Oral Answers to Questions
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)
Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
The Minister for Equalities (Dame Nia Griffith)
Let me be clear: conversion practices have no place in today’s society, and this Government are committed to bringing forward trans-inclusive legislation to ban these outdated and abusive acts. This is a complex issue that we want to get absolutely right. We are working hard to publish later in this Session draft legislation that offers protection from these harmful practices while also preserving individuals’ freedom to explore their identity with appropriate support.
David Burton-Sampson
Since the Supreme Court ruling, many trans people have felt discrimination and a loss of their rights despite still being protected under the Equality Act 2010. I am pleased to hear that the Government are bringing forward a trans-inclusive conversion therapy ban, but what else will the Minister do to ensure that trans people know they belong in our society and are valued?
Dame Nia Griffith
I can indeed assure my hon. Friend that our draft legislation on conversion practices will be trans-inclusive. It is crucial that trans people are safe, included, and protected from harm and discrimination. More widely, this Government are actively working on other manifesto commitments to strengthen services and protections for trans people, including ensuring that all trans people receive appropriate and high-quality healthcare, and equalising all strands of hate crime.
Jessica Toale
I recently met representatives of Trans Liberation Bournemouth, who shared with me their anxiety about the Supreme Court ruling—a ruling that has caused not only confusion in their otherwise supportive workplaces, but distressing incidents for biological women who do not conform to traditional gender norms. What assurances can the Minister give my constituents that this Government are committed to ensuring that Bournemouth remains an open and welcoming place for our LGBT+ community?
Dame Nia Griffith
I will indeed give that assurance. Rightly, laws are in place to protect trans people from discrimination and harassment—that remains the case. To be clear, I am absolutely committed to delivering on our key manifesto commitments aimed at protecting LGBT+ individuals: a full, trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices, and our commitment to equalise all existing strands of hate crime. Dignity and respect for everyone runs through every sinew of this Government.
John Milne
Previous Governments have promised to bring forward legislation to ban conversion therapy, but it has not happened yet. Eris, one of my constituents in Horsham, tells me that recent headlines have created fear and uncertainty within the trans community, increasing their sense of isolation. Will the Minister show the LGBTQ community that they are not ill or something to be converted, and commit to action within the next 12 months?
Dame Nia Griffith
As we know, the previous Government repeatedly broke their promises to deliver on the issue of conversion practices and allowed the debate to become ever more toxic and divided. We are committed to bringing forward legislation to ban these abusive practices—that is a key manifesto commitment. We will be publishing our draft Bill later in this Session, and we want to work with Parliament to ensure that our legislation is robust and does not negatively impact legitimate support for those exploring their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Mr Speaker
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson. [Interruption.] Oh, sorry—I call Jim Shannon! How could I forget him?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Absolutely right, Mr Speaker. I thank the Minister very much for her answers, but can she outline what support is in place for people of all faiths and none to receive counselling that is right and appropriate, helping them to find the answers that they all seek?
Dame Nia Griffith
As I have explained, we are absolutely committed to going forward with a ban on conversion practices, but we want to make sure that when we legislate, that legislation does not inhibit proper, genuine, supportive counselling and guidance as people explore their gender identity or sexual orientation.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
As Liberal Democrats, we have been concerned about the lack of a draft Bill on conversion practices, so I am relieved to hear what the Minister has said today. However, given the amount of fear and anxiety that there is among the trans community in this country, can she reassure the House that when the Bill comes forward, it will be UK-wide to overcome the Scottish Government’s withdrawal of their proposals? Further, will the Government consider whether we need fresh legislation to deal with all the issues in the Equality Act that have been raised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s interim guidance and the Supreme Court judgment?
Dame Nia Griffith
There was a real range of questions there. We are bringing forward legislation that affects England and Wales, but I can assure the hon. Member that we are in talks with officials in the Scottish Parliament on that very issue. I also assure her that we will be bringing this legislation forward very soon, and that there will be a proper opportunity for that pre-legislative scrutiny, which I know she will want to take part in.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Bridget Phillipson)
Attainment for boys is, on average, lower than for girls. This Government are determined to understand and address the drivers behind that. We are focused on driving educational excellence everywhere, for every child in every school, and my schools White Paper in the autumn will set out our vision for a system that delivers on excellence for everyone.
Lincoln Jopp
Recent research by the Centre for Social Justice showed that at key stage 1, key stage 2, GCSEs, A-levels and T-levels, boys are underperforming girls. We simply cannot allow half a generation not to be allowed to reach their full potential. As part of her approach, will the Secretary of State consider looking at whether boys might need to be taught somewhat differently from girls?
Bridget Phillipson
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s interest in this area and the constructive way in which he is approaching an important topic. I, too, have looked at the research from the Centre for Social Justice, which provides some important pointers. Through the schools White Paper, we will consider all the ways we can better support boys and young men as one group. We know that the performance of free school meals-eligible white British boys is particularly low; that is something we inherited from the Conservatives.
Dr Evans
The logic behind having a Women’s Minister was the idea that women present and have different problems in society. By that logic, men and boys do, too; we know about suicide, and we have just heard about educational attainment. We hear about help-seeking opportunities, and I welcome the men’s health strategy, but is it not time we had a Minister for men and boys to look across Government and deal with education, unemployment, suicide and health, and really get to grips with the problems facing young men and boys?
Bridget Phillipson
The hon. Gentleman raises some important areas of concern, including health outcomes, suicide, educational outcomes and the need to better support boys, young men and men throughout their lives. He will appreciate that ministerial appointments are for the Prime Minister, so I will not get ahead of myself and make any announcements from the Dispatch Box today.
Josh Simons (Makerfield) (Lab)
As a boy, Billy Boston dreamed of playing rugby union for Wales and for Cardiff, but he was never selected because he was black. Wigan and rugby league welcomed him with open arms. Rugby league has always been a sport that champions equality; it was created by working-class men who wanted to be paid a fair wage, and now Wigan Warriors women’s team have won the Challenge cup. Will the Secretary of State join me and millions across the north in celebrating rugby league as a sport that has always judged people by the content of their character and not their race, class or sex, and in congratulating Billy and his family on his becoming Sir Billy Boston?
Bridget Phillipson
I join my hon. Friend in congratulating Billy and his family. Right across sport, we want to make sure that no one is held back by outdated stereotypes, whether they relate to their sex, their race or their background. This Government are committed to ensuring that all young people have access to high-quality sport and other opportunities.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
As a former A-level teacher, one of my concerns—in addition to the disparities between boys and girls in educational outcomes—was the disparity in educational choice. Physics and maths classes were dominated by boys, and English literature and psychology classes were dominated by girls. Those are different subjects that develop different skills. Does the Secretary of State share my concern about that disparity, and does she have any plans to address it?
Bridget Phillipson
My hon. Friend brings real expertise, and I listened carefully to what he had to say. We will consider those issues through the schools White Paper later this autumn. The curriculum and assessment review is also under way, and it is considering all aspects of how we can make sure that young people have access to a broad and rich curriculum. In addition, we know that poverty is a real barrier for so many children, and that is why I am delighted that this Labour Government are expanding free school meals eligibility, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty.
Zöe Franklin (Guildford) (LD)
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
The digital inclusion action plan, published in February, sets out plans to widen access to devices, drive digital upskilling, break down barriers to participation and support people in their own communities. The plan highlights disabled people as one of five priority groups more likely to be digitally excluded, and the focus is therefore on them in particular.
Zöe Franklin
A constituent contacted me specifically about the digital inclusion action plan, explaining that because of his voice disability, spasmodic dysphonia, he struggles to access essential services such as banking, because automated phone systems could not understand his voice. There is often no clear way of bypassing those systems, and alternatives like webchat are slow and ineffective. This is a growing issue for many people with communication disabilities. What steps is the Minister taking, with Cabinet colleagues, to ensure that services remain accessible, and will the issue be addressed through the action plan?
Sir Stephen Timms
The hon. Lady has raised some interesting points. The action plan outlines five initial actions, including the establishment of an ambitious digital inclusion innovation fund. I do not know whether some of those ideas could be used to address the concern that the hon. Lady has raised, but we do want to be ambitious in all this. In the “Pathways to Work” Green Paper, published a couple of months ago, we talked about assistive tech and the possibility of making it more widely available; maybe there are solutions there that could be taken forward. I would be interested to talk to the hon. Lady about what more we might do.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
Three weeks ago, I had an opportunity to visit Harlow jobcentre, meet the fantastic work coaches there, and see the important work that they are doing to help people in Harlow get back into employment. Digital inclusion was one of the issues that they raised. Does the Minister agree that we need to look at how we can support people to get back to work, give them more face-to-face appointments, and help to provide training and digital skills when they need them?
Sir Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend is right. It is important to ensure that the tech that is available in jobcentres is appropriate for people’s needs. One element of the action plan is the launch this summer of an “IT reuse for good” charter, encouraging organisations to set up device donation schemes, because we think that they can play a helpful part as well.
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
The Minister for Equalities (Seema Malhotra)
Given that women are waiting up to 10 years for an endometriosis diagnosis, we are committed to improving diagnosis, treatment and ongoing care for women with gynaecological conditions. That includes approving two new pills to treat endometriosis this year, investing £5.6 million in much-need research, and taking action to cut gynaecology waiting lists through our elective reform plan. This Government are committed to prioritising women’s health as we build an NHS that is fit for the future.
Steve Yemm
I know that my constituent Samantha, who asked me to as this question, will be grateful for the Minister’s reply. Will she also work with colleagues across Government to ensure that once the Employment Rights Bill has been passed, the needs of those with menstrual health conditions, like endometriosis, are reflected properly in guidance and employer support, and that organisations such as Endometriosis UK are engaged in the process?
Seema Malhotra
Far too many women, like Samantha, are forced to leave work because they do not get the support that they need. That is why we are meeting the needs of women with endometriosis in the workplace through a number of measures in the Employment Rights Bill. Strengthening statutory sick pay arrangements, making flexible working available to more people, and opening up conversations about women’s health through employer action plans will benefit all employees managing the condition. We are turning the commitments in the women’s health strategy into tangible actions.
Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)
What commitment can the Minister give that the community diagnostic centres programme, which was started under the Conservative Government—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I’ll start again. What commitment can the Minister give that the community diagnostic centres programme, which was started under the last Government, will be used effectively to treat and diagnose not just endometriosis, but all the conditions listed in the women’s health strategy?
Seema Malhotra
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we are taking forward a number of measures as part of the women’s health strategy. He will also know that as a result of our pilot on women’s health hubs, which have been established in 41 of England’s 42 integrated care systems, we are working to make sure that we are supporting and tackling women’s health, including by shifting care out of hospitals, reducing waiting lists, and continuing to engage with local areas to use the learnings from women’s health hubs to improve the local delivery of services.
Sarah Owen (Luton North) (Lab)
Women are waiting up to 10 years for a diagnosis of endometriosis or adenomyosis. Our Women and Equalities Committee report recommended a maximum wait of two years, which is still a long time to live with intense pain and fertility decline, but it would be an improvement. Given that reproductive health issues cost the UK economy £11 billion a year, the sooner conditions are treated, the sooner women can get on with their lives. Does the Minister agree that investing in women’s health is essential, and how is she raising the importance of the women’s health strategy with her colleagues, including the Health Secretary?
Seema Malhotra
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that we need a focus on women’s health. Our priority is turning the commitments in the women’s health strategy into tangible actions, such as by setting out how we will eliminate cervical cancer by 2040 through the new cervical cancer plan. We have taken urgent action, through our elective reform plan, to support the nearly 600,000 women who are on gynaecology waiting lists.
Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
One in 10 women in Northern Ireland is thought to have endometriosis, and the average wait time for diagnosis is an unacceptable nine and a half years. Does the Minister agree that there needs to be a UK-wide strategy that equips our NHS with endo-experienced surgeons, fertility experts, mental health support and pain specialists in order to aid those women, who are on the most horrifically painful journey?
Seema Malhotra
I thank the hon. Member for raising this issue. She is right: it is unacceptable that women can wait up to 10 years for an endometriosis diagnosis. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s updated guidelines on endometriosis make firmer recommendations on referral and investigations, which will help women receive a diagnosis and effective treatment faster. It is important that we continue to work as closely we can on this issue across the whole UK.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
The hon. Member is right to raise this issue; the current system does track too many people in financial inequality. We want disabled people to have chances in work, which others have always taken for granted. We will invest an additional £1 billion a year by the end of the decade in work, health and skills support.
Manuela Perteghella
I have spoken to several disabled constituents who are deeply fearful about the proposed cut to the limited capability for work and work-related activity element of universal credit. Research by Sense shows that one in four disabled people with complex needs could be pushed into debt if the changes go ahead. Will the Minister and his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions review this damaging proposal?
Sir Stephen Timms
At the moment, there are 200,000 people out of work on health and disability grounds who would love to be in a job, and who say they could be in a job today if they had the support to make that possible for them. We are determined to provide them with that support.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
As the Minister knows, the personal independence payment is a passport benefit for carer’s allowance. The Government’s impact assessment suggests that approximately 150,000 family carers will lose out due to the proposed changes to the eligibility criteria for PIP. What further analysis have the Government done of the financial impacts of welfare reform on family carers?
Sir Stephen Timms
We are consulting on the support that will be needed over the next few years for perhaps one in 10 of those currently claiming PIP. Support will be needed for those who lose their benefit, and that will include family carers who receive carer’s allowance at the moment.
Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
The Minister for Equalities (Seema Malhotra)
We are taking firm action across Government to deliver our unprecedented ambition to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. That is underpinned by a new Government strategy, which is to be published this summer. Last year, we launched new domestic abuse protection orders and set out new measures to tackle stalking. Through the safe streets mission board and the VAWG ministerial group, Ministers across Government regularly meet to discuss and drive progress.
Irene Campbell
It saddened me to see an article in the Glasgow Times about the rise of sex crimes at Scottish train stations. Sexual Abuse Compensation Advice found that there has been a 45% increase in sex crimes at Scottish stations, with a total of 87 crimes reported in 2024. Does the Minister agree that women should be able to use public transport without fear of assault? Will she tell me what her Department is doing to tackle such issues?
Seema Malhotra
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this issue. She is absolutely right: everyone should feel safe while on public transport. That is why we have developed an ambitious programme to help make the transport network safe for women and girls. The British Transport police use overt and covert policing techniques to target offenders who are using the network, promote the reporting of sexual offences, and have committed to tackling violence against women and girls in their 2025-to-27 policing plan, which, with her experience in this area, she may be interested to discuss with them.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
On Friday, my private Member’s Bill is due for Second Reading. It calls for the Government to publish a strategy to tackle interpersonal abuse and violence against men and boys. The strategy would ensure that male survivors of crimes considered to be violence against women and girls, such as rape, sexual assault, domestic abuse, forced marriage and honour-based violence, are given dedicated support, and also prevent male survivors from having to be in spaces that should be for women. Currently, male survivors are to be included in the strategy for women and girls, due to be published this summer. Can the Minister reassure me, and male survivors in desperate need of support, that the Government will introduce a dedicated strategy for men and boys, and if they will not, why not?
Seema Malhotra
I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this issue. It does affect women and girls more, but I take the points that he raises, and it is important that all people get the support that they need. I look forward to looking closely at his private Member’s Bill.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)
Time and again, we Conservative Members asked the Government to hold a national statutory inquiry into the grooming gangs scandal. Time and again, Government Ministers insisted that the five local inquiries would be enough, despite a suspected 50 towns having grooming gangs operating in them, as reported by Charlie Peters from GB News. Now, after the Casey review and the announcement of the national commission, what reassurances can the Minister give victims that the 50 suspected towns will be investigated? If a town or city where a grooming gang is suspected to operate refuses to have an inquiry, can the Minister compel the commission to investigate? In other words, do the Government have any accountability whatever?
Seema Malhotra
The shadow Minister may not have listened closely to the statement on Monday, because that was confirmed by the Home Secretary. He may want to know that earlier this year, the Financial Times told us the reality of what went on inside the previous Government after Alexis Jay’s report. The FT said that No. 10 urged Home Office Ministers to
“do more to ‘engage with Alexis’ and draw up a…plan for her recommendations.”
One veteran admitted that
“The report came out at an unfortunate time and was maybe to some extent forgotten or deprioritised.”
“Forgotten or deprioritised”—yet now the Conservatives have the cheek to lecture this Government about the action we are taking to support and protect victims.
Ian Sollom (St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire) (LD)
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Bridget Phillipson)
I am proud to be driving our opportunity mission, as part of this Government’s plan for change, to break the link between background and success. In our spending review, we announced that we are extending free school meals to all children with a parent on universal credit, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty by the end of the Parliament. That is the difference a Labour Government make.
Ian Sollom
My constituent Theo, who is blind and a Braillist, has not received a single useable Braille past paper, despite being nearly a year into his A-levels, and reports that his GCSE papers last year contained so many errors that they were nearly impossible to use. Will the Minister take immediate action to ensure that exam boards fulfil their legal duty under the Equality Act 2010 to provide accessible examination materials, and urgently review Ofqual’s monitoring?
Bridget Phillipson
I am concerned to hear of the experience of the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. If he provides me with some information, I can make sure that this is properly investigated.
Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
Bridget Phillipson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question. I share her concern about the issue and its impact on young women and girls. That is why the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology is bringing forward further action to ensure that girls are protected from harm, and why later this year, we will publish updated guidance on relationships, sex and health education to tackle all forms of misogyny and ensure that young men and women can thrive in our country.
Mims Davies (East Grinstead and Uckfield) (Con)
I point to page 86 of Baroness Casey’s report, which shows a worrying number of live investigations of cases in which there is an overlap between child sexual exploitation and criminal exploitation. The report notes that a “significant proportion” of cases appear to involve suspects who are claiming asylum. Which Minister is directly responsible for safeguarding our communities, including those housed in asylum hotels? If the Government manage to close asylum hotels, as they claim they will, and individuals move into other accommodation, will any dangers transferred from hotels to the wider community be accounted for?
Bridget Phillipson
The hon. Lady will know that the Home Secretary recently made an extensive statement to Parliament, setting out the actions that this Government will take to address the many failures left behind by the Conservatives. Baroness Casey outlined that there had been a decade of lost time and a failure to deliver justice for victims. This Government will take action. We will root out all forms of child sexual exploitation, keep children safe from harm, and ensure that perpetrators are finally prosecuted.
Mims Davies
For decades, too many people blocked their ears and turned their backs on towns and individuals asking for help, as well as on the national calls for help. Will the Minister confirm that those in their ivory towers in Whitehall can now be compelled to give evidence under oath on their actions and assumptions—including, vitally, senior civil servants, former Crown Prosecution Service employees, and previous Directors of Public Prosecutions?
Bridget Phillipson
As the Home Secretary set out on Monday, anyone found to have been responsible for covering up or hiding vile crimes of child sexual abuse must and will be prosecuted. However, the Conservatives had a decade to act—the lost decade that Baroness Casey talked about—and the recommendations from Alexis Jay sat on a shelf without being acted on. This Government immediately brought forward the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to deliver the biggest upgrade in child protection legislation in a generation—a Bill that the Conservatives opposed.
Mr Speaker
Before we come to Prime Minister’s questions, I welcome to the Gallery the Speaker of the Assembly of Representatives of Tajikistan.
Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)
The Deputy Prime Minister (Angela Rayner)
I have been asked to reply, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been attending the G7 summit in Canada. In an era of global instability, we are working with our partners to urge de-escalation in the middle east, to put pressure on Russia to agree to a ceasefire, and to deliver security renewal for the British people.
