight of major decisions at the local level. To give one final quick example, if you have a scheme of delegation that takes out local demographic oversight of decisions, you also take out the community’s only right in development management to be heard as a planning committee. The point I want to stress is that, at the moment, communities are the people largely excluded from decision making, and we want to give them a powerful voice. That is not anti-development; it is about building legitimacy, consent and certainty for development.
Paul Holmes
Q
Continuing with this line of questioning on local planning authorities and their powers with democratic oversight, one of your interesting proposals, Victoria, is an amendment that would allow for a statutory chief planning officer per local planning authority. I find that particularly interesting because I can see the argument that you would have increased legitimacy with one planning officer per local planning authority, despite the fact that we already have those, as there would be one person within each authority who is vested with the power to make those decisions. Can you outline how you see that working with the political structures that are in place in local authorities, bearing in mind what we would argue are the legislative aims of the Bill in removing some of those powers from locally elected councillors and politicians?
Victoria Hills: You are absolutely right; one of our core asks, which we believe would be a pillar of the quite systemic change being introduced by the Bill, is to have a statutory chief planning officer in every local authority. If you want to drive innovation, change, and the delivery of a new planning system, with the Bill setting an ambitious drumbeat for how planning will be done going forward, then to mobilise that delivery, you need to ensure that you have the appropriate seniority, experience and professional competency of a senior executive leader, rather than an elected leader. They can work with the elected politicians locally to drive forward delivery of the planning reform that is before this Committee.
We feel that many of the changes proposed in the Bill, some of which are quite structural about the way that planning will be done differently in the future, require not only strong elected leadership but strong executive leadership. [Interruption.]
Paul Holmes
Q
Victoria Hills: Thank you very much. I was making the point that, if you want to mobilise delivery quickly, and if you have gone to the effort of producing a new Bill and getting all the bits and pieces in place that you need to deliver the growth that we know the Government have committed to deliver, it makes sense to have someone with the appropriate level of seniority, experience and competency within local government who can drive forward that delivery.
There are a number of changes proposed in the Bill to do planning slightly differently, and within that context, you absolutely need a statutory chief planning officer working with the local politicians to deliver what the communities want to see locally. There is a golden opportunity in the Bill to ensure that we put that role in place in statute so that communities can be assured that, as these changes go through, they have the right level of seniority and competency working with the elected politicians to deliver the changes that they would like to see locally.
We support much of what is in the Bill, but we feel that it would be a missed opportunity not to introduce a provision for a statutory chief planning officer. You mentioned that these people exist, but they exist at different levels in different shades in different authorities. Very much along the lines of the conformity that I believe the Bill is trying to bring in for planning committees, if you are going to bring in a new national scheme of delegation for planning committees, you really need a statutory chief planning officer who can deliver that scheme locally, working hand in hand with the politicians to do so.
Paul Holmes
Q
I do not want to put words into the chief executive’s mouth, because she is not here now, but she told the Committee that there was some concern with the new systems over potential shortfalls in funding because of the spending review, which has not yet allocated money in the short term to Natural England, compared with the extra responsibilities that Natural England will have to undertake on habitat and nature. Can you outline your individual organisations’ views on whether Natural England is adequately resourced at the moment to undertake those extra duties? Under its current guise and funding, do you think that it is in a fit state to deliver on those extra responsibilities?
Victoria Hills: We have been very clear in our position: we support Natural England taking forward some of these new powers and responsibilities, provided that it is adequately resourced to do so. I do not have a detailed diagnostic of its resourcing and capability plans, but we have been assured, working with the Department, that the resources will be there. That is something that we will be keeping a very close eye on.
We support the principle of coming up with strategic solutions to some of the approaches to the environment, which can be delivered at a strategic level. As you know, we are a strong supporter of strategic planning and we believe that some of the biodiversity and nature aspects of planning do not stop at district council boundaries, or even county council boundaries. It makes perfect sense to look at these things at a strategic level; we support that and we support the ambition of Natural England to do it. However, we will caveat that by saying that it must be adequately resourced to do so, and that is a point that we will continue to make.
Faraz Baber: I work as a practitioner for a planning, environment and design company called Lanpro, which operates across the country. With that lens, I would say that the provisions on what it is expected that Natural England will deliver are right. It is good that the Government are moving towards the delivery of environmental delivery plans and all the things that sit around them.
I thought that the challenge to Natural England earlier was interesting. The chief executive was challenged as to whether, given what is in the Bill, there could be a cast-iron guarantee of the environmental credentials that we need to see come through. I have to say that I was surprised at the response, because you cannot: we have to see how it works in practice. For Natural England to deliver that, it will need to significantly recruit dedicated teams to operate a number of the provisions that are set out in the Bill, the EDPs being a good example. It is right that there will be concern about the comprehensive spending review and whether Natural England will have the resources and function to deliver. In principle, the Government are right in their direction of travel on this, but they will need to commit to the resources and funding to deliver on their promise.
Hugh Ellis: To add to that, rather than repeat it, there are concerns about the scheme design. We at the TCPA are also concerned about the philosophy that lies behind it—that it may lead to an offsetting process. To be clear, the foundation of planning is that nature and development can be easily managed together to enhance both. That is our tradition, and it has always been the planning tradition, from Morris onwards. The philosophy of planning should always be that I can build a development for you that will enhance nature and provide housing. The setting up of the two ideas in opposition is destructive and distracting.
We need to focus on design quality in new housing, and principally that means allowing people to have access to nature immediately. They need that for their mental health and physical wellbeing. That is a crucial saving to the NHS and social care budget in the long run. We want high-quality design first, and offsetting and large-scale habitat creation elsewhere—as a second resort, but not as the first, principal test.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
Q
Hugh Ellis: Since 1947, the greatest absence in all planning reform measures has been that we do not know what the system is for. The current round of reforms raises that question profoundly. The purpose should be sustainable development. We are signatories to the UN charter, and key concepts around sustainable development do not feature in the national planning policy framework. Those are really crucial ones about social justice, inclusion, environmental limits and precautionary principles. Those are all key to giving the planning system a purpose. That purpose is crucial pragmatically, because across the sector we need to know what the system is for, so that we can have confidence in it.
It is also crucial to understand that the system has long-term goals, future generations being one of them, and addressing the climate crisis being another. Within three to five years, the repeated impacts from climate change will be the dominant political issue we confront, and we need a system that works for that, as well as for housing growth.
Faraz Baber: Whether it should be in the Bill or in an NPPF-style document is more about whether people are able to know what planning is and how that is communicated. I do not necessarily believe that that has to be enshrined in the Bill, but it certainly should be clear, whether it is in the national planning policy framework, a local plan or a spatial development strategy, so that people—by which I mean all those who interact with the planning system—can know what planning is about and what it means for them. I feel that a Bill, and ultimately an Act, is the wrong place for it to be enshrined.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Faraz Baber: Planning is there to help, for want of a better phrase, with the placemaking and the delivery, and to ensure that there are guidelines for how plan making should take place. It is there to ensure that the various levers associated with the plan-making process and the development process are understood. Planning is the guardian that ensures that sustainable development can come forward.
Victoria Hills: One of the most important questions that anybody—elected leaders or executive leaders—can ask is “Why?” Why are we doing it? What is it all about? What is the purpose of this Bill? What is the purpose of planning? That is why we think it is essential, within the realms of this Bill, that a public purpose of planning is stated up front. You do not have to take our word for it. Our research published yesterday shows that the vast majority of the public do not have a clue what planning is. They do not know what it is for, and if you are going to drive through a major reform programme for planning, the likes of which we have not seen for 15 years, it might be a good idea if we are very clear on what the purpose of planning is.
For us, the purpose is really clear; at a strategic level, it is about the long-term public interest, the common good and the future wellbeing of communities. You need to be open and honest with the public up front that all this change that is coming in planning and infrastructure is actually for the long-term common good. Some of it people may not like in the short term, but we are talking about the long-term common good— delivering on climate, delivering on sustainable development goals and delivering for communities. We think it is really important that the opportunity is not missed, not only to help inform the public and everybody else who needs to know what the purpose of planning is but to provide that north star, that guiding star, as to the why. Why are we doing this? What purpose does it have?
Thank you for your question. We are absolutely clear that having a public purpose of planning is really important for this legislation, and we will continue to make that case.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
Q
Hugh—the Bill provides a clearer, more flexible and more robust framework for the operation of development corporations. You know that it is clearly our view that they have to do a lot of work in the coming years to drive the kind of delivery we need and the types of development we want to see come forward. What is your assessment of how effective those development corporation powers are to support development and regeneration?
Victoria Hills: One thing we know about from our members, but also from those people who are actually in the business of building things—of course, that is really what is important if you want to see some growth coming—is consistency. You asked about the variation. Some councils have fantastic schemes of delegation and it is very clear what is and is not going to committee, but other councils have a slightly more grey scheme of delegation—let’s call it that—whereby things can pop up in committee on the basis of an individual issue or individual councillor.
The opportunity afforded to us by the Bill is for some consistency through a national scheme of delegation. We have in place some very robust processes that look at the business of development, through the local plan process. It goes to not one but two public inquiries, through the Government’s inspectorate, and then back to the community. What we recognise is that if you have had some very robust considerations of the principles of development and you have good development prescribed by, for example, a design code that says, “This is what good development looks like here”—so we have worked out what we want, where it is going and what it looks like—it is perfectly possible that suitably qualified chief planning officers can work out whether something is in conformity with a plan. We therefore welcome the opportunity to clarify that through a national scheme of delegation.
This is not to take away anybody’s democratic mandate to have their say. Of course, there are all sorts of opportunities to have that say in the local plan process, but if we are to move to a national scheme of delegation, we would want a statutory chief planning officer who has that statutory wraparound and has the appropriate level of competency and gravitas to be able to drive forward that change, because it will be a change for some authorities. For some, it will not be a change at all, but taking forward that innovation via a national scheme of delegation will require that statutory post, so that those decisions cannot be challenged, because they will be made in a professionally competent way.
Hugh Ellis: I think development corporations are essential if we are going to achieve this mission. You would expect the TCPA to say that, because we are inheritors of the new towns programme. The interesting thing about them is that, for the first time, they bolt together strategy and delivery. The existing town and country planning system is often blamed for not delivering homes, but it has no power to build them.
The development corporation solves that problem by creating a delivery arm that can effectively deliver homes, as we saw with the new towns programme, which housed 2.8 million people in 32 places in less than 20 years of designation, and it also paid for itself—it is an extraordinary model. The measures in the Bill to modernise overall duties on development corporations are really welcome. I assume you do not want me to talk about compulsory purchase orders right now, but hope value and CPOs are critical accompanying ideas in the reform package that go with that. In the long run, I think that they will become critical.
Obviously, the new towns taskforce has to decide what it wants on policy. The challenge that we face with them is legitimacy, and there is still work to do in making sure that there is a Rolls-Royce process of getting public consent for this new generation of places. However, the outcome is such an opportunity to generate places that genuinely enhance people’s health, deal with the climate crisis and provide high levels of affordability. What a contrast that is with what we have delivered through town and country planning at local plan level, which is a lot of the bolt-on, car-dependent development. Frankly, as a planner, I find that shameful. The opportunity with development corporations is there and I hope that the Government seize it.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
Q
Hugh Ellis: I will be honest: as a planner, I am really worried about it. The one difficult thing is that you cannot build without consent, and I think governance in planning is really important. Environmental governance in general is important. I am sceptical about the degree to which this is a really big problem. I can see evidence coming through to suggest that delegation rates for normal applications that you can decide locally are very high already.
I made this point earlier on, but what worries me more than anything else is that if you sideline the opportunity that the public currently have to be represented at committee, the appearance—if not the intent—is that you are excluding people. In periods of change, you have to lean into consultation, participation and democratic accountability. You must accept that while it is not a veto, because you as parliamentarians may wish to decide that the development proceeds, it is either democracy or it is not.
For us, the idea of democratic planning is so central, and it was so important in 1947. That Government had a choice: it had proposed a Land Board, which could have made all the planning decisions centrally, but it gave those decisions to local government on the basis that people locally understand decision making best. My own experience is that people are a solution, not a problem. Wherever I go, I find people who know detail about development and can improve it, particularly on flood risk, and they want to contribute.
I do not accept that there is an anti-development lobby everywhere, and there certainly is not in my community. Instead, there are people concerned about quality, affordability and service provision, and their voice should be heard. The Bill could create the impression, even if it is not the intent, that there is a non-respectful conversation going on. Finally, as a planner, I would never want to be in the firing line for taking a decision on a major housing scheme that is ultimately a matter of politics, and should always be so.
Paul Holmes
Quite right!
Faraz Baber: If I may respond on that, there is real merit in the delegation scheme being proposed, within the confines of ensuring that the plan-making process is robust, and that there is engagement by community representatives through the EIP process, as well as other avenues that can help the plan-making take place.
I have created neighbourhood plans as much as I have worked on regional spatial strategies and the London plan. I know that if you get those processes to a place where, from the outset, everyone has engaged with the plan, and communities buy in from that point, you see the follow-through in the consistency of the delivery of the plan. Actually, it is not then a brave decision for a planning officer to make because they are following the lines of what the community has charged them to go and deliver for them. We must remind ourselves that it is about cases that are devoid of those policies and try to do something else, which is where it then needs further democratic overview. In the broadest sense, if we are looking at the growth that this country needs, at the delivery this country needs and at the pace at which that needs to come, we do need to think in a more dynamic fashion, and I think the delegation scheme does have merit.
I take the point that Victoria made about the chief officer. That seniority does provide good cover in a council, and it will enable them to provide that oversight and ensure that things that are required for the community are also delivered. Working in tandem provides a real opportunity for a good national delegation scheme to come forward.
Victoria Hills: To add to that, a professionally competent chartered town planner is very capable at ensuring that all the community interests are represented and balanced. That drives really excellent outcomes, and certainly that is the business that our members are in: delivering great places.
The Chair
We have less than 10 minutes, and seven Members, at the last count, wanted to ask questions. Please be very quick with your questions or we are not going to get everyone in.
Nesil Caliskan (Barking) (Lab)
Q
Victoria Hills: Very briefly, capacity and capability have been a hindrance in local authorities for a number of years. We have lost 25% of local authority planners alone in the last seven years, and that cannot continue. We are working with the Department and many partners; Public Practice and Pathways to Planning are both really important at this moment in time. The chief planner is there to advocate for those resources at the top table of local government and to ensure that they have a statutory basis on which to retain the budget.
Despite everything that everybody is doing to bring in more planners—with private sector money as well; we are working with the British Chambers of Commerce on a new planning scholarship, using private sector money to solve the crisis of lack of capacity—our biggest burning platform at the moment is the uncertainty regarding the level 7 apprenticeship. Some 60% of apprentices in local government come from under-represented groups within the profession. Unless we have urgent clarity soon as to whether or not our chartered town planner apprenticeship can continue, we are seriously worried about the pipeline of planners going into local government. It would be remiss of me not to mention that in the context of your capacity question.
On local plans, of course it is not good enough that only 40% of local authorities have an up-to-date local plan. That is an urgent priority. Of the 25% of local authority planners who have left local government in the last seven years, we suspect the lion’s share were in those local planning teams, and we need to work urgently to put that capacity back in. The apprenticeship will go some way, as will Pathways to Planning and the planning scholarship, but there is no time to waste in ensuring that we put that capacity back in. We think that the statutory chief planning role will not only have the right level of seniority to advocate for it, but they will actually help restore planning departments as a real career choice for graduates coming out of planning schools now.
The Chair
Order. Please remember to keep it short, because other colleagues want to come in.
Lewis Cocking
Q
Faraz Baber: The outline, as you say, is an outline, but the reality is that any full application that comes forward should be aligned with the agreement on social infrastructure and all the other elements that are required, whether that is the affordable housing, social infrastructure, civil payments or whatever. There was an earlier question: what is planning for? Well, planning is for that—to ensure that those community benefits are derived from development and to ensure that it is inclusive, not just for new residents but for existing residents as well.
I think that is a guardianship point, where the planning team or the local authority have to ensure that what they said they wanted to see from the plan is ultimately delivered. People will go into viability discussions and say, “I can’t afford that and I can’t afford this.” That is a judgment that has to be made about what can be delivered in the public interest. In answer to your question, that is very much where planning sits at the fore, to ensure that the right development with the right social infrastructure comes forward, and that it is fitting for the place it is sitting in.
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
Q
Victoria Hills: We have been advocating for the ringfencing of fees since time began. It is absolutely essential, and—I am sure that Faraz will pick this point up in a moment for his clients—I have not met a single developer that is not willing to pay for more for a service. The problem is that they are paying more but not getting the service. In some places, they are, but not in others. The opportunity, through this Bill, to strengthen the ringfencing and ensure that the money stays within the planning team to deliver the service cannot come soon enough to help to reduce some of those delays.
Having the opportunity for local areas to work out what good looks like for them is absolutely a sensible way forward within that. Again, we do feel that having the right level of seniority within the department to ensure that the money stays there is going to be a key part of it.
Faraz Baber: Moving towards this ringfencing idea within the planning service is hugely positive, although when I say the planning service, it may extend slightly to the legal side as well, because you have to get those section 106 agreements signed off to make things happen. The key, though, is that it has to stay ringfenced for that resource to happen. We often see that PPAs—planning performance agreements—are paid up front for meetings, and that there is a very uneven balance in how well those deliver, in terms of the service that the clients receive when they pay those large chunks of change for that service. So, developers are right—applicants are right—to get frustrated when they think they are getting a premier service to help facilitate the bringing forward of an application, then find that it does not move the dial one iota.
I think the very basic premise is that instead of the chief executive or the finance director of the council saying, “I’ll take that because I need to put it into social care or into education,” the money actually stays there. Remember, if we keep that money inside the planning service, it will drive the growth that the Government have said that they want to achieve. The devil is in the detail, and we need to see that more, but it is the right direction to take.
Hugh Ellis: I would say that it would stabilise issues for development management, but, for the policy officers who we work with, it would not necessarily support their work.
Also, a piece of heresy, if it is okay: the private sector complains a lot about delays, despite getting 86% of all its applications approved, but I think that there needs to be more debate about competence in the private sector. When a private sector developer applies for a category 3a floodplain development and then complains that the Environment Agency wants it to go through a flood risk assessment process, my blood boils. Planners are doing life-and-death stuff. For example, no house built after 2009 is part of the insurance compact, so if we get this wrong, negative equity will look like a picnic. Planning is trying to do really complicated stuff and it needs time to do that. Statutory consultees are also crucial to that, and they need to be resourced properly to play that role as well.
The Chair
We are coming to the last few seconds so I am going to call an end to the session. Sorry that we did not get everybody in. As it is the end of the time allocated to the Committee to ask questions, on behalf of the Committee I thank our witnesses for their evidence.
Examination of Witnesses
Jack Airey and Sam Richards gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Jack Airey, director of housing and infrastructure for Public First, and from Sam Richards, chief executive officer of Britain Remade. This session will run to 3.25 pm.
Paul Holmes
Q
As you know, the Opposition were consistently concerned throughout the Second Reading debate—we asked previous witnesses questions on this—about the perceived democratic deficit in the future planning system should some of the measures go through, particularly those on national schemes of delegation and on statutory consultees and changes to the consultation process. Mr Airey, do you think this legislation will remove local people’s right to make representations and make an impact, to the extent that they currently can, on local planning decisions?
Jack Airey: First, we start from a very low base of democratic engagement in the planning system. Very few people engage in planning applications or the planning process, and often the people who do are not representative of their local area. The No. 1 thing we could do is to increase that participation and get a much wider range of people involved in having a say in planning. That is my primary concern.
On a national scheme of delegation, it all depends on the detail that the Government provide later and how it is implemented through regulations. In the context that I set out, I am not too worried about a perceived loss of democratic oversight, because I feel like it is so low. It would be remiss of me not to note that councillors who are on planning committees are often elected with very small mandates, given the very low turnouts in local elections, so in my view we start from a very low position in respect of people having the right say in what they should be doing.
It would be no bad thing if the intent of the reform that comes forward is to reduce the number of schemes that planning committees reject for nakedly political reasons. It is no way to regulate a major part of our economy—the construction industry. It creates lots of uncertainty for developers and for communities, and ultimately it means fewer things get built and much less growth happens than should.
Often, councils lose millions of pounds having to fight appeals that a developer is bound to win because it has put forward a scheme that is compliant with a local plan but has been rejected for reasons that are, in my view, quite odd a lot of the time. If the reform that the Government eventually bring forward begins to deal with that, it will be very worth while, but the threshold for delegation will have to be set in a way that removes as much ambiguity as possible so that planning officers do not always feel the need to direct every single application to a committee, because every application will be controversial to someone.
Paul Holmes
Q
I have a further question about the role of planning committees. What do you think of the proposal by the Royal Town Planning Institute for a chief planning officer to strengthen officer accountability, in order to tackle some of your perceived drawbacks in the system, such as the number of applications referred to committee and the number that are challenged unfairly? Do you see any advantages in that?
Jack Airey: There is certainly a capacity problem in planning committees. Every part of the system is saying that, so it must be true. Does that proposal deal with that directly? I am not sure. Another question was whether we need different layers of planning officers, or whether we need a chief statutory planning officer. I do not know. I think that that is the No. 1 issue. I am being quite neutral on the proposal, because I am not sure that it solves that issue, but there is definitely a capacity issue. Would their being statutory mean that they got more funding in the council? I do not know. I think councils are a bit more complicated than that sometimes.
Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)
Q
Sam Richards: For those of you who do not know, Britain Remade is a campaign, and 35,000 people across the country support us building the homes, energy and transport infrastructure that we need. It is worth briefly stepping back and remembering why we desperately need to streamline the planning system. I am going to give you four quick examples.
First, the planning application for the lower Thames crossing—I see the relevant Member here—has cost more than £250 million. That is more than it cost Norway to actually build the world’s longest tunnel. That has been all in planning. That is all paperwork—not a single spade in the ground.
Secondly, High Speed 2 is the world’s most expensive railway line, in no small part because we are doing things like building a £121 million bat tunnel to protect 300 Bechstein’s bats that live in a nearby wood—not actually the wood that the line goes through, but a nearby wood. I think most people would agree that that is a disproportionate response.
Thirdly, we are currently building the world’s most expensive nuclear power plant, at Hinkley. It is the most expensive nuclear power plant ever constructed in the history of the human race. Why is it so expensive? We used to build them more cheaply: 20 years ago, they were half the price; when we built the fleets in the ’50s and ’60s, they were a quarter of the cost of the ones that we are building now. Why is it costing so much more? In no small part, it is to do with the environmental rules that mean that EDF is currently wrangling with regulators, and has been for eight years, about installing an underwater fish disco—an acoustic deterrent to stop the fish from swimming into the exhaust pipes of the power plant. Millions of pounds are currently being spent on that.
Fourthly, the planning application for a 3.3-mile railway line between Bristol and Portishead—reopening an existing line that was cut in the Beeching cuts—is 80,000 pages long, with more than 1,000 pages dedicated to bats, on what is an existing line.
It is important to make those points, because the ambition of the Bill is absolutely right: we need to make it much easier to build the homes, energy and transport links that we need. In many ways, the Government are delivering on what they are setting out to do, but there is one crucial area where they are going to need to go further, and that is on the changes to the application of the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations 2017.
It is worth saying that while we are failing to build, we are failing to protect nature; all our key biodiversity indicators are in decline. The shift to a strategic approach to environmental protections is absolutely the right one: getting away from this site-by-site approach, which has led to the bat tunnels and the fish discos, is absolutely right. We need to do that both to help us build the stuff quicker and to help us better protect nature. My fear with the way the Bill is currently written and how the environmental delivery plans will be implemented is that, because the habitats rules remain untouched and sit underneath them, if EDPs are not brought in, the habitats rules kick in as they do currently. It relies on Natural England bringing out all these EDPs and, indeed, those EDPs working for species.
It is easy to see how they will apply in the case of, say, nutrient neutrality. We have basically already started doing that with the nutrient mitigation schemes that started two years ago. That is all to the good, and that should unlock lots of house building in the south of England. That is brilliant, but I fear that as things stand, the Government have not solved the bat tunnel issue, and they will need to come back to that.
Jack Airey: Whether it delivers more homes and infrastructure is almost an unfair question, because legislative reforms to the planning system take so long to have an effect. While a lot of the things in the Bill are very positive and will improve the structure of the planning system, it will take a long time for them to have an effect and for the various bits of regulation to be laid. I worked on the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023. So much of that has not been implemented and probably will not ever be implemented, and I fear we will be in that situation with this Bill, too.
The reforms the Government have brought forward in the national planning policy framework are much more radical and impactful, certainly in the short to medium term; ditto forthcoming reforms to the national development management policies, if they are done the right way. Policy changes by the Department have a quicker effect, and I would be looking to that in the short term.
In terms of where I would go further, I agree with Sam on that part of the Bill. If I were a Government who wanted to deliver a lot of homes very quickly, I am not sure this is the reform I would have brought forward. I would have looked again at the reform that was put forward by the previous Government, which would have totally disapplied habitats regulations when they related to nutrient neutrality requirements, so there would be no need to produce an EDP or for the developer to pay a levy. That would have been the quickest way to unblock the homes that are currently stalled by this issue.
Gideon Amos
Q
Sam Richards: As I said, that is where I think the big gap in the Bill is. There is a range of things. There are the rounds and rounds of consultation, which the Government have made some good progress on just this week by announcing that they will reduce the pre-application consultation stages. That is to be welcomed. It is the rounds and rounds of judicial reviews and the fact that the vast majority of major infrastructure projects in this country are brought to the courts. That has been the case multiple times for Hinkley and will be the case for Sizewell. Again, what the Government have done there is welcome, by reducing the opportunity for vexatious judicial reviews and reducing the number of opportunities from three to one and a half. That is to be welcomed, but it is also the additional environmental mitigations that have to be brought and the disproportionate responses that add costs and delay to building major infrastructure.
Gideon Amos
Q
Sam Richards: The key point is not just whether a particular species matters but the mitigation measures that developers are able and allowed to take under the current framework. I am not here to represent EDF, but it proposed that you could basically pay a fishing vessel to not fish a similar species in a similar area, which would then allow the replenishment of an equivalent amount of stocks. Under the current rules, you are not able to do that strategic-level mitigation.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
Q
Jack Airey: The existing framework for doing that is the section 106 system and the community infrastructure levy system. I am not sure whether the CIL applies in Dartford, but in my mind that provides a fairly effective method of doing this in a way that does not make development totally unviable, while extracting enough value to provide some contribution to the community. I do not think there is anything in the Bill that really focuses on this—I could be proven wrong—but I think the existing system works okay.
It is really difficult to do this and it does not always work. Rightly, communities always want the right amount of infrastructure. This might relate to other comments I might make: we rely on the planning system to do so much heavy lifting to deliver all sorts of things that everyone wants, and we try to prioritise everything and end up prioritising nothing. We could have a system where we extracted more from developer contributions and that went to community infrastructure, but that would come with a trade-off, probably around provision of affordable housing and things like that. That would be a sensible debate to have if that is what your constituents want, but it is also quite difficult politically.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
Q
Some of the large energy infrastructure projects have described having large pipelines of potential projects, some of which were very speculative and others of which were quite close to the spades in the ground stage. How can we ensure that what emerges from the Bill guarantees meaningful and proper consultation, so that the receiving community really understands what the impact will be and, where there may be local objections, people have a really detailed understanding of what the benefits will be in order to persuade them to be more supportive of the proposals?
Jack Airey: Is your question specific to nationally significant infrastructure projects, or does it relate to the TCPA as well?
David Simmonds
I think it covers both, but each of those things is addressed separately in the Bill.
Jack Airey: It goes back to my initial point that community participation in the planning process is so low, and you often only hear about the negative parts. If we could boost that a bit—in truth, I am not sure how you do that in a way that is not totally burdensome on local authorities, because often people have better things to do than go to a town hall on a Tuesday evening. Raising that is a difficult but necessary thing to do. That is how you begin to spell out not just the negatives but the benefits of development on the local planning system side.
On the NSIP reforms, I know you will hear later from Catherine Howard, who is much more of an expert on this than I am. It looks like a wholly positive thing to me. The Government press release talked about saving around 12 months off an NSIP development consent order process, which is a hugely positive thing.
Sam Richards: I agree with Jack. Dare I say it, I think there is a role here for elected representatives in making the case when we need to build things. I know it is hard, not least when development is poorly planned or ugly, and of course when there is local opposition it is often tempting to row in on the side of those who are opposing development, but there is a job to do here. Fundamentally, we have not built sufficient infrastructure for decades and, as a result, we have the highest industrial energy costs in the world. London has the most expensive housing in Europe. We have not built the infrastructure we need for decades. It is incumbent on all of us, including our elected representatives, to make the case for the building that we need.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
Q
Jack Airey: I think what I said is that the system for securing and spending developer contributions is okay. I do not think the wider planning system is okay. In terms of how you can improve it, a lot of the measures in the Bill are very worth while, and a lot of the changes in the NPPF are incredibly worth while. There are many more things that the Government can do, especially on the national development management policies.
Sam Richards: The system is fundamentally broken. I am sure your constituents are furious that their energy bills are through the roof and they cannot afford the rent, and they are right to be so.
Lewis Cocking
Q
Jack Airey: At Public First we do lots of opinion research. We do public polling, focus groups and something we call immersives. We go and speak to people and ask what they think about things. In some polling we have asked, “Have you engaged in planning applications? Do you get involved in the local plan?” and it is minuscule proportions of people. We go and speak to people about developments that are happening.
There is definitely opposition to development and it is often very intense. Often, if you listen to debates in the building across the road or you look online, it looks like it is totally representative of a local community, but often, if you speak to people on the ground, most do not care about it. They might even support it. While there is some opposition—I am sure you hear it a lot in your constituencies when you go doorstep to doorstep —it is much smaller than it seems. That is the message I was trying to give. It is about engaging those people who need to be housed, if we are talking about housing, just as much as the people who oppose development. We should talk to them a bit more.
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
Q
Jack Airey: Do you mean geographically?
Lee Pitcher
No—where within the planning process?
Jack Airey: The Bill puts much greater emphasis on local plan making. In my view, that is a really good thing. We need plans that really stand up to scrutiny, and we need promised homes to be actually delivered. The Planning Inspectorate has a big role there, and I think that is where most engagement should happen. At the moment various people have many bites of the cherry to give their view on development. Often it is a negative thing; sometimes it is a positive thing. That could be concentrated a bit more on the plan-making process. Once a site is allocated in a local plan, it should be much harder for that thing not to happen.
Sam Richards: I agree with Jack.
The Chair
Rachel Taylor, you have about a minute and a half; maybe you will get a quick answer.
Rachel Taylor
Q
The Chair
You have less than a minute.
Sam Richards: This has been more Jack’s point than mine, so I will let him come back to it, but I think it is reasonable that that is handled through the local plan.
Jack Airey: Sorry, another controversial opinion: I do not think development necessarily has to have consent. Lots of development happens that does not have consent—for example, things that go through the permitted development rights regime. I lived in a home that was built through the PDR regime, and it was perfectly nice—it was really nice. You see lots of homes that are built that way. There is no democratic engagement because MPs grant national planning permission for that through the general permitted development order. I get what people are saying and I am not trying to question it entirely, but you can have nice homes that are delivered outside that system.
To answer your second question on whether consultation should be done through representatives, the most important thing is that you go and ask people what they think.
The Chair
Order. That brings us to the end of the allotted time for Members to ask questions. I thank the witnesses for their time.
Examination of Witnesses
Rachel Hallos and Paul Miner gave evidence.
The Chair
This panel will run until 3.50 pm. We will hear evidence from Rachel Hallos, vice-president of the National Farmers Union, and Paul Miner, head of policy at CPRE. We will start with questions from the Opposition spokesperson.
Paul Holmes
Q
In that vein, may I ask you about a relatively controversial part of the legislation—the Government’s proposals to reform some of the compulsory purchase order powers? Of course, the Opposition will table amendments throughout the process. I know that other Members want to come in, so I will ask you both all my questions and then I will shut up, much to the pleasure of others. What would be the cumulative impact of the proposals on top of some of the other proposals brought in by the Government, particularly in the autumn Budget? Can you outline some of the representations that you have had from your members about what the detailed reforms would mean for the level of payment to people, whether they are tenant farmers or landowning farmers, in relation to CPOs under the Bill?
I have another question for you, Mr Miner. In terms of the nature restoration fund, even though the Government claim that there will be no net loss to environmental outcomes as a result of the Bill, is your organisation concerned that it would unintentionally create a patchwork quilt effect, where some areas would essentially have a deterioration in their environmental outcomes compared with other areas in the country? Could you give us a general view of your organisation’s opinion on the nature restoration fund in particular? I will go to the NFU first.
Rachel Hallos: Thank you for your question; it is a big one and a very big concern among our members. First, as an organisation, we absolutely welcome measures to modernise the planning system. We all know that it needs to happen. We all know that we need to build and grow, and that our industry also needs to grow. I just want to make it very clear to the Committee that we are in no way saying that this is a bad idea.
We see parts of the Bill that we like and parts of it that we dislike, and it will not come as a surprise to any of you that the compulsory purchase element has raised the most concern among our members. Last week, when we brought together our council members, who represent the 44,000 people we have across England and Wales, this was the element that really had them concerned. I completely understand why when we see what has happened in the past, and what is still ongoing with matters such as High Speed 2 and other things around the country.
We can break down the compulsory purchase order element into two different things. The first is hope value, which is of real concern to our members. Again, they completely understand that we need to build and grow, and that we need infrastructure in place, because we are woefully behind with it. When you go to somebody’s home or business and lay down the order that you are going to compulsorily purchase it, there has to be fair reward to that person to enable them to rebuild their business or home elsewhere. There is not a lot we can do about it. This is something that can happen to them that is completely out of their control.
My members and I genuinely believe that if somebody is going to make commercial gain from the compulsory purchase of that land, or potentially purchases some of it, making the rest of the business unviable, the person having the purchase order served on them should also be commercially rewarded so that they can continue and rebuild their life or business in another place. It is really important that we have that fairness with compulsory purchase orders.
The second element, which is the one that really sent shivers, is giving Natural England the power to compulsorily purchase land. I have been sitting at the back and have already heard bats mentioned. We really do not believe that the Committee should vote for this clause to be part of the Bill when the Government have provided so little explanation for why it should be there. We are very concerned about giving Natural England compulsory purchase responsibilities and an ability to do that.
It is not just because of bat tunnels—another layer sits behind that. This is about putting environmental goods on hold over here while you build something, but you recreate it over there. Wildlife biodiversity does not have borders or boundaries. It is among us. It might seem strange to you for a farming representative to talk like that, but we genuinely believe that we can deliver food security—you know that good old line, “Food security is national security”—at the same time as enhancing or protecting the environment, or whatever you want to call it.
We need to be really, really careful that we ensure that whoever has the powers to compulsorily purchase land—if that is really the route you want to go down—has the capabilities and capacity to do it in the right manner so that there are not losses. That is where our members are. I fully support their stance on that and we feel very, very strongly about it.
Paul Holmes
Q
Paul Miner: We had concerns about biodiversity net gain when it was introduced because we felt that it would not lever in as many resources for nature conservation as some of its proponents claimed, and that it would not necessarily deliver strategic benefits. On that basis, we support the principle of a nature restoration fund as something that has the potential for taking a more strategic approach. From our perspective, it is particularly important that the nature restoration fund links well with the Government’s proposed land use framework, which we also support and which we urge the Government to bring in as soon as possible after the consultation finishes. There should also be strong links between the nature restoration fund and the local priorities that are identified in local nature recovery strategies.
We have concerns about the detail proposed in the Bill, and in particular about the potential compromising of the well-established mitigation hierarchy: the principle that you should avoid environmental damage before seeking to compensate for or mitigate it. We are also members of Wildlife and Countryside Link, which you will hear from later. We support what it has been saying about the nature restoration fund.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
Q
Rachel Hallos: No.
Olly Glover
Please expand.
Rachel Hallos: I am not convinced that there is clarity on the balance and calculations. If you take such land out of production, what imbalance does that create with production elsewhere? If you move environmental goods from one area of land on to another, what imbalance is being created there? If we are going to go down an accounting route, what is the cost-benefit of doing it—whether it is food production, homes or environment? I am not sure that is in the Bill, and I think it needs to be to make sure that the right decisions are being taken in the right places.
As an organisation representing farmers, and as a farmer myself, I know that what we do on our land is a long process, whether it is producing food or managing the land for environmental goods. This is not a quick fix; we cannot move a dial and have something change overnight. We need to make sure that the right decisions are being taken in the right places, and we also need to recompense the people who are taken along with it as they go.
Paul Miner: We broadly agree with Rachel. Overall, the Bill needs to strike a better balance between the various objectives that the planning system seeks to fulfil. It is not just about facilitating development but about mitigating and adapting to climate change, as well as helping to secure nature recovery. We think that the Bill can do more to give the wider public and ourselves confidence that, in future, we will get better plans and decisions that will look to achieve a vision for getting more sustainable development, as well as meeting our climate change targets and our very ambitious nature conservation targets.
One element that has not come up in questioning so far, which we are particularly keen to raise, is clause 22 on householder payments for electricity transmission lines. We do not think that making payments to householders is the way to go. Instead, we should really focus on building on the good practice that we already have for onshore wind farms, where we consult and involve communities in community benefit schemes, and also look to achieve community benefit schemes that help communities, in turn, address climate change, get more rooftop solar on people’s homes in rural areas and improve the energy efficiency of rural housing. It seems to us that giving payments to householders completely goes against working in any kind of public interest, and we urge parliamentarians to look at that clause of the Bill again.
David Simmonds
Q
I am interested in your view on whether the Bill sufficiently addresses the balance between green belt and agricultural use. What improvements would you want to see on compulsory purchase processes to ensure that landowners in those locations have appropriate recourse? Also, where it is clear that the land in question provides a broader public benefit, as opposed to simply being a business standing on its own, how can we ensure that the broader public benefit can be accounted for in the reckoning up of the value of that land?
Rachel Hallos: It is almost like having ransom strips next to urban conurbations. That green belt gets sucked into that urban conurbation and, all of a sudden, it becomes a brown belt—I think “grey belt” was also considered at one stage. The reality is, when you are in that situation—I can completely understand, although some of my members would not; that is the leadership role that we have to take—that that land is of national benefit through development. That is because it increases the size of the town, the infrastructure—the whole thing. On what the Bill needs to do, again it goes back to doing the number crunching. What is the long-term benefit of this?
We also have to remember that when we compulsorily purchase land from a farmer who is running their business and living there, they have every right to make a decision to restart their business elsewhere. What if the land value goes up and they are being paid just the flat agricultural rate? Everybody wants that land, because guess what? Everybody wants land right now. Everybody wants land for everything, so land prices are creeping up anyway. There is then artificial inflation of the land price in that area because everybody is after it.
That bit also needs to be taken into consideration when it comes to recompensing anybody who has land taken away from them. It is a complicated formula, but the Bill really does need to look at that if we are to go anywhere near rebuilding confidence and trust between the agricultural community and Government. Especially if we put it in the package of everything else that is going on, we are very much in danger of having it go “bang” again. This has to stop. We all have to get on with life. We all have to get on with what we do—produce food, infrastructure or growth for the country.
Paul Miner: Green belt is a planning policy, but as you have rightly pointed out, green-belt land often has a wide range of public benefits and meanings for people who live in the towns and cities that the green belts surround. We strongly support the Bill’s provision for spatial development strategies, because you need effective strategic planning in order for green-belt policy to work effectively.
Also, from our perspective, we should not just be looking at how the planning policy should work. If we accept that the vast majority of green-belt land will not become grey belt in the future but will remain designated green belts, we need to think about how we can better manage that land. That is why it is really important that in spatial development strategies and in the Government’s land use framework, we have policies for improving the management of green-belt land. Until now, green-belt land has been relatively poorly served by successive Governments’ environmental land management schemes. There is relatively low take-up in green-belt areas. We urge the Government, as part of the land use framework but also with spatial development strategies, to seek to improve the quality of green belts for nature and for climate.
Rachel Hallos: May I add one last thing to that? Sorry to be rude. When it comes to the spatial development strategies, LNRSs and all the different things that are going on and are being consulted on at the moment, there is no legal requirement to consult the land manager. That worries me. It is just wrong.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Rachel Hallos: It is bigger than just this Bill on CPOs. There is a mistrust. There is a concern that people are not taking food production or agriculture seriously. This is what it is encapsulated in, but the CPO element for me is that people have felt the pain of badly delivered CPOs, through High Speed 2 in particular; other things have gone on in this country. That has lingered really heavily, so when you start mentioning compulsory purchase to any land manager or landowner, it sends shivers down their spine.
We are concerned that disregarding a hope value puts landowners and farmers in that tailspin again, so where do we go from here? How do we deal with this? We have found that especially with our members and HS2—I will keep referring to HS2 because it has been an absolute nightmare, and it is still a nightmare. They are still waiting for the final, agreed payment in many cases, so that they can start getting on with their life. That is the concern when it comes to the hope value.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Rachel Hallos: It is the fact that there is potential they will not get paid the true value of that land or that farm—that is the concern.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Rachel Hallos: Ultimately, it is a person’s life and livelihood. They are going to get paid only the basic agricultural value, out of no fault of their own, and they have to start up elsewhere. This is not going to happen just once or twice; if we follow the huge infrastructure plans that we all know the country needs—we accept as a union that we need to grow—this will inflate land prices elsewhere, as people choose to continue their livelihoods elsewhere and go looking for that land. That is the difference.
Paul Holmes
I will come back again, although I know you are under the cosh at the moment.
Rachel Hallos: It’s fine; that is why I am here.
Paul Holmes
By the way, don’t apologise. You are perfectly entitled, as every other witness is, to give your view on this piece of legislation. I would say, however, that the Minister is absolutely correct that there were some hope value reforms under the last Government, and I was not here—
Rachel Hallos: I accept that.
Paul Holmes
Q
Rachel Hallos: I am a tenant farmer; my landlord can do as they wish. In reality, I have few rights, so I understand what it is like to be a tenant farmer. If this will change the relationship between a landlord and a tenant, you have a very difficult situation. Of course, the tenant will have only a certain pool of money to take with them elsewhere to go and rent another farm. As we all know, there is not a lot of them there—that will be the difference.
It is the practical differences that I am looking at here. I am putting my farmer hat on, which says, “If that happened to us on our farm, where would we go and what would we go with?” We would be in a competitive market trying to get that farm to continue what we do, which is produce food. As many of you may know, not all farms are the same. That is the farmer answer for you, putting myself in those shoes.
The Chair
We have just over a minute and a half. With a quick question from Luke Murphy, and a quick answer, we might just get something in.
Luke Murphy
Q
Rachel Hallos: I think there is merit to reforming it, but it is about making sure that the reforms are done in the right way and are fair to everybody. I think I have already said it, but I have this line: if somebody is going to benefit commercially from that compulsory purchase, the person from whom it is being purchased should also benefit, and it should enable them to have adequate funding to go and continue elsewhere.
The Chair
Order. That brings us to the end of the time allocated. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the panel for their answers to the questions.
Examination of Witnesses
Councillor Adam Hug, Councillor Richard Clewer and Councillor Richard Wright gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Councillor Adam Hug, chair of the Local Government Association’s local infrastructure and net zero board, and leader of Westminster city council; Councillor Richard Clewer, leader of Wiltshire council and housing and planning spokesperson for the County Councils Network; and Councillor Richard Wright, leader of North Kesteven district council, and planning lead for the District Councils’ Network. We have until 4.25 pm for this session.
Paul Holmes
Thank you, Councillors, for being here. I put on record that many Committee members are former or still serving councillors.
Paul Holmes
Q
I will ask two mainstream questions: first, around some of the Government’s wider reforms, which in some cases the Opposition welcome, particularly around local government reform and the advent of new mayoralties—combined authority mayoralties. Do you think that undertaking a huge amount of work in terms of planning reform should come before we have seen the advancement of the reforms under local government reorganisation and mayoralties? In any area in the legislation, are you concerned that some of the intended consequences of the planning reforms will not be able to be delivered as they should, because we do not have the reforms to local government, which will fundamentally impact outcomes in the longer term?
Councillor Hug: Obviously, the Government are trying to do multiple things at once—that is the case for all Governments at all times on all things; the world does not stand still. The challenge for this piece of legislation, and everything else, is to try to build in the scope to evolve once the overall picture of local government reform is complete. There is quite some way to go on that in different parts of the country. I am speaking from a part of the country that is not currently in that round of discussions yet.
At the heart of it, the local plan has an important role, which we want to make sure is there in any new strategic set-up that is created, and that local councillors have a say. We want to make sure that, whatever core tier there is of local government, it has the ability to work with the new strategic mayoral authority in a collaborative and productive way so that both tiers are working in a partnership, which clearly recognises that the new role has been brought in by the Government and the importance of local councillors and local communities, which understand how to meet some of those strategic objectives in an effective way at a local level. It is about making sure that we are looking to build a partnership approach through any local government reform, and looking at how that then impacts on the planning agenda.
Paul Holmes
Q
Councillor Wright: Yes, completely. You always live in hope. I have sat on planning for 18 years, before any Committee members want to have a go at planning.
Paul Holmes
It is your fault then.
Councillor Wright: I have lived in hope that we get clarity on purpose and policy. At the moment, we have far too many policies all coming through at the same time. For instance, the conflict between LGR spatial development plans—it is chicken and egg, and seems to have come at the wrong time.
I have spent the last few months explaining to residents that, because of the huge conflagration of policies at the moment, we have policies that we do not think will achieve what they should. For instance, I refer to the 1.5 million permissions that will be put in place because there is not a single tool in anything we have seen so far that will compel builders to build. We have that on one side, and now we are having to explain to people that, alongside that, they will no longer have a voice in the planning system if some of these policies go through.
This has all been swallowed up. Perhaps the attention of some people in the local authority could rightly be on local government reform and devolution when, really, we need to see this in the round. There are so many policies coming through—conflicting policies and policies that we think are only part-finished. Some of them could achieve a lot of what we want to see and do, and what our residents want to see, but at the moment it is such a hodgepodge that it is very difficult to follow and to see where the concentration needs to be.
Councillor Clewer: From the county’s point of view, I think you are raising some valid points. Having been through unitarisation, it is extremely disruptive. You are placing an awful lot on districts and counties that are going through that and creating new authorities to then make them look at planning reform of this level of significance. Planning was one of the hardest areas to get into the new unitaries. We still struggle with it 16 years on. It has proved really challenging because of the local, granular impact that planning has.
If you then want to look at the issue around the spatial plans, when some of us do not have mayors, or even mayoral geographies, I have no idea how we are meant to be talking with equal voices to create spatial delivery plans when we have that hodgepodge. At the very least, we have to know our mayoral geographies to be able to make any headway in coming up with a meaningful plan. Honestly, without the mayors, and the authority, funding and the voice to central Government that comes with them, it will put everyone else at risk. That really concerns me. It creates the ability for mayors, perhaps in metropolitan areas, to push development into more rural areas when the rural areas do not have the voice and the same ability to express their challenges and concerns. You need the granularity to understand the impact of planning on the local level.
Paul Holmes
Q
“Applications for development consent: removal of certain pre-application requirements”—
could you each, within the remits that you have, outline your concerns around removing some of the pre-application requirements, and what the impact might be on your workforce, which is trying to determine what is and is not right for your areas? Do you accept the premise of removing certain pre-application requirements to speed up planning processes?
Councillor Hug: Are you referring to new clause 44, not clause 44?
Matthew Pennycook
Nationally significant infrastructure projects, which I do not think you have chosen to talk about.
Councillor Hug: No—they are coming through very quickly. From a local authority perspective, I think the point is making sure that, if they are not formal consultees, there is some other mechanism for local authorities and others to feed into the process in a structured way to make sure that their voices are heard, even if formal statutory consultees are being reformed.
Paul Holmes
We are removing statutory consultees.
Councillor Hug: There is significant concern about that removal. That process is how you identify some of the specific issues on the ground that need significant further investigation. I do not think you will save any time by removing that, because the investigation will turn up at the planning stage. You will just delay planning, because these will be areas around statutory consultees. What it will do is give the public the impression that things are just being rubber stamped and railroaded through. That will be catastrophic. NSIPs are such contested spaces already. We have to give people the chance to raise concerns to identify issues on the ground at local level that need further work and further attention. If we do not do that, people will lose all faith in that process, and they are already sceptical enough.
Councillor Clewer: I have the same concerns. NSIPs are decided by the Secretary of State. I have five in my district at the moment, including battery farms, solar farms and a reservoir. It is not about objection—consultation can bring forth some really good ideas, some solutions and some changes. It is massively important. For instance, even if there will be an impact on your community, the community benefit could be discussed right at the start. All sorts of improvements could be put in place through consultation before it gets to the formal stage. It is also about the appearance of removing that consultation. At a time when LGR devolution is meant to be bringing decentralisation, to just say that this is all going to be decided centrally is not a good picture.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Councillor Wright: For a start, the vast majority of planning permissions or planning applications are already decided by officers anyway in many councils—something like 97% in my authority were decided—so what exactly do you think we are now going to pass when under more pressure?
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Councillor Wright: With regard to a national scheme, if it was advisory not mandatory—if there was some general advice out there that could be given as guidance —that would be better than mandating. What could be mandated for one area, when you look at super-urban areas compared with rural areas, might not be exactly the same sort of decision making that you are looking for.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Councillor Hug: I think there should be a common core. I am not quite sure how the mayoralties and others will feed into responding to particular issues around the urban and rural geographies. I think there should be a basic common core to this. Looking at how it might operate, again, I am coming from an authority that has only 3% going to committees—all told, it is about 1.4%, if you include all the advertising and listed building concerns that get through. A very small amount go through, so there is a lot of good practice happening already.
In terms of how that works, one of the things that we want to ensure that we do not lose is the ability, for example if a scheme is likely to be rejected by officers, to put that to a committee that might come to a more pragmatic decision than just a rigid response based on policy. There are some other things, such as we want to ensure that there are opportunities for councils to go beyond the scheme of delegations; if there was a nationally set thing, you want to make sure that it is not just a cap on what is delegated.
I think that some flexibility around urban and rural, and working with local authorities about the design of the specific scheme, would be good. It is clear that they will want as much guidance as possible about the types of things that the Government are wanting to see happen. Obviously, from our perspective we understand the point about the centrality of getting the local plans and making them as robust as possible to give people clarity about what goes on in future.
The challenge comes when quite a lot of schemes come forward that are not in full compliance with policy, because the real world is messy and things have to be traded off against each other. The question is basically to what extent can those trade-offs be dealt with at office level versus at committee. That is why we want to get into the details of that with you, to make it work effectively.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Councillor Clewer: I have a couple of points to add. There are elements in what you are proposing that I would welcome. On mandatory training, goodness knows why we do not have that already—it is desperately needed. I am not sure that Richard would entirely agree, but when it comes to local plan allocated sites, I struggle with the idea that they could come to committee to then be refused. I think there is a benefit in committees or someone looking at elements of design and whether 106s are being carried out appropriately, but once something has gone through a local plan, I think we have to be careful about where committees step in.
To give an example of where I think you have to be incredibly careful with this, I took a planning application to committee last week for a listed building where someone wanted to cut and raise a beam by 10 inches. They had had a stroke, and they were in a position where they were literally having to live in a conservatory. Officers had said no. I got that application to a committee so that the beam could be raised to allow a stairlift to go in—when the person leaves the beam could be lowered—and the committee almost unanimously approved it.
We had the ability at an incredibly basic level to give someone the dignity of being able to get to their bathroom through a planning system where the harm was conceived by everyone as minimal. We cannot lose that ability to resolve those local and micro issues in a really local way. Finding the balance there is going to be challenging. Too much permitted development, too many automatics, will prevent us from being able to do that. I am sure we could all give further examples of where we have needed to use that ability to deal with things, very often with refusals, to enable them to be granted.
On the flipside, sometimes it is fair to say that members will get something that is recommended for approval and call to committee because they do not like it. I think we have to be able to justify on good planning grounds why on earth we are calling something to committee. If we do not have them I have no problem with officers turning round and saying, “I am sorry; you haven’t got planning grounds,” but it is about finding the right balance.
Councillor Wright: With regard to local plans and to what Richard has just referred to there, we have already instigated that in our authority you have to give planning reasons for bringing something to the planning committee. You might consider that you could just delegate a decision on a local plan allocated piece of land, but some of those could be of considerable size; they could be for a sustainable urban extension, for instance, so you cannot just act on the principle that because it is in the plan it does not need to be at committee.
We are makers of place: we build homes, not houses. We do not want to see officers suddenly having to make a delegated decision on how many houses go on a piece of land based on how the developer wants to bring it forward. The master planning, the design coding and all those issues need to be taken into consideration. It should not be left to officers who will end up getting the same grief that members get, but as unelected officers.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Councillor Clewer: No.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Councillor Hug: No. We had a thing where someone in a public report was saying we had only built x number of houses, but the reality was that far more homes had gone through under delegated authority than had actually gone to committee, so we were being wronged by the fact we had done that process.
Councillor Clewer: But there may be some specific circumstance that creates a nuanced judgment where it absolutely should go to committee. And please do not just talk about the big projects; it is those small ones that are deeply personal to people where national policy says no, but circumstance actually says that you can get round national policy.
Matthew Pennycook
I take the point about the nuance. That is helpful—thank you.
Gideon Amos
Q
Councillor Hug: As the Minister pointed out, the consultation is going on in parallel with the Bill. Hopefully we can make this national scheme of delegation work, provided that there is a degree of flexibility built into it. I hope that working between local government and national Government can help to resolve some of those issues at pace. Obviously some things may need to be specified, but we are hopeful that that kind of engagement can help to resolve some of the issues.
Councillor Clewer: If in the scheme of delegation we see guidelines around how a scheme of delegation should work, I am not sure that that would concern me hugely. If they are prescriptive rather than guidelines, we will fall into the problem that you will create cases where you need to get round them but you cannot.
This is a simplistic example—I will get into trouble now with the New Forest national park authority—but we allow parish councils there to call things into committee. I think that that is crazy. It ends up with all sorts of things coming to committee that should never go near them. I would love a delegation that said that they cannot do that, on a personal level. There are elements where I think Government guidance would be really helpful.
Gideon Amos
Guidance?
Councillor Clewer: Yes. Pretty firm guidance, but still guidance, with the ability where you really have the nuance to be able to work around it.
Councillor Hug: It goes to the point about having a common core of things, with certain things that apply in certain areas but then a space for guidance on top of that.
Councillor Wright: I agree that it should be guidance, not mandatory. We always seem to see policy brought forward on the basis that there is a problem. Perhaps for once we could go out to where planning is actually done well—where authorities have gone through modernisation and done things in the way you would expect them to be done—and work with those authorities, instead of assuming that there is a problem in the planning system.
Also, how far will this delegation go? If it turns into nothing more than delegation that is almost similar to permitted development rights, if people think that that is not dangerous, they should look at a picture of Terminus House in Harlow. They would see somewhere where they would not want to live. Members were nowhere near that.
John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
Q
Councillor Clewer: I agree that there are areas at the moment where planning simply delays or blocks infrastructure provision. That needs changing; I absolutely agree with that. I suspect people will judge the extent to which it needs changing based on where they live and the specific infrastructure that they are facing, but I think that that needs unblocking.
You need to be very careful with the assumption that the Bill will build more houses. It will not build more houses. The Bill, and the reforms that we have seen to the NPPF, will see more planning permissions. I have 18,837 extant planning permissions in Wiltshire at the moment. Developers told me that they could build only about 6,000 the last time I asked them, which strangely enough was just under the four-year housing land supply under the last Government. I am sure that if I asked them today, they would say that they could build just about 8,000.
I have 2,400 houses south of Trowbridge that have been stuck, failing to get the section 106 agreement signed, for something like 14 years. There has to be something in the Bill that forces building. If we are to issue planning, it has to come with the actual development. We have to compel. If developers have signed a commitment that they will complete houses on whatever basis and have fallen behind, they need to start paying the council tax on them or something. At the moment, the Bill is not going to do that, I am afraid. I do not see anything in it that will actually achieve that.
Councillor Hug: I support Richard’s point about working for more “use it or lose it” powers to ensure that planning permission does not just go on the books to raise land value and not do much else, although I note the points about hope value and everything. We recognise that there is a whole heap of challenges to delivery that sit outside the scope of the Bill.
On the Bill, we support the Government’s general principles about clarification and simplification. We recognise that the strong national growth and infrastructure demands open up some of the opportunities for green energy and all sorts of other things that we are calling for in local government.
I want to draw attention to the work being done on planning fees. Ensuring that local authorities have the best possible remuneration for the work to make sure they are covering their costs fully is key to making the system work well to deliver the outcomes that you are looking for. But we recognise that that alone will not deal with it, so we have to look at how we can further strengthen the planning workforce. Again, that is about making sure that the language does not say that the planning system or the planners are the problem. We want people to go into the industry and we want them to do it, but the planning fee stuff is helpful in supporting that.
We support the principles, but the key thing is to ensure that the local authorities retain a voice in what goes forward and work with the Government on some of the practical things such as the scheme of delegations.
Councillor Wright: I think we have got close to it. As we said, we have nothing against the professional training of planning committees so that the industry knows what it is dealing with and so that the idea that we do not know what we are doing on planning committees cannot be used to beat us over the head all the time. In my district, similarly to Richard’s, 11,500 permissions were put in place between 2016 and 2024 and 5,500 were built out. There is no excuse for the rest not to be built.
Unfortunately, the proposals that have been put forward do not include anything at all to mandate that builders will build. There is a proposal over CPO powers, and the missing thing that we would like to see is “build it or lose it”. If there is an allocated site and they have permissions, but they simply do not build on it, give us the CPO powers so we can CPO that. That would help to build houses, because we could then start to control the destiny of those sites. At the moment, there are some really useful things that could have been in the Bill that are missing.
Councillor Clewer: But CPO it at agricultural value.
Councillor Wright: Yes: agricultural value, not hope value.
Councillor Hug: I very much support the planning training. The LGA supports the approach to hope value that the Government are taking. The CPO power is particularly being deployed in urban settings around land assembly, which is the intent behind the Bill.
David Simmonds
Q
Secondly, coming back to the point about strategic infrastructure projects, one of the issues is that local authorities have a lot of obligations, particularly under environmental law, whereby they have a specific legal duty around issues like air quality. Effectively excluding them from the decision-making process or even a failure to intervene in the process would leave them open to legal challenge. Air quality is a good example: I know from my experience at Heathrow airport that there was a local authority fine of £300 million per annum for the level of air quality breaches caused by Heathrow airport, through which we would have been judicially reviewed by ClientEarth had we not judicially reviewed central Government over their proposals to expand that.
Can you think of some other areas, around either environmental or other legal obligations, that are imposed on local authorities where the role you play in either the development and consent order process or those national strategic infrastructure projects is arising not simply out of local politics but because of legal obligations to your residents that you have to fulfil?
Councillor Wright: With regard to nationally significant infrastructure projects, for instance, I was thinking about the fact that we are responsible for the environmental impact assessments. I worry at times that we do not have enough weight with those when it comes to the actual decision making.
One example, which we are testing at the moment, relates to battery storage—a new thing that is exciting lots of people—and whether we can predict not just the here and now, but what would happen in the event of a problem. If we are going to have a huge array of batteries on what was good agricultural land suddenly blighting the landscape, we could ensure that the industry is not allowed to use a type of battery that is more prone to cause huge environmental issues if it catches fire, when there are already good batteries that could be used. But it comes down to a financial decision. In some places, we would actually like more weight to be given to the powers that we already have, but quite often, as you say, we find ourselves guarding the place but not being able to make the decisions that would avoid the need for guards in the first place.
Councillor Hug: My concern is not about gold plating. It is about the question whether local authorities across the country have the capacity on their planning teams to deal with the range and breadth of the requirements that are placed on them. That is one reason why local government reform is in the air, but I would also welcome some movement on fees. We have to make sure that planning is seen as a field that people want to go into, to help unlock these things, rather than these people being seen purely as the blockers. Ultimately, part of the blockage is that the system is not working effectively. The question is how we can work with local authorities to deliver not only training to communities, but greater support to the officer core so that they can move stuff through as quickly as possible.