The Air India plane crash last week was devastating. Our thoughts and condolences are with everyone affected by this awful incident, and we are working closely with the Indian authorities to support those in need.
Nine years ago, we lost our beloved friend and colleague Jo Cox, who was a beacon of positivity and courage. Her legacy lives on. I must take this opportunity to also remember Sir David Amess, who is much missed by the whole House.
This Sunday marks Windrush Day. We celebrate the extraordinary contribution of the Windrush generation and their descendants to our country.
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Adrian Ramsay
Given the strong consensus across this House on the importance of de-escalation of the deeply worrying conflict between Israel and Iran, does the Deputy Prime Minister agree that this House’s actions must match its words? Will she therefore give a commitment that before any further military support is given to the Israeli Government, whether it be the deployment of RAF jets or armed forces, her Government will first give MPs in this House a free vote on the matter?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The situation in the middle east is fast-moving and deeply concerning, and there is clear potential for a significant and rapid worsening of the situation. In every step we take, we will always be guided by the safety of British nationals and the UK national interest. That is why we have deployed jets to the region, so that contingency support is in place for our armed forces personnel, and it is why we are asking British nationals to register their presence. We will keep all advice under review.
Olivia Bailey (Reading West and Mid Berkshire) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right to talk about the 14 years of failure by the Conservatives. Labour is turning the tide on the housing crisis, and I am proud to announce today our commitment to establishing a new publicly owned national housing bank, backed by £16 billion of new finance. This includes £2.5 billion in low-interest loans for social housing, to help achieve the biggest uplift to social and affordable housing in a generation.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I associate myself with the Deputy Prime Minister’s remarks about the tragic air crash in India, and of course about our dear colleagues Jo Cox and Sir David Amess. I also join her in calling for de-escalation between Israel and Iran, while noting that everything possible must be done to stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon.
Yesterday, the Leader of the Opposition and I met survivors of the rape gang scandal and their family members. Fiona, Teresa, Lucia and Marlon told us how authorities deliberately covered up the systematic rape of young girls, and some boys, by gangs of predominantly Pakistani-heritage men. They covered it up because they cared more about so-called community relations than protecting vulnerable girls. That is disgusting.
The survivors told us that they will only have confidence in an inquiry if it is independently led, has full statutory powers, and covers all 50 towns affected, including Bradford. They will also only have confidence in it if those who covered this up are prosecuted, foreign perpetrators are all deported, survivors are closely involved, and it is set up before the summer recess. Can the Deputy Prime Minister give the survivors and their families those assurances?
The Deputy Prime Minister
First, I thank the shadow Home Secretary for his tone, and for putting the survivors and victims at the heart of his question. It is absolutely right that we all look at what has happened over the last couple of decades, and at the countless reports that we have had, and look to implement them. He is right to talk about the confidence that people must have in the independent inquiry. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary spoke about that earlier this week in relation to Baroness Casey’s report, which we will take forward at speed. The inquiry will be independent, and it will have statutory powers. We will also implement the Jay report, which he will have known about, as the Minister in charge at the time. We will get on with taking action. I hope Conservative Members will adopt his tone, so that we can make sure that the whole House puts victims first, and that we all work together to get to the bottom of this.
Chris Philp
It is vital that scandals like this are never again covered up because of the racial background of perpetrators. Baroness Casey’s report said, to use her words, that people who downplay the ethnic dimension are letting victims down, so I have to raise the matter of the language that the Prime Minister used in January, when I am afraid to say he smeared campaigners as jumping on a “far-right bandwagon” simply for calling for the very inquiry that he has now been forced to set up. Standing up for rape victims is not far-right. Will the Deputy Prime Minister apologise for what the Prime Minister said?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The Prime Minister did not just raise issues; he has acted on them. He brought the first prosecutions against grooming gangs, and called for action to address ethnicity issues in 2012. The right hon. Member will know that the data that the previous Government collected was inaccurate and not complete. Baroness Casey recognised this, and it is the subject of one of the recommendations that we will take forward. The Prime Minister made those comments specifically about Tory Ministers who sat for years in Government and did absolutely nothing about this scandal.
Chris Philp
Smearing campaigners who stand up for rape victims as being “far-right” is completely unacceptable, and the Prime Minister should never have said that. I commend his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), for the grooming gangs taskforce that he set up, which led to 550 arrests in its first year. Baroness Casey’s report also said that a significant number of rape gang perpetrators were non-UK nationals or asylum seekers, many of whom entered the country illegally. We also know that most illegal immigrants crossing the channel are young men, contrary to what the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said last week. Does the Deputy Prime Minister now accept that the small boats crisis is one of public safety, as well as a border crisis?
The Deputy Prime Minister
This is a very serious issue, and more needs to be done. Let me update the House. Working with our allies, we have carried out a series of major arrests to tackle the smuggling gangs behind this vile trade. In the past month, a ringleader who has smuggled almost 4,000 migrants has been jailed for 25 years. We can go further thanks to the law-enforcement agreements we have struck with Germany, Italy, Serbia and the Balkan states. That is in stark contrast to the right hon. Gentleman, who was the man at the heart of the Home Office when immigration soared, we lost control of our borders, and we spent £700 million of taxpayers’ money on persuading just four volunteers to be removed to Rwanda. I take no lectures from him.
Chris Philp
If she wants to find out who has lost control of our borders, I suggest that she looks to her immediate right, because ever since the Home Secretary scrapped the Rwanda deterrent before it even started, illegal immigration across the channel has gone up by 30%. So far, 2025 has been the worst year in history for illegal immigrants crossing the channel. That is on her watch; that is down to her Government.
The Prime Minister is planning crisis talks with President Macron, and is finally admitting that the situation is, in his words, “deteriorating”. The Government’s laughable plan to smash the gangs lies in tatters. Will the Deputy Prime Minister at last accept that we need a removals deterrent, so that every single illegal immigrant who arrives on these shores is immediately removed? Will she commit to that—yes or no?
The Deputy Prime Minister
If the Conservatives want to argue that the 40,000 arrivals since July ’24 are down to the scrapping of the Rwanda scheme, they need to explain why there were more than 43,000 arrivals in the same period starting in July ’22, when the Rwanda agreement was in place. It is absolute rubbish. They lost control of our borders; we are getting control of our borders. The right hon. Gentleman needs to apologise.
Chris Philp
I do not see how the Deputy Prime Minister has the brass neck to claim that she has the situation under control when the numbers crossing the channel this year are the highest in history. She asked about the Rwanda deterrent. She was obviously not listening to what I said earlier. The Rwanda scheme never started; indeed, illegal immigrants in Calais—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I want to hear the question, and I am sure our constituents want to hear the question and the answer.
Chris Philp
The Rwanda scheme never started. Illegal immigrants in Calais said before the election how much they wanted the Prime Minister to get elected because he would help them to get here. When Australia started a similar scheme about 10 years ago, it worked within a few months.
As a consequence of the Government losing control, they now accommodate in asylum hotels and flats growing numbers of illegal immigrants, many of whom crossed the channel. The Home Office’s suppliers are actively offering above-market deals to landlords to get hold of their properties for use by illegal immigrants. In the meantime, hard-pressed young people here are unable to rent or buy. Why do this Government prioritise housing for illegal immigrants above housing for our young people?
Angela Rayner
Again, I gently say to the right hon. Member that, under his Government’s watch, immigration increased fourfold, until it reached almost a million in a single year. They also created the backlog—400 hotels, which we reduced to just over 200 in our first 12 months in government. One million pounds a day “spiffed” up the wall because they were so incompetent. We are building the homes that they failed to deliver over 14 consecutive years of failure. They should apologise while we get on with the job of rebuilding Britain.
Chris Philp
Goodness me, the Deputy Prime Minister has a cheek. Housing starts in quarter four last year went down—her mission to rebuild Britain is not going very well. She talks about asylum hotels, but she obviously has not looked at the most recent numbers. The number of people in asylum hotels was higher in March this year than it was at the time of the election. And she gave no answer about the priority being given to illegal immigrants over people already living here.
A Zimbabwean paedophile due for deportation was recently allowed to stay in the UK because a court found that he might face “some hostility” back in Zimbabwe, which apparently breached his article 3 rights. What about the rights of children here to be protected from this dangerous paedophile? Who is looking out for their rights? Not the Government. There are thousands of such cases involving foreign criminals. There is a solution: we need to scrap the Human Rights Act for immigration matters so that this sovereign Parliament decides on the law that our courts apply. But the Deputy Prime Minister’s party voted against that. I have a simple question: why do the Government side with foreign criminals and not the British public?
Angela Rayner
The Conservatives had 14 years of failure on these issues. We have deported 4,500 foreign national offenders since we came to office, which is more than they did over the same period. I will take no lectures from the Johnny-come-lately who could not do anything when he was in office.
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
Angela Rayner
I thank my hon. Friend for her question, for the work that she has done with campaigners such as Margaret in their fight for justice, and for mentioning Grenfell, the eighth anniversary of which was not so long ago. We remain fully committed to bringing in a Hillsborough law. The state has failed victims and their families too many times in the past, which is precisely why our focus is now on getting the legislation right. I can assure her that measures will be brought forward as soon as we are confident that they will deliver the justice that victims deserve, and we want to do this at pace.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
On behalf of my party, may I associate myself with the Deputy Prime Minister’s remarks about the Air India crash? In a week that we remember the murder of Jo Cox and David Amess, our party’s thoughts are with their friends and families and all those in this House who lost their beloved friends. We also remember those who died in the Grenfell tragedy.
In 2003, we Liberal Democrats were incredibly proud to lead the campaign against the Iraq war—a war in which the UK blindly followed the US in a move that was not backed by the United Nations. In light of reports that President Trump is seriously considering joining the war between Israel and Iran, launching a US strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, can the Deputy Prime Minister confirm that if President Trump does take such action, today’s Labour Government will not blindly follow the US into war again?
Angela Rayner
The one thing I will say is that we agree with President Trump that Iran must never have nuclear weapons. But we have been consistent in urging Iran to engage with the diplomatic process and work with the United States and we continue to support that diplomatic approach.
Daisy Cooper
I am grateful to the Deputy Prime Minister. We support those efforts.
Today, the Government are set to unveil their plans to cut personal independence payments and carer’s allowance, a prospect that one of my constituents described as “terrifying”. Liberal Democrat analysis of the Government’s own data suggests that 1.3 million disabled people are at risk of losing some support. Can the Deputy Prime Minister honestly say, hand on heart, that that is the change that 1 million disabled people and their carers were promised?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Labour is the party of work and the party of fairness and social justice. We have announced a plan to get Britain working again, and we are clear on the principles—I want to be clear on that—that those who want to work should be able to work and those who can never work should be protected.
The current system, which we have inherited, does not support those who need that support and does not allow people opportunities for employment. I have personal experience of it. I know what the hon. Lady is saying, and I know how some people are fearful of the changes, but this Labour Government have put their values into place and will ensure that people are supported into work where they can work, and those who cannot will be supported. We are the party of the welfare state—we set it up after the second world war—and believe it should be there for people who need it, but we should also help people into work.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is a long-standing advocate for child protection, and I pay tribute to her campaigning on these issues. We share her determination to do what is right for the victims and the survivors. We recognise that no sum of money can ever fully compensate for the horrors they have experienced. We are committed to funding efforts to tackle child sexual abuse in the future and support survivors to rebuild their lives—that is why we will make it easier for victims to make personal injury claims through the civil courts by removing the three-year time limit—and we are redoubling funding for therapeutic support services.
Carla Denyer (Bristol Central) (Green)
This Refugee Week is an opportunity for the House to show solidarity with those fleeing war, persecution and oppression. Compassion and welcome are core British values, but for decades the Home Office has been undermining those values, as my new report “No Way Home” shows, by treating migration as a crime rather than making it work for our communities and for newcomers. Will the Deputy Prime Minister read the report and consider its recommendation to remove migration from the responsibilities of the failing Home Office?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will commit to reading the hon. Lady’s report, because it is important that we take all information on these issues. We inherited an asylum system under exceptional strain, which costs up to £9 million a day. We will end the use of hotels through suitable self-sufficient accommodation for asylum seekers, minimising the impact on local communities, and we will protect and support asylum seekers while demonstrating value for taxpayers.
Jodie Gosling (Nuneaton) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for raising this important issue, and I know that the fire Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North and Kimberley (Alex Norris)—will be happy to discuss it further. I am committed to ensuring that fire and rescue services across the country have the resources they need to keep communities safe. The deployment of fire engines, though, is decided locally, so this really is a question for Warwickshire county council, which is now led by Reform. The hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) should have a word with his county councillors in Nuneaton and get them to explain why Reform is cutting fire services.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
The Deputy Prime Minister
The hon. Member talks about austerity, but I gently say to him that we have given the biggest amount of increase to Scotland—[Interruption.] I have covered this point in an earlier question. We are absolutely committed to ending child poverty. We have already introduced free school meals, we are already supporting families and we have given a living wage rise to millions of workers that need it. We are getting on with the job of rebuilding Britain. The hon. Member has had decades of failure in Scotland, and it deserves better.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I know my hon. Friend is a champion for regeneration across his constituency, and he is working hard to get homes built in his patch for his constituents. Our plan for change will deliver the biggest boost for investment in social and affordable housing in a generation, and for the first time in recent memory, we will give providers in his constituency a decade of certainty over the capital funding to build ambitious housing projects that honour Derbyshire’s history.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister
The Conservatives continually vote against the measures that we are taking to smash the gangs. We are getting on with the job, working internationally to disrupt the abhorrent work of these smugglers and gangs, while the hon. Member harps on from the sidelines. He should apologise for their record in government, which was abysmal.
Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting that case. It is not an isolated case; we inherited a really dire situation and there are far too many people that do not have a safe and secure home that meets their needs. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has announced record funding of almost double the level provided by the previous Government, who ended up handing back the cash for social and affordable homes. Labour’s plan for change is renewing our country and investing in Britain’s future.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank the Father of the House for his important question. Settler violence and expansion in the west bank is appalling and completely unacceptable. Alongside our allies, we have sanctioned individuals responsible for inciting this extremist action, but a two-state solution is the only way to bring the peace that the Israelis and the Palestinians deserve. That is only achievable if the hostages are released, aid is surged into Gaza and the ceasefire is restored. We will do everything we can to make that happen.
Chris Kane (Stirling and Strathallan) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
My hon. Friend is right. Homelessness levels are far too high, which have a devastating impact on those affected. Under the SNP, 10,000 children in Scotland—a record high—shamefully have no fixed home to call their own. Our decisions have given Scotland a record settlement—the largest since devolution. We saw in Hamilton how Scots are fed up with the SNP’s excuses. The SNP has been in power for nearly two decades and has nowhere left to hide from its failure.
Ann Davies (Caerfyrddin) (PC)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I gently say to the hon. Member that you do not deliver for Wales by voting against an extra £1.6 billion for public services like Plaid did in the Senedd. We will ensure that we support Wales and Welsh farmers and will continue to do that as a UK Government.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)
The Deputy Prime Minister
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I am flanked by the two ladies—the Chancellor and the Home Secretary—who have ensured that those things happen. The Chancellor has guaranteed funding to accelerate projects like Peterborough’s new sports quarter, which will include a new Olympic-sized swimming pool. I can also confirm today that, subject to the business case approval, we will provide nearly £48 million of funding for a new city centre quarter and a refurbished eastern station building.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
The Deputy Prime Minister
First of all, I am sorry to hear about that. Hard-working businesspeople who spend a lot of their time building up a business should expect the full force of the law to protect their property and their interests. Also, while I have the opportunity, can I congratulate the hon. Member on running Hamble Valley’s very first pub competition this year? I hope that I will get an invite. He is absolutely right that we have to have increased police numbers and ensure that they are responsive to people’s concerns. We are doing that; his Government let people down.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
Saturday marked eight years since 72 people lost their lives in the Grenfell tower fire—eight years without justice. But, finally, there is the prospect of some systemic change following the public inquiry. I welcome the Government’s commitment to barring all the cited companies from accessing public contracts and their full support to the police investigation to deliver real accountability. Can the Deputy Prime Minister also reassure our community that, alongside the Hillsborough law, the Government will consider some independent oversight so that victims from the Post Office to Hillsborough to Grenfell know that inquiry recommendations will actually lead to real change?
The Deputy Prime Minister
The Grenfell fire was a national tragedy, and we must never forget the 72 lives that were lost. It was a honour to pay my respects on the eighth anniversary at the weekend. We remain fully committed to introducing the Hillsborough law, including a legal duty of candour for public services and criminal sanctions for those who refuse to comply. I know my hon. Friend speaks with passion and authority on the matter and, having spoken to the Grenfell community, I know that they really want to see this happen as quickly as possible. We are exploring reforms to ensure that we can get to the truth more quickly and deliver the meaningful change that these victims deserve.
Peter Fortune (Bromley and Biggin Hill) (Con)
Bishop Challoner school has been helping to educate Bromley pupils for nearly 75 years, but it will close its doors in July due to Labour’s decision to impose VAT on independent schools. Given the Deputy Prime Minister’s well-publicised views on independent schools, does she welcome this closure or would she like to apologise to the parents, pupils and staff?
The Deputy Prime Minister
As I have said for a long time, taxpayers in this country should not be subsidising tax breaks for private schools. I welcome all schools that give children a great education, but I am also determined to ensure we have qualified teachers in every classroom, for every child, which is something the hon. Gentleman’s Government failed to do.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
As a trained physics teacher and a former engineering lecturer, may I ask the Deputy Prime Minister what this Government are doing to help people improve their maths skills after they have left school? I came across an awful case the other day: a 61-year-old man who believed he had counted up £7 billion of Government spending, when there was really only £27 million. What can we do for people like the leader of Reform UK, the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who evidently cannot add up? [Hon. Members: “More!”]
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend highlights an important fact: Reform’s sums simply do not add up. He will be pleased to know that we are investing £136 million in skills bootcamps, and I will be sure to send the details to the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage).
HS2 Reset
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Transport (Heidi Alexander)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a statement on HS2.
As a London councillor over 15 years ago, I remember hearing the then Labour Government’s bold plans for high-speed rail to link our major cities, address the capacity needs of the future and, in the words of then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to join
“the high-speed revolution sweeping the world.”
It was a vision of a confident nation and a clear signal: our great towns and cities in the midlands and the north, with potential that had been untapped at best and ignored at worst, could be places of opportunity and aspiration again. That was the promise of HS2.
But after a decade and a half of Tory timelines planned then delayed, routes drawn up then cancelled, budgets calculated then blown and promises made then broken, we inherited a project that had lost the trust of the public, that created an image of a Britain woefully unable to deliver big infrastructure projects and that had been axed from swathes of the country it was originally meant to serve. Phase 1 could end up becoming one of the most expensive railway lines in the world, with projected costs soaring by £37 billion under previous Conservative Governments, and £2 billion of taxpayers’ money was sunk into phase 2 work before it was cancelled by the previous Government.
There was also clear evidence of poor management. Despite the 2020 Oakervee review advising that Government halt construction contracts pending improvements in price and simpler engineering, they pressed ahead regardless. It has been no less than a litany of failure and today I am drawing a line in the sand, calling time on years of mismanagement, flawed reporting and ineffective oversight. It means this Government will get the job done between Birmingham and London. We will not reinstate cancelled sections we cannot afford, but we will do the hard but necessary work to rebuild public trust, and we have not wasted any time.