Councillor Clewer: I do not think we gold plate our local plans. There are many councils that want to go beyond existing guidance, particularly on net zero, for example. That is mostly to stop expensive retrofitting in future and make people’s bills cheaper. There are areas where councils will want to go beyond existing national policy, but every example I can think of was done for a very good reason and will end up with broad public support.
On the bigger issue of legislation, yes, there are some real challenges. Some environmental legislation can be significantly challenging when you want to see building or when you are looking to find a way to mitigate or even unlock. For example, I have a brownfield site in Trowbridge where they need to leave a bat corridor by a train line. How on earth that makes sense I honestly do not know, but it is making the viability of the site really challenging. Some sort of off-site provision would be far more appropriate: it would be far better for the bats and would help to unlock development.
There are also problems around highways issues, for example. Whether it be for economic development or building land, there is an inability for us to work properly with National Highways to deal with motorway junctions, or the A36 in my case. The constraints that that places on us can be real blockers to our desire to build in areas that would be sensible, as opposed to in areas where developers are putting forward planning permissions.
Lastly, it would be really nice if we could tell developers where they should be building, rather than developers saying, “This bit of land? We can’t build on it yet,” when we know full well that we will get a speculative application the moment the local plan is through for that bit of land as well, having just fought the contentious bit of land.
Amanda Martin
Q
Councillor Hug: The LGA broadly supports the new powers. Obviously we are looking to find ways to ensure that local authorities can take advantage of those new powers when they come in. That goes back to helping councils to be more entrepreneurial about unlocking land and giving them the support that they need to do that. Whether it is in Portsmouth—a place I know well; I was born there—or to a certain extent in parts of my patch, these are important tools in the arsenal, but it is also about unlocking those conversations. Having that on the books should hopefully enable those conversations to happen, because ultimately you want to come to an agreement with a partner to avoid having to use legal powers. It will help to unlock those conversations. It is still not going to be a magic wand, and I am not going to be able to walk down my high street and say, “That, that and that,” and suddenly unlock all these things. There are processes in place to prevent this being misused. We strongly welcome the intention to go into this space and the proposals in front of us.
Councillor Clewer: If you look at the points about London and land assembly, they make a great deal of sense to me. Please be careful, however, with the assumption that brownfield land will be made viable simply through compulsory purchase. The problem with most brownfield development is a viability one. By the time you have demolished what is on it and then remediated the land, the net value of that land is negative.
There is no point in a council compulsorily purchasing something that then has negative value for the council. That will just bankrupt councils. If we are going to unlock brownfield, something more significant has to be done, either to use some sort of brownfield development fund—that feels a bit wrong, but it is a way you could look at it—or to compel developers to deal with brownfield before they are allowed to build on greenfield. We would suddenly see town centres all over the country being redeveloped if developers were not allowed to build on the greenfield until they had built on the brownfield.
Councillor Wright: I will not repeat any points. Brownfield, for instance, in a rural area could be something that had glass houses on it. It could be a site that has no connectivity whatever to any settlement and has no services, and still be brownfield land. It would potentially come under CPO. At DCN, we think that there should be a subsection to CPO, and not just concentrating on land. If we want to look at regeneration and the issues in town centres, where there are vacant properties and areas blighted by crime or that just need added value, at the moment the CPO process is still a little too legal-heavy. The route to appeal, which a lot of it will go through, takes far too long. Perhaps there is a role going forward with mayoral authorities for that to be the appeal route. If we could see a system that shortens the CPO process for regen of property in town centres, different from land assembly, that would be useful.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of the allocated time for questions. I thank the panel for answering the questions and for their time.
Examination of Witness
Catherine Howard gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now hear evidence from Catherine Howard, partner and head of planning at Herbert Smith Freehills. For this session we have until 4.40 pm.
Paul Holmes
Q
Catherine Howard: Yes.
Paul Holmes
Q
Could you also outline how you think the proposal could help the speediness of planning applications, but also have a greater impact on local government’s workforce challenges in recruiting and holding on to planning experts? Do you think the legislation will allow local authorities to have enough funding to keep town planners in local authority town halls and not going off to private companies?
Catherine Howard: The way the legislation is drafted, it looks to me like it is highly prescriptive and will be very effective at ringfencing. It talks about the need to secure that the income from the fees or charges is applied towards the carrying out of the functions that are listed. Those are functions such as dealing with planning applications, certificates of lawfulness, tree applications and listed buildings. There are things it does not deal with—that is presumably deliberate—such as general enforcement and plan making. It seems to me that, the way it is drafted, you could not use the money from all of those developer application fees and just apply it to plan making and those kind of functions. If that is the intention, that is what it appears to achieve.
Regarding recruitment, I know that fee recovery has been put into law in a number of different planning regimes. I am more of a specialist in the national infrastructure regime, where those provisions have been added quite liberally. It will be interesting to see how effective a pay-as-you-go system is. My concern still, in terms of how effective that will be at recruitment and retention, is that I do not know how much flexibility statutory authorities will have to set public pay scales. I would have thought—I am not an expert in this area—that if you want to attract and keep people who are otherwise tempted to go off to the private sector where pay seems to be higher, particularly with supply and demand the way that it is, you will need to make the applicable pay scales higher.
I am not sure that the fees that are attracted by a developer can just be used to give people bonuses or higher salaries within the private sector. That is my concern. If the fees can somehow be used to recruit and retain more people within planning authorities, that must be a good thing. It seems to me that there has been more of a drain of talent out of the local authorities and all of the public sector authorities and regulators post Covid in particular, now that people can work from home. Some of the benefits of working with slightly more flexibility, which the public sector was always better at than the private sector, have slightly gone. I imagine there is more of an inducement for people to move across if they are being offered more money, so I recognise the problem.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Secondly, on the broad ambition to provide for a faster and more certain consenting NSIP process, do you think there is anything that we are missing here that we should still look at?
Catherine Howard: I hugely welcome the change that was made yesterday, in terms of speeding up and cutting out unnecessary bureaucracy that helped no one, except for helping professionals like me to spend more time and gain more fees out of our clients. There is, as we just talked about, a lack of enough professionals in the whole industry to staff the system. The Government’s ambition is to triple the rate of DCO consenting to get 150 DCOs through in this Parliament. We cannot magic up more comms consultants, lawyers, environmental impact assessment consultants and planning consultants in that period, so we desperately need a way to apply those professionals most efficiently in a really focused way across all the projects we need.
I have seen it in my career, having consented a number of projects since 2008, when the regime came in. Without the law changing at all, custom and practice has built up gold plating and precedent to slow the system down hugely. That is particularly true for the pre-app process, which I think the Government’s stats say has gone from an average of 14 months in 2008 to 27 months a few years ago—I suspect it is even longer now. I have seen more and more rounds of consultation on small changes. I have seen developers not putting through other changes that would be really beneficial and that communities or statutory consultees want, because they would have to have a three, four or six-month delay to do more consultation on the change.
I think the cart is before the horse. It has become a very clunky and bureaucratic legalistic process, rather than what planning should be and is in all other regimes—town and country planning, and even hybrid bills—where you have more latitude to change your mind, do some lighter-touch consultation if appropriate and do some focused consultation with the key statutory consultees on the key issues, rather than producing these huge preliminary environmental information reports, which are incredibly daunting and time-consuming for everyone to read. The public sector, local authorities, regulators and the public are feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information that is put out there, which is ultimately just a form of legal box-ticking without the laser focus that you really need on key issues, so I hugely welcome the change.
I was with an international investor yesterday who is interested in investing in a big portfolio of solar projects in the UK that have not yet been consented, and I was asked to explain the regime. The pre-app is always something I feel I have to apologise for and explain, and give the best story about how quick it might be, but it was great yesterday. They really welcome this change. I can see it being highly beneficial for investors who can shop around Europe and elsewhere, in terms of bringing development here.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Catherine Howard: Perhaps some guidance to the Planning Inspectorate about how to run the examinations with slightly more focus than we have seen. There has been a drift towards more questions and more rabbit holes, and we do not have time for this or enough professionals in the industry. That does not seem to benefit the consenting system, which has also slowed down, become a bit less focused and become more bureaucratic. I would welcome anything that we can do to encourage the examination process to be more focused—possibly shorter, but certainly less labour-intensive, unless there is a purpose to it.
Gideon Amos
Q
Catherine Howard: There should be some education on judicial review for inspectors. As a lawyer, I can tell you that people do not bring judicial reviews because not enough questions were asked or the environmental statement was not long enough; you will never pick the one thing that someone brings a judicial review on. Most of them are not successful, and they are very niche.
That probably is one of inspectors’ fears, but I also think that they want to be seen to be hearing all the issues, even if they know that those are not going to be material to the determination. That was not really the purpose of the regime; it was supposed to be mostly written reps and so on. We could do some education for the inspectorate about the things that do and do not lead to judicial reviews. Inspectors actually have a lot of latitude about what it is rational for them to consider a material planning consideration and what it is not, and so the depth at which they need to look into things. I think they sometimes go slightly overboard.
Gideon Amos
Q
Catherine Howard: That side of the planning regime is not my specialism, but hope value is part of the value of the land, as far as the ordinary person sees it, so they will not be delighted if they are not going to get paid what they see as part of the value of the land. It is a wider public interest test, is it not? I am not saying that it is the wrong thing to do, but I imagine that if people know that they are not going to get the market value, they will object to compulsory purchase orders perhaps a bit more than they otherwise would have.
Of course, if the compulsory purchase order is made, people might try to bring more judicial reviews. However, I think that it would be quite hard for them to bring a judicial review on the basis of the test, which is quite wide in terms of the purposes for which hope value can be disapplied. As long as the acquiring local authority is within those tests, I think it would be hard to JR on that basis, but people might find other grounds, such as procedural grounds, on which to have a go.
The Chair
We have just over a minute, John Grady, so it will have to be a very quick question and answer.
John Grady
Q
Catherine Howard: It definitely makes us more attractive to international investors on the nationally significant infrastructure side. I also like the fact that we can now opt out of the DCO regime for nationally significant infrastructure projects, because sometimes it is lighter touch and more helpful to go local. That is helpful as well. As I say, the pre-app stuff is incredibly helpful, and the national policy stuff. The EDP stuff is helpful, and the nature recovery matters in relation to housing. I will flag, however, that I will be making a submission about how I think the Bill could go a bit further on habitats regulation matters with regard to nationally significant infrastructure, because the nature recovery plans are slightly harder to apply—
The Chair
Order. We have run out of the available time for questions in this session. On behalf of the Committee, I thank you for your evidence.
Examination of witnesses
Richard Benwell, Mike Seddon and Carol Hawkey gave evidence.
The Chair
We will now take evidence from Richard Benwell, chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link; Mike Seddon, chief executive of Forestry England; and Carol Hawkey, director of estates at Forestry England. For this panel, we have until 5.5 pm.
Paul Holmes
Welcome to the Committee, and thank you for your time this afternoon. I only have one question—I mean no detriment to you guys, but we have recycled some of the themes and I know that Back-Bench Members want to ask questions, too, so I will be quick. We have had a lot of conversation and heard a lot of evidence about the nature restoration fund element of the legislation, as well as some concerns—for example, in my constituency from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust and other organisations—about the nature restoration fund, and about other elements such as EDPs and Natural England’s ability to manage them. Are you confident that, under the Bill as drafted, nowhere in the country that is affected by the NRF or an EDP will see a reduction in environmental standards? Will this Bill in fact do what it attempts to outline, which is to increase environmental standards across the United Kingdom?
Richard Benwell: Thank you for having me. Quickly, to deal first with the question of whether nature is a blocker—that has come up a lot today—it is an absurd notion to suggest that it is the fault of nature or environmental regulations that we are not getting the infrastructure development that the Government want or the renewables infrastructure development that we want.
It is worth noting that Natural England reckons that 99% of the housing applications that it is consulted on go through perfectly properly; only 1% receive objections on the basis of environmental concerns. It is also worth noting that what you heard earlier—that the vast majority of major infrastructure projects are JR-ed because of environmental concerns—is both misrepresentation and factually inaccurate. There has been a recent spike, yes, but the long-term trend is that only 10% of major infrastructure projects are challenged. Lots of them go through the paper permission stage and have been found to have merits. It is important not to get drawn into that sense that nature and development are at odds; they can proceed perfectly well together. The question is how to do that.
We think that the Government are genuinely on to something—that there are ways to speed up development and allow developers to meet their environmental obligations more quickly and more simply, at the same time as helping to restore nature. We know that the planning system needs to do more to restore nature, so that aspiration for a win-win is a good one. To return to your question, however, we think that at the moment, as the Bill is drafted, that is not what will be on the page of the law—what is here now would represent a regression in the strength of environmental law. The situation at the moment is a high degree of certainty about the environmental results that are supposed to result from environmental law. That is being swapped, frankly, for a lot of wishful thinking in the way that the Bill is framed.
The Bill would allow developers to pay a levy to discharge their environmental responsibilities, and then, through legislative sleight of hand and some magical legal jiggery-pokery, that would be replaced with a lot of subjective opinion in how results are judged. The mitigation hierarchy would be lost, so the expectation to avoid harm would be short-circuited. We would be in a situation where damage could happen now in return for promises of future environmental improvements that are very loosely measured under the Bill. At the moment, developers are expected to pay fully for environmental results, but the Bill sets out a situation where developers may pay only part of the costs of remediation, and that is subject to a viability test.
In the Bill, the Government are putting a lot of reliance on the idea of an overall improvement test, whereby the Secretary of State is allowed to bring in an environmental delivery plan if it is likely to lead to measures that will outweigh the harm to nature. That “likely to” test is a much lower legal bar of certainty than the one we have at the moment, where you need a high degree of scientific certainty that the environmental measures will actually lead to results. It is worth emphasising that I understand why a lot of people want to immediately pause part 3 of the Bill. We are in an ecological crisis, with 19% of species abundance lost since 1970 in the UK—32% in England—and one in six species at risk of extinction. To mess with our most important nature laws is a really risky thing to do.
What I would much rather see is the law being amended in Committee and through this process, so that the win-win the Government have rightly identified—that, actually, we can better spend some of the developer money to lead to bigger, better projects for nature restoration, at the same time as speeding up development—can be achieved. We have some proposals for how the Bill could be amended in some quite simple but important ways to bring that mitigation hierarchy back in, to achieve surety of results and to make sure that polluters really do pay for harm. I would love to talk through those with the Committee.
Paul Holmes
Q
Mike Seddon: indicated dissent.
Carol Hawkey: indicated dissent.
Paul Holmes
Q
Given your previous role within the Department, working with a Secretary of State, and given your expertise from your current role, do you think that in its current guise Natural England is capable of undertaking the responsibilities outlined in the legislation? Are you worried about the resourcing of that organisation going forward, considering that it will have quite new, detailed and complicated responsibilities?
Richard Benwell: There is no doubt that Natural England will need a significant uplift in resourcing to enable it to do this job properly. Natural England was subject to some pretty serious cuts over the last decade, and the last settlement was not very positive for Natural England either, with more job losses coming. When you look into the statistics of Natural England’s funding, some of the increases in recent years have been on capital fund rather than day-to-day spend on the kind of experts we need to do this work out on the ground. Part of the problem sometimes, with the risk aversion surrounding the current incarnation of the habitats regulations, is the lack of expertise from advisers, to give it the confidence to go out and suggest where strategic solutions can happen and to implement the law well.
Natural England will definitely need a boost. It is worth noting that it is not even able to fulfil all its current duties to the standard that we would expect. Only half of sites of special scientific interest have been visited in something like the last decade, and Natural England is already having to focus its work on statutory advice for planning applications. It will need more of that expertise, but we have confidence in the organisation and its leadership. We hope that the Government will properly resource Natural England and other agencies to help to make this work if it goes ahead, as amended.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Richard, you will know that we do not accept that development has to come at the expense of nature. We are very much targeting a win-win solution when it comes to development and the environment. The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and I have had a huge amount of engagement with you and others in the sector to try to develop a solution that achieves that. I therefore want to drill into some of the concerns you have outlined, in two ways.
First, on the introduction, you welcomed the
“legal guarantee that the Nature Restoration Fund must not only compensate for damage but actually benefit protected wildlife.”
But the claim today is that the Bill leaves us open to regression. Could you elaborate on how those two square together?
Secondly, you have just said that you have confidence in Natural England and its leadership. Marian Spain, the chief executive officer, gave evidence earlier today. She said that the Bill effectively maintains the mitigation hierarchy, but you have just said that the Bill undermines the mitigation hierarchy. Can you clarify why you have a difference of opinion with Marian on that particular issue?
Richard Benwell: Of course. On the first question, we were grateful for engagement ahead of the Bill’s publication, and we were really pleased to hear your aspirations to achieve a win-win. The question is whether the overall improvement test in clause 55(4) does what it is meant to do.
The legal drafting suggests that a Secretary of State can agree an environmental delivery plan only if he is satisfied that the benefits for a protected feature “are likely” to outweigh the harm to that protected feature. That comes some way short of the high bar of legal certainty that is expected in the current habitats regulations.
If you dig further into the Bill, you find that once an environmental delivery plan is in place, if there is evidence that it is not meeting the standards expected, it is up to the Secretary of State whether to withdraw the EDP and then only to take measures that he considers appropriate to remediate for any shortfall in environmental benefits that are supposed to be derived from the measures in the Bill.
Both of those points leave far more leeway for a Secretary of State to undercut nature restoration compared with the current situation, especially when it can happen up to 10 years after the initial harm to nature. We have all heard of circumstances where promised offsets for supposed harm to nature never materialise or die a couple of years down the line.
We think this can be fixed. We think that if you were to strengthen that requirement so that it matches the kind of legal certainty that we see in the habitats regulations, you would be in a much better position. On the positive side of the scale, if that promise to outweigh harm were a more substantive requirement to go beyond just about offsetting into real nature restoration, you start to get to the territory where this really could be a win-win.
We know you will be advised by Government lawyers to minimise risk. That is what always happens, which is why Governments like to have these subjective tests. But as it stands, the level of certainty of environmental benefit that is required of an EDP up front, and that is then required of proof of delivery along the way, is less than under the current law.
Matthew Pennycook
That is a very clear elaboration. On the Natural England point—on the mitigation hierarchy?
Richard Benwell: As it stands, before a development that would have adverse effects on a protected site can go ahead, it is necessary, first, to try to avoid those harms, then to reduce those harms and only then, once all those steps have been gone through, if a project is of overriding public interest, can it go ahead with compensation in place. The Bill essentially short-circuits that process.
In clause 50, there is a provision that makes it explicit that the compensatory measures set out in an EDP do not need to apply to the particular features and the particular site that is affected by a development. Once a developer has paid their levy, they can essentially disregard the provisions that are in the habitats regulations at the moment, and go straight to development. Of course, that is something we could also fix in the Bill by requiring Natural England to have confidence that development applications have sought to avoid harm before they go ahead. I think there would still be substantial and material benefits for developers from the simplicity of the process and their legal confidence, even if that requirement to avoid harm were put back in.
We know there would need to be flexibility, such as on the phasing of benefits versus time, but you could still have this important principle that you should not go straight to squishing the ancient woodland, or make it easy to splat the species. You need to make sure that you try to avoid that harm first, before the development goes ahead.
Matthew Pennycook
Q
Richard Benwell: Yes, certainly at the project level. There is more of a requirement for Natural England to consider some of those circumstances at the EDP level. When it comes to specific projects, where it is all-important for the particular site or species, we think it is short-circuited. We will check in with Marian on that afterwards.
The Chair
We can possibly get two more colleagues in, so let’s be succinct with our questions and answers.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Richard Benwell: Let me see whether I can winkle out my clause numbers. Clause 62 requires the EDP levies to be set at a level that takes into account the viability test, and we all know how often viability gives wriggle room for developers. Our view is that the level of levy payments should be enough to secure the compensatory measures needed to go further than remediating the damage caused to nature.
Again, when you look further, you will find the provisions say that the levy needs to cover “wholly or partly” the amount needed to remediate that damage. That could lead to dangerous situations where you are cross-subsidising developers for harm to nature from other pots of money, such as farming funds. It would make far more sense to have a straight-up “polluter pays” principle, where developers pay for the cost of remediating the harm they cause to nature.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Richard Benwell: We have a “polluters possibly pay” principle here, a “maybe prevent” principle with the mitigation hierarchy, and the overall improvement test is a “possibly improve” test. All the way around, those fundamental principles are brought into doubt by the ways in which the Bill is drafted, particularly for species protection, where these are least appropriate.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Richard Benwell: They can be fixed, but we know it will take bravery and leadership from the Government. We hope that Ministers will go for it and the House will unite behind those changes.
Luke Murphy
Q
As someone who has worked on both housing and protecting the environment for the last 10 years, I support this approach because the current system is not delivering. Do you agree that the current system is not delivering for either nature or development? Notwithstanding the flaws—I think there can be some honest disagreement on what the outcomes might be—do you welcome the fact that a new approach is being proposed, given that the current system is not delivering for either development or nature?
Richard Benwell: There is good scientific evidence that the habitats regulations are the most effective site and species protections in the world, but we definitely still need to go further. Some of those strategic solutions, particularly for landscape issues like water pollution, air pollution and water availability, can be improved.
You are right. There are loads of places where we could go further. We would love to see things like building regulations for biodiversity in the Bill, to help get nature built into the fabric of development as we go. To suggest that the habitats regulations are not working is wrong, but their implementation can definitely be improved and more use can be made of this kind of strategic approach if it is done well.
Olly Glover
Q
We have had a lot of discussion about what Natural England’s chief executive said earlier. In her testimony, she was very clear that she feels that the provisions in the Bill do not have the effect of reducing current levels of environmental protection. What do you feel about that? Linked to that, do you feel that the Bill strikes the right balance between agriculture, environmental protection, housing and all the other things on which the planning system is here to deliver?
Mike Seddon: Thank you for the question and for inviting us. I will give you a perspective from a land manager. Forestry England is the largest land manager in England, and we are responsible for the public forest. I am not an expert on the development Bill, but from our perspective, the idea that environmental delivery plans can secure an improvement is correct, and it is particularly appealing if they can do that at a strategic scale. Anything that starts to join up nature across the country, which provisions of the Bill will enable us to do, would be a good thing.
Lee Pitcher
Q
We are in a bad place, and there is a lot to be done, but that is with the existing stuff that precedes this measure. That is the position we are in, so I cannot understand why a change will not better facilitate an improvement in nature as well as planning. That leads to growth, which can then put money back into the system to improve it further.
Richard Benwell: It is because the proposed change will weaken that level of protection and make unsustainable—
Lee Pitcher
Q
Richard Benwell: Yes, but it could make it better if you do it well. At the moment, it is worse because it allows developers to short-circuit the mitigation hierarchy and go straight to damage. It is worse because the level of certainty of environmental benefits is lower than currently required by the law. It is worse because it allows damage up front in return for promises of remediation up to 10 years down the line. And it is worse in terms of the scientific evidence that will be needed to apply to new sites or species. But the kind of approach that the Government are talking about could work if some of those problems were fixed.
It is worth saying that if you really wanted a planning Bill to turn around the problems you have described, this might help, but it is far more important to make sure that you meet the global commitment to allocating 30% of the land and sea for nature, that you turn to thinking about how to manage our land and sea better for farmers and fishers and you pay them properly for nature benefits, and that you turn to thinking about how we build nature into development.
Far more things could be in this Bill if the objective were to save nature. At the moment, the trade-off that we are being asked to make—weakening tried-and-tested, strong, effective environmental laws in return for a sliver of hope that the benefits might outweigh the harm—does not warrant the changes that are being made. But—I keep returning to this—it could, if part 3 of the Bill is improved during its parliamentary passage, and that is what we would really like to work with you to do.
The Chair
Order. That brings us almost within seconds of the allotted time. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the witnesses for their evidence.
Examination of Witnesses
James Stevens and Kate Henderson gave evidence.
Paul Holmes
Q
It should come as no surprise that I want to ask about new towns. Mr Stevens, the Minister and the Secretary of State have been less than forthcoming about whether they think that new towns should be included within the housing targets across the UK. No answers have come forward. Do you think that new towns should be included, and should they contribute to local authorities’ housing targets?
James Stevens: I think that the Government are still thinking through the best way to deal with that. There are provisions in the Bill related to the definition of development management companies and such. As I said, I think the Government are still working it through.
On the work of the new towns commission and the identification of new towns, it is the HBF’s view that they should probably not contribute to local authority targets, but be treated as a contingency—a pool to ensure that the housing requirements under the mandatory standard method, which is a major step forward, can be achieved in the event that you get under-bounded cities unable to meet their needs in full. Even if the provisions relating to spatial development strategies come forward, it is still possible that some of them might not be successful in meeting the entirety of the standard method.
I think it is probably realistic and would be sensible, as the new Labour Administration did with eco-towns, that they should contribute to filling a national shortfall rather than contributing to local authority targets. That would be my recommendation. We have asked the Government, but as far as I understand, they have not reached a view on that yet.
Gideon Amos
Q
Kate Henderson: First, it is a pleasure to be before the Committee; thank you for inviting the National Housing Federation to give evidence. Just to be clear, I want to declare up front that I am a member of the Government’s new towns taskforce, working to advise Government on a new generation of new towns, so I will not be commenting on—
Paul Holmes
Forgive me; I should have asked you, Mrs Henderson.
Kate Henderson: No problem. I will not be commenting specifically on what is coming forward from that piece of work.
From a National Housing Association perspective, on the principle of new towns, it is worth recognising just how acute housing need is in this country. Right now, we have 160,000 children who are homeless. We have 310,000 children who had to share a bed with a family member last night. The need is acute and spread right across the country. The need for social housing is huge. The Government have set out a very ambitious target of a million and a half homes across the course of this Parliament. We think that about a third of those need to be affordable and social housing. Research that we have commissioned shows that we need around 90,000 social rented homes every year. That is not just in this Parliament but over the course of a decade, to meet the backlog of need.
We are a long way off that target, but an important part of it is to have reform, not just of the planning mechanisms and targets within the planning system—and the standard method is an important part of that—but of the resources within the social housing sector, local government and delivery partners to crank up the delivery. That is an important part of the piece, but we are also very much looking forward to the spending review to get a long-term housing strategy in place that also has measures to inject stability, certainty and confidence back into the social housing sector to crank up delivery.
James Stevens: I absolutely agree with Kate that it is very important that we do what we can to support affordable housing delivery. The Government’s proposals around spatial development strategies, which would allow those strategies to define policies on affordable housing, would be very beneficial. On the work looking at the section 106 model—which is a current barrier—as Kate said, the Government probably need to invest to ensure that the long-term rent settlement provides more assurance for housing associations in that regard. That is a major obstacle to housing delivery at the moment. In London, for example, that is resulting in a major shortfall in supply.
The spatial development strategies should be quite useful mechanisms, so long as they are not too prescriptive. The problem we have with London, as an example, is that it had a very prescriptive affordable housing policy, which did not really last through the economic cycles that we are experiencing at the moment. You need something that is looser fitting and that constituent local authorities can adapt to their own local circumstances.
Gideon Amos
Q
James Stevens: We think that affordable housing, as part of section 106, is probably one of the most important planning obligations, and our members generally support that, because they know how to build houses. Capturing an element of development gain is a real feeding frenzy, particularly among every public agency. They are all attempting to finance their policy objectives off the back of capturing an element of the developed land value. That can result in very difficult competing claims over viability. I have looked at viability plans supporting lots of spatial strategies and local plans up and down the country, and very often large elements of a local authority area are unviable because they just cannot afford the cumulative claims upon that development value. Greater scrutiny at the examination level, and perhaps a stronger steer from the Government that affordable housing and public contributions to public transport are the foremost claims upon development value, would be a major step forward.
Savills has identified that the viability system—section 106 and the community infrastructure levy—is fairly successful. It is pretty successful at capturing the majority of development value that is out there. The Government could go further by being very clear that these are the requirements in local plans, they are not negotiable and schemes are expected to be policy compliant, but that would need to be underpinned by a more rigorous system of assessing viability of the local plan stage. That would provide the Government with the certainty.
Rachel Taylor
Q
James Stevens: On the first element of that question, we really dispute the notion that house builders just bank land and are not interested in building out. Craig Bennett of the Wildlife Trusts cited a figure on Radio 4, I think, of 1.4 million homes that have granted permission but that have not been built out. We strongly contest that. A lot of those things are not counted as a completion until they are actually completed. A lot of those schemes have to work through very complicated discharge conditions. A lot of those permissions can just be outline planning permissions, and not the detailed planning permissions that you need to be an implementable consent. A lot of those figures are just poor figures that do not reflect the true numbers that have actually been built out.
Lastly on that, this accusation of land banking has often been levelled at the house building industry over the last 20 years. Consistently, independent studies, including one by the Competition and Markets Authority last year, have given us a clean bill of health on that. There is an issue about absorption rates—the ability of a local market to absorb certain sales—but house builders do not make their money from sitting on land. That costs them money. We make money from the sale of homes.
The issue of social housing—I will allow Kate to come in shortly—is very important. The problem is that we have a severe housing crisis. As Kate said, we have many thousands of children in temporary accommodation. Local authorities had to spend something like £2.3 billion last year on temporary accommodation; local authorities would go bankrupt there. Therefore, the tendency is to try to maximise social housing provision—social rented housing. We can understand why local authorities want to do that. However, to follow up on the point I made to Gideon Amos, the problem is that if local authority policies are too prescriptive on the tenure split, that can make it very difficult for house builders to contract with registered providers, to provide registered providers with the type of tenure mix that they need. We need to be a bit more realistic and flexible about that.
The key issue is to get houses built—to focus upon the quantity—in order to alleviate the affordability problems that make people so dependent upon social housing in the first place. But absolutely, social rented housing is very important. We are not trying to say that we do not want to build it.
Kate Henderson: Social housing is needed in every part of the country. What is really important is that we have objectively assessed needs and that those needs are then incorporated in local plans, and that we deliver mixed, sustainable communities that reflect the needs of those areas.
I will just dispute a little bit the point about the London situation and the London plan. London is the only part of the country where we have a strategic development strategy. The reason that we have a crash of supply in London is not because of strategic planning. It is because of a building safety crisis, hugely high inflation, huge land prices, an absolute crisis in temporary accommodation, and huge pressures that have happened across the social housing sector over the last 15 years in terms of cuts and caps to our income.
To get out of the situation in London and in the rest of the country, we need a comprehensive planning system that is based on objectively assessed need; a long-term housing strategy that looks at our existing homes as well as new homes; a rent settlement, including convergence, and funding that addresses building safety as well as new supply. Those are all things that the Government are looking at, which is welcome.
As for bringing forward those spatial development strategies in the rest of the country, it is really important that they have a focus on social and affordable housing, and that that should be mandated within them. The percentages will need to reflect the context of the areas and the need in those areas, so there will need to be a degree of flexibility in accordance with place, but it is vital that that is mandated as part of the remit of those strategies. We welcome their introduction.
Olly Glover
Q
James Stevens: I have been involved in commenting on, I think, all the last four iterations of the London plan, so I can see that it is a successful model, in that it does a lot of the heavy lifting for local authorities in terms of identifying broad locations of growth, but in particular setting out the housing requirement for all the constituent local authorities. Once that strategic plan is adopted, it becomes part of the legal development plan, and it means that whatever stage the local authority is at with developing its plan, at least the policies, including the policies for the number and distribution of housing set out in that spatial plan, become part of the development plan, so it does assist the Government in ensuring that their new mandatory standard method is embedded within the planning system as quickly as possible.
I have been involved also in all the spatial strategies produced by the mayoral combined authorities to a greater or lesser extent over the last six years. I think the Government’s measures to reform the governance so that with spatial development strategies, the Mayor only needs majority support rather than unanimity is a very important step forward.
Kate Henderson: Returning to a system of strategic spatial planning is really welcome. Trying to work out our housing need based on 300-plus local authorities does not get us up to the sum total of actually doing things comprehensively. In terms of addressing the housing crisis, economic growth and opportunity, nature recovery, landscapes, our utility provision and how we get to work, we need to work on a larger than local scale. The ability to co-ordinate all that infrastructure at a spatial scale where authorities are working together makes a lot of sense.
What is going to be a challenge is how we do this in a comprehensive way when there are huge capacity pressures on local authorities. There are some welcome measures in the Bill around ringfencing planning fees to give some additional capacity there and we support that, but how do you do the strategic planning function, in getting local authorities to have local plans in place and getting strategic plans in place at the same time, while also recognising that we are having local government reorganisation in the forthcoming English devolution Bill?
We would really like the long-term housing strategy, which is due to come forward this summer, to be the overarching framework for at least the next decade for how we transform the housing offer to people in this country. There is a question here about boosting capacity in the system. There is also about where levels of primacy are going to sit when it comes to decision making. There are lots of different things coming forward, so we need to be really clear, if there is a spatial development strategy coming forward and local plans coming forward, about how they will interact, how they will be democratically consulted on and agreed, and where the primacy of decision making is. That is what we expect more detail on in the secondary legislation and consultations to come.
James Stevens: There is a risk, though, that the prospect of a spatial development strategy will slow down local plan making. That is something we are quite anxious about. That is what we saw in Greater Manchester. The promise of a spatial strategy for Greater Manchester meant that for about 10 years, I think nine of the 10 constituent local authorities did not bother producing a local plan, so the Government need to be very clear. It is set out in the explanatory notes to the Bill, but the Government need to be very clear that local plan production must not stop under any circumstance.
Nesil Caliskan
Q
May I ask you about land value? I am a London Member of Parliament and an ex-council leader, and land value is by far the most cited reason—by local authorities or the private sector—for development not coming through the pipeline in the last couple of years. To what extent do you think the challenges around infrastructure are impacting land value, and so holding up development? Do you think that the Bill goes far enough to tackle the length of time and the current cost of developing infrastructure that could contribute to land value going up and ultimately deliver homes?
James Stevens: All infrastructure is critical, but by “infrastructure” are you referring to really critical infrastructure, such as utilities, energy and water?
Nesil Caliskan
Q
James Stevens: London’s public transport network is probably the densest anywhere in the country. I do not necessarily see transport infrastructure as the No. 1 barrier to housing delivery in London, but you probably have local experience of that. I live on the Old Kent Road. It has been promised the Bakerloo line extension for a couple of decades, but that has not stopped increasing investment in that “growth zone”, as it is defined by the Mayor of London.
Nesil Caliskan
Q
James Stevens: That is why the devolution White Paper would give the mayors enhanced powers to do things such as bus franchising, drawing in investment, taking over trains, and increasing passenger numbers. Development of public transport infrastructure is really critical, and the lack of it is holding back the growth of many of our major cities in the north. I go up to Sheffield, which is a city region that is underperforming against its potential because it does not have the public transport infrastructure.
Kate Henderson: We know that infrastructure provision, whether of new reservoirs, or of capacity on our roads or rail is the key to unlocking a lot of strategic sites. The Bill’s larger infrastructure regime, its speeding-up of processes and the ambitious target for 150 decisions on major infrastructure are all welcome, but we must look at the long-term housing strategy alongside our transport and industrial strategies, which are coming forward, and be able to co-ordinate them all.
You asked whether land value is a barrier. Let me touch on the clauses about compulsory purchase, particularly clause 91, about hope value. We strongly support the clause, which specifically provides for hope value to be disregarded for affordable and social housing where that is in the public interest. We want that to be embedded across the planning system, not only because of the children in temporary accommodation but for the ability to create fantastic, inclusive places that meet the needs of people throughout their lives, and of people on different incomes.
We should be clear that the act of granting planning permission is a public good. This issue is about fair and reasonable land prices, so we should compensate at a fair and reasonable level, ensure that the public can capture the uplift after planning permission has been granted, and ensure that that leads to more viable developments with a higher proportion of social and affordable housing.
I put on the record that we support the CPO powers. CPOs are rarely used, but stronger CPO powers for public authorities are a good thing to encourage land to come forward. Of course, to do that effectively we need legal expertise, capacity, and risk appetite in the local authority. That is a challenge, but it is welcome that the Bill gives the tools to do that. Some capacity building is needed in local government. I commend the Government for bringing forward the measures on hope value, because that is really important in how we meet the housing crisis.
The Chair
Order. We have come to the end of this session. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the panel for their evidence.
Examination of Witnesses
Matthew Pennycook MP and Michael Shanks MP gave evidence.
The Chair
This session will run until 5.50 pm. The Ministers have been participating actively in the proceedings, but could you both formally introduce yourselves for the record, please?
Matthew Pennycook: I am Matthew Pennycook MP. I am the Minister of State for Housing and Planning.
Michael Shanks: I am Michael Shanks, the Minister for Energy.
Paul Holmes
Q
However, Minister Pennycook, I would like to ask you about a sustained line of questioning that I have taken today. You also participated in the questioning of other witnesses about Natural England, and I think that you and I have a differing opinion—perhaps we do not. Let us see whether we do; I will not do you a disservice. There has been a consistent response from interested stakeholders about the ability and the resourcing of Natural England. You outlined to the witness after the chief executive of Natural England whether that will mean a deterioration or an improvement of environmental factors.
I was quite concerned by the chief executive’s representations to the Committee this afternoon, not because of her capability—it is not a slight on her leading of her organisation at all—but because of the language that came back when asked whether her organisation will be able to cope with that. The language was, “we should”, “it might”, “we are not sure yet” and “we need to go through consultations with Government and the Treasury over funding in the spending review”. Some of the reasons outlined by the chief executive were around system changes and improvements that are needed, as well as investment in computer systems and, in the short term, a shortfall in some income because of the lack of certainty from Government. That is not a criticism—that is the natural spending review period. I get that.
Can you outline why you do not share the view of many stakeholders: that Natural England’s resourcing needs to be substantially increased, and that the Government need to invest a huge amount to try to get Natural England to a position where it will be able to take on the responsibilities that you are outlining?
The Chair
Order. Before the Minister answers, let me say that a significant number of Members have indicated that they wish to ask a question. We have very limited time—until 5.50 pm. Obviously, there is some scope for the Opposition spokesperson, but I ask that future questions be short and that answers be as concise as possible.
Matthew Pennycook: I will take heed and try to be as concise as possible. I would say three things. First, we recognise that we need to ensure that the system is equipped to deliver. You will have heard from the chief executive of Natural England how closely we are working with it on these reforms and ensuring they are operational in short order after Royal Assent. We have already secured £14 million to support the nature restoration fund. As the chief executive made clear, in some instances it may be necessary to provide up-front funding. We are looking at opportunities to do so, to kick off action in advance of need, with costs recovered as development comes forward.
The important thing in the long term is that, once fully established, the nature restoration fund will run on a full cost recovery basis, and we think that is a sustainable way for Natural England to deliver EDPs in the necessary places across England.
Paul Holmes
Q
Matthew Pennycook: I fully appreciate and have no issue with you trying, shadow Minister, but I am not going to make any comment on the ongoing spending review negotiations.
Luke Murphy
Q
Also, to what degree are the Government listening to nature organisations, some of which we heard from earlier, and their suggestions on strengthening the Bill? Lastly, Richard Benwell specifically raised clause 64 and the viability test. Do you share his concern that subjecting the levy to the viability test could mean that the amount of funds that come from it are not sufficient to at the very least mitigate if not improve? How can we ensure that is not the case, even if it is subject to the viability test?
The Chair
Can I remind you again to keep questions as short as possible? It is entirely up to you, but I am just advising so that as many Members get in as possible.
Matthew Pennycook: I will take both questions in turn. The first is really important, and I am glad to have the chance to say very clearly again—as I did to Mr Benwell—that we do not accept as a Government that development has to come at the expense of nature. We have put a huge amount of effort into engaging with Mr Benwell’s organisation and many others, as well as other Government Departments, to ensure that the clauses allow us to deliver that win-win for development and the environment.
We are confident that the Bill will not undermine or reduce environmental protections, which is why we confirmed that to be the case under section 20 of the previous Government’s Environment Act 2021. As you heard from the chief exec of Natural England, our reforms are very much built around delivering overall positive outcomes for protected sites and species.
Specifically on the viability point, there are existing environmental obligations that developers have to pay to address. Moving to a more strategic scale and large geographies where we can get those better outcomes will allow us to drive down costs through strategic action through those economies of scale. We think that the approach will be beneficial overall, but viability has to be a consideration in the levy fee that we will eventually set.
Gideon Amos
Q
Michael Shanks: That is a really important question. Probably the single most important part of us being able to achieve our clean power mission will be the necessary grid upgrades, many of which should have been decades before. We now need to build out the grid, so we are looking at a range of options. I think that connections reform is important for making sure that we are only building the grid that we absolutely need to build. The bill discounts and the community benefits that go with that are all around trying to improve acceptability, but we will look at a range of other issues as well, including around permitted development rights.
What we are really clear on is that we have a clear indication of the projects necessary to hit clean power by 2030. We know where those need to be built and what the barriers are to doing that, and we want to move forward with those as quickly as possible. I think that the community acceptability point is key because, unlike some of the other parts of our electricity system, pylons and substations are probably the ones that communities have the biggest challenge with, particularly because they are going through multiple communities in the course of a line. We have evidenced that the bill-discount scheme will improve that acceptability to help build those much faster. Of course, that is the only way that we will achieve clean power—by getting the power to where it is needed most.
Amanda Martin
Q
Michael Shanks: It is a really good question. To Mr Amos’s question, I said that network was probably the single most important thing, but connections reform is probably the single most important lever in clearing out what is now 756 GW in a queue to connect, which is frankly an absurd amount. This is therefore really a fundamental shift to move from “first applied, first in the queue” to what is strategically important: is a project actually ready to be connected? As has been discussed, we have so many of these zombie projects that take up a space in the queue for years on end.
We have also been clear about prioritising what is strategically important to our energy mix, particularly on some of the questions around storage, to make sure we actually have the right capacity. Connecting is really important, so we want to bring that queue down as quickly as possible. That frees up the connections process for new generation to join far faster, but the other important side of it is that, for the projects in the queue on the demand side, it frees up capacity for those to connect much more quickly as well.
The estimates at the moment are probably conservative, based on how quickly the growth of AI, datacentres and things are taking hold, but the estimate is that, by 2050, the demand for electricity in this country will have doubled. This step—clearing out the queue now—is therefore really important, but so is putting in place a process that makes sure that the queue does not fill back up after we have done this particular clear-out. The Bill therefore details the process that will be taken, but also the role that the Government will have in setting strategic priorities for queue management for future connections.
The first stage of that will be the clean power action plan, but it will allow us in the future to look at some other aspects of the economy to ensure that we are prioritising the projects that get through. We have resisted the approach of prioritising demand projects, because obviously how you prioritise those becomes much more subjective, but if we clear out a lot of the 756 GW now, we can connect projects and get the economy growing as a result.
Amanda Martin
Q
Matthew Pennycook: There are a variety of ways in which the Bill will help SMEs. It is probably worth my saying, because we have had a variety of questions on issues that are not directly within the scope of the Bill—the new towns taskforce and programme, and build-out rates where the Government have taken action and are exploring what further steps we can take—that this is not the totality of the interventions that we are introducing to support SMEs.
However, to go back to Mr Murphy’s question, a good example would be the nature restoration fund. We know that nutrient neutrality and diffuse constraints of that kind are particularly affecting SME house builders in those sensitive river catchments, so there are a number of ways in which the provisions in the Bill will directly benefit small and medium house builders.
Olly Glover
Q
Matthew Pennycook: To correct you on a point made there, I think the figure of 18,000 that you referenced is solely what we think could be delivered through the £2 billion we secured recently and announced as a down payment on the future grant funding through the successor programme to the affordable homes programme. It is not 18,000 affordable homes as social out of 1.5 million—that would be completely unacceptable. We are trying to, through all of our reforms, deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable house building in a generation.
Olly Glover
Accepted.
Matthew Pennycook: In terms of the top-up, we have already allocated £800 million to the affordable homes programme since coming into office. We have also pulled forward £2 billion as a down payment. A significant proportion of the homes coming through those funding routes are social rented homes—almost half, but I am happy to provide the Committee with the specific figure. So we are getting a huge uplift coming through, and the successor grant programme will give particular priority to social rented homes coming through.
Where I think spatial development strategies can add to what we see coming through is that these will not be big local plans—let us be very clear. They need to be pretty high-level documents that make decisions about where housing growth and infrastructure provision is best sited and delivered on a sub-regional basis. That will allow groups of local authorities to take a far more sophisticated approach to, for example, bringing forward large-scale new communities in strategic locations that allow them to meet housing targets in a more sophisticated way. Through other measures that we are introducing—the CPO measures in the Bill are a good example—we will capture more land-value uplift and deliver more social and affordable homes.
Ellie Chowns
Q
Given that commitment from the Government, given Richard Benwell’s observation that there are risks that could be addressed through amendments and given Marian Spain’s comments—that the Bill needs robust safeguards and that drafting amendments may make it more robust—I return to the question that Mr Murphy asked. Can you confirm that you retain an open mind and that you may consider tabling further Government amendments in response to the concerns raised, so that the Bill does what you are saying it does on the tin?
Matthew Pennycook: I appreciate the question. To reiterate—and this is where I slightly disagree with Mr Benwell and others—we are very clear that the Bill will not have the effect of reducing the level of environmental protections, in terms of existing environmental law. We are very clear about that, and confident in the safeguards that exist in the Bill.
I am happy to look at any amendment, and we will in the normal course of the Bill Committee; we will debate each of them in turn and I will keep an open mind about any that we think is feasible, workable, aligns with the objectives of the Bill and delivers what we want to see—absolutely. We will debate all of those in due course. As you rightly made clear, we tabled a package of Government amendments yesterday.
To bring it back to the specific point, some of those amendments on removing the statutory requirement for pre-applications consultation in relation to national significant infrastructure projects were tabled partly because we were getting feedback through the working paper, and also because there were a number of calls on Second Reading for us to specifically look at that area of reform. As you would expect in the normal course of the Bill, we will respond to challenge, criticism, scrutiny and any amendments, which we will debate in due course.
The Chair
If there are no more questions, I thank all our witnesses across the day for their evidence.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Gen Kitchen.)
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Lesbian Visibility Week
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Kate Osborne (Jarrow and Gateshead East) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Lesbian Visibility Week.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. In this debate we are considering that this House believes LGBTQIA+ women and non-binary people should be recognised for the work that they do and the joy that they bring.
Lesbian Visibility Week originated in 1990, and has been given life and observed annually in the UK since 2019, enabled by my good friend and ex-publisher of DIVA magazine, Linda Riley. I am so pleased that we are once again acknowledging its importance in a Parliament that boasts the largest number of openly lesbian, bisexual and gay women MPs in history.
Maureen Colquhoun, the first openly lesbian MP, was elected 51 years ago but was deselected by her local party the year she came out—a stark reminder of the struggles faced by lesbian politicians. It took 23 years for there to be another openly lesbian MP. Thankfully, there are now a lot more of us, including some of my brilliant colleagues who will be speaking in this debate.
Lesbian and gay women face intersecting discrimination based on their gender and sexuality, and of course, people of colour and lesbians with disabilities also face unique challenges and discrimination due to intersecting identities. But while it is crucial to address those challenges, it is equally important to celebrate the significant contributions that lesbians make in fostering solidarity and sisterhood within their communities. Lesbian women have played, and will always play, a pivotal role in not only supporting each other but leading and strengthening the broader women’s and LGBT+ rights movements.
For the past five years we have set aside this week in April to celebrate and uplift lesbians everywhere, from all backgrounds and all walks of life. We are a community that grows stronger each and every year for it. This year, the theme is celebrating rainbow families, focusing on LGBT+ women and non-binary people’s families and recognising the importance of all family structures.
On Tuesday night I was proud to host the second annual parliamentary launch of Lesbian Visibility Week. At the event, London Women’s Clinic launched its new IVF equality manifesto. As a mum of two wonderful boys, one of whom was conceived through IVF, it is a subject close to my heart. Everyone deserves the chance to start a family, no matter their sexuality or gender identity.
It was around 16 years ago that I started the IVF process as part of a same-sex couple. At that time we went through unnecessary procedures, a long waiting list and significant costs. But despite the hurdles it was achievable, and my wonderful youngest son is now 14. Since the IVF journey that I was part of, the hurdles that LGBT+ couples have to jump through have increased, with a fragmented NHS meaning a postcode lottery in provision, while the financial cost is significantly higher.
The event was attended by many MPs and guests, and I thank everyone who came. I particularly thank the Minister for Equalities, my hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), for attending the event and speaking, and for responding to this debate, as well as DIVA’s Linda Riley and Anya Sizer from the London Women’s Clinic for their speeches. It is disappointing that despite multiple promises there remain far too many unnecessary financial and practical barriers for same-sex couples, and a postcode lottery on IVF. I have written to the Secretary of State and Ministers on that on a number of occasions, and I will keep fighting until all barriers are removed.
I have dedicated most of my political career to campaigning for LGBTQIA+ equality. My first political activism was campaigning against section 28 and highlighting the damage it did, and continues to do, to our community. Section 28 was intended to silence the discussion of lesbians and gays. It failed. It united and energised our communities.
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Like her, my first political activism was campaigning against section 28; that is what made me join our wonderful party. I feel truly supported by her and by my other lesbian colleagues in this place. It was that rhetoric, and comments that our relationships and families were somehow pretend family relationships, that was so hurtful. Does she agree that we now need to safeguard against the risks of the rhetoric about trans people doing the same sort of harm to them as it did to us in the 1980s?
Kate Osborne
I absolutely agree, and will touch on that later. As a community, we are always stronger when we are together, and we will always have T as part of the LGBT community.
Given the global attacks on our LGBT+ community, we need to find that fighting spirit again. The attacks on our community did not just start happening again; they were driven by far-right money from America, hate in this country and globally, the media and—yes—politicians, who should know better, continuing to demonise the LGBT+ community. Last year, I spoke about the increase in the lesbophobia that I faced: from being called a rug-muncher to being called a nonce, and having pride flags in my home town of Hebburn ripped down.
We have seen a rise in hate crime, and we must make active efforts to support our non-binary and trans community, who still face unique day-to-day challenges for simply being themselves and loving who they love. Under current hate crime legislation, hate crimes based on race or religion can attract a greater penalty because they are classified as aggravated offences. Our manifesto committed to ensuring that hate crime based on sexual orientation, gender identity and/or disability would also be classified as aggravated offences. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about moves towards that happening.
I sit on the Council of Europe and its committee on equality and non-discrimination. Part of my brief is reporting on the ban on so-called conversion practices across Europe. As part of that, I visit and speak to people in other countries about their legislation. One country was Italy. Outrageously, the official visit request was rejected, and I was unofficially told that this was because they did not want more of our finger-wagging critique. Thankfully, the very nice Maltese Government have offered us a visit instead.
Just last month, as I got off a train at King’s Cross, I was verbally abused by a man who shouted at me that I was obviously a lesbian, that I was a sexual deviant and that I was going to hell. I am frequently misgendered. I do not mean occasionally—it is a weekly occurrence. In January, I was misgendered three times during one two-hour train journey. I have been misgendered by staff of this House. I was misgendered while buying some jeans last week. This is genuinely a frequent issue for me and a number of my lesbian friends.
I note that Ministers said yesterday that there will be guidance regarding the Supreme Court verdict. That decision will have a huge impact on my life, on many other cis lesbians and, indeed, on heterosexual women. I suspect that I will get challenged even more now when accessing facilities. The impact on my life will be problematic, but the impact on my trans siblings’ lives will be significantly worse.
Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, and for securing debate. I know that she has spoken passionately about these issues over many decades and that, like me, she will have received lots of correspondence from concerned trans and LGBT+ constituents over the last few days. Does she agree that it is for the Labour Government to get on with advancing the LGBT rights in the manifesto—things like the trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban, modernisation of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and making LGBT hate crime an aggravated offence?
Kate Osborne
Yes, I believe that only now, with a Labour Government, will we see the continued advancement of LGBT rights, as we have in the past.
While we are on the topic of the judgment, let me say that it does not offer clarity. I believe that it has sown division and caused contradictions in legislation. The ruling was made without a single contribution from trans people and leaves them legally and practically at a huge disadvantage. I believe that the judgment raises many more questions than it answers, and I will be writing to the Secretary of State to set that out.
As a woman, a lesbian, a feminist and a proud dyke, the Supreme Court judgment, for me, is a step backwards. The court should not be telling me what a lesbian is or is not or how I should identify. We need empathy in finding ways to support people and let everyone live their own lives. Of course, we need to protect single-sex spaces in the very limited situations that they are needed—which is, and was already, covered in legislation and has never been disputed—while maintaining clear protections for trans people, especially trans women.
To see an already marginalised community attacked even more and the use of the law to increase discrimination, not prevent it, is deeply upsetting. Those celebrating the impact the decision has on trans women—that of curtailing their protections—should not be surprised when the same people that funded and supported their attacks then push for rights to be rolled back for all women. Research from Just Like Us clearly highlights that young lesbians are more supportive of the trans community than any other part of the LGBTQIA+ community. They are most likely to know a trans person—92%—and to say that they are supportive or very supportive of trans people—96%.
Ms Polly Billington (East Thanet) (Lab)
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. In the light of what she is saying about young lesbians, I want to champion the work of Schools OUT, which is led and was founded by one of my constituents, Sue Sanders. The organisation educates people in school about the importance of LGBT diversity, challenges prejudice at exactly the important moment in young people’s lives when they will be exploring who they may want to be as they grow older, and increases the tolerance and respect that everybody deserves.
Kate Osborne
In this as in so many other ways, young people can often teach us a lesson or two. I am pleased that my hon. Friend referenced Sue Sanders, as I did in my speech last year, and all the great work she has done over the years with Schools OUT, and indeed across the whole of our movement.
Contrary to the narrative being heard at the moment, most heterosexual women agree with young lesbians. We need to be clear that lesbophobia, homophobia and transphobia are driven by attacks from a far-right, hateful minority. Feminism has to be intersectional, recognising that all women, including trans women, deserve the same rights, safety and respect.
I thank the Minister for giving up her time today, and for all her work. Having an out lesbian Minister responding to a debate on Lesbian Visibility Week is something that we can all be very proud of.
Dawn Butler (in the Chair)
I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate.
Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I congratulate my hon. Friend and sister the Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) on securing this debate. I am a proud trade unionist, a proud Black Country MP and a proud lesbian MP—out for 26 years and now out here in this place. I rise to add my voice and my visibility to the debate. I could talk about the advances made by Labour Governments or the advances we hope for from this Labour Government, but instead I want to talk about a subject very close to my heart, the subject of this year’s Lesbian Visibility Week: being a mama.
There have always been lesbian mums. So many of us feel the urge to parent and to mother, often—sometimes in the past, sometimes today—in the face of huge homophobia and abuse, as well as practical obstacles. Indeed, a Radio 4 documentary in December, “The Lesbian Mothers Scandal”, set out how homophobic judges removed children from their mums simply because they were lesbians and sometimes gave custody of the children to abusive fathers. These women, who are now in their 70s and 80s, deserve an apology for the actions of the courts and the family court system. I hope the Minister will look at giving it.
I say again what I said in my maiden speech a few months ago:
“I grew up in a world where people like me could not get married, but now our beloved daughter has both her mothers’ names on her birth certificate.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2024; Vol. 754, c. 194.]
One of the proudest achievements of our last Labour Government, but one that people sometimes do not speak of, was the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008. For the first time, it recognised lesbian parents with both our names on birth certificates, and it opened fertility treatment to us, as well as to single women. Sometimes I think it is missed off the list of achievements of the last Labour Government, because it was an achievement for women in particular.
Now that we have a Labour Government again, it is time to take the next step, for all the lesbians who would like to have a family, and make sure that we equalise fertility treatment on the NHS. It is so clear that lesbian women still face unequal barriers to accessing fertility treatment. They face an average cost of £25,000 before they become eligible for NHS treatment, because of the need to jump through the hurdles of self-funded IUI rounds—sometimes many rounds—before they qualify. My own integrated care board, the Black Country ICB, requires lesbian couples to undertake six cycles of self-funded IUI before they are eligible for IVF. That is in addition to the cost of donor sperm, which I know for sure is not cheap. In my area, just one cycle of IVF is funded, not three as per the NICE guidelines.
The financial impact of self-funding is huge. For many couples, the disappointment when one IVF round is not enough is completely avoidable. I would like to see revised NICE guidelines and a commitment that every area should meet those guidelines in full. After all, as well as being Lesbian Visibility Week, this week is Infertility Awareness Week. I send my solidarity to all the women and their partners who are trying to conceive—TTC, in the language of the message boards.
Rachel Taylor
I recently spoke to a constituent who wanted to have a baby with her partner. She was told by her ICB that because of her partner’s situation—her partner already had a child—she would not qualify for any rounds of IVF. I looked into it and found that to be the case in other ICBs too. This needs to be taken into account as people enter new relationships. That is so important for our community.
Antonia Bance
My hon. Friend and sister is absolutely correct. There are a load of stupid barriers that do not reflect modern families and how we form our relationships nowadays. People do form second partnerships, and people do have existing children. Frankly, when many people are delaying childbearing and when fertility problems are on the rise, although in many cases they are completely soluble with medical treatment that we know very well how to do, the fact that these barriers continue to exist is absolutely outrageous. Too many women are navigating a postcode lottery and unfair rules, piling costs on their credit cards—I know about that—and worrying about money when they should be concentrating on the medical process.
In this place, books for children depicting all sorts of families were once decried as depraved and were used as justification to deny that lesbian families existed, to silence us and to call our families pretend. No longer. Heather does have two mummies, and so do Sam, Sanjay, Jessie, Aaron, Lily, Albie, Clementine and so many more, because it is love that makes a family.
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) for securing this incredibly important debate and for her tireless work in advocating for the rights of lesbians and the entire LGBTQ+ community. I am very glad that she is in Parliament and that I have the privilege of working with her.
As an MP who is an out queer woman, I am also grateful for the foremothers who made living as my true self in the public eye possible, from the countless activists who fought for and won the rights that we all enjoy today to lesbian MPs such as Maureen Colquhoun, a campaigner for the abolition of women’s prisons, the liberalisation of abortion law and the decriminalisation of sex work who was deselected in a homophobic campaign, and of course my hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Dame Angela Eagle), a key architect of the Equality Act who I am privileged to call my friend.
Lesbian Visibility Week’s mission is to recognise and celebrate LGBT+ women and non-binary people. This year’s theme is rainbow families. Rainbow families have always existed and always will, but queer women and non-binary people both here and internationally face many barriers to having the families they want. In the UK, many people are shocked to learn that we still do not have equal access to IVF, despite the previous Government publishing a women’s health strategy in 2022 that promised to tackle the issue. Ninety per cent of integrated healthcare boards in England require LGBTQ+ couples to self-fund at least six cycles of artificial insemination before they are eligible for NHS IVF treatment. Lesbian couples should not be forced to pay for private treatment simply as a gateway to NHS care. That is why I am proud to back the IVF equality manifesto and the wider fertility justice campaign manifesto, which also campaigns for important changes to birth certificates.
It would be remiss of me to talk about family without emphasising the importance of chosen family in the LGBTQ+ community. Although there are many supportive parents and family members out there who should be celebrated, a common experience within our community is rejection, hostility and a lack of acceptance by those we are related to. That is why chosen family is so important. I want to be clear that just because someone does not share our DNA, it does not mean that they are any less our family. I am so grateful for the deep bonds that I have formed outside the traditional family unit, as well as within it. That is something I think many of us can benefit from, whether we are LGBTQ or not.
Visibility is something to celebrate. Every person should be able to live openly and freely, loving who they want, but sadly many lesbians still do not feel able to do so in certain contexts. Visibility sometimes comes at a price. Queer women are still the victims of hate crimes simply for being queer women, and rates are rising. Let us be clear that the overwhelming danger towards women, whether they are LGBTQ+ or not, comes from violent cis men. That is why I am deeply concerned about the impact of last week’s Supreme Court judgment and the way in which it is being interpreted.