Since July we have appointed new leadership of HS2 Ltd to turn this project around. We have made clear to the new chief executive, Mark Wild, that the priority is building the rest of the railway safely at the lowest reasonable cost even if this takes longer. We have started the year-long task of fundamentally resetting the project, including commissioning infrastructure expert James Stewart to lead a review into governance and oversight. As part of that reset, we have reduced financial delegations to HS2 Ltd, placing a lid on spiralling costs until the reset is complete and we regain confidence, and we have supported Mark Wild’s review of the size and cost of HS2 as an organisation.
But today we are going further. I can confirm we have published the landmark James Stewart review and the Department’s response. The review, commissioned in October last year by my predecessor, was a tough, independent look at how the Department for Transport and Government deliver major projects. The Government not only welcome the review, but have accepted all the recommendations, and my Department is already delivering on these, specifically across five key areas.
First, on the lack of oversight and scrutiny, quite simply there have been too many dark corners for failure to hide in. The ministerial taskforce set up to provide oversight of HS2 had inconsistent attendance from key Ministers, including the then Transport Secretary and the then Chief Secretary to the Treasury. The Government have re-established the taskforce with full senior attendance per the review’s recommendations. A new performance programme and shareholder boards will offer much-needed oversight and accountability.
Secondly, the report highlights HS2 could cost the taxpayer millions more than planned. We will stop this spiralling any further by delivering all the recommendations on cost control. That starts with HS2 fundamentally changing its approach to estimating costs. It includes certainty over funding, which the spending review has given. It also means HS2 working with suppliers so that their contracts incentivise saving costs for taxpayers; as far as I am concerned, suppliers should make a better return the more taxpayer money they save.
Thirdly, the review identified a deficit in capability and skills, with a fundamental lack of trust between my Department and HS2 Ltd. I am clear that both capability and cultural issues within HS2 must be addressed. The new chief executive is already strengthening the organisation, including by filling critical gaps in areas such as commercial expertise, and he will be backed by Mike Brown, announced today as the new chair. This is a new era of leadership that the project desperately needs, with Mike bringing significant experience as a former Transport for London commissioner. Mark and Mike were part of the team, with me, that turned Crossrail into the Elizabeth line; we have done it before and we will do it again.
Fourthly, between 2019 and 2023 HS2 Ltd provided initial designs for Euston station coming in almost £2 billion over budget. When asked for a more affordable option, it offered one costing £400 million more than the first attempt. The word “affordable” was clearly not part of the HS2 lexicon. The combined cost for those two failed designs, which has now been written off, was more than a quarter of a billion pounds.
What is more, the previous Government announced a Euston ministerial taskforce. Unbelievably, the taskforce never met. This Government recognise Euston’s huge potential. We have already committed funding to start the tunnelling from Old Oak Common to Euston, and we will set out more details in our 10-year infrastructure strategy.
We will use James Stewart’s findings to transform infrastructure delivery across Government. Implementing real change in how we deliver infrastructure is not just for the Department for Transport. This Government are committed to implementing these recommendations and adopting a new approach to delivering infrastructure, as will be set out in our upcoming 10-year infrastructure strategy. In that spirit, the Prime Minister has also asked the Cabinet Secretary to consider the implications for the civil service and the wider public sector of the issues raised in the report, including whether further action or investigation is warranted.
We are wasting no time in delivering on this review. I will update Parliament on our progress through my six-monthly reports, even if the information is uncomfortable, because for a Government who last week pledged billions in capital investment for new major projects, and who believe in the power of transport infrastructure to improve lives and deliver on our plan for change, that level of failure cannot stand. We will learn the lessons of the past 15 years and restore our reputation for delivering world-class infrastructure projects.
I have spoken about our inheritance and James Stewart’s review, so let me finally turn to Mark Wild’s initial assessment, which lays bare the shocking mismanagement of the project under previous Governments—I will place a copy of his interim findings in the Library. He stated, in no uncertain terms, that the overall project, with respect to cost, schedule and scope, is unsustainable. Based on his advice, I see no route by which trains can be running by 2033 as planned. He reveals that costs will continue to increase if not taken in hand, further outstripping the budget set by the previous Government, and he cannot be certain that all cost pressures have yet been identified.
It gives me no pleasure to deliver news like this. Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management. There are also allegations that parts of the supply chain have been defrauding taxpayers, and I have been clear that those need to be investigated rapidly and rigorously. If fraud is proven, the consequences will be felt by all involved.
I have to be honest: this is an appalling mess, but it is one that we will sort out. We need to set targets that we can confidently deliver and that the public can trust, and that will take time, but rest assured that where there are inefficiencies, we will root them out; and where further ministerial interventions are needed, I will make them without fear or favour. HS2 will finally start delivering on our watch.
Years of mismanagement and neglect have turned HS2 into a shadow of that vision put forward 15 years ago, but this Government were elected on a mandate to restore trust to our politics, and that is why we will not shirk away from this challenge and why today we turn the page on infrastructure failures. I can think of no better mission than delivering new economic opportunities, new homes, commercial regeneration and an upskilled supply chain, all of which HS2 can still unlock, but no one should underestimate the scale of the reset required. Passengers and taxpayers deserve new railways that the country can be proud of. The work to get HS2 back on track is firmly under way under this Government, and I commend this statement to the House.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for updating the House on the initial findings of the HS2 reviews. I also thank her for advance notice and a copy of her statement.
On the substance of the Secretary of State’s statement, I believe there is a broad consensus in this House on the central point that mistakes were made in the delivery of HS2. As she noted, costs more than doubled, the project has been repeatedly delayed, and the pandemic completely changed travel patterns. It undercut the assumptions that guided the original plans and caused construction costs to rise sharply across the world—by up to 40% in some cases—as a result of supply chain shortages as the world emerged from the crisis.
It has long been apparent that HS2 was not going according to plan. In my first two years as a Member of this House, I sat on the Public Accounts Committee, then chaired by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier). In the summer of 2021, we published a report on HS2 that raised serious concerns in a number of areas and contained recommendations for how to improve the project.
In 2023, the previous Government conceded that HS2 was not going to plan and made fundamental changes to it. The result was the cancellation of the northern leg of HS2 and the creation of the Network North plan. Under that plan, £36 billion was to be diverted from the northern leg of HS2 to a multitude of transport projects that would benefit more people in more places and more quickly than the then Government believed the delivery of HS2 could. However, we also recognise that the path we took to reach that point was not perfect—far from it. I will not today pretend that the Network North plan was not a product of mistakes we made in the handling of HS2, because it clearly was. As a country, we must learn from those mistakes and we must not repeat them.
On that note, and with your permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to express my gratitude to Mark Wild, the chief executive officer of HS2, for his continued efforts to support the delivery of the project. Recognising his leadership in rescuing the Crossrail project in London, it was the noble Lord Harper—then Secretary of State for Transport—who appointed him to lead HS2 in May 2024. We are all encouraged to see him playing a leading role in overseeing the correction and completion of the project, because his experience will be invaluable in helping to get it back on track. I also welcome the appointment of Mike Brown as the new chairman of HS2 Ltd. Like the Secretary of State, I know him from my years in London politics, when he was commissioner of Transport for London. He is a very capable man, and I wish him well in his new role.
The Secretary of State has informed the House of her intention to accept 89 recommendations of the independent review into HS2. I have not yet seen a copy of that report, which I believe is being released today. Although we will need to study those proposals carefully before confirming our support for them, I can assure the Secretary of State if they offer better value for taxpayers, we will back them. The Secretary of State has also raised very serious concerns that taxpayers may have been defrauded by subcontractors. I assure her that if that proves to be the case, I will share her anger, and will support whatever action is necessary to get to the bottom of those allegations. I would request that she keeps the House informed as the investigations by HS2 and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs progress.
Before I close, I would like to press the Secretary of State on a number of matters. In recent weeks the Government have announced several projects that either are funded by Network North or align with its commitments. However, we have yet to see a clear Government commitment to either fully support the Network North plan or scale it back. Can the Secretary of State now provide a definitive update on which elements will proceed and which will be abandoned? It has been reported that officials are considering a plan, backed by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, to build an “HS2-lite” track between Birmingham and Crewe. Will she confirm whether those reports are true?
I will conclude by turning to the planning system more generally. The whole House will recall that HS2 grappled with legal challenges, High Court proceedings and judicial reviews, all of which added delay and cost. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the extent to which legal challenges and judicial reviews delayed the delivery of HS2? How can future infrastructure projects be protected from excessive or politically motivated litigation, and does the Secretary of State believe that sufficient action has been taken to prevent some of the more spurious concerns about such things as bats and newts obstructing future vital infrastructure projects?
Heidi Alexander
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his response, and indeed for the tone with which he made his comments. I was pleased to hear him acknowledge that mistakes had been made on HS2 by the previous Government. I think he described the path as not having been perfect—I would go so far as to say that it has been a shambolic mess. He struck a sombre note in his remarks, and I would ask him to consider going further, once he has had the opportunity to read the full James Stewart report, because an apology on the part of the Conservative party for the mess in which it left this infrastructure scheme is undoubtedly warranted. I also thank him for his comments on the action that HS2 is taking with regard to alleged fraud within the supply chain. I can assure him that I will provide appropriate updates to the House on the progress of the HMRC investigation that is now under way.
The hon. Gentleman asked me to set out our plans for investment in transport in the midlands and the north. The Conservative party took the decision to cancel HS2 north of Birmingham, and made wild promises about what it would do with the money it claimed it was saving. He is kidding himself if he thinks that that money ever existed. In last week’s spending review, this Government set out £15.6 billion to be invested in local transport schemes across the country, whether in Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds or Newcastle. The hon. Gentleman’s approach was a fantasy—he promised the moon on a stick and had absolutely no means to deliver. He asked me to set out the Government’s plans for further enhancing rail connectivity in the midlands and the north. I can assure him that further announcements will be made, both as part of the Government’s 10-year national infrastructure strategy and beyond that in the weeks and months ahead.
The hon. Gentleman also asked me to opine on the extent to which litigation has caused delays in the delivery of infrastructure projects. He will know that, through this Government’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill, we are tackling this issue by limiting the number of judicial reviews and legal challenges that can be brought. Unlike his party, this Government are serious about delivering infrastructure, and about providing the stable leadership that this country needs when it comes to infrastructure.
Before coming to the Chamber today, I looked up the number of Rail Ministers in the Department under his Government—it was 18 in 12 years. It is no wonder that projects such as HS2 were left in such a state of disarray. Just as this Government have returned stability to the nation’s economy, so will we return common sense and stable leadership to the delivery of the nation’s infrastructure.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
I also thank the Secretary of State for the decisive action she has taken to address the causes of HS2’s cost overruns. We look forward to having Mark Wild and the Rail Minister at our Committee very shortly.
I actually want to celebrate something that HS2’s leadership should be proud of: the work they have done on skills and workforce innovation. They have provided best-practice work that the construction industry and transport projects can learn from, and in fact are learning from. However, I urge the Secretary of State to get her Department to learn from countries such as France and Spain, which have managed to deliver extensive high-speed rail projects to time and at a fraction of the cost of HS2 here in the UK.
Heidi Alexander
I thank the Chair of the Transport Committee for her comments. She is right to recognise the excellent work that HS2 has done on skills and the workforce. We have over 300,000 people working on this project at the moment, and I think that HS2 has done good work on opening up opportunities, whether through apprenticeships for the next generation or through the supply chain. I will heed my hon. Friend’s advice about learning from the speed and ease with which other countries deliver infrastructure projects.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for advance sight of it. What we have heard today is clearly a damning indictment of Conservative mismanagement. Connecting our largest cities with high-speed rail was meant to help boost economic growth and spread opportunity. The original idea—a high-speed rail network connecting London to Manchester and Leeds—was clearly the right one, but what we have ended up with is years of delay and billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being poured down the drain, with no end in sight. The litany of errors that the Secretary of State has outlined is truly shocking and shows that the Conservatives were comatose at the wheel. A lack of oversight, trust and planning has left us with a high-speed railway drastically reduced in scale and inflated in price. The shocking allegations of fraud by a subcontractor are emblematic of the Tories’ lack of oversight and interest in properly safeguarding the public interest and public money, as we saw with the scandal of personal protective equipment procurement during covid. We must now make sure that any money lost to fraud is clawed back as soon as possible.
May I ask the Secretary of State three things? First, can she guarantee that, if any fraud has taken place, any money lost will be returned to the Government and her Department as soon as possible, and that the police will be provided with the necessary resources to investigate the matter fully? Secondly, the Secretary of State has said that the ministerial taskforce set up to provide oversight on HS2 had inconsistent attendance from the then Transport Secretary and Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Does the Secretary of State agree that those right hon. Members should apologise for those particularly damning lapses? Thirdly, we share the Secretary of State’s confidence in Mark Wild and Mike Brown, but can she say when she expects to be able to give the House an accurate assessment of the scheme’s full costs and of when HS2 will finally be up and running?
Heidi Alexander
The hon. Gentleman raises three fair issues, and I agree with his assessment that the previous Government were not just asleep but comatose at the wheel. He asks whether the alleged fraud in the supply chain will be fully investigated, and whether moneys will be returned to the taxpayer. I can assure him that no stone will be left unturned in getting to the bottom of this matter. He is also right to highlight the question of poor and inconsistent attendance by individuals who held my role, the Rail Minister’s role and Treasury roles. It is imperative that politicians who have oversight of these infrastructure schemes stay close to the detail of what is happening, both through their own officials and directly with the executive and non-executive leadership of the project. That is certainly what I intend to do. I know the Rail Minister has a monthly meeting with the new chief executive. We have already held a meeting of the ministerial taskforce, and there is another one due soon. I have had multiple one-to-one conversations with the leadership team at HS2.
The hon. Gentleman asks when I will be in a position to provide a full update on costs and schedule. Mark Wild has told me that he will require until the end of this year to do that full piece of work. I am not prepared to get ahead of that, because that is how we have got into problems previously. The hon. Gentleman can rest assured that as soon as I have more information, in addition to the six-monthly report that I provide to Parliament, I will come back to this House.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)
This is the latest national scandal to arise in our attempts to bring in infrastructure schemes on budget and on time, but the taxpayer is not the only victim of the failure of this project so far; there are also the people of the north of England. HS2 was originally a scheme intended to help the economies of the north-west and Yorkshire and those communities on the way, so there is a complete failure there. What we will be left with is an extension to the London underground system, and that will not help people in Leeds, Bradford, Manchester, Sheffield and elsewhere. Will the Secretary of State consider safeguarding the original routes so that when we get our infrastructure plans in place, we can build something that this country can be proud of?
Heidi Alexander
I gently say to my hon. Friend that the Mayor of the West Midlands might have something to say about his great city being seen as the end of an extension to the London underground line. It is completely right that our two great cities—Birmingham and London—are connected with high-quality rail services. Although this is a difficult day in exposing the state of the project, I have no doubt that in time it will be a railway we can be proud of.
I also say to my hon. Friend that I am aware of forecast capacity constraints between Birmingham and Manchester and in other parts of the country. We are investing, through things such as the trans-Pennine route upgrade, in improving connectivity to other great cities in the north of England. We are determined to ensure that everyone, no matter where they live in the country, has an excellent public transport system that they can rely upon.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
My constituency has been devastated by roughly 26 miles of HS2, and I have consistently warned this House—during the previous Parliament and this—through the lens of the miserable experience on the ground in Buckinghamshire, about the reasons for the cost overruns, poor governance and everything else that the Secretary of State has highlighted in her statement today. If she must persist with this wrong project with a new delay, will she give a commitment to my constituents and the rest of the county of Buckinghamshire on how much longer they will have to live in misery as part of a building site? More importantly, will she look urgently at unlocking some of the mitigation funds that we are finding incredibly hard to access and get spent on the ground? That would be of some small, tiny comfort to my constituents who are living in misery.
Heidi Alexander
It is essential that we proceed as quickly as possible with the remaining civil engineering works that will have affected the hon. Member’s constituents to date. If he wishes to write to me with details of the problem he has experienced with accessing mitigation funds, I will raise that for him with the chief executive of HS2.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
The Conservatives announced that they were scrapping the northern leg of HS2 in a former railway station, summing up their attitude to the railway and sending shockwaves through the industry, including in Derby, a rail city that will be building the HS2 trains. Will the Transport Secretary ensure certainty and timeliness going forward, so that the industry can have confidence that we will not see further delays, which have already been so damaging for the supply chain?
Heidi Alexander
My hon. Friend is right that certainty is critical for the rail supply chain. It will be a number of months before I am in a position to confirm with any certainty the schedule and estimated final cost. As soon as the new chief executive, Mark Wild, has provided that information to me and my Department, I will be updating the House.
Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
The Secretary of State knows that HS2 runs through my constituency, and she will accept that what makes my constituents particularly angry about what she has described is that HS2 has pinched every penny in compensating someone unfortunate enough to find themselves in the path of this railway, yet wasted millions elsewhere. Can she assure us that as part of the reset, line-drawing or page-turning—however she describes it—she will look at how people are compensated when affected by such major infrastructure projects? Does she accept that it would be sensible to consider how Parliament could look again at this project, whose budget and timescale have ballooned, and decide whether we still think it is a worthwhile use of taxpayers’ money?
Heidi Alexander
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is right to point out that we have some form as a country in seeking to gold-plate infrastructure projects. The last Government talked about this railway being the fastest and the best in the world. Frankly, I would like this country to do things well and properly. The point he raises about compensation is one that any Government should keep under review, while bearing in mind the need to provide value for money to the taxpayer. I can assure him that I will make sure on any infrastructure project I oversee in this role that the House is appropriately updated and that we proceed with transparency on the costs and benefits of the schemes.
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and the candidness with which she has delivered it. The villages I represent in north Buckinghamshire, be they Turweston, Westbury, Quainton or North Marston—I know the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) will be familiar with those communities—have for too long faced chaos and disruption from HS2 and its contractors. News that there will be yet more delay will cause them significant distress. Will the Secretary of State update the House and explain what additional practical support, financial or otherwise, her Department plans to give rural communities such as mine over the years ahead?
Heidi Alexander
I think the biggest reassurance that I could give my hon. Friend is my cast-iron commitment to ensure that we proceed as rapidly as possible with the completion of the remaining construction works, which I know will have had an impact on his constituents. While I cannot commit myself to the provision of further compensation from the Dispatch Box today, if they are experiencing particular problems he should not hesitate to bring them to my attention and that of my Department.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)
I welcome the statement, and I do not disagree with a word of the Secretary of State’s analysis of what has gone wrong in the past.
The Public Accounts Committee, which I have the honour of chairing, has produced eight comprehensive reports over the 13 years of this project, and there are some common themes throughout those reports. First, the Secretary of State’s Department—I am not in any way blaming her, because this is what went on in the past—did not have the right mix of skills to be able to challenge the assertions of those in HS2 Ltd: project managers, engineers, people who really know how to build a railway. Secondly, as we said in our report published on 28 February, we found that there was considerable disagreement between HS2 and the Department about the cost of the railway—the highest estimate was the top range of HS2, which was £66 billion in 2019 prices and more than £80 billion in today’s prices—and I think we need an assurance fairly soon about what it is going to cost. Thirdly, I am not at all surprised that the Secretary of State has had to delay the completion date, but this is the second reset in five years, so we really want to see it work. I think that the people of this country will be very keen to know, when her half-yearly report is published and if possible before, when the project is likely to be completed.