Making it legal to exclude trans women from bathrooms and changing rooms is discriminatory. Forcing them to use men’s facilities would put them at greater risk of violence. It also sends a dangerous message, because it enables people who see themselves as the gender police to challenge people in bathrooms and harass them. Of course, trans women will above all be the victims of this behaviour and face being driven out of society, but other people will also be affected. Cis lesbians, women of colour, non-binary people, trans men, women with conditions such as polycystic ovary syndrome and anyone who is gender non-conforming—who does not conform to these Eurocentric and ever-narrowing standards of femininity and womanhood—are likely to become a target too.
Incredibly, anti-trans campaigners regularly use lesbians as a justification for their agenda—an agenda that, by the way, undermines all of our rights. They claim that they are standing up for lesbians who do not want to share their spaces with trans women, when polling shows that cis lesbians and bisexual women are more supportive of trans people than any other group. They claim that trans people are forcing young cis lesbians to become trans men. This is the same as what was said about gay people under Thatcher: that we were “converting” children. Today, thankfully, most of society accepts that that is absolute nonsense, and there are more young women than ever before identifying as lesbian and bisexual. We should be pleased that people feel able to be their true selves, but it also puts to bed the lie that young lesbians are being forced to become trans men.
Finally, it is important to remember that many of the rights that queer people have now are relatively recent. The last Labour Government is quite rightly often remembered as a time of progress for LGBTQ+ people, but just as rights can be won, they can be lost. This Labour Government risks being remembered as a period when things went backwards for our community. We have only been in government for less than a year. It is possible to turn the ship around, but we must recognise that actions such as the blanket ban on puberty blockers and barring trans women from women’s spaces are dangerous steps in the wrong direction. We must take action to remedy them.
Dawn Butler (in the Chair)
I call Liv Bailey. I am very mindful that we have a vote coming up shortly, so I may have to stop you mid-speech, Liv.
Olivia Bailey (Reading West and Mid Berkshire) (Lab)
No problem. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) for securing this debate: she is a fantastic champion of our community and I thank her for all that she does.
It is a wonderful privilege to speak in this debate today as a proud lesbian MP. I am an historian by trade and I particularly enjoy learning about the social history of our country and of the everyday people who organised, agitated and persisted to deliver the enormous social change that we have witnessed over the past few centuries, but it has always struck me that there was something not quite right about the books that I have pored over, which is that lesbians are completely missing. Women who we might now look back on and suggest may have been lesbians or LGBTQ+ are brushed past. There are pages of unwritten sentences and of unheard stories. In the words of the historian Rebecca Jennings, lesbian history
“has frequently been associated with silence, invisibility, and denial”.
Her excellent book “A Lesbian History of Britain” contains many examples that I will draw on today.
Throughout our history, lesbians have been forced to hide their love and their relationships out of fear, and it is no surprise that so few records exist. But I will admit to being somewhat surprised by the pains to which historians have gone to explain away what seems quite obvious. Two women in the late 1700s who eloped to Wales, shared a bed and addressed each other as “my beloved” in their correspondence were described by historians as having a “romantic friendship”, but not one that was intimate. I do not dispute the power of a friendship between women, but that seems a stretch.
The discovery of Anne Lister’s diaries in the 1980s, which were carefully written in an ancient Greek code, were a turning point. She had the courage to document her relationships with women. The discovery of her diaries shattered the historical conspiracy to erase us. When I think about the women throughout our history who might now be stood proudly with us as lesbians but who did not have the power that we do of rights, an identity and a community, I think the most important thing we can do is tell our stories and be proud of who we are. We must never underestimate the power of being seen.
The theme of Lesbian Visibility Week this year is rainbow families. It is fantastic to celebrate all the families with LGBTQ+ parents. I know from my own experience of adopting my children that there is absolutely nothing more precious than having the opportunity to be a mum. My boys are the best thing that will ever happen to me. Growing up, I could never have imagined the possibility of being a mum, but being a family that turns heads is not always easy. I should not have had to hurry my family away from aggressive shouting in the street. I should not have to monitor every turned head in the street to see whether I will be met with a smile or a frown. And it should not feel like I am staging my own small act of rebellion every time I hold hands with my wife at the school gate.
Ms Billington
In the context of my hon. Friend’s experience as a lesbian mother, will she consider the experience of lesbian mothers in their 70s and 80s, mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance)? Does she agree with me and my hon. Friend that there is an argument now for an apology to those mothers, who experienced not just shouting in the street but institutional attacks on their right to family life as a result not of the law, but of the prejudice of the courts?
Olivia Bailey
Absolutely, and I thank my hon. Friend very much for that intervention.
I am very proud to be an out lesbian MP, and I am prouder than words can describe of my family. With the privilege of the position that I have in this place, I will do my best to be seen to be myself, because that is the best way to honour those who have come before us and to ensure that, for those who come after, being a lesbian, being LGBTQ+ or being a rainbow family is finally non-remarkable. When the historians pen the books about our small window of time, it is not just that our whole lives will be documented but that it will be possible to read about them without a single sign of shame or controversy, because we deserve nothing less.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Butler. I congratulate the hon. Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) for securing this vital debate and for her excellent speech. It is wonderful to hear from so many sisters across the House. Lesbian visibility matters because representation brings understanding, and understanding brings change. I want to talk about the inequalities that lesbians still face, the value of community and safe spaces, and what we as legislators can do to ensure that lesbians are not just seen but heard, respected and supported.
But before I do, I want to take a moment to celebrate a woman who spent her life working for lesbian rights and visibility. I was delighted to learn that earlier this year, Studio Voltaire and the London LGBT+ Forums’ Network unveiled a rainbow plaque honouring the inspirational Jackie Forster outside her former London home. After her death, it was said that if she had served a cause other than lesbian rights, she would have been festooned with honours. She would have been called Dame Jackie Forster. So courageous was she that, in 1969, she came out by announcing to the world at Speakers’ Corner,
“You are looking at a roaring dyke”,
a name I often get called.
Jackie was daring and unapologetic, and we must ensure that her fortitude and her legacy continue. Jackie spearheaded the launch of the triumphant and bold 1970s lesbian magazine, Sappho, a publication that reached out to women suffering crippling isolation at a time when the pressure of heterosexual compliance was high. Sappho created a much needed safe forum that allowed women to realise that they were not freakish outcasts or mentally unwell; they were lesbians, and there were many other women like them.
Fifty years on, in 2023, University College London published a sobering study showing that LGB individuals are three times more likely to self-harm and twice as likely to experience suicidal thoughts compared with heterosexual people. Within that group, lesbians face specific and significant mental health challenges, ranging from increased rates of depression to internalised self-hate. These challenges are even more pronounced among those who have not felt able to disclose their sexual orientation. The mental health inequalities that lesbians face stem in large part from what has been called “minority stress”.
Sarah Dyke
As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by the Division bell, the mental health inequalities that lesbians face stem in large part from what has been called “minority stress”, which is the strain of navigating a world that too often marginalises or misunderstands them. Internalised stigma, fear of rejection and the emotional toll of either concealing or repeatedly disclosing one’s identity all contribute. But there is a powerful antidote: community, a sense of belonging, support from others who understand. That is why lesbian spaces matter.
Lesbian bars, clubs and social venues have long provided a sanctuary—a space to be oneself, free from judgment or hyper-sexualization, free from the male gaze or a society that does not always understand. Yet in many parts of the UK and across the west, lesbian venues are vanishing. The 1990s saw a surge of women-only spaces in London including First Out, the Candy Bar, Vespa, Glass Bar, Due South and Oak Bar, many of which I have frequented. Sadly, they had all closed by 2015. In Amsterdam, a city long seen as a beacon of LGBT+ inclusion, one of the last lesbian bars, Vivelavie, closed in 2017 after nearly four decades.
A recent survey of more than 500 lesbians showed that 96% were concerned about the loss of lesbian spaces and community groups. This must act as a wake-up call. We need better research into this decline and greater innovation in how we support and preserve lesbian-only spaces and communities, both physical and digital.
We must also address how media, particularly online pornography, contributes to the damaging stereotyping of lesbians. Lesbian porn is consistently among the most-searched categories on mainstream sites, yet the portrayals are not reflective of reality. Instead, they are often harmful and degrading, and they distort how lesbians are perceived by others, and worse still, by themselves. Increasingly, young same-sex attracted women are distancing themselves from the term “lesbian” due to its association with those harmful tropes. Our education system must respond. It is essential that we reform relationships and sex education not only to protect children from the harms of online pornography, but to challenge these stereotypes and promote positive and diverse lesbian role models, because every child deserves to see someone like them reflected in the world around them.
Internationally, we must not turn a blind eye. In many countries, same-sex attraction remains a criminal offence and, in some cases, lesbians face abhorrent violence. The 2008 brutal gang rape and murder of South African footballer Eudy Simelane shone a light on the horror of so-called “corrective rape”, a hate crime that is still reported around the world, especially in the global south. The UK must be a leader in global human rights, pushing for decriminalisation and protection for same-sex-attracted people around the world.
Lesbians also face different challenges when they begin to consider starting a family. All LGBTQ+ people deserve equitable access to the reproductive healthcare services they need, but inequalities persist and must be addressed urgently. Only three of the 42 ICBs in England give female same-sex couples access to fertility funding, while others give access to funding to women who have not conceived after two years of unprotected intercourse, or six to 12 self-funded rounds of artificial insemination. That is clearly discriminatory.
One cycle of IVF costs about £5,000 or more, so some women will need to find in excess of £30,000 to start a family. Some are so desperate to start their family that they are forced to seek alternative, often dangerous routes, where they put themselves physically, psychologically and legally at risk. As always, the costs of those risks far outweigh the costs of their fertility treatment. The Liberal Democrats will therefore push for an integrated care body to make this change a priority, to ensure that equitable access to IVF is available for all lesbian couples who are looking to start their own family.
Let me end on a note of hope. The British social attitudes survey shows our country has become significantly more open and accepting. In 1983, 17% of people believed that same-sex relationships were not wrong at all. In 2023, that figure stood at 67%. And those who say same-sex relationships are always wrong has plummeted from 50% to just 9%. Such progress matters. It helps to make people feel safer, more accepted and more empowered to live openly and authentically. Liberal Democrats believe in a freer, fairer and more compassionate society. That includes recognising and uplifting lesbian voices, protecting lesbian culture and ensuring that everybody, especially those who are most marginalised in our communities, feel safe, supported and seen.
Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I thank the hon. Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) for securing this debate and all Members for their important contributions. It is always a pleasure to speak on behalf of His Majesty’s loyal Opposition.
Today has been a real celebration of the role of lesbians in our society and the contribution we can all make, irrespective of who we are and who we love. That should be no different whoever we may be. I am very proud of our party’s action on civil partnerships and equal marriage. It is important to recognise that around 1.2% of women identify as lesbian. The hon. Member for Jarrow and Gateshead was with her uncle just last night in East Grinstead as we celebrated Rotary’s 39th birthday. We have different views on politics, but representation for all is something we very much agree on, so it is a pleasure to speak in this debate.
It is also a pleasure to speak opposite the Minister for Equalities, the hon. Member for Llanelli (Dame Nia Griffith), who has shared her sexuality openly for many years, and added real value to this House since 2016 while sharing her personal journey. What is so amazing about being in this House is that we can share our personal journeys, our friends and families, and that enriches our debates.
I want to celebrate some party colleagues of mine who made their contributions at the very top in Cabinet. Conservative Justine Greening became the first lesbian Cabinet Minister in 2016. As she memorably put it:
“I campaigned for Stronger In but sometimes you’re better off out!”
Movingly, she said afterwards:
“It really struck me in my constituency how many parents wrote to me saying: thank you because you made it easier for my child at school.”
As many others have said, having visible role models is vital. Many women today are visible role models, making it easier for people to discover their true selves, which is what this week is really about.
Wider society having come so far, it is astounding that my former colleague Margot James, who was the MP for Stourbridge, was not only the first out Conservative lesbian MP, but the first MP to be out before her election back in 2010. I am pleased to see many others across this House continuing to come forward and being proudly who they are.
It was in 2011 that the Scottish Conservatives elected the first openly gay or lesbian leader of a mainstream political party, the magnificent Ruth Davidson. As a proud Unionist, it is hard to overstate the debt owed to Ruth for keeping nationalism at bay and Scotland’s precious place in our Union. I notice that there are former colleagues in the room today who may feel differently, but being proudly who they are is surely something that unites. I am proud that we to continue to have the voice of Scotland in this place, for our party or otherwise.
Today in the shadow equalities team, we are ably supported by the first out peer, Baroness Stedman-Scott, whose contribution as a Minister in various Departments, not least to our shared work in the Department for Work and Pensions, was second to none. I apologise for continuing with the slightly backwards glance—I am conscious that I am very much on my own today as the only member of my party here—but I was proud, when part of Government, not only to work alongside the inspirational women I have mentioned, but to work with them on policy.
We see people who are out and proud, such as the author Jaqueline Wilson and the TV presenters Sue Perkins, Sandi Toksvig and the wonderful Clare Balding. It is brilliant for us to see out and proud lesbian women on our screens.
The hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington), who is not in her place, spoke about guidance and help for young girls. That is very much needed. I enjoyed her welcome contributions. The hon. Member for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (Olivia Bailey) spoke about the historic gaps, which was very powerful, and about the power of being seen and the challenge of being a visible lesbian mother. I thank her for sharing that today.
As we heard from the hon. Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East, the theme of this year’s Lesbian Visibility Week is rainbow families. As a single parent—a straight woman, but a single parent—who quite often feels that people judge the shape of my family, I understand that. Access to fertility care, a theme of this year’s Lesbian Visibility Day, was actively worked on under the Conservative Government through the women’s health strategy, which removed barriers and requirements to prove infertility before access to IVF treatment. The regulations announced by Maria Caulfield, the former MP for the Lewes area, which I now partially represent, and the Health Minister at the time, came into effect last November and scrapped various tests for reciprocal IVF that potentially added an additional £1,000 to the cost of the treatment course. That cost has been mentioned today.
As far as I can see, the women’s health strategy has been somewhat scrapped. Perhaps the Minister can confirm where the Labour Government are on that and assure the House that work is continuing in that area. That was touched on by the hon. Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome), who asked for clarity around the women’s health strategy. We agree on that, and I too look forward to the revised NICE guidance in that regard.
Removing barriers to IVF is important, but, as we have heard today, that is only one route for family formation. One in five adopted children are adopted by LGBT+ parents. When the necessary changes in the law were so recent, it is remarkable that we have come so far. Having a child in the right loving home can make an amazing contribution and difference, which is truly wonderful to see. I hope the Minister will use her good offices to push her Government on the women’s health strategy.
The modern iteration of Lesbian Visibility Week is quite new, as the hon. Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East said in opening the debate, having been founded in 2020. Given the, dare I say newly understood, ambiguities in the Equality Act and elsewhere, it was no surprise that last year’s debate got somewhat heated and entangled around biological sex, as we can probably remember. For many women, a lesbian—a same-sex attracted biological woman, of course—should not have her identity subsumed among other identities. I think all of us in the Chamber today can be very clear that we support others and how they identify, and that is perfectly valid. It is important not to allow this to continue to be toxic or hateful, and for any lesbian to feel that they need to identify in any other way.
Indeed, those points were made by organisations and submissions to the court ahead of this week’s landmark ruling; I am thinking particularly of the Scottish Lesbians and The Lesbian Project, which allows me to talk about the importance of Kate Harris and the LGB Alliance. She was greatly moved by having to defend the very definition of what a lesbian is in court, and I had the pleasure of chatting to her not that long ago at an event celebrating the Equality Act. It has been reported in the media recently that lesbian-only spaces have been forced underground or cancelled entirely for women who to stick to this view, which the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke) spoke about. Those places all sound marvellous, I must say.
This week we, the official Opposition, have roundly welcomed the Supreme Court’s ruling, which has given much-needed clarity on the Equality Act. It will rightly allow lesbian-only spaces where they are free from intimidation and threats of cancellation. That has been very evident today in this afternoon’s debate. We await guidance from the various bodies, directed by the Labour Government. Perhaps the Minister will say more about this, but hopefully, as the Minister for Women and Equalities has promised, that will be produced at pace. I hope it gives clarity on the law and in practice, which is exactly what the debate is about today. Our communities and our opportunities for lesbian women or any women must be fair, equal and safe. Women’s rights and freedoms cannot and must not be eroded, but celebrated and protected, particularly as we approach the 100th anniversary of universal suffrage.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Dame Nia Griffith)
It is an immense pleasure to see you in the Chair, Ms Butler. You have always been a fantastic ally of the lesbian community and the LGBT+ community. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow and Gateshead East (Kate Osborne) for organising us all to stay on a Thursday afternoon to debate this very important topic, and for the other events she has been instrumental in organising for Lesbian Visibility Week. She has an amazing track record. She never looks old enough—she might be mis-aged sometimes—to have been around to fight against clause 28. More recently, she has become known for her campaigning on equal access to help with fertility. She has reminded us again of our commitments to ensure that LGBT hate crime becomes an aggravated offence, and that we go forward with our ban on conversion practices.
To be seen, known and accepted for who we truly are is not just a privilege but a fundamental human need. Not so long ago, women who did not fit into the expectations of traditional family life were denied that need. To be a lesbian or bisexual woman was to face the choice between conformity and the risk of isolation, discrimination and violence. We were told we were not real women, and that it was just a phase, while simultaneously experiencing sexualisation by male-dominated media—and that was when we were seen at all. Even at the height of the homophobic panic of the ’80s and ’90s press, we were largely erased, with the focus on gay and bisexual men as the true threat. Our opponents often sought to erase or trivialise us, in spite of the tremendous solidarity that many lesbians showed to their GBT allies and friends.
I pay tribute to colleagues who have raised issues today. My hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) set out the cases of the women whose children were taken from them by court judgments, no doubt influenced by the prejudices of the time. I will certainly take back her request for an apology on that particular issue. She also highlighted the importance of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008, passed by the then Labour Government, in terms of lesbian recognition.
My hon. Friend the Member for Reading West and Mid Berkshire (Olivia Bailey) referred to the ladies of Llangollen—although I note that she carefully avoided saying Llangollen. The point is a serious one, which is that when we read through the history books, lesbians are invisible. That is why the idea of a visibility week is so powerful. My hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor) emphasised the discrimination that families can face. She referred to a second family being started, and the questioning and refusal of fertility treatment that then ensued.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham East (Nadia Whittome) made a very impassioned speech, really putting on the record how absolutely horrific, uncalled for and unjustified the prejudice we have seen against trans women is. She made it very clear that the violence that women, and indeed trans women, experience is 99.9% from cis men. My hon. Friend the Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) mentioned the importance of LGBT+ inclusive education in supporting students who want to question their identity, and in bringing a greater and broader understanding by everyone in society of all of us in society.
The Lib Dem spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke), spoke powerfully of Jackie Forster flying the flag for lesbians back in 1969—a time when that was very difficult. She reminded us that, 50 years on, the mental health challenges faced by lesbians are significantly greater than those faced by the population in general. The hon. Member referred to the horrors of the harmful and degrading portrayal of lesbians on the internet, as well as making the case again for greater equality and access to fertility treatments.
The Opposition spokeswomen, the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), spoke eloquently of her former colleagues, Justine Greening, Margot James, and Ruth Davidson, as well as her current colleague, Baroness Stedman-Scott. The hon. Member asked about the women’s health strategy, and I can assure her that we are continuing our work with NHS England and the women’s health ambassador to implement the strategy.
It is really important to remember those who did come before us, as many Members have done in this debate. For me, the late Member for Northampton North, Maureen Colquhoun, is an integral part of the story of lesbian women in this country and in this Parliament. Maureen was a woman ahead of her time. In 1973, while she was the Labour MP for Northampton North, she took the impossibly brave step of coming out of the closet. The scale of hatred, fear and ridicule that fell upon her is hard to imagine, and yet in 1974, she achieved re-election with a larger majority. However, the pervasive ignorance and discrimination that defined attitudes to homosexuality at the time could not be overcome. Her sexuality and her commitment to women’s rights saw her own constituency party deselect her, and she did not return to Parliament after the 1979 election. At a time when hostility was the norm and lesbian role models were almost non-existent, her refusal to be erased is nothing short of heroic, and I am proud to remember her in this debate.
Today, the visibility of lesbian and bisexual women is greater than ever. Whether it be singers, sports heroes or fictional couples, young women in our community have more visibility and role models than before. However, despite that progress, compared with the media exposure and visibility of gay and bisexual men, we still lag behind and we are still subject to clichés and ignorance. That is why it is so important that people like Linda Riley, founder of Lesbian Visibility Week, have sought to address the imbalance by providing a platform for lesbian women to celebrate their achievements and share their experiences. Linda has helped countless people to feel part of a community.
As we continue to work towards meaningful visibility and equality, it is also essential that we have legal clarity on the rights of women, including lesbian women, to single-sex spaces and services. Last week’s ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v. The Scottish Ministers confirms that the definition of woman in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex. I want to highlight the remarks made by the Minister for Women and Equalities, my right hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson), to provide reassurance following the ruling that trans people will also continue to be protected. The Government are clear: trans people deserve safety, opportunity and respect. There remain protections in place for trans people to live free from discrimination and harassment, and have their acquired gender recognised. Trans people will still be protected on the basis of gender reassignment, which is a protected characteristic.
Lesbian women have always stood in solidarity with gay men and trans people, from the frontlines of the HIV/AIDS epidemic to today’s shared struggles for equality. I strongly recommend and encourage that unwavering allyship at this time of uncertainty for many within the LGBT+ community.
Previous Labour Governments have driven forward equality, and this Labour Government are no different. We will reverse the backsliding and politics of division that we unfortunately saw under the previous Government, although I do not include the Front-Bench spokeswoman, the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield, in that comment. We will certainly push progress forward once more for the entire LGBT+ community.
Take conversion practices, for example. Recently I was privileged to visit Galop, which operates the Government-funded victim support service for people who have or are in danger of experiencing conversion practices. I heard the deeply troubling experiences of young people subjected to such abusive practices, and I was reminded of the very real attempts, not just to erase our community but to delegitimise our existence. The Government are clear: conversion practices are abuse. They don’t work, and they inflict deep and lasting harm on victims. The fact that such acts continue to occur in our society, which is largely accepting of LGBT+ people, demeans us all.
The previous Government failed to act. This Government will not. That is why we committed in the King’s Speech to publishing draft legislation to introduce a fully trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices. Of course, any ban must be carefully designed to ensure that it does not inadvertently criminalise legitimate psychological support, non-directive counselling, or support for those who are exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity. We are also working to strengthen legal protections for lesbians. That is why we are working with the Home Office to equalise all hate crime strands, ensuring that lesbians, and indeed the entire LGBT+ community, receive the same protections under the law as other groups targeted by hate.
Equality must mean more than just words. It must mean action to protect the most vulnerable in our community. We know that LGBT+ people are disproportionately affected by homelessness compared with their heterosexual peers. Some studies suggest that as many as one in five LGBT+ people have experienced homelessness at some point in their life, and women are particularly vulnerable to the difficult and often dangerous reality faced by those without a home. The Government are committed to tackling all forms of homelessness, including LGBT+ homelessness. That is why we will establish a dedicated inter-ministerial group, chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister, to bring together Ministers from across Government to develop a long-term strategy to end homelessness for good.
Although visibility has grown and some barriers have fallen, lesbians still face unacceptable disparities in health and wellbeing. According to the Government Equalities Office, lesbian women are more likely to report long-term mental health issues than their heterosexual peers, and many report avoiding healthcare altogether due to a fear of discrimination, or previous poor treatment. Lesbian women are also less likely to attend cervical screening appointments, in part due to outdated assumptions and dangerous misconceptions that they are not at risk. Too many lesbians still face invasive questioning and unequal treatment when engaging with the healthcare system. Health should not be determined by sexuality, and that is why the Government are committed to closing the health gap. We will work with public health bodies to ensure that lesbian women are no longer invisible in data or ignored in care.
The theme of this year’s Lesbian Visibility Week is rainbow families. The previous Labour Government introduced the Adoption and Children Act 2022 to allow same-sex couples to adopt for the first time. That momentous legislation has seen thousands of children find loving homes in which to grow up, and has afforded the joys and challenges of parenthood to many LGBT+ people.
I recently had the honour of being at the reception hosted by DIVA and the London Women’s Clinic for the launch of their latest in vitro fertilisation manifesto, and this week I participated in an event with Stonewall for the presentation of its family formation guide. For so many, parenthood is the most significant journey that they will ever embark on, yet too many lesbian and bisexual women’s journeys to motherhood are still complicated by ignorance and practical obstacles, including problems accessing NHS fertility treatment. Although we have made great strides in assisted reproductive technologies, including IVF and intrauterine insemination, we must now ensure equal access to those treatments by removing unnecessary obstacles and advocate for a health service that treats all users with respect and dignity.
Ensuring that LGBT+ people feel welcomed in the health service is a key pillar of what the Government stand for. For too long, LGBT+ women have been priced out of having a family through fertility treatment, and NHS provision has depended on the luxury of having a postcode in the right area. The Government are ambitious about addressing those inequalities as part of our new health mission and through our commitment to make the health service work for its users. Last year, the Government finalised legislation that removed the additional screening costs that same-sex couples face when undertaking shared motherhood, simply for being an LGBT+ couple. Removing unnecessary burdens such as excess fees is extremely important in paving the way for full IVF equality.
Furthermore, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is currently reviewing its fertility guidelines, which aim to reduce variations in practice and improve the way that fertility problems are managed. We expect that to be published towards the end of this year, and we encourage integrated care boards to improve their offer to fertility patients in anticipation of and after receiving the new guidelines.
Finally, I emphasise the Government’s commitment to equality beyond our borders. We are proud to defend LGBT+ rights worldwide. As members of the Equal Rights Coalition, we stand alongside those fighting for freedom in countries where being LGBT+ is still a crime. Our global LGBT+ rights programme is helping to improve political, social and economic empowerment by addressing outdated discriminatory laws, promoting protective legislation, enabling local civil society organisations and supporting the most vulnerable LGBT+ people in conflict and crisis areas.
We have come a long way from the days of Maureen Colquhoun’s lone voice. Today, one in 10 Members of this House of Commons identifies as LGBT+—more than any other Parliament in the world—and yet that progress is threatened by renewed attacks on the legitimacy of our lives and our rights, by the inequalities that lesbians still face, compared with their heterosexual peers, across physical and mental health, and by the lack of secure housing and protection from deeply traumatic conversion practices and hate crimes. In such times, we should look to the Maureen Colquhouns and Linda Rileys of this world for inspiration. When the world tried to hide and vilify us, they stood up, because for progress to be realised, we must not hide; we must not retreat. We must be seen and heard, and answer the politics of division with unity.
Dawn Butler (in the Chair)
It is nice to see so many Members turn up for the wind-ups.
Kate Osborne
I thank all who spoke here and ensured that they did so with respect and care. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tipton and Wednesbury (Antonia Bance) for sharing her proud lesbian mama status, and for her commitment to fight for equal access to IVF, and for highlighting the local impact of the postcode lottery in fertility treatment. I am sure we will continue to fight that together in this place. I do not have time to thank everybody as much as I would like to, but I would like to thank Opposition Members, especially the hon. Member for Glastonbury and Somerton (Sarah Dyke), for highlighting the legend and legacy of Jackie Forster and her contribution on global hate crime and the stress that our communities face. Somehow we have never bumped into each other in any of those bars that you mentioned; we must try harder to do that. The hon. Member is quite right: we need more lesbian bars and lesbian spaces.
I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), for her words. My uncle Frank and my dad will be absolutely delighted that she mentioned them today. He wants recognition for his 50 years as a councillor, and I hope that this goes some way to doing that. I agree that we will all be looking very closely at the NICE guidelines when they are brought forward. This debate has indeed been a lot less heated, which is to be welcomed, and I hope that continues, going forward, and that politicians of all stripes stop using our community as a political football. I thank the Minister for all the work that she has done and continues to do, for her kind words, and for her commitment to take away the many asks from this debate. Thank you, Ms Butler, for your expert chairmanship, I hope to be here in front of you in the future.
By our visibility and contributions today, we give hope and encouragement to lesbians who are not yet in a position to be out and proud, or who are at the start of their journey. Our hard-fought rights are under attack and we must defend them. I want to end by wishing all lesbians who work in this House, and all lesbians globally, a very happy Lesbian Visibility Week.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Lesbian Visibility Week.
EU Trading Relationship
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab) [R]
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the trading relationship with the EU.
I declare an interest as the chair of the UK Trade and Business Commission. I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, and to colleagues on both sides of the House who supported the application.
It has never been so timely to talk trade, but before we look forward, we need to look back at how we arrived here. It has been 4,744 days since Prime Minister David Cameron promised the country a referendum on our future relationship with the European Union: in his words, a
“simple in or out choice”.
Ever since, the UK’s relationship with the European Union has been anything but simple.
In the decade that followed Cameron’s speech, successive Conservative Governments did everything in their power to distance the UK from our largest trading partner. In 2020, the trade and co-operation agreement was signed with an ideological zeal to diverge as much as possible from the EU. Agreed by the Conservatives and cheered on by Reform, it is a choice that we are all paying for. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the barriers to trade that were put up by leaving the EU have set the UK economy on course to lose more than £100 billion over the medium term. The London School of Economics has found that the increased barriers to trade have left the average person paying £250 more every year on their food shop.
Repairing the UK’s trading relationship with the EU is all the more important given the dramatic change in the position of the United States. Our Government deserve praise for their calm and measured response to tariffs, but none of us can presume to know what the position of the White House will be in six days, let alone in six months. By contrast, it is certain that the EU will remain the UK’s largest trading partner. The EU accounts for 42% of UK exports and 52% of imports. That is our most essential trading partnership.
I welcome all that the Labour Government have done in our first nine months to begin to repair and reset that relationship. Ours was the first Chancellor to attend a Eurogroup meeting since Brexit, and the Prime Minister has been in lockstep with fellow European leaders in shared support of Ukraine. The leadership of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor has established the opportunity for a substantive change in UK-EU relations, but it is vital that we seize that opportunity. I want to see the most ambitious trading deal possible and will focus my remarks on three points: first, the importance of a deal that includes mutual recognition of conformity assessments; secondly, the case for deep alignment between the UK and EU on goods and services; and thirdly, a bespoke visa-based youth mobility deal.