Heidi Alexander
I thank the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues on the Public Accounts Committee for the work that they have done on this over so many years. He is right to highlight the need for skills within the Government so that they can act as a strong client of HS2 Ltd. We also need to ensure that we have the right commercial acumen in HS2, and I know that the chief executive officer is working on that. I must, however, disappoint the hon. Gentleman, because I think it unlikely that in my next report to Parliament, which I believe is due before the summer recess, I will be able to provide any concrete information about a new schedule window and a new cost envelope. I think that the work will take the chief executive towards the end of the year before we are in a position to make that information public.
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
My constituents know more than most about the daily misery of HS2 construction, particularly in the villages of Water Orton and Kingsbury and the town of Coleshill, and they will welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I met the new chief executive officer, Mark Wild, on Monday to discuss the reset, and I am delighted that he accepted my invitation to come to the Spud Club in Water Orton and talk to residents there. Does my right hon. Friend agree, however, that it is time we ended the failures of oversight, the scandalous overspends and the suggested fraud, and it is time the dust settled on this project rather than settling on my constituents’ clean washing, clean cars and clean windows?
Heidi Alexander
My hon. Friend has painted a graphic picture. I understand that when large infrastructure works are taking place those who live closest to them will often experience disruption in their daily lives, and I want to put on record my thanks to the residents of Kingsbury, Coleshill and Water Orton for their patience. I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend that we need, once and for all, to put an end to this cycle of overspends, delays and waste, and get on and build a railway that is fit for the 21st century.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
The disastrous decision by the last Conservative Government to stop the works at Euston station dented investor and commuter confidence in our railways and in major infrastructure delivery. Their failure to keep costs under control and to manage the basics of the project—simple things such as turning up to meetings—has created the quagmire in which HS2 finds itself today, and I do not envy the Secretary of State the task that confronts her. I am glad to hear that the Government see the huge potential of a comprehensive redevelopment of Euston station, but can the Secretary of State reassure me that we will not end up with a cut-price station that does not realise the potential of the project?
Heidi Alexander
I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity not only to re-provide the existing Euston station—which, I am sure, will frustrate many Members and their constituents at times—but to provide the new HS2 station there and to unlock land around it. That will enable new homes to be delivered, but is also a massive commercial opportunity for regeneration in the heart of London. It is a very exciting opportunity—one that we will be saying more about in the coming weeks.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
Delays to HS2 have blighted parts of west London around the main site at Old Oak Common. Benefits, when they finally arrive, will include a major interchange with Great Western Railway and the Elizabeth line. Will the Secretary of State consider opening the Elizabeth line station at Old Oak Common as soon as is feasible rather than waiting for HS2 to begin operating, and will she reclaim some of the good will of the people of west London by directing a tiny fraction of the costs of HS2 to the repair of Hammersmith bridge?
Heidi Alexander
My hon. Friend has asked about the possibility of opening an Elizabeth line station at Old Oak Common before the opening of the HS2 station. I will certainly speak to the Rail Minister, in the other place, and explore what the opportunities might be. If I may, I will then write to my hon. Friend. He may have heard the Chancellor announce last week, during her statement on the spending review, that we are opening and financing a structures fund to enable local authorities with assets that are costly to repair to bid to the Government for help with repairing dilapidated bridges, tunnels and so on. I will say more in due course about how the fund will operate, and I am sure that we will be talking about Hammersmith bridge again, as we have for many years.
Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for the clarity of her statement. Vast swathes of Staffordshire are currently owned by HS2—a third of the village of Hopton is under HS2 ownership—and this has an enormous impact on farmers and people who live along the route where so many empty houses sit. Can the Secretary of State reassure my constituents that that farmland and those houses will be returned to the farmers and to the people who actually want to live in those communities?
Heidi Alexander
I will be saying more about the safeguarded land and the directions that apply to it in due course.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for the actions that she has taken today. They were clearly necessary, and it sounds like we are on a better track. However, HS2 provides little or nothing for rail users in the south-west, other than ongoing delays during the construction and operation of Old Oak Common. Will the Secretary of State consider funding, or prioritising the funding for, the critical final phase of the Dawlish rail resilience work that will help businesses and rail users in Devon and Cornwall—and perhaps even in Swindon?
Heidi Alexander
The hon. Gentleman tempts me to talk about the Dawlish scheme. I must admit that it is a topic I will need to take up with the Rail Minister, and I will be happy to give the hon. Gentleman a response in writing in respect of the merits of the scheme.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for her honesty as she set out this latest reset, necessitated by the mess that the Tories left. Old Oak Common is part of my constituency, and this week eight associations across two boroughs have banded together to create the Old Oak Alliance, with the purpose of fighting for compensation and mitigation in the current circumstances. They will be bitterly disappointed by the news of even more prolonged disruption. Will my right hon. Friend meet me—or, better still, come on a site visit to meet them and see what they are putting up with? We are dealing with a company whose idea of engagement is jam tomorrow and death by PowerPoint.
Heidi Alexander
I am sure the leadership of HS2 would be very concerned to hear that description of the way that the project is engaging with local people. That is not what I expect of an infrastructure company, and I am sure it is not what the chief executive of HS2 Ltd would want either. I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
The previous Government cancelled phase 2 of HS2, and from what the Secretary of State has said today, my understanding is that it remains cancelled and that phase 2 will not be reinstated. That being the case, can she let me know when the HS2’s safeguarding of land, particularly in the mid-Cheshire section, will be lifted?
Heidi Alexander
I am afraid I cannot give the right hon. Lady a date today, but I can assure her that I am fully cognisant of this issue. We need to look at whether there is any requirement for any future schemes. As soon as we are in a position to provide updates, I will come back to this House and be sure to provide hon. Members will all the relevant information.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
The HS2 line runs down the west side of Aylesbury. It will bring no benefits at all to my constituency, yet my residents have suffered years of noise, disruption, flooding, loss of access to the countryside and the destruction of their natural environment as a result of its construction. I am pleased that the Government are getting a grip on this issue, and I commend the Secretary of State for her honesty and focus, but my constituents will understandably be concerned by the news of further delays and potential further disruption. Can the Secretary of State confirm that she will do everything in her power to hold HS2 and its contractors to account in order to minimise the ongoing disruption for my long-suffering residents?
Heidi Alexander
I can assure my hon. Friend that we are determined to see the main works civil engineering contracts completed as soon as possible. That is the element of construction that generally creates most disturbance for local communities, and we are pretty much at peak construction now. I thank her constituents for their patience while we continue to deliver this vital new piece of rail infrastructure.
Nigel Farage (Clacton) (Reform)
I have campaigned against this HS2 project ever since 2010, up and down the line. I never believed the original £35 billion price tag. Furthermore, it would have benefited only rich businessmen and driven businesses from the north of England to London—it would have had the opposite of the intended effect. Rather than having another reset, has the moment not come to recognise that this is a failure? Let us scrap HS2, use the tens of billions of pounds that we can save in the next decade to upgrade railway lines across the entirety of the United Kingdom to the benefit of many millions, and spend the rest on other national priorities in these financially straitened times. Surely the time has come to scrap the entirety of the project and to recognise that we have got it wrong.
Heidi Alexander
We are not going to be a country that spends over £30 billion on rail infrastructure but then never sees a train running on it. We have already seen too much waste, and I am interested to hear that the hon. Gentleman is advocating more. We also have significant capacity constraints between Birmingham and London. He seems not to want to do anything about that, but I think those two great cities deserve a railway that is fit for the 21st century; I am just sorry that he does not.
Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)
My constituency is the only one in the country that has HS2 phase 1, phase 2a and phase 2b. It is not true to say that the line will not continue north of Birmingham, because it will cut through miles of Staffordshire, through my constituency, until it rejoins the main line at Handsacre. The failings of HS2 Ltd have been clear to my constituents for years and, frankly, it is shocking to hear about the dereliction of oversight by the previous Government, although it is what we have always suspected. People across Lichfield, Burntwood and the villages will, quite rightly, be furious.
Farmers, landowners and businesses in my constituency have been fighting tooth and nail with HS2 for years to get it to do the job right. We have seen compulsory purchases that have never been paid, temporary possessions that come with a multitude of exchanges—back and forth, and back and forth again—with land agents taking massive fees for things that should have been sorted years ago, crop loss payments that never come and many, many more issues. People in Streethay have had to deal with ongoing roadworks around a junction that has become far too overcomplicated by HS2 trying to put a railway underneath it, and that has seen the village almost cut off at times.
People are absolutely sick of HS2. The failings of that organisation are multitudinous, and the failings of the Conservatives to fully hold it to account should be an embarrassment to them and an embarrassment to this country. I really do welcome a reset, but it has to lead to meaningful change. Can the Secretary of State give me and my constituents any assurances that it will be delivered as quickly as it possibly can be, and with as little disruption as we can get away with? Can she finally give us a timeline for when the safeguarded land will be returned to landowners? This has been going on for far too long.
Heidi Alexander
I share my hon. Friend’s anger. He is a powerful advocate for his constituents, who have endured disruption, and I agree entirely that the way this project was handled was a dereliction of duty on the part of the previous Government. That is why we have appointed new leadership, why we are accepting all the recommendations of the James Stewart review, and why we are going through this fundamental reset. As soon as I have received advice from the new chief executive about the revised cost and schedule, I will update my hon. Friend and other hon. Members.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
As a south-west region MP, does the Secretary of State agree that the west country has for decades been the poor country cousin of our rail network, and that money spent on HS2 is money not spent elsewhere? Will she do all in her power to ensure that the relatively small changes that are necessary on the network in the south-west to make life a lot easier go ahead, and will she look particularly at the absolutely woeful west of England line?
Heidi Alexander
There are challenges across the rail network, and I readily accept that improvements are needed in many parts of the country. I do not necessarily accept that the south-west is the poor cousin of the rail network, but I can assure the right hon. Gentleman of my determination to make sure that everyone, no matter where they live in this country, has a better rail service at the end of this Parliament than they did at the beginning of it.
Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)
The Transport Secretary will know that my constituents have endured years of disruption, and of drawn-out and poorly managed roadworks, as they drive past Lichfield on the A38. Given that billions of pounds were squandered by the previous Government and the disruption continues, can she say more about how she will get a grip on this project to ensure that we have vigorous oversight, and that it is delivered effectively and on time for our constituents?
Heidi Alexander
We have appointed new leadership. We are establishing new governance. We are looking at the incentives contained in the contracts on the civil engineering works. We will make sure that no stone is left unturned in providing value for money for the taxpayer on HS2, because this country is making a very significant investment and we need to ensure that every penny is wisely spent.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The cost of HS2 has now spiralled to over £100 billion. Welsh taxpayers are paying dearly for this appalling mess, even though we get no benefits whatsoever. Wales is now owed at least £5 billion. This is not going to go away—so when will we get our fair share?
Heidi Alexander
The right hon. Lady may have heard the Chancellor announce in the spending review over £400 million of investment in the Welsh railways over 10 years. That will enable work to take place on the Burns stations in south Wales, and at Padeswood sidings on the north Wales line. It is a significant investment in Welsh railways, the like of which has not been seen for many, many years.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough and Thornaby East) (Lab)
As shadow Transport Secretary for four years, I was wholly supportive of this concept. I just want to correct the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), who completely misunderstands its basis. As I am sure the Secretary of State agrees, the purpose was to deliver capacity for the north of England—“speed” was a misnomer—but that opportunity has now been lost. Can she give me some assurance that through the trans-Pennine upgrade, skills and expertise will be rolled out across the entire north of England—not just to the north-west and Yorkshire, but to the north-east, including through the continuing rolling programme of electrification? I am thinking specifically of the stretch from Northallerton to Middlesbrough and beyond, because that is where we get the gross value added and the economic growth from. Can we have some assurance that those ambitions will not be fettered one jot by this damning indictment of the past 15 years of failure?
Heidi Alexander
I can assure my hon. Friend that the Government 100% recognise the need to improve rail connectivity in the midlands and the north. He is also right to highlight the need for a stable pipeline of investment, so that the supply chain can plan, and so that we do not lose skills. The Government have an ambitious rail programme; there is East West Rail, the trans-Pennine route upgrade and HS2. I am determined to build on this country’s proud railway heritage and ensure that we have railways fit for the modern day.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
The Devon and Cornwall rail network is only one severe storm away from being decapitated at Dawlish. Phase 5 of the south-west rail resilience network is desperately needed. When will the Minister visit the line to see how desperately needed it is?
Heidi Alexander
Dawlish is a very beautiful part of the country, so I am very tempted to take the hon. Gentleman up on his invitation. This is the second time in this statement that the Dawlish programme has been raised. I gave the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) an undertaking that I would speak to the Rail Minister on that subject and then write to him; I will come back to the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) in writing at the same time.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. HS2 has been an abject failure when it comes to the political accountability of the previous Administration. On transport efficiencies, will she press on with reforms to the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, so that we can fix the driving test system and keep our country moving?
Heidi Alexander
We have a really important programme of work across all arms-length bodies of the Department for Transport, including the DVSA. It is really important that we provide public services in an efficient and effective way. I am conscious that my hon. Friend’s constituents and others may be very keen for rapid progress on driving test wait times. I can assure him that the issue is a focus of discussions that I am having with the DVSA.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. I too served on the Public Accounts Committee, so I know that while HS2 is by far the largest civil infrastructure programme in the United Kingdom, the second largest is the lower Thames crossing from Tilbury to Gravesend, for which about £10 billion is currently budgeted. If her tighter approach to HS2 produces savings, is there any way that some of them might be vired to pay for the lower Thames crossing? If not, exactly which private-sector companies will pay for it? So far, I am afraid the Government have been rather vague on that point.
Heidi Alexander
We are exploring finance options for the lower Thames crossing. On Monday we announced that there would be £590 million of public funding this year to take forward utility works and some land purchases. I will say more to this House in future about the private finance arrangements that we are exploring.
Clive Efford (Eltham and Chislehurst) (Lab)
I commend my right hon. Friend for the swift actions she has taken to try to put right this disastrous situation, created by the previous Government. The parallels with the fast-track contracts for personal protective equipment cannot be ignored. I understand that contracts were signed when appropriate decisions had not been made. Will the people who signed those contracts be interviewed? Will they have to explain why they decided to take those decisions, against advice? Will we get any of that money back?
Heidi Alexander
As I said in my statement, the Prime Minister has asked the Cabinet Secretary to investigate whether the James Stewart report raises any questions for the civil service or the wider public sector. My hon. Friend is completely right to highlight the point about contracts being signed with construction companies even before the scope of the works had been agreed. It is little wonder that the country has ended up paying more. We signed a contract with a company to deliver works, yet there was no clarity whatever about what work the Government wanted them to do. This is a dreadful and woeful failure of oversight by previous Government Ministers, and I will not allow that to happen on my watch.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
Before I was elected to this place, I was a member of HS2’s independent panel for the community and environment fund and business and local economy fund. The Secretary of State’s statement makes for pretty shocking reading. There is talk of fraud and shambolic mismanagement—things that should bring shame on everybody involved.
One of the problems with HS2 was always the name, which put the focus on speed, rather than capacity. My Hazel Grove constituents use the west coast main line, and they talk to me about the capacity problems that remain. Indeed, I see them every week when I come up and down to work. The Secretary of State says that she is not reinstating the line north of Birmingham. She also says that trans-Pennine work is under way. What specific work is being undertaken by her Department on capacity on the west coast main line north of Birmingham?
Heidi Alexander
I am aware that the Mayor of the West Midlands and the Mayor of Greater Manchester have put proposals to the Government on this issue. In the mid-2030s, we are likely to see severe capacity constraints between Birmingham and Manchester. We are reviewing those proposals, and I hope to be able to say more on them in the months ahead.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for the honesty with which she has addressed these very difficult issues. May I ask her to say a little more about the lessons that can be learned from the success of the Elizabeth line—both the far superior leadership and management of the programme, and the economic benefits generated? The £18 billion invested in capital yielded £42 billion in benefits in just the first three years of this amazing piece of infrastructure.
Heidi Alexander
While the delivery of the Elizabeth line was one of my proudest achievements as deputy mayor for transport in London, I must admit that it was not without its challenges. The trust between Transport for London and the delivery project, and the transparency and honesty between different parts of the system, were among the finer aspects of how we got the project over the line. It was one of my proudest days when Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth opened the Elizabeth line at Paddington shortly before she passed away. There is a lot of learning that we need to take from Crossrail. We are doing that, and we are determined to get on and see this railway opened.
Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
East West Rail is due to travel through my constituency, on the historic Marston Vale line. How will the Secretary of State ensure that the mistakes made on HS2—we have heard some shocking stories today—will not also be made on East West Rail? I am afraid that there is very little confidence in the East West Rail Company. It is important that my communities are listened to, that we deliver this infrastructure faster and at lower cost, and that people who are impacted are properly compensated.
Heidi Alexander
East West Rail is fundamentally different from the construction of HS2. The hon. Gentleman will know that it is being delivered in three phases, and that it is only the latter phase, between Bedford and Cambridge, that will necessitate the construction of new track. The chief executive of East West Rail, David Hughes, is determined to deliver the scheme rapidly, offer good value for money to the taxpayer, and properly engage with communities. If there are any particular issues the hon. Gentleman is concerned about, he should raise them with me, and I will gladly speak with the leadership there.
Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)
On the Public Accounts Committee, I asked HS2 bosses what I thought was a relatively simple question: how much are they spending on newt mitigation? However, they could not give an answer. Similarly, I can confirm to the House that I have information suggesting that the cost of the so-called bat tunnel is well north of the purported £100 million. I commend the Secretary of State for the leadership that she has shown today. Will she hold HS2 accountable for some of these bat-shed crazy costs?
Heidi Alexander
I can assure my hon. Friend that the estimated cost of the bat structure is £95 million in 2019 prices. I agree that we cannot have an environmental mitigations regime that allows this sort of thing to happen. The Government have put forward significant reforms in this space, and we will continue to monitor the need for further changes, so that we can deliver infrastructure in a better way.
Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
I thank the Secretary of State for giving a candid and transparent statement to this House. On Birmingham—I am the only Birmingham MP present, which surprises me—it is disappointing that there will be delay and additional costs, but every cloud has a silver lining. My constituency has one of the highest levels of unemployment at 17%—four times the national average. In addition, we have seen the closure of a number of local stations; it would improve the network if they were reopened. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can get my constituents into jobs, and the possibility of opening three stations: Handsworth Wood, Soho Road and City Health Campus?
Heidi Alexander
I would be very happy to ask the Rail Minister to meet the hon. Gentleman to talk about the stations in Birmingham that he mentions.
Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
I welcome the statement from the Secretary of State. May I speak today of the east of England? The right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) famously promised a dividend when he cancelled HS2 North, so might we expect some of that to be used to replace the crucial Haughley and Ely junctions, in order to finally sort out the rail connections in the east of England?
Heidi Alexander
I understand the importance of the Ely area scheme in terms of rail infrastructure, and I hope to say more about rail investment in the weeks before the summer recess.
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State set out the steps she is taking to ensure that infrastructure like the £100 million bat tunnel will not be included in future projects, such as East West Rail?
Heidi Alexander
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill includes proposals to reform species and habitats protection. The proposals for environmental delivery plans and the nature restoration fund enable a shift to protecting the whole population of a species, rather than focusing on purely local considerations. That will ensure better outcomes for nature, without causing us to incur unreasonable costs, as happened with the HS2 bat mitigation structure.
Mr Tom Morrison (Cheadle) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for her answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) on capacity on the west coast main line. Stockport is the one place where it is at full capacity, and HS2 was meant to solve that; however, because of the cancellation of the northern leg of HS2, we face HS2 trains going through Stockport’s already packed lines. I welcome the response to the plan put forward by the Mayors of the West Midlands and Greater Manchester, but will the Secretary of State commit to engaging with Stockport council on those plans? We need to find a solution to this capacity issue, because it could hold my borough back for decades.
Heidi Alexander
I am very conscious of the need to invest in and improve public transport in Stockport, and if the council would like to write to me with any relevant information, I will gladly consider it. I also point out that our investment in transport for city regions, announced a couple of weeks, is good news for Stockport; Metrolink will be extended to the town. I hope the hon. Gentleman will welcome that as good news for his constituents.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
It may surprise the Secretary of State, but I actually have some sympathy for her for inheriting the HS2 nightmare. When she receives the updated budget and timeframe, will there be a cost and a timeline at which point she will say, “Enough is enough—it’s better to stop,” or is it an open-ended cheque book?
Heidi Alexander
If the hon. Gentleman had bothered to read the spending review last week, he would have seen that the Government have committed £25 billion over the next four years, which enables work to be taken forward. As I have said a number of times today, I will be updating the House when I have further information available about both the overall cost envelope, the estimated final cost at completion and the anticipated schedule.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
With a decade of delay, costs spiralling to eye-watering sums of anywhere between £60 billion and £100 billion and now credible allegations of fraud in the supply chain, will the Secretary of State say what steps the Government will take to recover hard-working taxpayers’ money from fraudsters, hold those responsible to account and announce a final stop to wasting money?
Heidi Alexander
I have said on a number of occasions that billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been wasted by constant scope changes, ineffective contracts and bad management. That is what this reset of HS2 is all about—it is why we have appointed the new leadership, and it is why we are fundamentally changing the governance structures. As I said in answer to previous questions, the matter of potential fraud in the supply chain is being investigated by HMRC, and we will be providing updates to the House as and when further information is available.
Point of Order
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to once again raise the case of Alaa Abd el-Fattah, the British-Egyptian citizen who is still imprisoned in Egypt. His mother has been on hunger strike for a long time now; she is in St Thomas’ hospital, and her health is deteriorating. I ask those on the Treasury Bench now to take a message back to the Prime Minister that we need to do everything we possibly can to secure Alaa’s release, because I fear that we may well lose his mother, Laila Soueif. One initiative that could be tried again is a joint approach between our Prime Minister and President Macron to President Sisi to urge Alaa’s release. I think we are in a dangerous moment. The Government have undertaken a number of actions; the Prime Minister committed to doing all in his power, and he has approached President Sisi. However, I just feel we need to make at least another last attempt, both to secure the release of Alaa and to secure the life of his mother.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order and for notice of it. He has put his point on the record, and I am sure his concerns will have been heard by those on the Treasury Bench.
Bill Presented
Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Secretary Liz Kendall, supported by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Pat McFadden, Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, Ellie Reeves, Sir Steven Timms, Alison McGovern, Torsten Bell and Andrew Western, presented a Bill to make provision to alter the rates of the standard allowance, limited capability for work element and limited capability for work and work-related activity element of universal credit and the rates of income-related employment and support allowance, and to restrict eligibility for the personal independence payment.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed (Bill 267), with explanatory notes (Bill 267-EN).
Right to Manage and Leasehold
Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision about the definition of qualifying tenants for the purposes of claiming a right to manage; to reduce the proportion of qualifying tenants required to give notice of a claim to acquire a right to manage; to establish a duty on freeholders to assist a Right to Manage company in establishing contact with leaseholders within the freeholder’s property; to make provision about establishing a presumption in favour of a right to manage in certain circumstances before the First Tier Tribunal; to require the Secretary of State to review procedures for converting leasehold property into commonhold property; and for connected purposes.
I rise to speak on a topic that matters dearly to all of us in this House: accountability and representation. As legislators, our job is to hold legislation to account and ensure that it represents our constituents’ interests. It is the role of our constituents, in turn, to hold us to account whenever elections arise. I would like to thank my constituents for joining us in the Gallery today.
Accountability is at the heart of our consumer relationships, with standards and competition embedded into commercial law. It is also a key part of our social contract. When someone in a position of power does wrong, there needs to be a system of recourse. When it comes to housing, however, this too often goes out the window. Frequently, there is a stark gap between those who provide our housing and those who live in it, alongside an accountability deficit, whether in private renting, social housing or the sector that the Bill seeks to remedy: leasehold. My constituency has the highest proportion of leaseholders in the country. For too long they have had to endure a system that leaves them without full control over their homes and at the mercy of a wide range of bad actors.
I was proud to be elected on a manifesto that promised to ban the sale of new leasehold properties and make commonhold the default tenure across the land. Since the election, the Government have acted with speed in this area: inheriting a rushed piece of legislation from their predecessor and untangling it with speed; setting out our plans for reform; publishing a White Paper on commonhold; and expediting moves that include the recent reforms to the right to manage.
Those actions have already had a positive impact in the Cities of London and Westminster. Constituents have written to me saying that they submitted right to manage applications on 3 March, as the Government’s changes allowed them to do so. I join them in thanking this Government for acting so quickly in this area, and I look forward with interest to the publication of the leasehold and commonhold reform Bill later this year.
One of the most visible consequences of the leasehold system is the scourge of unscrupulous managing agents. For the past six months, my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (David Pinto-Duschinsky) and I have been co-ordinating action as co-chairs of Labour for leasehold, which is an alliance of 150 Labour party colleagues against some of the worst-performing actors in this sector. Many of the Members supporting this Bill have been tirelessly advocating in this campaign for leaseholders in their constituencies and nationwide, and I pay tribute to that work.
In the course of our work, we have heard stories of residents suffering at the hands of managing agents as they fail to conduct essential repairs, engage in threatening and abusive behaviour towards residents and even run off with hundreds of thousands of pounds of leaseholders’ money—all while providing little justification for their service or the high fees that they charge. In this process I have also met the most dedicated leaseholders, organisers who have collected testimony from thousands of neighbours to highlight poor practice, accountants who have volunteered their time to scrutinise invoices and auditing processes, and lawyers who have provided free advice to other buildings going through the first-tier tribunal.
However, without a legal system that supports them, the leaseholders remain unable to seek the accountability that they deserve from distant and disinterested managing agents. These leaseholders include my constituents in Neville House—shared owners who pay £5,000 a year in service charges for services that have not been delivered for 20 years, with reports of mould being ignored for months, and who are stuck between their social landlord, managing agent and a freeholder in a complex cladding case. They include the residents of Sheldon Square who have had managing agents ignore sewage leaking into their flats, have been billed for damage caused by contractors to their building, and have received threatening letters posted to individual leaseholders in flagrant breaches of data protection.
These leaseholders also include the residents of Oxford and Cambridge Mansions, whose managing agent and freeholder have ignored reports of gross misconduct against building staff, failed to take action on leaks persisting for years, and ignored reports of damp and mould emerging from flats that they themselves owned and were using as storage rooms, all while complex major works loom with an opaque tendering process that may cost residents millions.
Ultimately, the situation amounts to one of accountability and representation. In most cases, managing agents do not feel a need to represent leaseholders’ interests, and the only accountability they have is to the building’s freeholder, who far too often takes little interest in residents’ welfare. There are some ways out of this situation, and one is by acquiring the right to manage. That involves forming a right to manage association, recruiting half of the flats in a block to join, and submitting an application to the landlord, who can then accept it or drag leaseholders through the first-tier tribunal.
There are multiple loopholes and hurdles obstructing leaseholders from achieving even this basic step. Properties cannot have over a certain percentage of square footage of commercial space, and sometimes even flowerbeds or communal car parks get included in that. Even when large numbers of residents are in favour of getting the right to manage, and no one in the building is opposed, hitting the 50% threshold can be difficult. This is due to a number of reasons, from owners who do not reside in their properties to freeholders who retain a large number of flats in the building to let out privately or, as mentioned previously, to use as storage rooms.
This Bill would go some way to rectifying this hurdle. First, it would lower the threshold required for a successful right to manage application from 50% of qualifying leaseholders to 35%. As many campaigners have pointed out, this alone is not enough. That is why the Bill redefines qualifying tenants during a right to manage application as tenants who respond either positively or negatively when asked to vote. Put simply, it changes the threshold for a right to manage claim from, “Can you find a majority of the flat owners in your building?”, to, “Do enough of the actual leaseholders in your block want this to go ahead?”.
The Bill addresses a number of other issues too. Most notably, it establishes a duty for freeholders to assist the right to manage company when it contacts their fellow leaseholders, and it establishes a presumption in favour of leaseholders on occasions when freeholders counter-claim at the first-tier tribunal. This Bill does not go all the way to fixing the right to manage, and a number of obstacles would remain, particularly in mixed-use developments.
There are no quick fixes to the right to manage, commonhold or any other reforms. Managing blocks of flats will always remain challenging and will lead to difficult debates within buildings as to how to manage complex and expensive works. What matters is that the companies who manage the buildings are accountable and represent fairly the people who live in the buildings. Through reinvigorating the right to manage, we can achieve this. Leaseholders across the country are ready to take this step to hold their managing agents to account. All they need is for the law to be on their side.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Rachel Blake, Lizzi Collinge, Dr Beccy Cooper, Deirdre Costigan, Emily Darlington, Marsha De Cordova, Anna Dixon, Amanda Hack, Jayne Kirkham, Uma Kumaran, Sarah Russell and Yuan Yang present the Bill.
Rachel Blake accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 July, and to be printed (Bill 265).
Crime and Policing Bill
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
17:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 102 / Noes: 390 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:14 - The House divided: - Ayes: 147 / Noes: 305 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:26 - The House divided: - Ayes: 178 / Noes: 313 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:37 - The House divided: - Ayes: 114 / Noes: 310 - Question accordingly negatived.
18:48 - The House divided: - Ayes: 178 / Noes: 313 - Question accordingly negatived.
19:01 - The House divided: - Ayes: 312 / Noes: 95 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
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:
New clause 3—Commercial sexual exploitation—
“(1) A person (A) who gives, offers, or promises payment to a person (B) to engage in sexual activity with person (A) shall be guilty of an offence.
(2) A person (A) who gives, offers, or promises payment to a person (B) to engage in sexual activity with any other person (C) shall be guilty of an offence.
(3) For the purpose of subsections (1) and (2)—
(a) a ‘payment’ includes money, a benefit, or any other consideration;
(b) an activity is sexual if a reasonable person would consider that—
(i) whatever its circumstances or any person’s purpose in relation to it, it is because of its nature sexual, or
(ii) because of its nature it may be sexual and because of its circumstances or the purpose of any person in relation to it (or both) it is sexual;
(c) no offence is committed by a person (A) unless the sexual activity with the other person (B) involves—
(i) the person (A or C) being in the other person (B)’s presence, and
(ii) physical contact between the person (A or C) and the other person (B), or
(iii) the person (B) touching themselves for the sexual gratification of the other person (A or C);
(d) it is immaterial whether the payment is given, offered, or promised by a person (A) engaging in the sexual activity, or a third party.
(4) A person guilty of an offence under subsections (1) or (2) is liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both), and a requirement to complete an offender behaviour programme at the offender’s expense;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both).
(5) A person who is not a UK national commits an offence under subsections (1) or (2) if any part of the offence takes place in the UK.”
This new clause makes it an offence to pay for, or attempt to, pay for sex either for themselves or on behalf of others.
New clause 4—Victims of Commercial sexual exploitation—
“(1) The Street Offences Act 1959 is amended as follows.
(2) Omit Sections 1 and 2.”
This new clause decriminalises victims of commercial sexual exploitation by repealing the offence of “Loitering or soliciting for purposes of prostitution” and relevant related parts of the Street Offences Act 1959.
New clause 5—Interpretation (Dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling)—
“(1) The Road Traffic Act 1988 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 32 insert—
‘32A Interpretation of sections 27A to 32
(1) For the purposes of sections 27A to 32, “a cycle” includes but is not limited to—
(a) a pedal cycle,
(b) an electronically assisted pedal cycle,
(c) a mechanically propelled personal transporter, including—
(i) an electric scooter,
(ii) a self-balancing personal transporter (including a self-balancing scooter, self-balancing board or electric unicycle), and
(iii) any other mechanically propelled personal transporter provided for by the Secretary of State in regulations made under this section.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)(c), mechanically propelled personal transporters are to be defined in regulations made by the Secretary of State under this section.’”
This new clause would define “a cycle” as including a pedal cycle, an e-bike, or a mechanically propelled personal transporter, for the purposes of cycling offences under the Road Traffic Act 1988, including the proposed new clauses tabled by the Government on dangerous, careless of inconsiderate cycling.
New clause 7—Abolition of non-crime hate incidents—
“(1) Non-crime hate incidents as a special category of incident to be recognised by police authorities are abolished. Reporting, recording and investigation of such incidents should occur only in the limited circumstances provided for in this section.
(2) For the purposes of Article 6(1) of the UK GDPR, section 35 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (‘the Act’) and Article 8 of the Law Enforcement Directive, the processing of relevant data by a police authority is unlawful.
(3) In this section, ‘relevant data’ means personal data relating to the conduct or alleged of a data subject which is unlikely to constitute criminal conduct and which has been perceived by another person to be motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility or prejudice towards one or more persons who have or who are or have been perceived to have one or more relevant characteristics and with that hostility or prejudice arising due to that or the perception of those protected characteristics.
(4) For the purposes of subsection (3), the following are relevant characteristics—
(a) race,
(b) religion,
(c) sexual orientation,
(d) disability,
(e) transgender identity.
(5) Subsection (2) does not apply in respect of the processing of relevant data—
(a) pursuant to an ongoing criminal investigation or prosecution,
(b) for the purposes of the internal administrative functions of the police authority.
(6) Subsection (2) does not apply in respect of the retention of a record (a ‘non-crime perception record’) of relevant data where a police officer (the ‘certifying officer’) of the rank of inspector or above certifies that in their opinion the retention of the non-crime perception record is likely materially to assist in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct which may occur in the future.
(7) Where a certifying officer certifies the retention of a non-crime perception record pursuant to subsection (6)—
(a) the certifying officer must include in the record a description of the future criminal conduct they have in mind and the reasons they believe that the retention of the record may assist in its detection or prevention,
(b) the relevant data which may be retained as part of the record may be no more than the certifying officer believes is likely materially to assist in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct,
(c) a copy of the record must be expeditiously provided to the data subject unless an officer of the of the rank of superintendent or above certifies that—
(i) the provision of the record to the data subject may interfere in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct, or
(ii) the officer is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable to provide a copy of the record to the data subject.
(8) If the data subject objects to the retention of the non-crime perception record, subsection (6) does not apply unless a police officer of the rank of superintendent or above certifies that in their opinion the retention of the non-crime perception record is likely materially to assist in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct which may occur in the future.
(9) No police authority or police officer can be held under any circumstances to be under any duty to undertake the retention of any relevant data.
(10) After subsection 113B(3) of the Police Act 1997 insert—
‘(3A) An enhanced criminal record certificate must not give the details of a relevant matter to the extent that doing so would result in the disclosure of relevant data as defined in section (The retention by the police of non-crime perception records) of the Crime and Policing Act 2025.’
(11) For subsection 39A(3) of the Police Act 1996 substitute—
‘(3) No part of any Code of Practice issued by the College of Policing may be in a form which could be issued by the Secretary of State pursuant to section 60 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.’
(12) Section 60 the 2022 Act is to be amended as follows—
(a) the cross heading to be changed to ‘Non-crime perception records’,
(b) the section heading to be changed to ‘Code of practice relating to non-crime perception records’,
(c) in subsection (1) leave out from ‘by’ to the end of the subsection and insert ‘of relevant data’,
(d) omit subsection (2),
(e) in subsection (3)(a), leave out ‘personal data relating to a hate incident’ and insert ‘relevant data’,
(f) in subsections (3)(b), (c), (d) and (e), for ‘such personal data’ substitute ‘relevant data’,
(g) in subsection (4)(a), for ‘personal data’ substitute ‘relevant data’,
(h) in subsection (4)(b), leave out ‘personal data relating to the alleged perpetrator of a hate incident’ and insert ‘relevant data relating to the alleged perpetrator’,
(i) in subsection (7), at end, insert ‘relevant data’ has the meaning given by section (The retention by the police of non-crime perception records) of the Crime and Policing Act 2025.
(13) Any code of practice previously issued under section 60 of the 2022 Act is deemed to be withdrawn.
(14) Within three months of the commencement of each calendar year, each police authority which is retaining non-crime perception records must—
(a) undertake a review of the relevant data by an independent person to ensure that any retention of such records is in compliance with the provisions of this section.
(b) publish a report in respect of the review prepared by the independent person including setting—
(i) the total number of non-crime perception records retained by the police authority;
(ii) the total number of data subject to which those records relate; and
(iii) the equivalent numbers of those records added in the previous year.
(15) In this section—
(a) ‘a police authority’ means—
(i) a person specified or described in paragraphs 5 to 17 of Schedule 7 of the Act,
(ii) a person acting under the authority of such a person,
(b) the terms ‘data subject’, ‘processing’ and ‘the UK GDPR’ have the same meanings as under section 3 of the Act,
(c) ‘the Law Enforcement Directive’ means the Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament,
(d) ‘the 2022 Act’ means the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.”
This new clause would amend legislation and guidance to remove the recording and retention of non-crime hate incidents, replacing that in some instances with non-crime perception records.
New clause 8—CCTV on railway network—
“(1) It is a legal requirement for CCTV cameras across the railway network in England and Wales to be capable of enabling immediate access by the British Transport Police and relevant Police Forces.
(2) All footage retained by CCTV cameras on the railway network must remain accessible to the British Transport Police and relevant Police Forces for the entirety of the retention period.
(3) The retention period specified in subsection (2) is 30 calendar days.
(4) Further to subsection (1), the Secretary of State must publish a report, within three months of the passing of this Act, specifying a compatibility standard that will facilitate CCTV access for the British Transport Police and any Police Force in England and Wales.”
New clause 9—Training for those subject to a mandatory reporting duty—
“(1) Any person who is subject to the duty under section 66(1), must be trained to an appropriate standard to carry out their responsibilities under the duty.
(2) Such training shall be deemed appropriate only if it includes, but is not limited to, the following components—
(a) the recognised signs and indicators of child sexual abuse,
(b) what it means to suspect a child sexual offence may have been committed under the duty, as outlined in section 68—
(i) including understanding the different ways children may disclose abuse, and
(ii) the barriers to children disclosing abuse,
(c) how to respond to and support a child who they have been given reason to suspect is the victim of a child sexual offence, as set out in section 68,
(d) how to make notifications in accordance with section 66(2),
(e) how to judge whether making a notification would pose a risk to the life or safety of a relevant child, as set out in section 66(5), and
(f) how to understand, identify and apply the exemptions for consensual peer on peer activity, as set out in sections 69, 70 and 71.”
This new clause would ensure that those subject to the mandatory reporting duty for child sexual abuse are provided with appropriate training to equip them to fulfil these obligations.
New clause 10—Meaning of exploitation: modern slavery—
“(1) Section (3) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (meaning of exploitation) is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (6)(b) insert—
‘Criminal Exploitation
(7) Something is done to or in respect of the person which involves the commission of an offence under section 38 of the Crime and Policing Act 2025 (child criminal exploitation).’”
This new clause seeks to ensure criminally exploited children are not prosecuted for offences committed as result of their exploitation.