One of the failings of the trade and co-operation agreement was the lack of a mutual recognition agreement on conformity assessments, which are used to determine whether a product meets a country’s regulations for goods and to ensure safety, performance and compliance with legislative requirements. Conformity markings include the UK conformity assessed mark and the EU’s CE mark. With a mutual recognition agreement, countries that recognise each other’s conformity assessment bodies and procedures avoid duplication of testing and certification for goods. Without such an agreement, products made in the UK and intended for the EU cannot be tested here, and vice versa. The EU has conformity assessment MRAs in place with countries including Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada. The UK has them with the USA, Switzerland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Last month, a coalition of 19 business groups, including the Confederation of British Industry, Make UK and techUK, called for a UK-EU mutual recognition agreement and said that it would support export-led growth, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises. I look forward to hearing the practical steps that the Minister is taking to help make that a reality.
My second point is about alignment with the EU on goods and services. When the Conservatives signed the TCA, the winners were the ideologues who advocated for the UK to become a version of Singapore-on-Thames. The losers were our businesses, especially those exporting goods. The last Government made an active choice to diverge from European Union regulations and standards. If we listen to business, it does not take long to see the impact. The British Chambers of Commerce surveyed its members on how they had been affected by the TCA: they listed challenges for business from red tape, bureaucracy, paperwork and delays in goods flowing through customs. Recently, the Chartered Institute of Export and International Trade has found that that has caused a staggering 2 billion extra pieces of paperwork for businesses since we left the EU.
Part of the answer must now come from closer alignment on goods and services once again. Earlier this year, Best for Britain commissioned Frontier Economics to model a scenario with
“an expansive approach to mutual recognition, in which the UK and the EU take active steps to minimise regulatory divergence and commit to recognising the equivalence of each other’s regulations.”
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
At my recent business roundtable in Monmouthshire, I spoke to Tri-Wall, a business that exports to the EU. Instead of sending one lorryload of its goods to different countries all across the EU, it now has to send a different lorry to every country, which really increases its costs. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need closer alignment to avoid that kind of problem?
Andrew Lewin
I agree entirely. I have heard far too many stories exactly like that in communities across the country.
Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is making a very good point. I have given up days of my life to helping to free up fish exporters from Shetland from red tape, but the truth is that although we have put friction into those exports, the standards are still broadly the same. It would not be that difficult, at this point in history, to get the necessary alignment, especially through a sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, for example. We are looking at a market that is important to us and in which we have similar standards—unlike across the Atlantic, where there are very different standards for food products.
Andrew Lewin
I defer to the right hon. Member’s expertise on the fishing sector, but he is absolutely right about the need for an SPS deal. I am proud that that was in the Labour manifesto on which I was elected and that we are actively seeking to pursue it.
According to the important work commissioned by Best for Britain, if we get a deep alignment, the modelled impact is a boost in UK GDP of 1% to 1.5%. If in parallel we pursue deep alignment in the services sector, the combined benefit could be more than 2% of UK GDP. To put that in context, every 1% of UK GDP is worth approximately £26 billion, so the potential prize is a £50 billion boost to the economy.
Finally, on youth mobility, hon. Members may have seen that 70 Labour parliamentarians put their names to a letter yesterday calling for a new, bespoke youth visa scheme for UK and EU citizens under 30. As with all the UK’s existing schemes, we believe that it should be time-limited and subject to a cap on numbers, but a bespoke scheme would extend new cultural, educational and economic opportunities to young people in the UK and the European Union.
Josh Dean (Hertford and Stortford) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. I declare an interest as a UK citizen under 30. Does he agree that the upcoming EU-UK summit on 19 May provides an ideal opportunity for the Government to look at proposals such as a youth mobility scheme, which would surely provide a better opportunity for young people in the United Kingdom to explore, learn and find opportunities across borders?
Andrew Lewin
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend and remain jealous of both his wisdom and his youth.
For a clear majority of people in this country, extending opportunities for young people matters. It is a move that will unlock further opportunities for trade and co-operation and will strengthen our bonds with the European Union in future. It is also vital to underline why it is materially different from freedom of movement. Under a visa scheme, people will have to apply in advance, numbers can and will be monitored, and any deal will follow a similar shape to the ones that this country already has in place with countries such as Australia, Canada and even Uruguay.
After so much damage done by the Conservatives, the Government deserve huge credit for all that they have done to repair relations with the European Union. It is our largest and most important trading relationship and so much is at stake. I hope that we can be as ambitious as possible for the reset. I look forward to hearing from colleagues and from the Minister.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
Order. It will not have escaped anybody’s notice that this is a popular debate, so I remind all Members to continue to stand if they want to be called. The debate can run no later than 4.55 pm, which gives you about two and a half minutes each. I ask you to exercise some discipline, and we will get in as many Members as we can.
Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. It is good to see how popular this debate is with colleagues. I congratulate the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on securing it.
Leaving the EU has been devastating for our economy. A hard Tory Brexit, which unfortunately this Government have embraced, continues to be devastating for the economy. The economic impact, particularly for SMEs, is something that they continue to live with from day to day, and so is the impact of the withdrawal of freedom of movement on our food and drink industry, care services and the NHS. In fairness, Scottish Labour, of which the Minister is a member, has embraced the issue by talking about decentralising and a potential migration system for Scotland; I hope that the Minister will be able to support my Bill on that subject tomorrow. We have also seen an impact on security. Every other country in western Europe considers the EU and NATO twin pillars of their security in the aftermath of Russia’s aggression.
More than that, as the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield says, there has been an impact on all our rights, and particularly those of young people. This political generation is leaving behind fewer rights than we enjoyed ourselves. My sympathies go to the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean), who is under 30, because he enjoys fewer rights than the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield and I did.
The hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield talks about a cap. A cap on whom? Which young people do not get the opportunities that he himself had and that the Minister had? We should all feel deeply ashamed and deeply uncomfortable.
It does not have to be like this. As The Economist has said, we could rejoin the customs union, giving the Exchequer an immediate boost very rapidly. We could rejoin the single market. Even pursuing the trade deal promised by the Conservatives—there are precious few of them here today to defend their deal—would see 0.4%, after a 4% hit to the economy.
Today, Labour MP after Labour MP is going to stand up and tell us how awful the Brexit deal is. We have been through it before. Are they actually going to do anything about it? Are their Government going to do anything about it? This is the biggest crisis—the biggest disaster—to hit the UK, economically, socially and rights-wise. Instead of doing anything, they have stuck the architect of this deal, Lord Gove, into the House of Lords. Can we please see some action?
Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on securing this debate, on his superb speech and on the impact that he has made in this House.
We are all history’s witnesses to a radical reshaping of the western alliance. Yesterday, the United States Treasury Secretary said:
“‘America First’ does not mean America alone.”
But if we look beyond the rhetoric to the reality, it is very clear that what Churchill called the sinews of peace are now under tremendous strain. America is now exiting the multilateral alliances that it created under Presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower between 1944 and 1960. What some have called Amexit must now force us to rethink Brexit. We have to look again at resetting our alliance with our closest neighbour.
I draw the House’s attention to the draft Green Paper that we think the Government should have published: the report published by the Business and Trade Committee on 4 April, which sets out 20 ways in which we think we can reset our relationship with our closest neighbour, spanning defence, regulation, energy co-operation, services and innovation. There are 20 measures across that space that could give us as big an economic boost as is needed to offset the cut from tariffs. They include an EU-UK defence pact, a shared industrial policy, a joint plan to defend critical national infrastructure and deeper co-operation to defend ourselves against economic threats; an ambitious sanitary and phytosanitary agreement, the mutual recognition of customs schemes and of conformity assessments, streamlining customs declarations at the border, enhancing co-operation at our ports and rejoining the pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention; and making sure that we have long-term regulatory road maps to maximise the alignment between sectors in our economy and in the EU. We found that there is widespread support for that across the business community in the UK, and in the European Union too.
The fourth big area is energy, which is one of the biggest opportunities for deeper co-operation between the UK and the EU. We need to avoid the cliff edge that may come when the carbon border adjustment mechanism is introduced in this country and Europe. We should join together to create a single CBAM. We should be linking our emissions trading schemes and reconnecting our electricity markets because that will ultimately help to drive down electricity costs in this country.
In the fifth area—services and innovation—it is clear that we have to secure a new data adequacy agreement. We have to advance co-operation in financial services and research, including by restoring mutual recognition of qualifications with a new road map that might actually make some progress. We have to strike a fair deal for our touring artists, and I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend about the need for a visa-based, time-limited and number-capped scheme for youth mobility—that is also in our mutual interest.
What surprised us most is that it was not difficult to find 20 different measures across those five areas of co-operation where we can deepen our future relationship. That reset is now imperative if we are to reset the UK’s power in the world and, crucially, deliver prosperity for the people we came here to serve.
Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy, and I thank the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing this important debate ahead of the UK-EU summit next month. The summit comes in the throes of alarming uncertainty created by President Trump’s dangerous, chaotic and authoritarian approach to trade and international relations. The Trump turmoil makes building close relationships with our EU neighbours even more urgent. We need to fix those relationships because the UK’s withdrawal from the EU has caused profound damage to our relationship with our nearest and biggest trading partner. I will not repeat the stats that Members have already highlighted, but I want to highlight that smaller firms are seeing the biggest fall in trade. I know that Brexit has caused major problems for independent local businesses in my Bristol Central constituency.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
The hon. Member is making an extremely powerful speech. On SMEs, does she recognise that the defence industry in Bristol suffers from the inability to receive adequate funding from across Europe, and that a defence, security and industrial bank underwritten by the UK, alongside its European partners, would be able to unlock the investment that Bristolian businesses vitally need?
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
Order. Ideally, the hon. Gentleman would not sit there because there is no microphone and we are not picking him up. I am sure the hon. Lady heard him and can respond.
Carla Denyer
Thank you, Sir Jeremy. The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) spoke about defence industry businesses that are largely outside my constituency, so I am not familiar with the details, but it is an interesting point.
We need a bold and positive plan to get closer to the EU, rather than capitulation to an untrustworthy US President on vital trading standards and regulations. So far, the Government’s reset of the UK-EU relationship has had some good points, such as some useful moves on reducing border checks on agrifoods, mutual recognition of qualifications and addressing problems facing touring artists, but we must go further. In particular, there is huge mutual benefit to be gained from greater climate and energy co-operation to ensure improved energy security and the delivery of net zero at a lower cost, so I hope the Minister can assure us that that will be a central part of the UK-EU reset and the upcoming summit.
The UK has been falling sharply behind EU chemical safety laws post Brexit, which is a point of particular concern. As well as supporting closer trade ties with the EU, alignment with EU chemical safety protections would be beneficial for the UK by minimising costs to industry, as well as maintaining high environmental, worker and public health and safety standards. Ministers will be aware that the Trades Union Congress, representing millions of workers across the UK, has recently said that a closer trading relationship with the EU is “more important than ever” in an increasingly fraught and volatile world, and I agree.
The Green party is clear that the UK would be better off inside the EU. Like many others, we were frankly astonished to hear the now Prime Minister say, just days before the general election, that the UK would not rejoin the EU—not only during his premiership but in his entire lifetime. I think that was a remarkable thing to say.
Recognising that the UK will not rejoin the EU imminently, the Greens and I still feel that it would be wise for the UK to rebuild trust and links, and to break down those barriers with a view to rejoining the EU when the domestic and international situation makes that more viable. In the meantime, joining the customs union as a first step towards full EU membership would be vital, and a way of resolving many of the worst problems resulting from Brexit, not least the harm done to our trading relationship with the EU.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
I reassure hon. Members that the clock is not correct—the hon. Lady was not talking for seven minutes.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
This is an important and timely debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing it.
Some will query why we need to have this debate in the first place. They should not. It has been nearly a decade since the European Union referendum and nothing looks the same after a decade—I can assure hon. Members of that. That is particularly the case for our country, and indeed for the world. I think the British people know that.
The political system has changed beyond all recognition. My politics have always been personal, and that is especially true for this subject. The question of whether to remain or leave split my family, just as it split so many others, particularly in my constituency. I would speak with my father every night. We would put the world to rights and talk about his issues and how politics often failed to meet them. He is no longer with us, so I cannot have those conversations any more. I must say, I would have loved to have known what he thought about this particular debate—because he backed Brexit.
As an immigrant son of the 1950s, he had seen the wreckage of war and appreciated an economic union that sustained peace. As a disabled man of the 2010s who lived the pain of poverty, he rejected a political sentiment that scarcely listened. He voted for Brexit not as an ideologue, but as a pragmatist. He asked, “What will make my hard life better?”—and for him, Brexit was the answer.
Now, when I call for closer UK-EU relations, I do so as my father’s son, not as an ideologue but as a pragmatist. Because when we ask that same question—“What will make life better?”—the answer is not this painful, exhausting Brexit deal. Instead, it is closer economic ties with our nearest neighbour and biggest trading partner.
To be clear, I do not criticise anybody who voted to leave, because I cannot criticise my father. I respect the choice and the reasons behind it, but as the MP for Bournemouth East, I cannot serve my constituents without doing all I can to make their lives better. We have to be frank: Brexit has led to our GDP growing 4% to 8% less than it would have between 2016 and 2024. We have seen a significant loss of job opportunities, and smaller firms are suffering the most.
We also know that closer ties with the European Union and its members can improve our prosperity at a time when we need it more than ever. Of course, we should assert our rights as an independent trading nation, rather than cowering in the corner, unhappy about having that independence. However, with that independence we must do what is right by our national interest. With Trump’s tariffs and a Chinese regime that is hard to trust, I believe that means a pragmatic approach to Europe. We should have a youth mobility scheme for work, study and travel that is balanced, time-limited and capped. We should have regulatory alignment to make aspects of trade easier, and we should have more aerospace collaboration. And we should ensure that UK firms and citizens can travel and work in Europe for longer, deepen security co-operation, and cut red tape.
In conclusion, this Government will not meet any of their goals—whether it is growing opportunities, achieving secure clean energy, ensuring opportunities for all or delivering safer streets—without closer economic ties with Europe. We are here to do the right thing for our constituents and to exercise our sovereignty, democracy and independence as a country. We believe that growth is the route to prosperity, and if trade is the route to growth, we have no other option but to have closer ties with Europe.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for setting the scene so well.
I supported Brexit and voted for it, but unfortunately we in Northern Ireland did not get the Brexit that we voted for and that the rest of the United Kingdom got. We are stuck in the middle with no tangible benefit. We do not know whether my local firm, which has a large number of employees and ships its produce to the US, will be hit with untenable tariffs, as some of its products are sourced in the neighbouring Republic of Ireland. We do not know whether it can avail itself of the much friendlier UK tariff or whether EU retaliatory tariffs will be the death knell of its business. The sad thing is that this affects not just one business but a huge number throughout my constituency.
As we know, all businesses have an element of uncertainty, but the strain on exporters in Strangford is considerable. Any discussion of the trading relationship with the EU must note the difficult position that Northern Ireland is in until the EU ceases its death grip on the UK—the grip currently feels like a noose on the neck of Northern Ireland.
It has been said that the duty reimbursement scheme will be used to mitigate any effect on Northern Ireland, but the reality is that this scheme is time-consuming, and the delay in cash flow may not be sustainable for many traders. It is my firm opinion that any trade deal with the EU can only come with an end to the death grip of the Northern Ireland protocol, with an end to the red lane, with access to state aid and with a return to the UK-wide economy. That is what we need instead of being half in, half out, with duty paid and no representation given.
We have businesses in Northern Ireland that say they cannot continue to trade without sensible governance. I always try to be respectful to the Minister—it is the way I do things—and he will have his opinion, but he will have to go back to the Cabinet and ask the questions that need to be asked. Where is Northern Ireland situated in any enhanced trade with the EU? Will we be set to one side as an aggravating inconvenience? I believe that our Government must bring us back to a seat at the UK table once again.
Enhanced trade with the EU could be beneficial if it does not go against the Brexit decision, but the strangling of Northern Ireland must end. This House has a choice to make once again. I hope that this time the choice is made for the benefit of the entire United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. This debate comes at a critical time, given the upcoming UK-EU summit. This summer we are at the pinch point of the trade triangle, with the trade strategy, the small business strategy and the industrial strategy coming forward to give British businesses certainty. In my limited time, I will focus on the impact to my constituency and the logistics sector and share my personal experience in the construction industry.
One in five people in Northampton South work in the logistics sector, which is a linchpin of my local economy. I spend a lot of time going to warehouses and distribution centres to hear from small and large businesses about the challenges they face. The No. 1 issue that comes up is friction with the EU—the red tape and the uncertainty about licensing agreements. It is all of the issues that have been created by the botched deal that the Conservatives put forward. Businesses cannot see how we can fix things in the short term without a hard reset of our trading relationship with the EU.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
We have 20,000 people employed by the logistics sector in North West Leicestershire, in part because we have the second largest freight airport in the UK, with East Midlands airport being key to international trade. Does my hon. Friend agree that for constituents like ours, logistics needs effective trading relationships with the EU? The sector is key not only to our local economies but to long-term growth.
Mike Reader
My hon. Friend makes a fantastic point. A big thing that businesses make clear to me is that we have to approach this with humility. We also have to recognise the impact that Brexit has had on European businesses and the cost they face in trading with the UK. This is not a one-way issue; it impacts both ways, and it is a real problem that firms are facing. The border target operating model is a real issue, particularly for businesses importing agriculture and plants. I have a large food manufacturer in my constituency, and the No. 1 issue it raised with me is getting stuff in and out of the EU, which is a real challenge.
Turning to my personal experience, I worked in the construction sector all my life, and I was very fortunate to work on a number of projects across the EU, including the Ellinikon regeneration in Greece, major airports in Poland and the Dublin metro in Ireland. One of the challenges we had was mutual recognition of professional services. Professional services are one of the eight verticals in the industrial strategy.
The ability to export our professional services globally is a real benefit to the UK, but the lack of a mutual recognition agreement between the UK and the EU is hampering our ability to take Britain’s great expertise and skills into Europe. Architecture is a great example—the Conservatives tried to match up architecture through the trade and co-operation agreement, but it was not achievable. UK architects are unable to work in the EU on a fair and equal playing field with EU architects. It is a crazy situation.
As we go towards the UK summit, I hope the Government are considering how those negotiations can help to bolster the industrial strategy. Its eight core vertical sectors, including manufacturing, clean energy and professional services, need a robust and clear trading agreement with the EU. There is clear consensus in the room on having a very hard reset of that relationship, to make it easier for all our businesses. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing this debate.
Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing today’s debate. Recent times have shown how important reliable friends are. To our west, a United States under Trump has shown a reckless willingness to sacrifice prosperity across the globe and use bullying tactics to secure a trade deal that may well damage British interests. This could see a weakening of high British food standards, which would be to the detriment of our health, our farmers, our farm animals and, most importantly, our tastebuds and morals.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
The previous Conservative Government’s botched deal with Europe has strangled trade and investment in British farming. Rural communities and farmers in Glastonbury and Somerton have been badly let down. Does my hon. Friend agree that we should put the UK into a position of strength by forming a new and bespoke customs union with the EU that will unleash the potential of British farming in the UK?
Brian Mathew
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and I am heartily in agreement. I have visited many farms across Melksham and Devizes, and it is clear that British farmers work incredibly hard to ensure that our food is high quality and produced to high welfare standards. We do not want British farmers or British consumers to be confronted with US chlorinated chicken or US hormone-treated beef in our supermarkets. Instead, we should look to trade with our partners who respect our standards and can provide a stable foundation on which to grow the UK economy. The European Union provides that, from logistics to standards. Trade with the European Union makes sense, which is why we must look to improve our relations with the world’s largest trading bloc. I echo the calls of my colleagues for the Government to urgently work towards a new customs union by 2030.
From cheese to cask ale, there are a number of companies producing great British products in Melksham and Devizes. A positive export market with our closest neighbours is vital to allow such companies the opportunity to grow and expand into an international market. Today I spoke with Darren Larvin, managing director of local cheese manufacturer Coombe Castle International. He told me that his company exports right across Europe to the Netherlands, Lithuania, Spain, France and Germany. His company has won four Queen’s awards and one King’s award for export. The experience of Brexit has not put his company off exporting to Europe, but it has made it harder and has cut margins. Prior to 2016, Darren told me, it was as easy for him to send his company’s produce to Germany as it was to Manchester. It is surely time for us, as a country, to wake up and smell the very good European coffee and rebuild our relationship with the EU.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I, too, thank my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing this debate, in which he has spoken with passion and insight. I know that his constituents, and indeed many people across the country, care deeply about our future relationship with the European Union.
In South Norfolk, this relationship is not abstract but tangible. It is in the labs of the Quadram Institute, the Sainsbury Laboratory, the Earlham Institute and the John Innes Centre—the world-leading institutions that make up Norwich Research Park and whose discoveries in genomics, health and crop science are shaping the future. Innovation does not happen in isolation, and a more pragmatic relationship with the EU would allow those centres to collaborate more freely, access essential data and funding streams, and unlock discoveries that could change our lives for the better.
In Hethel, Lotus Cars is preparing for the next generation of electric vehicles. An opportunity is opening up, with European consumers losing faith in Tesla; with fewer trade barriers, Lotus can step into that gap and become a leader in the EV market across the continent.
Our farmers, too, are watching closely. South Norfolk grows and rears some of the best British produce. With a market worth $2 trillion lying just over the channel, we should be exporting more of our food, not less. A sanitary and phytosanitary agreement—sensible, simple alignment—would remove unnecessary barriers and allow our horticulture sectors to flourish, too.
Jobs, investment, international strength and, most importantly, economic growth in Norfolk and across the UK—that is what a closer pragmatic relationship with the EU can deliver. Let me say this, Sir Jeremy: people in Norfolk are not led by ideology. We are a practical bunch. If something works, great. If it does not—let’s fix it. This debate is not about going off at an ideological angle; it is about putting Britain first, taking control of our future once more and refusing to let the greatest nation on the planet be relegated to the status of a secondary power on the world stage.
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for keeping to below two and a half minutes. However, not everybody has, so I am afraid we are going to have to go to sub two and a half minutes each if we are to get everybody in. I am loath to impose a formal time limit, so I ask colleagues to be as disciplined as they can.
Clive Jones (Wokingham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I commend the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for his evidence-based opening remarks.
The Conservatives’ botched deal has been a disaster for Britain’s trade and our economic growth, and the majority now believe that it was a massive mistake by the Conservatives. Trade deals should be designed to streamline processes and reduce barriers, but the previous Government somehow managed to negotiate agreements that only added mountains of red tape for businesses. Since Brexit, 2 billion pieces of paperwork have been added to UK exporters—enough paper to come from 250,000 trees or go around the world nearly 15 times. This mountain of unnecessary bureaucracy holds back businesses from reaching new markets, hiring more workers here in the UK and contributing to our economy through taxes. The Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that our economy will be 4% smaller in the long run; since 2019, UK goods exports have grown by a mere 0.3% a year—far below the OECD average of 4.2%. Let us not forget the 20,000 small businesses that have simply stopped exporting to the EU because of the Conservatives’ red tape suffocating that part of their business.
We need closer alignment with the European Union. We need to work with our closest partners to boost our economy and create meaningful change. It will mean more public funds to pay for the services that nobody thinks are working any more, with new hospitals, more GP appointments, roads fixed and schools built.
Trump’s tariffs will hit our businesses in so many areas, particularly the automotive business. Will the Minister give us an update on the trade deal negotiations with the US and confirm that his Government, unlike the Conservatives, will act only in the national interest, and that we will not be bullied by Trump and Vance?
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. Before I begin, I declare an interest as the secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on Germany. It is our country’s relationship with Germany—seen through the prism of the UK-EU relationship—that I will refer to today.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing a debate that is both important and timely, and hope that colleagues will join me in celebrating the 50th anniversary of Bolton being twinned with Paderborn in Germany, which occurred last week. That twinning is a symbol of the deep civic relationship between my constituency and our European neighbours. It is a partnership that transcends political developments and is testament to our inescapable geography as a nation in Europe and as a large trading partner with the continent.
Our best course of action must be to protect ourselves from the erratic and unpredictable global headwinds of Donald Trump’s America and Xi Jinping’s China. That must mean strengthening our trading relationship with our nearest and largest economic partner, the European Union, and the 27 countries that make up that bloc of 450 million people. Analysis from Frontier Economics has suggested that deeper alignment between the UK and the EU on goods and services could offset the impact of tariffs on the UK, and even help our economy grow by 1.5%. In 2023 the EU still accounted for 42% of the UK’s total exports and 52% of our imports. Let me repeat that: over half of our imports, seven years after the referendum result. Europe remains the bedrock of British trade. Yet, can we really say that we are currently taking full advantage of having such a huge market for British goods on our doorstep? Many British regions can have productive relationships with European partners. Look at Siemens, a major German engineering firm which has invested heavily in Greater Manchester’s advanced manufacturing sector.
Instead of resigning from the challenge ahead and relitigating debates from a decade ago, we should be breaking down barriers that are causing friction and stunting growth. But we must go further than focusing purely on the economics. I benefited immensely from my own lived experience as an Erasmus exchange student at the University of Hannover in Germany. That is why I firmly believe in a bright future for Britain as a nation that must grasp the opportunity on youth mobility with Europe. It is time to back British businesses, back British workers and back Britain’s rightful place as a key European nation.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. More and more people across the UK now recognise—even my dad, I suspect, like that of the hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes)—that leaving the EU has come at the cost of making us all poorer.
My constituent, Alistair, rightly points out:
“There has never been a comprehensive, independent and trusted review of the full costs of Brexit”—
but if there were, I suspect the findings would be deeply sobering. In an increasingly unstable global landscape shaped by shifting US politics and rising tariffs, it is more important than ever that we secure strong, stable trading links with Europe. A recent YouGov poll of over 15,000 people showed that nearly half want trade with the EU as a top priority, compared with just 22% who prioritise America.
One area that deserves urgent focus is defence, and I declare an interest as a proud member of the all-party parliamentary group for the armed forces and a member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme. We cannot ignore the growing pressure to spend more on defence, especially as the US steps away from NATO. But if we are going to invest more, let us do so by working with trusted European partners, not by handing more contracts to US defence giants. We must ensure that spending supports British jobs and industries, and that we make it easier for the EU to invest in our market-leading UK businesses like those based in my constituency, such as Atlas Elektronik, and those across Dorset, such as BattleLab.
Another area is the veterinary agreement. That gap in policy is having a serious impact on UK farmers, already reeling from the consequences of the Conservatives’ botched trade deal and this Government’s damaging and shortsighted budget changes. Without proper arrangements for animal health and streamlined border checks, exports have dropped. Yet research from Aston University shows that a veterinary agreement with the EU could boost exports by at least 22.5%. That is confirmed by major retailers including Sainsbury’s, Lidl and Marks & Spencer, who have called for a veterinary deal, writing in the Financial Times that red tape is driving up the costs of food and drink. We have heard Ministers express support, but no progress. That must change. It is time to rebuild our relationship with the EU. Let us put forward a modern trade deal that strengthens co-operation on defence, food, farming and a much-needed youth mobility scheme and brings us into a customs union—even if, for political reasons, it needs to have another name. We owe it to our businesses, farmers and young people and the future of the UK. Let us be honest about what has gone wrong and start putting it right.
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin).
The post-Brexit trade deals delivered by the previous Conservative Government have just been appalling. They have not worked well for Wales. We have been flooded with New Zealand lamb—and, as we all know in this room, Welsh lamb is of course the best-tasting lamb in the world. I congratulate the Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds), on his continued work on an SPS deal. We desperately need that for our hard-pressed farmers and for the businesses in my constituency of Monmouthshire.
I recently had a business roundtable with businesses such as TXO, Siltbuster, GreenMeadow and others. They said to me that they are drowning—of the 2 billion pieces of paper that were mentioned earlier, the businesses in my constituency must have 1 billion of them. They are drowning in paperwork, and it is slowing them down. To be honest, after I met with them, during my two-hour business roundtable, I was astonished and amazed that they had all stayed in Monmouthshire, employing local people, while continuing to face such a barrage of barriers and administration.
The No.1 thing that those businesses need is for us to remove some of those trade barriers. In order to smooth their trade, we need to keep our standards the same as those in the EU. That was the No.1 priority of all those businesses, and I congratulate all those who signed the letter saying that. We must have regulatory alignment if we are to grow. We must remember that this Government’s No.1 mission is economic growth. If we align with EU standards and continue to grow our trade with the EU, that is exactly what we will get.
I am delighted to be a member of the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly and to have gone to Brussels recently. We were welcomed with open arms by our MEP colleagues, because they said they felt that the grown-ups were back in the room; they were delighted with the leadership of the Prime Minister bringing us closer to Europe. I encourage the Government to continue to do that work.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on his work in securing this debate. We have seen over the past few months the extent to which the current US Administration is no longer a reliable ally. We can see the extraordinary damage being caused by the implementation of Trump’s tariffs on trading relationships around the world. With the increasingly unpredictable and aggressive signals coming from across the Atlantic, this must be the moment to stand firmly with our European neighbours for our national security and economic stability, as well as to strengthen our trading relationships.
The UK-EU summit next month in London, hosted by the Prime Minister, will be an opportunity that must be seized for us to move on from the warm words of pragmatism that we have heard from the Government, but which are no longer good enough. We must move faster, and the Government must commit to serious action to rebuild our relationship with Europe.
While we know that the long-term wellbeing of the UK means being back in the heart of Europe, that requires strengthened trading agreements and a customs union. Closer ties with Europe are also key to our national security. We are glad that there are serious indications that the Government will commit to a defence agreement with Europe, but that must be just the beginning.
There are broader partnerships with our European neighbours, which the Liberal Democrats will continue to call for, that will be advantageous to British businesses. We know that a youth mobility deal would be good for our economy, especially our tourism and hospitality sectors, while providing young British people with the opportunity to work and study abroad. That is exactly the kind of pragmatic step that we hope the Government will take at the upcoming summit.
Having spent the last five years grappling with the bureaucracy of Brexit and with increased trading costs, many business owners across the country will now be deeply concerned by the additional challenges to businesses coming from Washington. The returning Trump Administration has fundamentally changed trading relations globally, which has created an obvious moment for us to take action to establish closer trading relationships with our European neighbours.
The EU is our closest neighbour and our largest trading partner, but the botched Brexit deal has been a complete disaster for this country, especially for small businesses, which are held back by reams of red tape and new barriers to trade, costing our economy billions in lost exports. I urge the Government to acknowledge the damage that the Conservatives’ Brexit regulation has done and continues to do to not just to individual businesses but to the economy as a whole, and to take the sensible step of negotiating a new UK-EU customs union to ease the pressure that so many businesses are under.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing this debate, and all the Ministers who are working flat out on the European reset.
As others have said, the instability and conflict on European soil has changed the context in our continent, but the context has also changed globally, with long-held assumptions about globalisation, trade and economic certainty breaking down rapidly. The case for strong partnerships with like-minded countries based on free and frictionless trade, shared values and political trust has never been clearer, as the Chancellor set out in Washington this week.
I was elected last July to be the MP for Kensington and Bayswater, the most international constituency in the country, and I stood on a clear promise to those residents that I would be a pro-European voice in Parliament and advocate for a closer, more pragmatic UK-EU relationship, after years of chaos under the Conservatives. The global businesses, the world-class institutions such as Imperial, the international trade hubs and, most importantly, the blended families from all over the world all say the same thing to me: uncertainty and red tape from the current shambolic deal have hurt investment, jobs, growth and family relationships, and have hit our economy to the tune of £100 billion. My constituents voted not for more trade barriers and bureaucracy, but for co-operation, opportunity and a shared future with Europe.
First, we need to go further on security, deepening defence co-operation between the UK and the EU, to stand firm against Putin’s aggression. Whenever I meet my Ukrainian community at our social club, the embassy or our school, I am reminded of exactly what is at stake in the EU-UK defence pact. Going further on procurement, on intelligence sharing—as we have done with Germany—and on stopping people smuggling shows what we can achieve together.
Secondly, we must open doors for our young people, not keep them closed. I have met so many young people who dream of studying, working and living in Europe. We should negotiate a bespoke youth mobility scheme for UK and EU citizens under 30, as we have with other countries, including Australia and Canada, not to return to free moment, but to create time-limited opportunities that benefit the next generation. We should embrace that as a positive step, not something to be feared or talked down.
Thirdly, we need to embrace the practical steps on trade that others have talked about, which would make a real difference for British businesses. This is a critical few weeks for our trading relationship with Europe, from von der Leyen’s visit today to the summit on 19 May. It is time for maximum ambition, and the Government have my full support.
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
I will call the Front Benchers at 4.25 pm, so discipline will be required if everyone is going to get in.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I thank the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing this debate.
The UK’s relationship with the European Union goes beyond trade barriers. It prompts the fundamental question: in an increasingly dangerous and volatile world, do we wish to be adrift and isolated, or will we stand united with our closest neighbours? Despite Brexit, the EU remains our largest trading partner. A market of 450 million consumers lies on our doorstep and the Government are still failing to leverage that proximity. Despite their search for growth—apparently their one overriding mission—the botched Brexit deal has inflicted deep and lasting damage to our economy. Our trade volume is 15% lower and long-term productivity is 4% lower—and for what?
We are still waiting for the US trade deal, which is unlikely to be what we need it to be, under the “America first” presidency. Our current arrangements with the European Union are fragmented and bureaucratic, and that actively undermines our growth and prosperity. The consequences of Brexit are stark, and my constituents in Esher and Walton have been badly affected. Higher prices strain budgets. My local businesses, which once traded seamlessly, now face mountains of paperwork and costly delays. Meanwhile, the promised benefits of Brexit remain unseen.
The ramifications of this broken relationship have become even more apparent following recent developments across the Atlantic. The steel tariffs on British exports have dispelled the fantasy that the US-UK trade deal would compensate for the Brexit damage. As we face a stagnating economy, the Government cannot seriously claim to be exploring all the ways to boost growth, given that they are staying within the previous Conservative Government’s red lines on Europe.
The Liberal Democrats are the only party offering a credible solution: forming a customs union with the European Union and revitalising our trade. That would provide certainty and optimism. It is workable and achievable, and would send a message to rogue actors and special relationships that we are united and determined in the face of aggression, even trade aggression.
If the Government are really serious about growth, they must show the leadership that our country needs. Follow the trade, follow the money and undo the botched Brexit deal that bust our country.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy, and to be part of today’s debate.
It is less than 100 days since Donald Trump entered the White House, and in those 100 days, I hope we have finally seen an end to the myth that leaving the European Union and isolating ourselves would somehow increase our sovereignty. We are now uniquely exposed to world events, whether it is tariffs, the actions of President Putin, or our ability to exercise influence in relation to the concerns we might have regarding Israel and Palestine. The public are paying the price, and they deserve better from all of us. Let us be frank: blue passports are no substitute for British jobs.
However, I come to Westminster Hall today not to say, “I told you so,” but to play my part in fixing the problem. In the short time available to me, I want to say that, while the MPs may be getting younger, too often in this place, the debates are old. I reassure the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), that although I may be the chair of the Labour Movement for Europe—I declare that interest—I do not come here to campaign for rejoin. We have left the European Union. Instead, I come to campaign for my constituents and people across this country who need the jobs and growth that a reset with Europe will offer, moving on from the red lines of the old debates to look at what is in our mutual interest and the summit that is ahead of us on 19 May.
I agree with many of the points that colleagues have made, so let me try to offer two further points. Particularly given that President von der Leyen is here today and has talked about the importance of us working together on regulation, I want to talk about the energy summit, and in particular about addressing the carbon border adjustment mechanism—I agree very much with the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), about that. UK exporters of energy, including our electricity industry, our steel industry, our ceramics industry and more, will pay the price if we do not tackle the impact of having a different emissions trading scheme.
We also have to tackle all the paperwork—we in the Labour Movement for Europe are the reds against the red tape—so yes, we need to deal with the pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention. We also need to deal with SPS and with the VAT differences that people are facing. Farmers, the chemical industry, the border target operating model and car industries will all benefit if we tackle those things; and of course, we need a visa system. We do not have time to talk about rejoin—it would take too long—but we can do something about the 17,000 businesses that have stopped trading with Europe. If we do that, we will bring back the British jobs and the British growth that we so desperately need. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on securing this critical debate. It is an understatement to say that since the US elections, the plates of international politics have been shifting, especially since the Trump Administration announced the introduction of trade tariffs. British people are rethinking their opinions, and one welcome consequence of that process relates to the EU. An opinion poll commissioned by the TUC and conducted earlier this month found that two in three Brits now back a closer relationship with the EU, with just 20% opposed. That includes key target voters, such as eight in 10 of those who switched from Conservative to Labour at the 2024 election and more than half of Reform-leaning voters who voted Labour but may now vote Reform.
Perhaps that is not too surprising. As we have heard, according to official figures, the long-term impact of the UK leaving the single market and the customs union is the loss of between 4% and 8% of our GDP. As Trump seeks to raise trade barriers, it feels like a no-brainer that we should be seeking to reduce ours with our closest neighbours. Research by the think-tank that has already been referenced found that a deal with the EU that included deeper alignment on goods and services would completely offset the impact of US tariffs for the UK. Unfortunately, to date, the Government seem too in fear of being accused by the right of being too close to the EU to lead decisively on this issue. The Prime Minister’s earlier rejection of the EU’s proposal of a youth mobility scheme with the UK is just one example where the Government have baulked at acting in the national interest. Along with many others, I hope that the Prime Minister adopts an approach less driven by the fear of Reform at next month’s EU-UK summit.
Although I voted to remain, I believe it is important that the democratic will of the people is respected, but it is also important that we are honest with the people about the lies they were told and the harms that Brexit has brought to our nation. It is therefore time to stop being afraid to speak the truth about the damage of Brexit and to act in the national interest. Now is the perfect time to start writing a new chapter and move towards a more positive trading relationship with the EU.
Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing this debate.
As Members have stated so eloquently, it is time for a pragmatic reset of our relationship with our nearest neighbours and oldest partners. This is not about reopening old wounds, but about fixing the harm done to our economy and our security by mistakes under the last Government and recognising that our future prosperity can be improved with better UK-EU relations.
As Government Members referenced in our joint letter to the Secretary of State, we live in a period of increasing global instability. Certainties based on the post-world-war-two rules-based systems of trade are breaking down, and our stability, prosperity and security rely on having deep and resilient partnerships with like-minded nations. Therefore, we will be stronger when we work with, not against, our neighbours. That principle must guide our approach to Europe.
We already see the benefits of co-operation in the emerging UK-European defence partnership: standing together with Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression, bolstering European security, and demonstrating that our shared values of democracy and the rule of law are more than just words. This is an area that must be deepened for the good of our joint defence and security.
Trade, too, should be an urgent area for renewal. There are many areas of UK-EU trade that we should aim to ease, and they have been referenced throughout the debate. One area that should be looked at anew is the pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention. It is already used by many of our European neighbours, and it offers a model for streamlined trade across borders without being a member of an EU institution. It simplifies rules of origin, cuts red tape and helps goods move faster. The Government should be proactively exploring our alignment with this system. It will be good for many SMEs in Exeter.
Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)
In addition to trade and the important points that have been made about defence, does my hon. Friend agree that we should also consider a cultural touring agreement? That would support cultural organisations across the country, including the Barbican, the Royal Opera House and those in the west end. Not only would it help them and their business, but it would encourage people to come to London, and it would support economic growth across the country.
Steve Race
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That would very much help the cultural institutions in my Exeter constituency, too, so I absolutely agree.
Since the end of the transition period, UK exports to the EU have faced barriers that did not exist before, with small businesses disproportionately hit. According to the OBR, our overall trade intensity has fallen by 15% compared with where it should have been. This is not inevitable; it was a policy choice by the last Government, and this Government can and should choose differently.
Closer economic ties mean growth. They mean investment in green energy, digital infrastructure and research, which are all sectors in which Exeter is already leading the way. They could now also mean opportunities for our next generation of young people to study, work and thrive across our shared continent.
This is not about going back. It is about going forward clear-eyed, ambitious for our future and in partnership with those who share our values and interests. My residents in Exeter deserve that future, our country deserves that future, and I encourage the Government to be ambitious for that future at the next summit.
Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on securing this debate. In the very limited time available, I will make two points. The first concerns the importance of economic co-operation, and the second is in support of a youth mobility scheme.
Over Easter, I had the pleasure of spending time in Northern Ireland, which coincided with the 27th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. Reflecting on that, there is no greater example of how trade with the EU, and trade more generally, is always about more than goods and services; it is fundamentally about people. The creation of the single market in 1993 brought down physical barriers and borders, and with it, diluted notions of allegiance and of “us and them”. Economic co-operation paved the way for one of the greatest political acts of the 21st century, and it is also a reminder that we must reject the isolationism that we see in countries around the world today. We should be proud to work with countries and proud of that co-operation.
Tied to that, I know that there is a lot of support in Beckenham and Penge for a youth mobility scheme. In fact, I had two work experience students with me this week, who are in the Public Gallery, James and Paula. We were talking at lunchtime today about that. It is a right that I enjoyed when I was growing up, and the next generation should be entitled to that as well. The shift in language used in relation to our closest neighbours and friends has been significant over the past nine months, and it is welcomed. I ask the Government to continue with that and to be bold ahead of the EU-UK summit next week.
Ben Coleman (Chelsea and Fulham) (Lab)
I am most grateful to you, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on calling this important debate, which I am pleased about; as Members of Parliament, it is not often that we get a chance to speak so clearly about what we do to represent our constituents’ interests and the British interest.
Our job as Members of Parliament is to keep our country strong and secure, with a strong economy and strong defence, and to provide opportunity to everyone, not least our young people. That is what this debate is about: promoting the British interest. That lies at the heart of why we need to get a better deal from the European Union that gets growth for our country in the swiftest way possible, at a time when this Government are so committed to growth, by lowering the barriers and removing the red tape that have come out of the hopeless deal patched together so feebly by the last Government.
As has been said, we especially need to lower the barriers for small and medium-sized firms, which have been hit the hardest. I think of the specialist wine importer in my constituency that has to pay an extra £160 for every shipment.
Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)
Following the Tory Brexit deal, we have seen lorries backing up from Dover, through my constituency and deep into Kent now that we have customs and immigration checks. Does my hon. Friend agree that a deal to eliminate barriers on food and drink being exported to the EU would help to reduce friction at Dover and throughout our road network?
Ben Coleman
I absolutely agree. We need a veterinary agreement to improve the situation in our country. I agree with the proposal to allow British bands and creatives to tour more easily and that we should have more mutual recognition of professional qualifications to support our service industries. We should be as ambitious as we can. We should therefore start talking about a deal to end regulatory divergence, so that companies do not have to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on two sets of standards and two sets of testing regimes.
The situation we face as a result of the deal that the Conservative Government negotiated is not patriotism: it is self-sabotage, and we need to do something about it. Part of that is about us needing to do more to give opportunity to our young people, which is why I support having a controlled youth visa scheme that provides just that opportunity.
Finally, I turn to defence, which some of my colleagues have mentioned. The UK has a huge role to play in the defence of our continent; I do not think any European countries doubt that. It is clearly in all our interests across Europe for the UK and the European Union to sign a new security agreement. We need stronger defence and new jobs in the UK and right across the continent, and that is why our Government must be absolutely clear with some other countries in the European Union. Defence and security co-operation are too fundamental to dealing with the challenges that our countries face, and they must be decoupled from other political negotiations. They are too important to be tied to debates about fishing rights or quotas.
We need cool-headed, determined and ambitious negotiations with the European Union that back Britain. In that way, we can get the better deal that my constituents in Chelsea and Fulham and the British people deserve.
Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairing, Sir Jeremy. Due to the limits of time, I will focus on the UK’s creative industries, particularly music and the performing arts.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport estimates that music, the performing arts and the visual arts add approximately £11.2 billion to the UK economy annually and employ 283,000 people. Without dedicated provisions in the UK-EU trade and co-operation agreement, performers, artists and production teams face the challenge of navigating different regulations in each of the 27 EU member states, each of which has its own administrative and financial barriers. Although larger and more established acts may absorb those challenges, they pose disproportionate barriers to emerging talent. Furthermore, this acts as a barrier to cultural exchange between the EU and the UK. Ease of travel for artists and musicians helps to strengthen relationships and business connections across the continent and helps both cultural scenes to thrive.
While I welcome the Government’s assurances that they are seeking some form of specific cultural carve-out, or at least allowances for music rules, performing arts and culture touring, there remains a greater need for a systemic change for the creative industry’s access to Europe, and vice versa. That is why I urge the Government to consider a dedicated cultural mobility agreement with the EU or, at the very least, a meaningful cultural exemption to safeguard the future of our creative industries and restore the cultural exchange that has long enriched the EU and the UK. I hope that the Minister will say something on that in his response.
Uma Kumaran (Stratford and Bow) (Lab)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) for securing this important debate. I proudly stood on a Labour manifesto that placed growth at the heart of the Government’s mission. That goal has never been more necessary, as Labour inherited a stagnating economy from the Conservatives. In the turbulent economic and diplomatic climate in which we find ourselves, it would be inexplicable not to recognise our geographically and economically closest trading partner, the European Union, as a key partner for growth.
I am pleased that the Government are set to seek a reset with our European partners. The next step is the upcoming EU-UK summit. I, too, was part of the UK- EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly; I and many other colleagues here travelled to Brussels, where we were welcomed as friends and allies. They were pleased that Britain was back as a partner.
I have only a short time to speak, so I will touch on just one point. The SPS agreement is focused on ensuring food safety and protecting animal and plant health. Earlier this month, as vice-chair of the all-party group on international conservation, I was fortunate enough to visit the Zoological Society of London and meet its pygmy hippo, Amara. Hon. Members may wonder why I am talking about a pygmy hippo, but there are more parliamentary passholders on this estate than there are pygmy hippos in the wild. While at the ZSL, I learned more about its work to bring species back from extinction. By working across borders to ensure that genetically diverse and healthy populations exist, organisations such as ZSL and its partners around the world are actively bringing back from the brink species ranging from the scimitar-horned oryx to the partula snail, which just a few weeks ago was down-listed from “extinct in the wild” to “critically endangered”.
However, ZSL’s work has been put at risk. Transfers that would have once been completed in just weeks now take months or even years because of the new misalignment between ourselves and the EU. That could be solved as part of an ambitious SPS agreement, but the Government need to make sure that that is included in the discussions. Is that something that the Minister has considered? If so, does he plan to raise it with his EU counterparts? This may sound like a small change, but it could have species-defining consequences for us and our planet.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
Yesterday, I visited Hinkley Point C, the largest building site in Europe, an international project built through close co-operation with European partners, and a powerful example of how trade and co-operation with Europe is essential to our success. “Big Carl” was at work. The largest crane in the world, manufactured by Sarens in Belgium and imported to Britain because it is the only crane capable of doing the job, Big Carl is just one example of why a smooth trading relationship is essential. British businesses thrive by selling into the European market and rely on importing specialised goods that only Europe provides.
Back home, in Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, we can see how vital the relationship is. We have one of the largest centres for paint and coating production in the country. PPG Industries runs a major manufacturing facility in Stowmarket with 350 people, mixing paints and coatings shipped around the world, and AkzoNobel, a Dutch paint company, employs 150 people. Those two companies have nearly 500 people out of the industry’s national workforce of 1,400, and they are deeply entwined with the EU. Under the previous Government, they faced sharp increases in costs due to the barriers, they have had to contend with diverging chemical rules, and they face logistical headaches when importing raw materials. But these are large companies; imagine how much harder it is for small businesses.
Beautiful Beers specialises in selling fantastic Belgian beers imported from the continent. Its owner, René, faces a bureaucratic nightmare. He is doing it alone and struggling. I have heard the same story from businesses all over the place. Since Brexit, getting goods through customs has become a major hurdle, which we need to sort out with UK-EU customs co-operation. The previous Government left businesses and the country in a mess and Bury St Edmunds in the worst possible situation, so I am really glad that this Government are beginning to sort things out.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Jeremy, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on securing the debate at such a timely moment for our relationship with the European Union, given this time of global insecurity. As a Cornishman, I would like to highlight concerns raised to me by our fishing industry. Its daily reality is far from the post-Brexit panacea that promised so much and delivered so little to the fishermen in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
Given the willingness and readiness of other parties, including one conspicuously absent from this crucial debate, to throw our fish under the bus and make fishing fleets again a political football, will my hon. Friend join me and our hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) in calling on our Government to ensure that that will not happen, and that we will, above all, protect employment in our fishing fleets in Mevagissey and elsewhere?
Perran Moon
That was a typically perceptive Cornish intervention from my hon. Friend.
This issue affects fishermen not just in my constituency, but elsewhere in Cornwall and across the UK. The Business and Trade Committee’s report on EU relations points out:
“The fruits of the sea around our borders are a part of our shared ecology, and…must be managed carefully to protect the livelihoods of future generations.”
Businesses and livelihoods in fishing communities must not be bargaining chips, as some media outlets are suggesting; they are invaluable elements of local economies that must be protected and strengthened. At the same time, we must make progress toward reducing trade barriers with our trading partners in the EU. The former is crucial to the latter, because the Government’s current and future negotiations have to bring the British people, including our fishing industry, with them. I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government are working towards a fair deal for our fisheries that will secure their long-term stability.
This is a moment for our Government to provide leadership, which was so severely lacking in the last Government’s half-baked negotiations. Although, as we have heard, larger and higher profile sectors will form the basis of these delicate negotiations, we must not abandon the need to reassure our vital fishing communities and protect fishing stocks.
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
I thank all Back-Bench colleagues for their co-operation, which is very much appreciated. We move on to the Front-Bench spokesmen, beginning with the Liberal Democrats.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on securing this timely debate, and thank all hon. Members for their well-informed contributions. The debate has shown that the discussion has moved on from whether we need to improve our trading relationship with the European Union to how we improve the relationship. That is an important step in the right direction.
It is beyond dispute that our current trading relationship with the European Union has profoundly damaged our economy. Businesses across the country—small businesses, farmers and fishers—have borne the brunt of the Conservatives’ botched Brexit deal. They face layers of unnecessary red tape and barriers that strangle trade, dampen growth and undermine prosperity. The numbers speak for themselves: British exports to the EU fell sharply after Brexit and have yet to recover, remaining 11% below their 2019 levels, and astonishingly, four out of every 10 British products once stocked on EU shelves have now vanished. The impact on farmers and fishers is starkly illustrated by the leap from a single, simple form to an absurd 21-step bureaucratic nightmare, which leaves our produce literally unable to cross the channel. British sausages, which were once sold freely from Paris to Berlin, are now banned outright—an absurd situation that captures perfectly the farcical outcome of the disastrous deal negotiated by the last Government.
This is not merely about statistics; it is about livelihoods. I speak regularly to small businesses in my constituency. They tell me directly that their market shrank overnight, while the complexity and cost of doing business with the rest of Europe ballooned. Our farmers face financial uncertainty, and fishers, including my local fishing fleet in Newhaven, having been promised prosperity by Brexit campaigners, now struggle under an avalanche of paperwork and export costs, which put their livelihoods at risk.
We urgently need a new approach—a pragmatic, ambitious plan to rebuild our relationship with Europe and reinvigorate our economy. Disappointingly, the new Government appear to lack precisely the ambition we need. They have ruled out even common-sense measures, including, as recently as today, a youth mobility scheme, which could restore opportunities for young Britons to live, work and study abroad. This Government are wrapped in their self-defeating red lines, which seem designed more to please the leadership of Reform UK than to benefit British business and growth.
I was glad to see this morning that the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield and 70 of his colleagues have signed a letter calling for a youth mobility scheme—it is encouraging to see that kind of resolve across the House —but contrast that with the Government’s response. When my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) questioned the Government on it earlier, the answer was a resounding no. When are this Government going to get serious? If we do not show clear and consistent intent in time for the EU-UK summit in May, the EU will simply move on.
We cannot afford to squander what good will remains. That is why the Liberal Democrats have proposed a clear, four-step road map to heal our fractured ties with Europe, starting immediately with unilateral steps to restore good will and trust, which must include re-engaging proactively in vital foreign policy dialogues. We then need to rebuild confidence by rejoining crucial European programmes such as Erasmus+, participating actively in scientific collaborations, and reconnecting with a central body—the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, for example.
Central to our economic recovery must be deeper trade co-operation, particularly through a comprehensive veterinary and plant health agreement and the mutual recognition of professional qualifications. Those measures would immediately remove significant barriers to British businesses. Most important, we must place ourselves firmly on the path to negotiating a robust customs union by 2030. That step alone would remove needless checks and bureaucracy at our borders, injecting desperately needed momentum back into our economy.
It is vital to understand what a customs union could achieve. It means tariff-free streamlined trade for most goods—a practical, proven solution already successfully embraced by other countries outside the EU. A customs union would place Britain back at the heart of European trade, boost our economy and insulate us from unpredictable global disruption—especially from the protectionist forces emerging in the United States. Even a signal from this Government that they are open to a customs union would boost markets and stimulate growth. Recent experiences under Trump’s aggressive tariff regime have clearly demonstrated the need for leverage in global trade discussions, and that is something that a customs union with our largest and nearest trading partner could provide. Instead of begging for special deals with America, we could strengthen our relationship with Europe, rebuilding from a position of strength rather than weakness.
We cannot afford more timid half-measures or missed opportunities. British businesses, workers and young people deserve better. The Liberal Democrats are clear and unwavering: we must restore confidence, rebuild trust and revitalise our economic ties with Europe. The public are watching: will this Government be defined by cuts to international development and winter fuel payments for pensioners, and job-killing taxes on small businesses, or will they instead take the hard-headed, pragmatic decision to ditch their disastrous red lines and enter into negotiations for a customs union, so that Britain can truly regain the strong, prosperous economy its citizens deserve?
Andrew Griffith (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I congratulate the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on securing this debate. I thank the many colleagues who contributed, and commend your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy, in giving so many colleagues the chance to do so. I also commend the efforts of the Business and Trade Committee, which has come up with a report containing many worthy and sensible suggestions.
We owe it to the British businesses that create growth, jobs and the wealth of our country to secure for them the most favourable terms for the UK in the tapestry of global trade, wherever the markets may be. That means focusing on areas of maximum opportunity wherever they are, and on sectors where we can benefit from growing markets, innovation and indeed our shared values.
We all seek more trade with our European neighbours, but we already have a tariff-free deal for the export and import of goods. There are some wins to be had: the European Central Bank, for example, is restoring clearing to the UK, which is pragmatic, sensible and a reflection of the facts on the ground; but those opportunities do not appear to us to be what the Government are focused on. Perhaps the Minister will correct us on that.
It is clear that Labour’s EU reset—perhaps to the welcome of many of the Minister’s colleagues—is actually a plan carried forward from Opposition dating back to the referendum in 2016, with the objective of overturning that referendum in substance, if not in name.
Andrew Griffith
I will not give way, as everyone has been very good on timing. I will get through my speech to give the Minister as much time as possible to deal with all of the points raised.
In all seriousness, across all western European economies, we face a real crisis of trust in politics and a rise in extremism among people who do not necessarily see the solutions to the problems their countries face in arguing them out reasonably, as we are doing today. Why any genuine democrat, whatever their personal views, could possibly think that reversing a decision made by the people in 2016 is the right approach—[Interruption.] Although it is refreshing to make common cause with the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy),who indeed does not do that, it is also refreshing, sort of, to hear the hon. Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) set out the misguided but at least honest approach of desiring to return to the rule of Brussels via a full customs union, which I understand is not on the Government’s agenda.
We Conservatives have set out five clear tests to protect people’s trust and confidence. There must be no backsliding on free movement, no new money paid to the European Union and no reduction in our fishing rights, including—I will take an intervention from the Green party’s hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer) on this if she would like—no backsliding on the environmental protection for sand eels that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds says is vital to the protection of British seabirds and puffins. I see no intervention coming, so I will move on, but the EU is litigating against the British Government right now to prevent that environmental protection measure from being implemented. The last two tests are: no rule taking, dynamic alignment or ECJ jurisdiction; and, notwithstanding working with anybody on a defence pact—I agree with the hon. Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) that there must be no linkage between defending European soil and the transactional approach to British fishing taken by some countries—no undermining of or compromise on the primacy of NATO. Those are the tests that, in our view, will maintain the trust of the British people. I hope that the Minister will put our fears to rest.
The Product Regulation and Metrology Bill currently before Parliament is perhaps one of the most blatant examples of how a Government may fail the test. It is a Trojan horse, a blank cheque forcing this Government to become a rule-taker. I realise that many colleagues are new to this place, although many are not and have much more distinguished service histories than myself, but I hope that when colleagues look at that Bill and it is scrutinised in the House of Lords Constitution Committee and the Commons legislative Committees, they will look at the deficiencies of that Bill under this or any other Government going forward.
We have heard calls for a return to open borders via a youth mobility scheme. While previous Governments have put in place youth mobility schemes of a certain volume, as the Government considers that return, it would be interesting to hear what the impact would be on British graduates, whose wage premium is the lowest it has ever been. What impact would opening the floodgates have on the rental crisis in London, or on the burdens of the NHS? There was some talk about improving education, but we already have visa schemes for work and visa schemes to come here to study. What will be the incrementality of a youth mobility scheme?
We have heard a number of times about this being a moment for cool heads, not for piling on retaliatory tariffs in a global trade war, and Members will commend themselves on how progressive and level-headed they are, but let us take a balanced view. It was not the US that unilaterally threatened to invoke article 16 to prevent British citizens having access to vaccines; it was not the US that kicked the United Kingdom out of Horizon, a scheme entirely separate from our membership of the European Union; and it is not the US that is still depriving British citizens of the use of e-gates when they travel—an opportunity that we afford visitors from the EU coming to this country, so let us just have some balance in that debate.
To be clear, given the relative scale of the opportunity and the fact that we already have a free trade goods deal with the European Union, were we in government, the Conservatives would have prioritised—right now—a US trade deal. It has been 170 days since President Trump was elected, but the Government have yet to publish any objectives for their negotiations with the US. Whatever we might think about those objectives, British exporters today are paying the price for the absence of that agreement. Through that absence of transparency, Parliament is being disrespected and none of us has any idea which businesses or farm sectors may pay the price for that deal in future.
Our hard-won freedoms offer us the unrivalled chance, if we seize it, to steer our own course in a difficult and uncertain world. We can have the best of all worlds: trade with Europe, North America, the gulf, Asia and Africa. The Conservatives would not pursue one of those many attractive opportunities in a prejudiced way at the expense of others, and I hope that is also the Government’s position.
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
I call the Minister. He has until 4.55 pm if he wants it, but if he is feeling generous, he may want to leave the Member in charge a couple of minutes to wind up.
The Minister for Trade Policy and Economic Security (Mr Douglas Alexander)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Jeremy. I will certainly endeavour to extend that generosity. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Andrew Lewin) on securing an important and timely debate, and commend him for his ongoing work on the issue as the chair of the UK Trade and Business Commission. The letter that he and a number of parliamentary colleagues present submitted to the Minister for the Cabinet Office, who leads for the Government on UK-EU relationships, made some excellent points, many of which I will endeavour to address in my remarks today. I will seek to specifically address the three main points that he raised in his introductory speech—the mutual recognition of professional qualifications, the broader alignment and the youth mobility scheme. I also thank all hon. Members who have spoken today.
First, I will set out why we must use our strengthened relations with the EU to deliver a long-term UK-EU strategic alliance that grows our economy. I listened with care to the remarks of the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith), suggesting that if the Conservative party were in office, we would have the best of all worlds. I struggle to reconcile that with the universe that the rest of us live in: the Conservative Government not only abjectly failed to secure a trade agreement with the United States, but alienated our closest trading partners in the European Union and were in a deep freeze with China. It is not entirely clear what the Conservatives’ grand post-Brexit strategy involved.
Let us consider the numbers for a moment. In trade, geography still matters. As a bloc, the European Union is still the UK’s largest trading market, covering 46% or about £813 billion of our trade. It is important to note that the UK is the EU’s second-largest trade partner, but unfortunately, UK exports to the EU were 5% lower in 2024 than they were in 2018, which is the most recent stable pre-Brexit, pre-covid year for comparison, and UK imports from the EU have remained level at about plus 0.4%.