New clause 11—Offences of verbal and physical abuse of public transport workers—
“(1) This section applies to a qualifying offence that is committed against a public transport worker acting in the exercise of functions as such a worker.
(2) In this section, a ‘qualifying offence’ is—
(a) an offence of common assault, or battery, under section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, or
(b) an offence of harassment under section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 which involves the verbal abuse of the public transport worker.
(3) A person guilty of an offence to which this section applies is liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months, or to a fine (or both);
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months, or to a fine (or both).
(4) In subsections (1) and (2), ‘public transport worker’ means any person working on public transport, whether on public transport vehicles, or in public transport stations, or in any relevant setting where they are working in their capacity as a public transport worker.
(5) It is immaterial for the purposes of this section whether the employment or engagement is paid or unpaid.”
New clause 12—Definition of modern slavery exploitation: orphanage trafficking—
“(1) Section (3) of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (6)(b) insert—
‘Orphanage trafficking
(7) The person is a child who has been recruited into a residential care institution overseas for the purpose of financial gain and exploitation.’”
This new clause would expand the definition of exploitation under the Modern Slavery Act 2015 to include children who have been recruited into residential care institutions that engage in orphanage trafficking.
New clause 13—Joint Enterprise—
“(1) The Accessories and Abettors Act 1861 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 8 (abettors in misdemeanours), after ‘shall’ insert ‘, by making a significant contribution to its commission,’.”
New clause 14—Duty to review treatment of childhood convictions and cautions—
“(1) Within a year of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must lay before both Houses of Parliament a report on the management of childhood convictions and cautions.
(2) The report must look at—
(a) the prevention of automatic disclosure of childhood conditional cautions;
(b) the prevention of adult treatment of offences committed by individuals who were minors at the time of the offences, in question, taking place;
(c) the range of childhood convictions which are removed from standard and enhanced checks after five and a half years.
(3) In considering the areas outlined in subsection (2), the report must look at the policy merits for reform of the existing management of childhood convictions and cautions, and the legislative steps which would be required in each case for reform to take place.”
New clause 15—Unlicensed drivers: penalties—
“(1) The Road Traffic Act 1988 is amended as follows.
(2) In Section 87, after subsection (2) insert—
‘(2A) The maximum penalty available to the Courts when sentencing an individual who has been convicted of driving without a license, and who has never held a license, shall be an unlimited fine, or a custodial sentence of six months (or both).’”
New clause 16—Failure to stop—
“(1) The Road Traffic Act 1988 is amended as follows.
(2) In Section 170, after subsection (4) insert—
‘(4A) The maximum penalties available to the Courts when sentencing an individual who has been convicted of an offence under this section are as follows—
(a) an unlimited fine;
(b) a custodial sentence of one year; and
(c) disqualification from driving for a period of up to two years.
When considering its sentence, the Court may issue more than one of the maximum penalties listed above.’”
New clause 18—Definition of the criminal exploitation of children—
“For the purpose of defining the offence created in section 38 of the Crime and Policing Act 2025 (Child criminal exploitation), the criminal exploitation of children is a form of child abuse in which a child under the age of 18 is used for purposes that constitute, enable or facilitate an offence under the law in England and Wales, regardless of whether the activity appears to be consensual, or whether the activity occurs online, through the use of technology, or in person.”
This new clause would create a statutory definition of the criminal exploitation of children.
New clause 19—Power of Secretary of State to disregard convictions or cautions—
“(1) The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 92(1) after ‘same sex’ insert ‘, or for an offence committed under Section 1 of the Street Offences Act 1959’.
(3) In section 92(2) after ‘A and B are met’ insert, ‘, or, for a conviction or caution for an offence committed under Section 1 of the Street Offences Act 1959, B alone is met’.”
This new clause would mean that convictions or cautions for loitering or soliciting for the purposes of prostitution become disregarded.
New clause 21—Prohibition of the use of live facial recognition technology by police forces—
“(1) The use of live facial recognition technology for real-time biometric identification in publicly accessible spaces by police forces is prohibited.
(2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), facial recognition systems used for biometric verification, where the sole purpose is to confirm a person’s identity for the purpose of unlocking a device or having security access to premises, are not prohibited.”
New clause 22—Automated decision-making in the law enforcement context—
“(1) Where a significant decision taken by, or on behalf of, a controller in relation to a data subject in the law enforcement context is—
(a) based entirely or partly on personal data, and
(b) based solely on automated processing,
the controller must ensure that safeguards, which comply with subsection (2), for the data subject’s rights, freedoms and legitimate interests are in place.
(2) The safeguards must consist of, or include, measures which—
(a) provide the data subject with personalised information about any decisions described in subsection (1) that have been taken in relation to the data subject;
(b) enable the data subject to make representations about such decisions;
(c) enable the data subject to obtain human intervention from the controller in relation to such decisions;
(d) enable the data subject to contest such decisions;
(e) ensure human reviewers of algorithmic decisions have the necessary competence, training, time to consider, authority to challenge the decision, and analytical understanding of the data to rectify automated decisions; and
(f) require the publication of any algorithmic tools that have been used to process personal data on the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard.
(3) For the purpose of subsection (1), a decision based entirely or partly on personal data may not be made unless—
(a) the data subject has given explicit consent; or
(b) the decision is required or authorised by law.”
New clause 23—Restrictions on the delivery of pointed knives after agreements made by distance communication—
“(1) This section applies to any delivery of a pointed knife if the cutting edge of its blade exceeds 3 inches and,
(a) the delivery of the pointed knife is the result of an agreement made by distance communication; and
(b) either the delivery or the agreement for the delivery is made in the course of a business.
(2) For the purposes of this section an agreement is made by ‘distance communication’ if, at the time that the agreement is made, none of the parties to the agreement is within visual sight of the other.
(3) A party is not within visual sight of another if the only way that they can be seen is by use of an electronic, digital or other artificial means.
(4) A company or partnership is to be treated as being within visual sight of any other party if one or more of its employees or partners is within visual sight of the other parties.
(5) A means of distance communication may include, but not be limited to—
(a) electronic mail,
(b) unaddressed printed matter,
(c) telephone with human intervention,
(d) telephone without human intervention (including automatic calling machine, audiotext),
(e) videophone (telephone with screen),
(f) any form of social media,
(g) addressed printed matter,
(h) letter,
(i) press advertising with order form,
(j) catalogue,
(k) radio,
(l) videotext (microcomputer and television screen) with keyboard or touch screen,
(m) facsimile machine (fax), or
(n) television (teleshopping).
(6) A person in England or Wales is guilty of an offence if they knowingly or recklessly cause a pointed knife to be delivered or deliver any pointed knife to either—
(a) domestic premises; or
(b) a remote locker or collection point which is not supervised by a human being at the time when the pointed knife is collected
(7) For the purposes of this section domestic premises are defined as any premises which have not been assessed as liable for business rates and do not appear as such on the list maintained by the Valuation Agency Office.
(8) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding twelve months, or a fine not exceeding Level 5 on the standard scale or both.
(9) Nothing in this section prevents the delivery of rounded knives without a point.”
This new clause would create an offence of delivering a lethal pointed knife to domestic premises or remote locker/collection point.
New clause 24—Prohibition of displays of pointed knives—
“(1) A person who in the course of a business displays any pointed knife, or causes any pointed knife to be displayed, in a place in England and Wales or Northern Ireland is guilty of an offence.
(2) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide for the meaning of ‘place’ in this section.
(3) No offence is committed under this section if the display is a requested display to an individual aged 18 or over.
(4) Subsections (5) and (6) apply where a person (‘D’) is charged with an offence under this section in a case where the display is a requested display to an individual aged under 18.
(5) Where D is charged by reason of D having displayed the pointed knife it is a defence that—
(a) D believed that the individual was aged 18 or over, and
(b) either—
(i) D had taken all reasonable steps to establish the individual's age, or
(ii) from the individual's appearance nobody could reasonably have suspected that the individual was aged under 18.
(6) For the purposes of subsection (5), a person is treated as having taken all reasonable steps to establish an individual's age if—
(a) the person asked the individual for evidence of the individual’s age, and
(b) the evidence would have convinced a reasonable person.
(7) Where D is charged by reason of D having caused the display of a pointed knife it is a defence that D exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence.
(8) In this section ‘a requested display’ means a display to an individual following a particular request by the individual to purchase a pointed knife, or for information about a pointed knife.
(9) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding twelve months, or a fine not exceeding Level 5 on the standard scale or both.
(10) Nothing in this section prevents the display of rounded knives without a point.”
This new clause would create an offence of displaying pointed knives in the course of a business.
New clause 25—Unauthorised Encampments—
“The amendments to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 inserted by Part 4 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 are repealed.”
This new clause would repeal amendments to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 in respect of unauthorised encampments, including those on which the High Court has made a Declaration of Incompatibility under section 4 of the Human Rights Act 1998.
New clause 26—Provision of information by the Secretary of State—
“(1) The Secretary of State must publish, on a quarterly basis, data on the use of anti-social behaviour orders.
(2) The data published under subsection (1) must include—
(a) The number of civil orders issued;
(b) The purposes for which such orders were issued;
(c) Information about the number of occasions when stop and search powers were utilised by the police prior to issuing anti-social behaviour orders; and
(d) The protected characteristics of persons subjected to anti-social behaviour orders.”
This new clause requires the Home Office to publish quarterly data on the issuing of anti-social behaviour orders, including the number of occasions when stop and search has been used by the police prior to issuing anti-social behaviour orders and the protected characteristics of those who have been issued with orders.
New clause 27—Suspension of Police Force’s ability to use stop and search powers: ‘Engage’ monitoring stage—
“(1) The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 7 insert—
‘7A Suspension of Police Force’s ability to use stop and search powers: ‘Engage’ monitoring stage
(1) The Secretary of State may, by regulations, vary the ability of Police Forces in England and Wales to use stop and search powers.
(2) The Secretary of State must, within a fortnight of being notified by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) that a police force in England and Wales has been moved to the ‘Engage’ stage of HMICFRS’s monitoring process, bring forward regulations under subsection (1) to suspend the respective Force’s ability to use stop and search powers.
(3) The Secretary of State may not bring forward regulations to re-instate a suspended Police Force’s stop and search powers until such a time as HMICFRS confirms that the Force is no longer subject to the ‘Engage’ monitoring process.’”
This new clause allows regulations to vary the ability of police forces to use stop and search, and requires the Government to suspend a police force’s stop and search powers if that force is subject to the ‘engage’ monitoring process by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services.
New clause 28—Disapplication of time limit for offence of sharing intimate photograph or film—
“In section 66B of the Sexual Offences Act 2003, (sharing or threatening to share intimate photograph or film), after subsection (9) insert—
‘(9A) Section 127 of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 (time limit for summary offences) does not apply to an offence under subsection (1).’”
This new clause allows the offence of sharing intimate photograph or film to be tried by a Magistrates’ Court at any time by disapplying the six-month time limit in s.127 of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1980.
New clause 30—Prohibition of Police use of technologies to predict offences based on automated decisions, profiling, etc—
“(1) Police Forces in England and Wales shall be prohibited from using any automated decision-making system, profiling or artificial intelligence system for the purpose of—
(a) Making risk assessments of natural persons or groups thereof in order to assess the risk of a natural person for offending or reoffending; or
(b) Predicting the occurrence or reoccurrence of an actual or potential criminal offence based on profiling of a natural person or on assessing personality traits and characteristics, including the person’s location, or past criminal behaviour of natural persons or groups of natural persons.
(2) ‘Profiling’ is profiling as defined by Article 4(4) of the Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council (‘the UK GDPR’).
(3) Automated Decision Making means a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her.
(4) Artificial Intelligence systems are computer systems designed to produce results, opinions or assessments, produced through modelling from datasets and other automated training methods.”
This new clause would prohibit Police Forces from using of certain forms of 'predictive' policing technologies, particularly those that rely on automated decision-making, profiling, and AI to assess the likelihood that individuals or groups will commit criminal offences.
New clause 41—Inspection of police force firearms licensing departments—
“(1) The Police Act 1996 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 54 (appointment and functions of inspectors of constabulary), after subsection (2) insert—
‘(2A) Any inspection conducted under subsection (2) shall include a review of the performance of the police force’s firearms licensing department.’”
This new clause would require HM Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMICFRS) to inspect the efficiency and effectiveness of police force’s firearms licensing departments as part of every police, efficiency, effectiveness and legitimacy (PEEL) inspection.
New clause 42—Offences with a terrorism connection—
“(1) The Sentencing Act 2020 is amended as follows.
(2) In Section 69, omit subsection (4).”
This new clause would raise the threshold of offences which can be considered as terrorism related offences back to the level provided for by the Sentencing Act 2020 as originally enacted.
New clause 43—Commencement of the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act—
“(1) Section 4 of the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023 is amended as follows.
(2) Leave out subsections (3) and (4) and insert—
‘(3) Sections 1, 2 and 3 come into force on the day that the Crime and Policing Act 2025 receives Royal Assent’.”
This new clause automatically commences Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023 when the Crime and Policing Bill receives Royal Assent, removing the need for regulations to bring the Act into force. The Act criminalises the public harassment of individuals where that harassment is based on an individual's sex.
New clause 44—Sentencing: “honour”-based offences:—
“(1) The Sentencing Act 2020 is amended as follows.
(2) In Schedule 21, after paragraph 9(g) insert—‘(h) the fact that the offender inflicted “honour”- based abuse on the victim.’
(3) In Schedule 21, after paragraph 10(g) insert—‘(h) the fact that the offender was a victim of “honour”-based abuse perpetrated by the deceased.’”
This new clause would modify the Sentencing Act 2020 to recognise ‘”honour” as an aggravating factor under paragraph 9 and as a mitigating factor under paragraph 10.
New clause 45—Disclosure of convictions for child sexual offences—
“(1) This section applies where a police force is aware or notified of an individual within its jurisdiction who has been cautioned or convicted of a child sex offence.
(2) A police force must notify any organisation that has responsibilities for a child’s welfare where an individual identified under subsection (1) is employed by or volunteering for that organisation, or is seeking to do so.
(3) The Secretary of State must issue guidance to police forces on their duty under subsection (2) within six months of the passing of this Act.”
This new clause would require police forces to proactively notify an organisation of an individual working or volunteering for it, or seeking to do so, where that individual has been cautioned or convicted of a child sex offence.
New clause 46—Requirements on sellers of vehicle to provide specified information—
“(1) The Road Vehicle (Registration and Licensing) Regulations 2002 are amended as follows.
(2) After regulation 18, insert—
‘Requirements on sellers of vehicle to provide specified information
(1) Where a keeper sells a vehicle, the keeper must record relevant information in the registration document of the vehicle at, or before, the date on which the vehicle is sold to a new keeper.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the relevant information is—
(a) where the keeper is an individual, the home address of the keeper,
(b) where the keeper is a company, information which the Secretary of State may specify, and
(c) where the keeper is the keeper of a fleet, information equivalent to that required in paragraphs (a) and (b) as relevant to the circumstances of the keeper.’
(3) The information the Secretary of State may specify under paragraph (2)(b) may include the company’s registered address and company number.
(4) A keeper who fails to record relevant information in accordance with this regulation commits an offence.
(5) A person who is guilty of an offence under this regulation is liable for a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.
(6) For the purposes of this regulation ‘company’ has such meaning as the Secretary of State may specify.”
This new clause would create a requirement for a person selling a vehicle to provide their address in the registration document of the vehicle.
New clause 47—Failure to disable stolen mobile devices: civil penalty—
“(1) An appropriate officer must provide the relevant service provider with a notification of a stolen mobile device.
(2) A notification under subsection (1) must—
(a) identify the stolen device or service provided to the device;
(b) require the service provider to disable the stolen device or take actions to prevent it from being re-registered;
(c) explain that the notification must be complied with before the end of a period of 48 hours beginning with the time the notification is given; and
(d) set out the potential consequences of failure to comply with the notification.
(3) A service provider who is given a notification under subsection (1) may, before the end of the initial 48-hour period, request a review of the decision to give the notification.
(4) The grounds on which a recipient may request a review include, in particular, that—
(a) the device to which the notification relates is insufficiently identified for the service provider to be able to take the action required by the notification; or
(b) the service provider that received the notice is not, in fact, the provider of the relevant service to which the notification relates.
(5) If the initial 48-hour period has expired without the notification having been complied with or without a review request having been received, an appropriate officer may give a penalty notice requiring the service provider to pay a penalty of an amount not exceeding £10,000.
(6) Schedule 4 makes further provision in connection with penalty notices given under this section.
(7) In this section—
‘appropriate officer’ has the same meaning as in Schedule 13, paragraph 14
‘service provider’ means a provider of a relevant mobile phone service.
(8) In Schedule 4, after all instances of ‘section 16’, insert ‘section (Failure to disable stolen mobile devices: civil penalty)’.”
This new clause would require the police to issue notifications to service providers requiring them to disable stolen mobile devices within 48 hours or be issued with a penalty.
New clause 48—Assault on a delivery worker—
“(1) A person who assaults a delivery person in connection with a delivery commits an offence under this section.
(2) ‘Delivery person’ means a person who—
(a) is logged into a delivery app,
(b) is travelling to a location to collect goods for delivery,
(c) is at a location waiting for, or taking possession of, goods for delivery,
(d) is travelling to deliver those goods to another location,
(e) is delivering those goods to another location,
(f) is within an hour of having delivered those goods to another location, or
(g) has commenced travel to another location.
(3) A person who commits an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the maximum term for summary offences or a fine (or both).
(4) In subsection (3) ‘the maximum term for summary offences’ means — (a) if the offence is committed before the time when section 281(5) of the Criminal Justice Act (alteration of penalties for certain summary offences: England and Wales) comes into force, 6 months; (b) if the offence is committed after that time, 51 weeks.
(5) In section 40(3) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (power to join in indictment count for common assault etc), after paragraph (ad) insert—
‘(ae) an offence under section (Assault on a delivery worker) of the Crime and Policing Act 2025;’”.
This new clause would create an offence of assault on a delivery worker.
New clause 49—Definition of serious disruption: amendment—
“(1) The Public Order Act 2023 is amended as follows.
(2) Omit Section 34.”
This new clause would restore the previous threshold for serious protest disruption by removing the wording in the Public Order Act which defines it to mean any obstruction that caused ‘more than minor hindrance’ to day to day activities.
New clause 50—Right to protest—
“(1) The Public Order Act 1986 is amended as follows.
(2) In Part II (Processions and Assemblies) before section 11, insert—
‘10A The right to protest
(1) Everyone has the right to engage in peaceful protest, both alone and with others.
(2) Public authorities have a duty to—
(a) respect the right to protest;
(b) protect the right to protest; and
(c) facilitate the right to protest.
(3) A public authority may only interfere with the right to protest, including by placing restrictions upon its exercise, when it is necessary and proportionate to do so to protect national security or public safety, prevent disorder or crime, protect public health or the rights and freedoms of others.
(4) For the purposes of this section “public authority” has the same meaning as in section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998.’”
New clause 51—Causing death while driving unlicensed or uninsured—
“(1) The Road Traffic Act 1988 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 2A (meaning of dangerous driving), at the end of subsection (1)(b) insert ‘,or
(c) at the time when they were driving, the circumstances were such that they were committing an offence under section 87(1) of this Act (driving otherwise than in accordance with a licence), or section 143 of this Act (using motor vehicle while uninsured).’
(3) Omit section 3ZB.”
This new clause would mean that an individual who is driving without a licence and/or insurance and causes a death would be considered as causing death by dangerous driving.