Moreover, our overall global trade performance continues to suffer, and we are lagging behind our G7 peers. In 2024, our global trade flows were only 4% above 2018 levels, while other G7 economies have seen an average trade growth of 8%. What explains those trends? There is an increasing body of external research studies, such as those of the London School of Economics Centre for Economic Performance and Aston University, which demonstrate that Brexit accounts for those changes. That is why it is in both the UK and the EU’s interest to strengthen our trading relationship.
Let me turn now to some of the specific issues raised during the debate. The hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins), who I like and admire on a personal level, gave a sadly rather partisan speech in wilful denial of the fact that had his side prevailed in the 2014 referendum in Scotland, we would have found ourselves outside the European Union. A politics of manufactured grievance, flags and new borders is as wrong in Scotland as it is here in England. Thankfully, Scotland made its choice to support a sensible and pragmatic internationalist party in July.
Mr Alexander
No, I am keen to make some progress.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) made a characteristically brilliant speech—a judgment in no way related to the fact that he is the Chair of the Business and Trade Committee. In all seriousness, fresh from the spring meetings in Washington this week, he brought a wider geopolitical perspective to our debate that frames the conversations that are happening today between EU Commission President von der Leyen and the Prime Minister.
I note all the points that were made by the hon. Member for Bristol Central (Carla Denyer). I simply say that when I see images of the Prime Minister meeting President Trump in the Oval Office, meeting EU Commission President von der Leyen today, at the Lancaster House summit, or sitting with President Macron in Paris, I feel a sense of relief and change. There is change, because the clown show is over, and there is relief that we have a serious Prime Minister for these serious times.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), in a strikingly personal speech, spoke eloquently of the divisions we witnessed within families and communities at the time of the Brexit referendum. That explains why we as a Government have no interest in reopening old divisions and wounds, and instead are working to remove unnecessary barriers and strengthen our trading relationships.
No debate in this House would be complete without the contribution of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I assure him, although he is no longer in his place, that in the work of both the Minister for the Cabinet Office and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the concerns and needs of Northern Ireland are never far from their thoughts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mike Reader) brought to bear all his professional experience working across Europe and made a characteristically powerful case for the mutual recognition of professional qualifications. I made that case only this morning at a meeting with TheCityUK representatives here in London. The hon. Member for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew) then spoke eloquently of the need to maintain high standards in farming and the merits of strengthening our trading relationship with the European Union.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Ben Goldsborough) took us on a veritable tour of research and innovation labs in his constituency. He is right to recognise that innovation today relies on not only often complex, integrated and international supply chains, but research co-operation. What was the opportunity cost of the years when the previous Government took us out of the Horizon cross-Europe research programme? It is exactly that kind of research collaboration that our own scientists need and demand if they are going to continue to be world leading in their research domains.
The hon. Member for Wokingham (Clive Jones) highlighted some of the statistics that I also used in this debate to highlight the damage done by our predecessors. He asked if we would act only in the national interest. That is an undertaking I am happy to offer. National interest is the north star by which we are navigating these frankly turbulent trading waters today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) spoke of the civic ties between his community and Germany. It was a timely and helpful reminder that first through the European Coal and Steel Community, then through the European Economic Community, and ultimately through the European Union, the European project has always been about peace as well as security and prosperity.
The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) also touched on the need for spending on defence to reflect the changing circumstances, not least in the Euro-Atlantic security area. That is a recognition that underpins the strategic defence review and the recent decisions that have been reached on defence expenditure by this Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Monmouthshire (Catherine Fookes) asked me to pass on her good wishes to the Minister for the Cabinet Office for all his excellent work ahead of the UK-EU summit next month. As a colleague in the Cabinet Office, and indeed as a friend, I will be happy to do so. She is right to recognise all the work that he is doing to undo past damage and to rebuild and reset relations with our friends, partners and neighbours in the European Union.
The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) urged us to take serious action to strengthen our trading relationships with the EU. Again, I assure her that that is exactly the work to which we have committed ourselves.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Bayswater (Joe Powell) rightly referred to the changed context on our continent, and indeed in our world. Red tape and uncertainty—his description—seems a pretty fair judgment of the inheritance that we secured in July. In these history-shaping days, it is right to recognise the changing geopolitical and geo-economic backdrop for the negotiations under way—not just the talks in Downing Street today, but those being led by the Minister for the Cabinet Office ahead of next month’s summit.
The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding) urged the leadership to follow the trade and follow the money. As I said earlier, we have chosen to follow the data, rather than the post-imperial delusions that were the hallmark of our predecessors’ approach to trade.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), who has eloquently spoken of the need for closer ties with Europe on many occasions, talked of the need for new debates and offered a number of powerful suggestions for the way forward at the UK-EU summit. I have to say that she offered a fantastically large number of suggestions in the necessarily constrained time for her speech, but I listened carefully to all of them.
The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) urged the Government to write a new chapter. I hope we are doing somewhat more than that: we are actually writing a whole new trade strategy, which we aim to publish in the coming weeks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Steve Race) acknowledged the need for partnerships with like-minded nations. I agree with his powerful points about the particular need for security and defence partnerships given the changed geopolitical context with which we are all familiar.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and Penge (Liam Conlon) reminded us, with reference to the Good Friday agreement, that we must reject isolationism. I am happy to confirm that we have left behind the era in which a previous Prime Minister resisted the opportunity to confirm that President Macron is indeed a friend of the United Kingdom. Let me confirm today that we regard France as a trading partner, a close neighbour, a steadfast security partner and a country bound to the United Kingdom by bonds not just of shared history, but of shared and continuing friendship.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Ben Coleman) spoke authoritatively of the need for cool-headed, ambitious negotiations. I assure him that that is the approach that the Government are taking to the coming summit.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) made the case for recognising the challenges faced by touring artists. I put on the record my appreciation of all the work done for our country not just by touring artists but by the creative industries more broadly.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran), in a veritable Noah’s ark of a speech, highlighted not just the importance of the pygmy hippo that she met but, more substantively, the need for an SPS agreement. I assure her that we continue to work on all those issues.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) moved seamlessly on to a discussion of Carl the crane, and indeed his local businesses. I assure him that we noted all his points, and we will endeavour to ensure that small businesses are at the forefront of our thinking as we work not least on SPS and the other issues about which we have spoken.
My hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) brought a Cornish perspective to the debate. I listened carefully to all the points that he made about the need to bring down unnecessary barriers.
The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) similarly spoke eloquently of the needs of fishermen in his constituency, and made the case for an SPS agreement. We committed in our manifesto to negotiate that veterinary agreement with the EU—an agreement on the application of sanitary and phytosanitary measures, to use the technical term. That is because agrifood producers across the United Kingdom are among those most affected, as they are buried in the paperwork left by our predecessors, and are affected by checks when exporting to the EU.
The EU remains an absolutely vital market for agrifood producers, accounting for 57% of the UK’s agrifood exports in 2024. Between 2018 and 2024, UK exports of agrifood products to the European Union, excluding beverages, dropped by 16% in inflation-adjusted terms. I have to say, that does not sound like the best of all worlds to me. The potential benefits of an SPS agreement are clear: Aston University estimates that an SPS agreement could increase UK agrifood exports by fully 22.5%. Bearing in mind that we import more agrifood from the EU than we export to it, a veterinary agreement would of course be mutually beneficial.
A number of Members raised a youth mobility scheme. The UK and the EU are in talks ahead of the summit, but alas I will not provide a running commentary today in this Chamber. We made a clear manifesto commitment to bring down net migration and to have no return to free movement within the EU. It is important that we determine who comes into our country, and those things are not up for negotiation in the continuing discussions.
We would like to strengthen MRPQ arrangements so that businesses can access the right talent at the right time. Again, improvements would be mutually beneficial. UK and European industries have repeatedly asked for the recognition of professional qualifications between the UK and the EU to be strengthened. That includes 24% of respondents to the recent British Chambers of Commerce annual trade survey and the European Services Forum.
On strengthening relations with the EU, we have an opportunity to address some of the trade barriers that we did not explicitly reference in our manifesto, including regulatory co-operation—
Sir Jeremy Wright (in the Chair)
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Minister, but we are out of time. I thank all hon. Members who have participated in the debate.
Women and Equalities
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Bridget Phillipson
… But this is a judgment long in the making. It began in 2018 when Scottish Ministers issued guidance on the definition of a woman in the eyes of the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018. That guidance stated that a woman in that Act bears the same meaning as a woman in the Equality Act 2010, and included trans women with a gender recognition certificate.
[Official Report, 22 April 2025; Vol. 765, c. 945.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson):
Bridget Phillipson
… But this is a judgment long in the making. It began in 2018, when the Scottish Parliament passed the Gender Representation on Public Boards (Scotland) Act 2018. The definition of woman in that Act was overturned by the Scottish courts. Scottish Ministers issued revised guidance on the definition of a woman, which stated that a woman in that Act bears the same meaning as a woman in the Equality Act 2010, and included trans women with a gender recognition certificate.
Windsor Framework Decisions: Northern Ireland Act 1998, Schedule 6B
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office (Nick Thomas-Symonds)
On 29 April, I will be meeting with the European Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security, Maroš Šefčovič for this Government’s first meeting of the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee. As part of this important meeting, the UK and the EU will take decisions to support our commitment to the Windsor framework.
We are moving to implement the next phase of the UK internal market system. This phase will deliver simplified processes for freight and parcels arrangements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and reflects the substantial work undertaken on the delivery of those commitments to date. We will continue to implement the UK internal market system in good faith in line with the commitments set out in “Safeguarding the Union”.
These changes will replace the burdensome requirements in the old protocol for international customs paperwork with internal market movement information—a much shorter, simpler dataset containing ordinary commercial information. They will further simplify processes for businesses and have been taken forward following considerable engagement with sector stakeholders to ensure full readiness for the new arrangements and, subject to the relevant procedures, will take effect from 1 May 2025. I will make a declaration for the UK at the meeting and expect that my EU counterpart will make a corresponding declaration.
The Government are pleased to be bringing these arrangements into effect, which demonstrate our commitment to the UK internal market and breaking down barriers to trade for businesses and traders. The effect of these new, beneficial arrangements for freight and parcels will continue to be monitored by the Independent Monitoring Panel on the Windsor Framework, whose first six-month reporting period will conclude on 30 June 2025. Marking this progress will be part of a productive Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee meeting, reflecting the closer, more co-operative relationship that the UK now has with the EU.
At that meeting, the Government will also agree specifically to three decisions that will add four Acts to the Windsor framework. This Government are committed to tackling barriers to trade for businesses across the UK. Northern Ireland obviously has a special trading relationship with the EU under the Windsor framework and it is therefore only right that the Government review all elements of Northern Ireland’s regulatory arrangements to ensure it can make the most of its unique dual market-access.
In accordance with paragraph 18(3) of schedule 6B to the Northern Ireland Act 1998, I am setting out in this statement why I am of the opinion that the conditions are met for these particular measures to be agreed on the basis that none of those Acts would create a new regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The condition in paragraph 18(2)(b) of that schedule is therefore met.
Ukraine/Moldova tariff liberalisation—Regulations 2024/1392 and 2024/1501
These regulations will not create a new regulatory border. This is because the EU regulations reduce the EU tariff on goods coming from Ukraine and Moldova and because of the low volume of relevant trade flows. We expect that no goods moving to Northern Ireland will incur additional financial cost. These regulations follow on from similar previous measures which were added to the framework in 2023.
Critical Raw Materials—Regulation 2024/1252
This regulation will not create a new regulatory border. This is based on the fact that most affected products in Northern Ireland are likely to be traded on a pan-European basis. As such, manufacturers and traders are unlikely to face additional barriers to placing products on the Northern Ireland market or an incentive to cease doing so.
The objectives of the regulation are broadly in line with those of the Government. This is with regard to both the UK’s upcoming critical minerals strategy aimed at securing stable supplies of critical raw materials, and the forthcoming circular economy strategy. This regulation would not create a new regulatory border as it would not lead to a material diversion of trade or materially impair the free flow of goods.
In order to provide additional confidence that manufacturers and traders will not face new regulatory barriers to placing goods on the Northern Ireland market, the Government commit to taking any necessary steps to protect the UK’s internal market, including considering equivalent measures in Great Britain where necessary.
Non-Agricultural Geographical Indications—Regulation 2023/2411
This regulation will not create a new regulatory border. The regulation concerns geographical indications, which are intellectual property rights to indicate that a product has a specific geographical origin and possesses a certain quality or reputation due to that origin. The UK already enforces strong trade mark and consumer protection laws and GIs are another way of protecting products against infringement.
The Government have considered carefully the views expressed by Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly last March. Since that point, the Government have undertaken extensive assessment of the regulation, including detailed technical exchanges with the European Commission and conversations with stakeholders. They have also considered the relevant equivalent protections in Great Britain. This has been with the clear aim of understanding the impacts which would arise from its application in Northern Ireland and the points made by Assembly Members.
From that work, it is clear to me that the regulation would not materially impair the free flow of goods or divert trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and that it could indeed offer new opportunities. The regulation would only affect a small number of businesses due to the specific nature of the products. Additionally, even where companies are selling such products, only minimal adjustments are likely required, such as updating packaging or marketing materials. Companies that are selling genuine products, as registered and protected, will not need to make any adjustments. Where businesses are using protected names when selling a product that does not meet the GI specification, they might be able to use exemptions (such as continued use of the product name if the product is already covered by a UK trade mark) or apply for transition periods of up to 15 years, as applicable, to change marketing materials. And many of these businesses will already trade with the EU market and make those adjustments regardless.
Businesses in Northern Ireland may also benefit by accessing this alternative way of protecting their products, as GIs may allow them to charge higher prices or improve sales. Agrifood products can already benefit from GIs and businesses have hugely valued the protection of products such as Irish whiskey.
I understand that for those who took part in the original debate in the Assembly, as well as others, concerns may still remain about the potential impact of this regulation. The Government will take any steps necessary for the protection of the UK’s internal market and are also committing to reviewing the GB domestic regime in respect of non-agricultural geographical indications in light of this decision.
Next steps
The Government will shortly lay explanatory memorandums before Parliament pertaining to each of the three decisions that we will make. These will set out in further detail the Government’s view on any impacts that the above mentioned regulations would have on Northern Ireland, as well as additional evidence I considered when reaching my conclusion that none of them would lead to a new regulatory border.
While the Government note that the EU has recently issued proposals to add regulations 2024/1689 (on artificial intelligence) and 2024/2847 (on cyber resilience), we are clear that both regulations are complex and will require further dialogue and consideration as to their interaction with the framework. At this Joint Committee, the Government will ask the EU to hold an exchange of views on these two files within six weeks. Therefore, at present no decision has been made and therefore the regulations will not be added to the Windsor framework at this Joint Committee meeting. I also note that Members of both Houses and the Northern Ireland Assembly have expressed interest in these issues in light of our domestic strategy and that they too will want to consider the issues when the Government have further clarity to share on them.
The Government are steadfastly committed to protecting the UK internal market and to implementing the Windsor framework. Our diligent approach to the Joint Committee, to assessing the potential impacts of these decisions, and to delivering the UK internal market system reflects the sincerity with which the Government treat those commitments. The full package of decisions and declarations for the Joint Committee are intended to achieve both of these objectives. Beyond these matters, the Government will continue to engage closely with stakeholders and the European Commission on a broad range of regulatory issues of mutual interest in line with the outcomes of the Joint Committee.
I can confirm that the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is writing to the Speaker of the Assembly to update him on these next steps, alongside the specific forward-facing commitments that the Government are making in respect of domestic policy to avoid trade barriers in future. These commitments are sincere and further demonstrate our commitment to ensuring the smooth flow of trade across the United Kingdom in its territorial entirety. I will place a copy of the Secretary of State’s letter to the Assembly Speaker in the Library of the House for future reference.
[HCWS601]
Men’s Health Strategy: Call for Evidence
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ashley Dalton)
In November 2024, the Secretary of State announced his commitment to publish a call for evidence to support the development of England’s first men’s health strategy.
Today we are publishing the call for evidence which is available on the gov.uk website at: https://www.gov.uk/government/calls-for-evidence/mens-health-strategy-for-england-call-for-evidence
The 12-week call for evidence will gather vital insights from the public, health and social care professionals, academics, employers and organisations with expertise on men’s health so that the Government can consider how to tackle the biggest health issues facing men of all backgrounds.
The Government have set out an ambitious programme of reform for the NHS. The health mission has set the clear goals of achieving: an NHS that is there when people need it, fewer lives lost to the biggest killers, halving the gap in healthy life expectancy between the richest and poorest regions, and a fairer Britain where everyone lives well for longer. Our plan for change will rebuild the health service and deliver better care for everyone.
The men’s health strategy for England will form part of this programme of reform, ensuring that all men get the support they need to live happy, healthy and fulfilling lives.
We know that men face unique challenges throughout their lives. Men are disproportionately affected by a range of health conditions including cancer, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Life expectancy data also shows that on average women live four years more than men in England.
Around three in four people who died by suicide in 2023 were men. Suicide is the biggest cause of death in men under the age of 50.
Evidence suggests that men are also more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviours such as, but not limited to, smoking, harmful gambling and alcohol consumption, and substance misuse.
Inequalities within men’s health are stark. Those in more deprived areas are likely to die earlier on average than those who live in less deprived areas. The gap in life expectancy at birth between men and women increases in line with greater levels of deprivation.
We recognise that men can face various barriers to accessing healthcare services. We want to understand the challenges that men face in seeking and securing help and care, and to ensure that the services they receive are responsive to their needs.
The men’s health strategy will tackle these problems head on.
Following engagement with stakeholder organisations, analysis of the responses to the call for evidence and submissions to the Change NHS website relevant to men’s health, we intend to develop and publish the strategy by the end of 2025.
[HCWS602]
World Health Organisation: Pandemic Accord Negotiations and International Health Regulations
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ashley Dalton)
I would like to update the House regarding the final round of negotiations on the international agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response—the pandemic accord—at the World Health Organisation, as well as the targeted amendments to the international health regulations, which were agreed in June 2024.
Pandemic accord negotiations
In March 2021, member states of the WHO, including the UK, agreed to draft and negotiate a pandemic accord to keep the UK and the world safer from pandemic threats. I am pleased to announce that following the most recent rounds of negotiations between 7 to 11 April and 15 to 16 April, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body has reached agreement on the full text. WHO member states will consider its formal adoption at the World Health Assembly next month.
This is a historic moment for the UK and global health security. The accord should meaningfully improve UK and global pandemic prevention, preparedness and response capabilities. It should protect lives, livelihoods, the economy and the NHS, and bring genuine benefits to UK health security, jobs and growth, in line with the Government plan for change.
Since the House was last updated, UK officials have worked closely with our global partners to resolve the key remaining issues in the accord, including on the pathogen access and benefit sharing—PABS—system. This will be a new, voluntary system for pharmaceutical companies to sign up to in order to gain faster access, with less red tape, to the pathogens they need to create new vaccines, treatments and tests in the event of a pandemic. This is good news for scientific innovation, good news for the UK’s world-leading life sciences industry, and good news for all of us.
Negotiators also resolved outstanding and important issues on pandemic prevention. The accord will ensure that member states take comprehensive action, together, to better prevent pandemics and improve disease surveillance so we can detect and respond to emerging pandemic threats promptly. In addition, the inclusion of a “One Health” approach in the accord—which recognises the vital link between animal, human and environmental health—strengthens multi-sectoral collaboration, helping to better address the emergence of pandemic risks, many of which originate in animal populations. At the same time the accord protects the sovereignty of member states, including the UK, to make their own public health decisions in the event of a global health emergency.
I now look forward to the 78th meeting of the World Health Assembly in May, where member states will come together to make a final decision on whether to adopt the accord. If adopted, member states will then start negotiations to agree the details of how the PABS system will operate, after which it will be up to each member state to decide whether to ratify the pandemic accord.
International health regulations
I would also like to update the House on the IHR, for which targeted amendments were agreed at the WHA in June 2024. The IHR are an important technical framework that helps to prevent and protect against the international spread of disease. Amendments to the IHR were agreed by countries to reflect lessons learnt from recent global health emergencies, such as the covid-19 pandemic, including by improving information sharing and collaboration for public health emergency response. Member states have until 19 July 2025 to decide whether to recognise the amendments or to reserve or opt out.
The Department of Health and Social Care has been leading work across Government to confirm the implications of the amendments for the UK, working with counterparts in the devolved Governments, and our overseas territories and Crown dependencies to ensure all relevant territories are considered. This analysis will inform the decision about which amendments are in the UK’s national interest. No decision has yet been made on which IHR amendments the UK will accept.
Neither the pandemic accord nor the IHR include any proposals that would give the WHO powers to impose domestic decisions on the UK. This Government will only agree to a pandemic accord and IHR amendments that are in the national interest. The sovereign right of states is expressed as one of the guiding principles of the accord. Under the IHR, while the WHO director-general may make recommendations on international responses to public health emergencies, these recommendations are non-binding and it is for member states to determine their domestic response.
I will update the House again following the WHA in May.
[HCWS603]
Personal Liability Consultation
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The Minister for Policing, Fire and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)
The Government are today publishing their response to the public consultation on establishing personal liability measures on senior executives of online platforms and marketplaces who fail to remove illegal content relating to knives and offensive weapons from online platforms, search engines and market- places. The consultation ran between 13 November and 11 December 2024. This was open to the public and targeted at the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, online platforms and marketplaces, businesses, voluntary sector and community groups, and other organisations with a direct interest in the proposals.
The consultation received a total of 74 completed responses. We are grateful to all those who took the time to respond. The Government response sets out our consideration of these responses.
The Government will introduce legislation to provide the police with the power to issue content removal notices for illegal knife and other offensive weapons related content. If a company ultimately does not comply, the police are able to decide whether to issue a civil penalty notice against the company and a senior executive of that company.
A copy of the consultation response will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses and published on gov.uk.
[HCWS600]
Young Offender Institutions in England: Use of PAVA
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The Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice (Shabana Mahmood)
This Government inherited a crisis in our criminal justice system. This extends to the children and young people’s secure estate, which has seen increased levels of violence and instability in the past decade, particularly in the public sector young offender institutions HMP and YOI Feltham A, HMYOI Werrington and HMYOI Wetherby. Our hard-working staff manage young people who are in custody for serious crimes, and this situation is putting them both in danger.
Risk to staff and young people in custody is higher than ever before
There has been a welcome reduction in the overall number of young people in custody over the last decade (from over 1,000 under 18-year-olds a decade ago, to an average of 430 in latest published statistics, the lowest number on record).
Custody is only ever used as a last resort, with many young people successfully managed in the community or diverted away from a life of crime. But the fact remains that sometimes young people do need to be placed into custody for public protection. This means that those who are in youth custody today are predominantly older teenage boys, aged 16 to 18 years. Over two thirds of these are there for violent offences.
The levels of violence across the children and young people’s secure estate are unacceptable. On a weekly basis there are assaults involving young people in custody. Serious assaults can see these young people use homemade weapons, including stabbing implements, against each other and our staff. Today, levels of violence are higher than in the adult prison estate. For the 12 months to Dec 2024, the rate of assaults by children and young people on staff across the three public YOIs (HMYOI Feltham A, HMYOI Werrington and HMYOI Wetherby) increased by almost 25% compared to the previous year—rates are around 14 times higher than that in the adult estate. In July 2024, HM Inspectorate of Prisons described HMP & YOI Feltham A as the
“most violent prison in the country”.
Officers working in the YOIs are trained to use physical restraint at the lowest possible level that is required. However, we have seen levels of violence that mean staff must place themselves at risk of considerable harm to intervene—for example, when a violent attack involves the use of a homemade weapon, or when a large group of young people in custody are engaged in an assault against one other. This type of situation hampers the ability of staff to quickly intervene to protect those who are being attacked, and their ability to protect themselves from injury.
In recent months, incidents have seen staff members act as human shields to protect victims from attack, where they have been stamped and kicked in the head by numerous assailants. This has seen young people in custody and staff sustain serious injuries, including fractures, dislocations, puncture wounds and lacerations. The nature of this violence presents a high risk of life-changing injury, and trauma for staff and the young people in custody experiencing this violence.
Decision on PAVA
After considering the evidence carefully and listening closely to a range of views, I have decided to authorise the issuing of PAVA (a synthetic pepper spray) to a specially trained and selected group of staff in the three public sector YOIs (Feltham A, Werrington and Wetherby) for a 12-month period. This is a specific authorisation for use in youth settings, and is different from how this tactic is deployed in the adult estate, where all officers carry it as part of their personal protective equipment.
PAVA will only be authorised for use as a last resort. This means it can be used when use is necessary, proportionate and appropriate to reduce the risk of serious or life-threatening injury to a young person in custody or a member of staff. This will allow staff to respond to these serious incidents more effectively. It will potentially reduce the severity of injury and will help restore control much more quickly.
PAVA can already be used during the most serious incidents in the YOIs, but only by national tactical response officers, who are nationally based, when authorised under the governance of a gold commander. It can typically take over an hour to deploy these officers. As altercations in YOIs arise rapidly, often with little warning, these officers can rarely, if ever, arrive on the scene in time to respond to active violence that is being experienced.
This change in policy will mean PAVA can now be drawn or deployed by local staff to diffuse a situation where it is deemed necessary to reduce the risk of serious physical harm.
Future checks and balances
Very close scrutiny and oversight will be in place to safeguard the use of this tactic. There will be a suitability assessment and training for the limited number of staff that will be authorised to carry and draw or discharge PAVA. The authorisation for this policy will only be for a 12-month period, allowing further review of whether to continue, change or stop the use of the tactic.
A live evaluation will be conducted. It will review each and every incident in which PAVA is used; collect data and evidence focused on necessary, appropriate and proportionate use of PAVA and its efficacy; and consider the impact of PAVA. Additionally:
Senior officials will review every incident of PAVA being drawn or deployed when young people in custody are involved, with every use reported to the local authority designated officer. Any unnecessary or inappropriate use will be investigated in line with safeguarding policies.
A weekly report to Ministers on any serious incidents will now include PAVA, and while use is expected to be low, Ministers will review incidents and all data related to the drawing and use of PAVA on a monthly basis. There will be a clear focus on any disproportionality and neurodiversity.
The independent restraint review panel will provide oversight of every PAVA use and will include this in their report to Ministers annually, which is published externally on gov.uk.
There will be a ministerial review of the roll-out after 12 months of operation to consider whether to continue with the policy; if, in doing so, any changes to the policy are necessary; or whether there should be a decision to withdraw the tactic, informed by the live evaluation and wider research.
The need for long-term reform
This is not a decision I have taken lightly, but I am clear that this vital measure is needed to urgently prioritise safety in these three YOIs at this present time. I believe that failing to act will place young people in custody and staff at risk of serious harm.
This decision will bring greater stability, which is essential to improving YOIs in the short to medium term, notably reducing the highest level of risk and the severity of violence.
However, while this measure is necessary, it is not sufficient alone. For that reason, we commissioned the Youth Custody Service to develop improvement plans for the YOIs, in the form of road maps to effective practice. These plans focus on preventing violence through effective behaviour management and relationships, and improving safety. I expect to see an increased focus on improving access to purposeful activity, including education and skills development, as well as greater time out of room for young people in custody.
We have published an independent review into placements for the small number of girls in custody, who are highly vulnerable, and have accepted the review’s recommendation to no longer place girls in YOIs, having not placed them there for several months (PAVA will therefore not be used on girls in the youth estate).
In the longer term, we intend to move away from the current estate, based on the evidence of what works for young people in custody. We will learn from the pilot of the first ever secure school and the operation of secure children’s homes.
Our work in the children and young people’s estate is part of our commitment to reforming the justice system so that it tackles the cycle of violence, ensures public safety, and safeguards vulnerable young people.
[HCWS599]
Online Safety Act Implementation: Protecting Children
(1 day, 5 hours ago)
Written StatementsRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Peter Kyle)
Today, I am laying in Parliament Ofcom’s draft codes of practice for child safety duties under the Online Safety Act, setting out the statutory duties providers face and the measures they must take to fulfil them.
We are in the midst of an epidemic in online harm. Young people are exposed to a slew of horrific content on the sites that many of them use every day. The consequences can be devastating, from pornography that cruelly warps their expectations of healthy relationships to content which encourages, promotes or provides instructions for self-harm, suicide or eating disorders. Parents trying to protect their children may not understand what is going on behind their bedroom doors or find themselves powerless to stop it.
Today, that changes. Building on the illegal codes which came into force last month, the draft codes of practice are some of the most far-reaching protections in the world. For the first time, platforms will have to prioritise children’s safety by law, protecting children in the UK from seeing content including pornography, violent content, or that which promotes self-harm, suicide or eating disorders.
We know that harm is happening to children right now. If we are to safeguard healthier, happier childhoods for our young people, we cannot afford to hesitate in protecting them. From today, services will have three months to assess the risk of harm their services pose to children. Once the codes have gone through the parliamentary process, Ofcom must issue them. The relevant duties will come into force 21 calendar days later, and Ofcom will be able to enforce against non-compliance. By summer, the child online safety regime will be fully in force.
I know that Ofcom is prepared to make full use of its powers under the Act. After the illegal codes of practice came into force last month, Ofcom swiftly opened several enforcement programmes to assess industry compliance. In the months to come, I expect them to build on the strong precedent they have set. When the lives of our children are at stake, we must be relentless in our efforts to protect them.
Once in force, the codes will change young people’s lives for the better, protecting happy, healthy childhoods from the kind of horrific content that too often cuts them short. This is a landmark moment, but it is not the end point of our efforts to protect children online. The rapid change that has characterised the last decade of the digital age shows no signs of slowing down, bringing with it extraordinary opportunities and grave new risks. In this context, we will act swifty if our laws continue to fall short. These codes are the foundation for child safety, not the limit, and Ofcom has already announced plans to launch a consultation in spring 2025 on additional measures.
For now, though, the message to industry is clear. You must act now to protect children using your services. If you fail to do so, Ofcom will not hesitate to enforce the law.
[HCWS598]