New clause 83—Prevention of resale of stolen GPS products—
“(1) The Equipment Theft Act 2023 is amended as follows.
(2) In Section 1(2)(b), after ‘commercial activities’ insert, ‘including GPS equipment’.”
This new clause extends the Equipment Theft Act 2023 to specifically include the theft of GPS equipment.
New clause 84—Rural Crime Prevention Strategy—
“(1) A day after this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must establish a rural crime prevention task force to develop proposals for tackling rural crime.
(2) The task force should be tasked with a remit that includes, but is not confined to, examining—
(a) The particular types of crime that occur in rural areas;
(b) Crime rates in rural communities across England and Wales;
(c) The current levels of police resources and funding in rural communities;
(d) Whether specific training in how to respond to rural crime call-outs should be undertaken by police control room operators;
(e) The operational case, and the funding implications, of appointing rural crime specialists in Police Forces across England and Wales which serve areas that include a significant rural population; and
(f) Whether a National Rural Crime Coordinator should be established
(3) The task force established under subsection (1) must submit a rural crime prevention strategy to the Secretary of State within six months of its appointment.
(4) The Secretary of State must, within a month of receiving the report made by the task force, lay before both Houses of Parliament a written response to the task force’s recommendations.
(5) The Secretary of State must, within a month of laying their response to the task force’s report, ensure that an amendable motion on the subject of the rural crime task force’s recommendations is laid, and moved, before both Houses of Parliament.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to establish a task force to produce a strategy for tackling rural crime, makes provision for specific aspects of the task force’s remit, and requires the Secretary of State to bring forward a substantive motion before both Houses of Parliament on the task force’s recommendations.
New clause 85—Neighbourhood Policing: minimum levels—
“(1) Within six months of the passage of this Act, the Secretary of State must lay before both Houses of Parliament proposals on maintaining minimum levels of neighbourhood policing.
(2) The proposals must include—
(a) A requirement for every Police Force in England and Wales to maintain neighbourhood policing teams at a level necessary to ensure effective community engagement and crime prevention;
(b) A plan to designate a proportion of funds, recovered under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, for neighbourhood policing initiatives; and
(c) A plan for future Police Grant Reports to include a ring-fenced allocation of 20% of total funds to be allocated specifically for neighbourhood policing.”
New clause 86—Neighbourhood Policing—
“(1) The Secretary of State must ensure that every local authority area in England and Wales has a neighbourhood policing team must be assigned exclusively to community-based duties, including:
(a) High-visibility foot patrols;
(b) Community engagement and intelligence gathering;
(c) Crime prevention initiatives; and
(d) Solving crime.
(2) The Home Office must publish proposals detailing the additional funding that will be required to ensure that police forces can meet these requirements without reducing officer numbers in other frontline policing roles.
(3) The Secretary of State must publish an annual report detailing:
(a) The number of officers and PCSOs deployed in neighbourhood policing roles;
(b) The total cost of maintaining the required levels; and
(c) The impact on crime reduction and public confidence in policing.
(4) If a police force fails to meet the minimum staffing levels required under subsection (1), the Home Office must intervene and provide emergency funding to ensure compliance within six months.”
New clause 87—Offence of failing to meet pollution performance commitment levels—
“(1) A water or water and sewerage company (‘C’) commits an offence where C has—
(a) failed to meet its pollution performance commitment level for three consecutive years; or
(b) experienced an increase in serious pollution levels
for three consecutive years.
(2) For the purposes of this section—
(a) ‘water or water and sewerage company’ means companies which are responsible for the provision of water, or water and sewerage, services and which are regulated by Ofwat and the Environment Agency;
(b) ‘pollution performance commitment level’ means the level of performance on pollution that the company has committed to deliver, and which is reported against by Ofwat in its annual water company performance report; and
(c) ‘total pollution incidents per 10,000km2’ and ‘serious pollution incidents’ mean the relevant figures under those headings reported by the Environment Agency in its annual environmental performance report.
(3) If guilty of an offence under this section, C is liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to a fine;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine.”
This new clause creates an offence of failing to meet pollution performance commitment levels.
New clause 88—Senior manager liability for failure to meet pollution performance commitment levels—
“(1) A person (‘P’) commits an offence where—
(a) P is a senior manager of a water or water and sewerage company (‘C’),
(b) C commits an offence under section [Offence of failing to meet pollution performance commitment levels], and
(c) P has failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent that offence being committed by C.
(2) For the purposes of this section—
‘senior manager’ means an individual who plays a significant role in—
(a) the making of decisions about how C’s relevant activities are to be managed or organised, or
(b) the actual managing or organising of C’s relevant activities;
(3) Where P is charged with an offence under this section, it is a defence for P to show that P was a senior manager of C for such a short time during the relevant period that P could not reasonably have been expected to take steps to prevent that offence being committed by C.
(4) Where P is guilty of an offence under this section, P is liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to a fine;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine.”
This new clause creates senior manager liability for failure to meet pollution performance commitment levels.
New clause 89—Duty of candour—
“(1) Every police officer shall have a duty to act with candour and transparency in relation to—
(a) the investigation of criminal offences;
(b) the investigation of misconduct or complaints involving the police;
(c) participation in any public inquiry, inquest, disciplinary proceedings, or legal process arising from their duties;
(d) any engagement with bodies exercising oversight of policing or the criminal justice system.
(2) This duty shall apply regardless of whether the officer is directly the subject of the matter in question or is providing evidence as a witness.
(3) The duty includes an obligation to—
(a) disclose any information which the officer knows or reasonably believes to be relevant;
(b) disclose such information proactively and not solely in response to formal requests;
(c) refrain from withholding or distorting relevant facts, whether by act or omission.
(4) Failure to comply with the duty of candour shall—
(a) constitute misconduct for the purposes of police disciplinary procedures;
(b) amount to gross misconduct where the breach is intentional or demonstrates reckless disregard for the truth;
(c) be subject to mandatory referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct.
(5) The Secretary of State shall, within six months of this Act coming into force, issue statutory guidance on the implementation of the duty of candour.
(6) The College of Policing shall include the duty of candour within the Code of Ethics and ensure its incorporation into training programmes.
(7) The Independent Office for Police Conduct shall report annually to Parliament on the application, enforcement, and impact of this duty.
(8) For the purposes of this section, ‘police officer’ means—
(a) any constable or member of a police force in England and Wales;
(b) any special constable;
(c) any former officer where the conduct in question occurred during their service.”
New clause 90—Mandatory mental health training for police officers—
“(1) Every police force in England and Wales must ensure that all frontline police officers receive regular training in dealing with incidents involving individuals experiencing mental health crises.
(2) The training provided under subsection (1) must—
(a) be developed and delivered in consultation with NHS mental health trusts, clinical commissioning groups, and other relevant health and social care bodies;
(b) reflect the principles of the Right Care, Right Person (RCRP) approach;
(c) include instruction in de-escalation techniques, legal obligations under the Mental Health Act 1983, communication with vulnerable persons, and referral pathways to appropriate healthcare services; and
(d) be trauma-informed and culturally competent.
(3) Initial training must be completed within six months of an officer’s commencement of frontline duties.
(4) Refresher training must be undertaken at least once every two years.
(5) Each police force must publish an annual statement on compliance with this section, including the number of officers trained and steps taken to evaluate the effectiveness of the training.
(6) The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for—
(a) minimum standards for training content and delivery;
(b) procedures for monitoring and enforcement; and
(c) sanctions for non-compliance.
(7) Regulations under this section must be made by statutory instrument and are subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”
New clause 91—Right to protest: report on restrictions—
“(1) Within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must lay before both Houses of Parliament a report on the restrictions which have been made to the right to protest over the last ten years.
(2) The Secretary of State must ensure that within a month of the report produced under subsection (1) being published, time is made available for a debate on a substantive motion in both Houses of Parliament.”
New clause 92—Safeguards for the use of facial recognition technology in public spaces—
“(1) The use of live facial recognition technology for real-time biometric identification, by any public or private authorities, shall be prohibited unless one or more of the following conditions are met—
(a) It is used for the purpose of preventing, detecting, or investigating serious crimes as defined under the Serious Crime Act 2007;
(b) The deployment has received prior judicial authorization specifying the scope, duration, and purpose of its use;
(c) It is necessary and proportionate for preventing an imminent and substantial threat to public safety, such as a terrorist attack; and
(d) It is deployed for the purpose of locating missing persons or vulnerable individuals at risk.
(2) Any public authority deploying live facial recognition technology must:
(a) Conduct and publish a Data Protection Impact Assessment before deployment;
(b) Ensure that use is compliant with the principles of necessity and proportionality as outlined in the Human Rights Act 1998;
(c) Maintain clear and publicly available records of deployments, including justification for use and any safeguards implemented;
(d) Inform the public of deployments, unless exceptional circumstances apply; and
(e) Create, implement and follow nationwide statutory guidance for using the technology.
(3) The use of live facial recognition technology for mass surveillance, profiling, or automated decision-making without human oversight, is an offence.
(4) The Information Commissioner’s Office and an independent oversight body shall be responsible for monitoring compliance with the provisions of this clause, conducting audits, and investigating complaints.
(5) Within six months of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must sure that a motion is tabled, and moved, before both Houses of Parliament to approve the appointment of the independent oversight body specified in subsection (5).
(6) A public authority or private entity guilty of an offence under this section will be liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to a fine;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine
(7) A private individual found guilty of an offence under this section will be liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to a fine;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine or imprisonment (or both).
(8) The Secretary of State must lay before both Houses of Parliament an annual report detailing the use of live facial recognition technology, including instances of authorisation and compliance measures undertaken, and ensure that a motion is tabled, and moved, before both Houses to approve the report.
(9) The motion specified in subsection (9) must include proposals to strengthen the role of the Office of the Biometrics and Surveillance Camera Commissioner (OBSCC) in overseeing the impact of emerging technology such as facial recognition and its impact on civil liberties.”
New clause 93—Right to peaceful protest—
“(1) It is the duty of public authorities, including police forces, to respect and facilitate the exercise of the right to peaceful protest in accordance with Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
(2) A person’s presence at, or participation in, a peaceful protest—
(a) must not, of itself, be treated as grounds for arrest or the use of force; and
(b) must not be subject to unnecessary or disproportionate restrictions.
(3) In exercising powers under this Act or any other enactment, a constable must have regard to the importance of—
(a) enabling peaceful protest to take place; and
(b) minimising interference with the rights of those engaged in peaceful protest.
(4) This section does not prevent a constable from imposing conditions on a protest or taking enforcement action where necessary and proportionate to prevent—
(a) serious disruption to the life of the community;
(b) serious public disorder;
(c) serious damage to property; or
(d) the commission of serious crime.
(5) The Secretary of State must issue guidance on the application of this section within six months of the passing of this Act.”
New clause 95—Offence of stalking: review—
“(1) Within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must establish a review into the effectiveness of Sections 2A and 4A of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
(2) The review established under subsection (1) must complete its work within nine months of its establishment.
(3) Within a month of the review submitting its final report, the Secretary of State must lay a copy of the report before both Houses of Parliament and make time available in both Houses for a debate on a substantive motion relating to the report.”
This new clause would require the Government to establish a review into the effectiveness of the stalking provisions of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997, specifies the review's timeframe, and requires the Government to make time available in both Houses of Parliament for a substantive debate on the review’s report.
New clause 96—Stalking awareness guidelines: review—
“(1) Within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must establish a review into the effectiveness and adequacy of stalking awareness guidance provided by public bodies in England and Wales.
(2) The terms of reference for this review should include examining whether stalking awareness guidance should form part of the national curriculum in England.
(3) Within a month of the review submitting its final report, the Secretary of State must lay a copy of the report before both Houses of Parliament and make time available in both Houses for a debate on a substantive motion relating to the report.”
This new clause would require the Government to establish a review into the effectiveness of the stalking awareness guidance provided by public bodies, specifies that the review should examine making stalking awareness guidance mandatory under the national curriculum, and provides for a substantive debate in Parliament on the review's report.
New clause 97—Electronic searches under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000—
“(1) The Terrorism Act 2000 is amended as follows.
(2) In Schedule 7, after paragraph 8 insert—
8A ‘(1) An examining officer may not search any electronic device under paragraph 8(1) without the prior authorisation of a judge, unless the examining officer has reasonable grounds to believe that the device contains information necessary to prevent—
(a) an emergency threatening the life of a person or persons, or
(b) an immediate threat to national security.
(2) An examining officer may seek the prior authorisation of a judge to engage in conduct which is for the purpose of obtaining data necessary for the purpose of determining whether the person falls within section 40(1).
(3) Authorised conduct may consist of an officer—
(a) scanning the information stored on the device using technology approved by the Secretary of State for the purpose of ascertaining whether someone falls within section 40(1),
(b) requiring the person to permit the scan, and
(c) requiring the person to take such steps as appear necessary to allow the scan to be performed.’”
This new clause places safeguards on the searches of electronic devices to ensure these are conducted only when necessary to determine whether the person is a relevant person for the purposes of the Terrorism Act 2000.
New clause 98—Use of Prevent data—
“In the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, after section 33 insert—
‘33A Duty to obtain authorisation for use of Prevent data
(1) This section applies where a specified authority uses information collected under the Prevent duty for criminal investigations, national security or any other purpose unrelated to compliance with the general duty under section 26.
(2) Where this section applies, a specified authority must seek the prior authorisation of a judge for the use of the information, except where doing so would prevent the authority from addressing—
(a) an emergency threatening the life of a person or persons, or
(b) an immediate threat to national security.
(3) A specified authority which uses information under paragraphs 2(a) or (b) must seek a review of its use from a judge at its earliest convenience and no later than a week after the use.
(4) A specified authority is a person or body listed in Schedule 6.’”
This new clause would require specified users to seek the approval of a judge prior to using data collected under the Prevent duty, except where there was an emergency or immediate threat. If data is used in urgent situations, a judge must review it within a week.
New clause 99—Universal jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and ancillary conduct (England and Wales)—
“(1) The International Criminal Court Act 2001 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 51(1)—
(a) After ‘person’, insert ‘, whatever his or her nationality,’
(b) After ‘war crime’, insert ‘in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.’
(3) Omit section 51(2).
(4) In section 52(1)—
(a) After ‘person’, insert ‘, whatever his or her nationality,’
(b) After ‘conduct’, insert ‘in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.’
(5) Omit section 52(4).”
This new clause would amend the ICC Act 2001 to provide for the exercise of universal jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and ancillary conduct, allowing authorities in England and Wales to prosecute persons suspected of these crimes without any requirement for a connection to the UK.
New clause 100—Universal jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and ancillary conduct (Northern Ireland)—
“(1) The International Criminal Court Act 2001 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 58(1)—
(a) After ‘person’, insert ‘, whatever his or her nationality,’
(b) After ‘war crime’, insert ‘in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.’
(3) Omit section 58(2).
(4) In section 59(1)—
(a) After ‘person’, insert ‘, whatever his or her nationality,’
(b) After ‘conduct’, insert ‘in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.’
(5) Omit section 59(4).”
This new clause would amend the ICC Act 2001 to provide for the exercise of universal jurisdiction over the crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and ancillary conduct, allowing authorities in Northern Ireland to prosecute persons suspected of these crimes without any requirement for a connection to the UK.
New clause 101—Threshold for offences to be considered as terrorism-related: review—
“(1) Within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must establish a review into the effect of the raising of the threshold of offences which can be considered as terrorism related offences by the Counter Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021.
(2) The review specified in subsection (1) must report within nine months of its establishment and its final report must be laid before both Houses of Parliament, and time made available for a debate on a substantive motion in both Houses of Parliament on the report’s conclusions, within a month of the report’s publication.”
New clause 102—Amendment of Possession of extreme pornographic images—
“(1) The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 is amended as follow.
(2) In section 63 subsection (7) (possession of extreme pornographic images) after paragraph (a) insert—
(aa) an act of choking, suffocating or strangling another person.”
This amendment would extend the definition of extreme pornographic images to cover realistic and explicit pornographic depictions of acts of strangulation/choking.
New clause 103—Pornographic content: online harmful content—
“(1) A person commits an offence if they publish or allow or facilitate the publishing of pornographic content online which meets the criteria for harmful material under section 368E(3)(a) and section 368E(3)(b) of the Communications Act 2003.
(2) An individual guilty of an offence is liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both);
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or a fine or both.
(3) A person who is a UK national commits an offence under this section regardless of where the offence takes place.
(4) A person who is not a UK national commits an offence under this section if any part of the offence takes place in the UK.
(5) The platform on which material that violates the provisions in this section is published can be fined up to £18 million or 10 percent of their qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater.
(6) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the Act receiving Royal Assent, make regulations appointing one or more public bodies (the appointed body) to monitor and enforce compliance by online platforms with this section.
(7) Regulations made under subsection 6 may provide the appointed body appointed by the Secretary of State with the powers, contained in sections 144 and 146 of the Online Safety Act 2023, to apply to the court for a Service Restriction Order or Access Restriction Order (or both).
(8) The appointed body must, within six months of being appointed by the Secretary of State, lay before Parliament a strategy for monitoring, and enforcing, compliance with the provisions in this section.
(9) The appointed body must lay before Parliament an annual report, outlining the enforcement activity undertaken in relation to this section.”
This new clause extends safeguarding requirements for pornography distributed offline to pornography distributed online, making it an offence to publish online harmful material under section 368E(3)(a) and section 368E(3)(b) of the Communications Act 2003.
New clause 104—Pornographic Content: Duty to safeguard against illegal content—
“(1) The Online Safety Act is amended as follows.
(2) In section 80(1), after ‘service’ insert ‘and the illegal content duties outlined in Part 3 of this Act.’”
This new clause extends the illegal content duties in Part 3 of the Act to all internet services which are subject to the regulated provider pornographic content duties in Part 5 of the Act.
New clause 105—Pornographic Content: Duty to verify age—
“(1) A person (A) commits an offence if they publish or allow or facilitate the publishing of pornographic content online where it has not been verified that—
(a) every individual featuring in pornographic content on the platform has given their consent for the content in which they feature to be published or made available by the service; and/or
(b) every individual featuring in pornographic content on the platform has been verified as an adult, and that age verification completed before the content was created and before it was published on the service; and/or
(c) every individual featured in pornographic content on the platform, that had already published on the service when this Act is passed, is an adult.
(2) It is irrelevant under (1a) whether the individual featured in pornographic material has previously given their consent to the relevant content being published, if they have subsequently withdrawn that consent in writing either directly or via an appointed legal representative to—
(a) the platform, or
(b) the relevant regulator where a contact address was not provided by the platform to receive external communications.
(3) If withdrawal of consent under (2) has been communicated in writing to an address issued by the platform or to the relevant public body, the relevant material must be removed by the platform within 24 hours of the communication being sent.
(4) An individual guilty of an offence is liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both);
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or a fine (or both).
(5) A person who is a UK national commits an offence under this section regardless of where the offence takes place.
(6) A person who is not a UK national commits an offence under this section if any part of the offence takes place in the UK.
(7) The platform on which material that violates the provisions in this section is published can be fined up to £18 million or 10 percent of their qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater.
(8) The Secretary of State will appoint one or more public bodies to monitor and enforce compliance by online platforms with this section, with the relevant public body—
(a) granted powers to impose business disruption measures on non-compliant online platforms, including but not limited to service restriction (imposing requirements on one or more persons who provide an ancillary service, whether from within or outside the United Kingdom, in relation to a regulated service); and access restriction (imposing requirements on one or more persons who provide an access facility, whether from within or outside the United Kingdom, in relation to a regulated service).
(b) required to act in accordance with regulations relating to monitoring and enforcement of this section issued by the Secretary of State, including but not limited to providing the Secretary of State with a plan for monitoring and enforcement of the provisions in this section within six months of the bill entering into force, and publishing annual updates on enforcement activity relating to this section.
(9) Internet services hosting pornographic content must make and keep a written record outlining their compliance with the provisions of this section. Such a record must be made summarised in a publicly available statement alongside the publishing requirements in section 81(4) and (5) of the Online Safety Act.”
This new clause makes it a requirement for pornography websites to verify the age and permission of everyone featured on their site, and enable withdrawal of consent at any time.
New clause 107—Equality Impact Analyses of provisions of this Act—
“(1) The Secretary of State must review the equality impact of the provisions of this Act.
(2) A report of the review under this section must be laid before Parliament within 12 months of the date of Royal Assent to this Act.
(3) A review under this section must consider the impact of the provisions of this Act on—
(a) households at different levels of income,
(b) people with protected characteristics (within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010),
(c) the Government’s compliance with the public sector equality duty under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, and
(d) equality in the different nations of the United Kingdom and different regions of England.
(4) A review under this section must include a separate analysis of each section of the Act, and must also consider the cumulative impact of the Act as a whole.”
New clause 108—Extension of freedom of expression—
“For section 29J of the Public Order Act 1986 (protection of freedom of expression), substitute—
‘Nothing in—
(a) this Act;
(b) section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 (offence of sending letters etc. with the intent to cause distress or anxiety); and
(c) section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 (improper use of public communications network)
shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system.’”
This new clause would extend the protection of freedom of expression afforded to Part 3A of the Public Order Act 1986 to other areas of statute that create offences relating to speech or communication.
New clause 109—Review of compliance and enforcement mechanisms in relation to Police Forces—
“(1) Within six months of this Act receiving Royal Assent, the Secretary of State must publish a proposal for approval by the House of Commons on the establishment of an independent commission to investigate the enforcement powers of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS).
(2) The proposal for an independent commission must include a terms of reference, which must include, but may not be limited to—
(a) a review of the powers available to other independent regulatory and investigative bodies, such as Ofqual, the Care Quality Commission, the Financial Conduct Authority, and Ofsted;
(b) the lessons learned from other regulatory bodies with stronger enforcement powers; and
(c) an examination of whether a statutory framework of coordination between HMICFRS, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, and Police and Crime Commissioners, could enhance the enforcement powers available to all three sets of bodies and the accountability of policing in England and Wales.
(3) The proposal for an independent commission must set out a timetable for its work including that—
(a) the commission should conclude its deliberations within nine months of its establishment, and
(b) the Secretary of State must lay a copy of the report before both Houses of Parliament and ensure that time is made available, within a fortnight of the report being laid, in both Houses for a substantive debate on the report’s conclusions.”
This new clause would require the Government to publish a proposal for an independent commission for approval by the House of Commons to review the enforcement powers of His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), including consideration of a statutory framework to enhance the collective enforcement powers of bodies supervising Police Forces in England and Wales.
New clause 110—Requirement to bring forward proposals for an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks—
“(1) The Secretary of State must within 3 months of the passing of this Act publish proposals for approval by the House of Commons for the establishment of an inquiry, including the appointment of members of any such inquiry in accordance with section [Proposals for an inquiry: appointment of inquiry panel members].
(2) The terms of reference contained in the proposals referred to in subsection (1) must include, but may not be limited to—
(a) investigation of the nature and extent of sexual exploitation of children by organised networks, including—
(i) the experiences of victims and survivors of child sexual exploitation by organised networks,
(ii) the extent to which local authorities, law enforcement agencies, the judiciary and other public authorities were aware of child sexual exploitation by organised networks in their areas,
(iii) the appropriateness and effectiveness of any responses of those public authorities to cases of child sexual exploitation, including the effectiveness of sentencing or sentences served for offences involving child sexual exploitation by organised networks,
(iv) the extent to which public authorities have cooperated with previous inquiries and investigations into cases of child sexual exploitation in their areas,
(v) any organisational or individual responsibilities for not responding effectively to cases of child sexual exploitation,
(vi) identification of common patterns of behaviour and offending between organised networks,
(vii) identification of the type, extent and volume of crimes committed by organised networks including the number of victims of those crimes,
(viii) identification of the ethnicity of members of organised networks, and
(b) recommendations about legislative, policy and institutional changes to prevent child sexual exploitation in the future.
(3) The Secretary of State’s proposals must stipulate that any inquiry should conclude within 18 months of the passing of this Act, and report to the Secretary of State within 3 months of concluding.
(4) The Secretary of State’s proposals may make provision for the issuing of such interim reports as the chair of any inquiry considers to be appropriate.
(5) The Secretary of State’s proposals may make provision for supplementing the terms of reference of any inquiry after consultation with the chair, but may not omit, modify, or otherwise adversely affect any of the terms of reference set out in subsection (2).”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to bring forward proposals for setting up an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks for approval by the House of Commons.
New clause 111—Proposals for an inquiry: appointment of inquiry panel members—
“(1) The inquiry proposals brought forward by the Secretary of State under section [Requirement to bring forward proposals for an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks] must make provision for any inquiry to be overseen by a chair and inquiry panel appointed by the Secretary of State.
(2) The inquiry proposals must require the prospective chair to have senior experience of and expertise in the successful investigation of serious offences and that the person does not have a conflict of interest in the subject matter of the inquiry.
(3) The inquiry proposals must make provision for the chair to appoint one or more persons to act as assessors to assist the inquiry panel and may at any time terminate the appointment of an assessor.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State’s proposals for an inquiry relating to the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks under NC10 to make provision for the appointment of a chair and inquiry panel members.
New clause 112—Proposals for an inquiry: inquiry evidence and procedure—
“(1) The inquiry proposals brought forward by the Secretary of State under section [Requirement to bring forward proposals for an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks] must make provision for the procedure and conduct of any inquiry to be such as the chair may direct.
(2) The inquiry proposals must require the chair, in making any decision as to the procedure or conduct of any inquiry to act in a manner which is consistent with the terms of reference and—
(a) fairness,
(b) regard to the need for a detailed investigation of the issues before the inquiry,
(c) regard to the need to conclude the inquiry within the period set in the terms of reference, and
(d) regard to the need to avoid unnecessary cost (whether to public funds or to witnesses or others).”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State’s proposals for an inquiry relating to the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks to require the chair to make provision for the procedure of that inquiry.
New clause 113—Proposals for an inquiry: requirement for public access to inquiry proceedings and information—
“(1) The inquiry proposals brought forward by the Secretary of State under section [Requirement to bring forward proposals for an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks] must make provision for the chair of any inquiry to take steps to secure that members of the public (including reporters) are able to—
(a) attend a hearing of the inquiry,
(b) see and hear a simultaneous transmission of proceedings at the inquiry, and
(c) obtain or to view a record of evidence and documents given, produced or provided to the inquiry or inquiry panel,
subject to any restrictions imposed by an order under section [Proposals for an inquiry: restrictions on public access etc].
(2) The inquiry proposals brought forward by the Secretary of State under section [Requirement to bring forward proposals for an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks] must make provision for records (including transcripts of the proceedings) of any inquiry to be held for a period of 10 years, and to be made available on a website maintained by the Secretary of State, subject to any restriction imposed under section [Proposals for an inquiry: Inquiry restrictions on public access etc],”
This new clause would enable the chair of any inquiry proposed by the Secretary of State relating to the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks to make provision for public access to that inquiry.
New clause 114—Proposals for an inquiry: inquiry restrictions on public access etc—
“(1) The inquiry proposals brought forward by the Secretary of State under section [Requirement to bring forward proposals for an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks] must make provision on restrictions that may, in accordance with this section, be imposed on—
(a) attendance at any inquiry established following approval by the House of Commons, or at any particular part of the inquiry,
(b) the disclosure or publication of any, or part of, evidence or documents given, produced or provided to the inquiry (including the simultaneous transmission of proceedings at the inquiry), and
(c) disclosure or publication of the identity of any person.
(2) Restrictions made under subsection (1) may be imposed by being specified in an order (a ‘restriction order’) made by the chair during the course of the inquiry
(3) A restriction order must, having regard to the matters in subsection (4), specify only such restrictions required by any express statutory provision, assimilated enforcement obligation, or for national security purposes, or which otherwise protect—
(a) a victim or a whistle-blower,
(b) the identity of an individual authorised for the conduct or the use of a covert human intelligence source except where that person is accused of an offence and the chair considers it to be conducive to the inquiry in fulfilling its terms of reference, or
(c) a matter which the chair considers to be in the public interest provided that this does not affect the inquiry fulfilling its terms of reference.
(4) The matters referred to in subsection (3) are—
(a) the importance of public attendance at the inquiry and disclosure or publication of information to the allaying of public concern,
(b) any risk of harm to—
(i) a victim or survivor of child sexual exploitation,
(ii) a whistle-blower, or
(iii) the future operational practices or methods of law enforcement,
that could be avoided or materially reduced by any such restriction,
(c) any conditions as to confidentiality subject to which a person acquired information which that person is to give, or has given, to the inquiry, and
(d) the extent to which not imposing any particular restriction would be likely to cause delay or to impair the efficiency or effectiveness of the inquiry or the fulfilment of the terms of reference.
(5) The Secretary of State may direct the chair to revoke any restriction order made under this section or require the chair to impose a restriction order if they consider it conducive to the fulfilment of the terms of reference of the inquiry and in the public interest having regard to the matters in subsection (4).
(6) The Secretary of State must, by a notice published within a month of the end of the inquiry—
(a) revoke a restriction order containing disclosure restrictions that are still in force, or
(b) vary such a restriction order so as to remove or relax any of the restrictions,
unless the Secretary of State considers it necessary, having regard to the matters in subsection (4), to retain any of the disclosure restrictions after the end of the inquiry.”
This new clause would enable the Secretary of State and the chair of any inquiry proposed by the Secretary of State on the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks, to make provision for restrictions on information provided to that inquiry.
New clause 115—Proposals for an inquiry: powers to require production of evidence etc.—
“(1) The inquiry proposals brought forward by the Secretary of State under section [Requirement to bring forward proposals for an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks] must make provision for powers to produce evidence in accordance with this section.
(2) The chair of any inquiry may require a person at a time and place stated by notice—
(a) to give evidence,
(b) to produce any documents in the custody or under the control of that person which relate to a matter in question at the inquiry, or
(c) to produce any other thing in the custody or under the control of that person for inspection, examination or testing by or on behalf of the inquiry panel.
(3) The Secretary of State must require a public authority that has control of audio or visual records of specified proceedings to provide those audio or visual records to the Secretary of State.
(4) Subject to subsection (5), the Secretary of State must, following the provision of audio or visual records under subsection (2), publish a transcription of those records on a website maintained by the Secretary of State for a period of 10 years.
(5) The Secretary of State may redact or omit any or all of the transcription where it is required by any express statutory provision, assimilated enforcement obligation, or for national security purposes, or which otherwise—
(a) protect a victim or a whistle-blower,
(b) protect the identity of an individual authorised for the conduct or the use of a covert human intelligence source except where that person is accused of an offence and the Secretary of State considers it to be conducive to do so, or
(c) avoid or remove any risk of harm to—
(i) a victim or survivor of child sexual exploitation, or
(ii) a whistle-blower, or
(iii) the future operational practices or methods of law enforcement, or
(d) adversely affect any conditions as to confidentiality subject to which a person acquired information which that person has provided in the course of any specified proceedings.
(6) A person subject to subsection (2) cannot be required to give, produce or provide any evidence or document if that person could not be required to do so on the grounds of legal professional privilege if the proceedings of the inquiry were civil proceedings in a court in England and Wales.
(7) In this section, ‘specified proceedings’ means any previous inquiry or commission or criminal proceedings which is notified in writing to the Secretary of State by the chair of the inquiry.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State’s proposals for an inquiry into the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks to enable the chair to require that attendance or evidence is provided to that inquiry and, would provide for a process requiring the publication of specified proceedings.
New clause 116—Inquiry offences—
“(1) This section applies if the House of Commons has approved the establishment of an inquiry relating to the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks under section [Requirement to bring forward proposals for an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks].
(2) A person (‘P’) is guilty of an offence if during the course of the inquiry—
(a) P intentionally suppresses or conceals a document that is, and that P knows or believes to be, a relevant document, or
(b) P intentionally alters or destroys a relevant document.
(3) For the purposes of subsection (2) a document is a ‘relevant document’ if it is likely that the inquiry panel would (if aware of its existence) wish to be provided with it.
(4) A person who is guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 51 weeks.”
This new clause would make it a criminal offence not to provide evidence to an inquiry relating to the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks if an inquiry was established under NC110.
New clause 117—Inquiry enforcement by High Court and contempt—
“(1) This section applies if the House of Commons has approved the establishment of an inquiry relating to the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks under section [Requirement to bring forward proposals for an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks].
(2) Where a person—
(a) fails to comply with, or acts in breach of, a notice to provide evidence or an order made by the chair, or
(b) threatens to do so,
the chair may bring a case referring the matter to the High Court.
(3) The High Court, after hearing any evidence or representations on a matter brought to it under subsection (2), may make any order by way of enforcement or otherwise which it could have made if the matter had arisen in proceedings before it.”
This new clause would enable enforcement to be taken in relation to a person who breached a requirement to provide evidence or attend proceedings in connection with any inquiry into the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks established under NC110.
New clause 118—Inquiry immunity from suit and legal challenges—
“(1) This section applies if the House of Commons has approved the establishment of an inquiry relating to the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks under section [Requirement to bring forward proposals for an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks].
(2) No legal action may be brought against—
(a) a member of the inquiry panel,
(b) an assessor, counsel or solicitor to the inquiry,
(c) a person engaged to provide assistance to the inquiry, or
(d) the Secretary of State,
in respect of any act done or omission made in the execution of that person’s duty or power, or any act done or omission made in good faith in the purported execution of that person’s duty in the undertaking of the inquiry.
(3) Notwithstanding any other provision of any other enactment, a court or tribunal must not consider any claim or complaint (whether by way of judicial review or otherwise) which relates to the decision or conduct of—
(a) a member of the inquiry panel,
(b) an assessor, counsel or solicitor to the inquiry,
(c) a person engaged to provide assistance to the inquiry, or
(d) the Secretary of State,
in respect of any act done or omission made in the execution of that person’s duty or power as part of the inquiry, or any act done or omission made in good faith in the purported execution of this Act.
(4) An application which is not excluded under subsection (2) for judicial review of a decision made—
(a) by the Secretary of State in relation to the inquiry, or
(b) by a member of the inquiry panel,
must be brought promptly and, no later than 14 days after the day on which the applicant became aware of the decision, unless that time limit is extended by the court.”
This new clause would make provision relating to legal challenges in connection with any inquiry into the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks established under NC110.
New clause 119—Duty of cooperation with inquiry—
“(1) This section applies if the House of Commons has approved the establishment of an inquiry relating to the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks under section [Requirement to bring forward proposals for an inquiry on the exploitation of children by organised networks].
(2) A public authority must not act in a manner which conflicts with or impedes the inquiry acting in accordance with its terms of reference and must otherwise cooperate with the members of the inquiry in the exercise of its functions.
(3) In this section, ‘public authority’ includes any person or body certain of whose functions are functions of a public nature.”
This new clause would ensure there is a duty of cooperation in connection with any inquiry into the sexual exploitation of children by organised networks established under NC110.
New clause 120—Racial and religious hatred and hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation against an emergency worker—
“(1) The Public Order Act 1986 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 18, after subsection (2) insert—
‘(3) The exemption in respect of a dwelling place in subsection (2) does not apply where the offence is committed against an emergency worker.
(3A) For the purposes of subsection (3) the term “emergency worker” has the meaning given by section 3 of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018.’
(3) In section 29B, after subsection (2) insert—
‘(3) The exemption in respect of a dwelling place in subsection (2) does not apply where the offence is committed against an emergency worker.
(3A) For the purposes of subsection (3)(a) the term “emergency worker” has the meaning given by section 3 of the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018.’”
This new clause would create an offence where racial or religious hatred or hatred on the basis of sexual orientation is directed against an emergency worker, and the offence takes place in a private dwelling.
New clause 121—Amendment of Possession of extreme pornographic images—
“(1) Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 (possession of extreme pornographic images) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (7) after paragraph (a) insert—
‘(aa) an act which affects a person’s ability to breathe and constitutes battery of that person.’”
This amendment would extend the legal definition of the extreme pornography to include the depiction of nonfatal strangulation.
New clause 122—Aggravated offences against people because of their sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability—
“(1) An offence is to be considered aggravated on the basis of sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability if—
(a) at the time of committing the offence, or immediately before or after doing so, the offender demonstrates towards the victim of the offence hostility based on the victim’s—
(i) sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability (or presumed sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability), or;
(ii) association with an individual or group defined by reference to sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability (or presumed sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability); or
(b) the offence is motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility towards people because of their sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability or presumed sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability).
(2) In this section—
‘presumed’ means presumed by the offender.
‘disability’ has the same meaning as in the Sentencing Act 2020.
‘transgender identity’ has the same meaning as in the Sentencing Act 2020.
‘sexual orientation’ has the same meaning as in the Public Order Act 1986.
(3) A person is guilty of an offence under this section if they commit—
(a) an offence under section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (malicious wounding or grievous bodily harm);
(b) an offence under section 47 of that Act (actual bodily harm);
(c) an offence under section 75A of the Serious Crime Act 2015 (strangulation or suffocation); or
(d) common assault,
which is aggravated for the purposes of this section.
(4) A person guilty of an offence falling within subsection (3)(a), (b) or (c) above shall be liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding seven years or to a fine, or to both.
(5) A person guilty of an offence falling within subsection (3)(d) above shall be liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine, or to both.
(6) A person is guilty of an offence under this section if they commit an offence under section 1(1) of the Criminal Damage Act 1971 (destroying or damaging property belonging to another) which is aggravated for the purposes of this section.
(7) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years or to a fine, or to both.
(8) For the purposes of this section, subsection (1) above shall have effect as if the person to whom the property belongs or is treated as belonging for the purposes of that Act were the victim of the offence.
(9) A person is guilty of an offence under this section if they commit—
(a) an offence under section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986 (fear or provocation of violence);
(b) an offence under section 4A of that Act (intentional harassment, alarm or distress); or
(c) an offence under section 5 of that Act (harassment, alarm or distress),
which is aggravated for the purposes of this section.
(10) A person guilty of an offence falling within subsection (9)(a) or (b) above shall be liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine, or to both.
(11) A person guilty of an offence falling within subsection (9)(c) above shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale.
(12) If, on the trial on indictment of a person charged with an offence falling within subsection (9)(a) or (b) above, the jury find them not guilty of the offence charged, they may find them guilty of the basic offence mentioned in that provision.
(13) For the purposes of subsection (9)(c), subsection (1)(a) above shall have effect as if the person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress were the victim of the offence.
(14) A person is guilty of an offence under this section if they commit—
(a) an offence under section 2 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 (offences of harassment and stalking); or
(b) an offence under section 4 or 4A of that Act (putting people in fear of violence and stalking involving fear of violence or serious alarm or distress),
which is aggravated for the purposes of this section.
(15) A person guilty of an offence falling within subsection (13)(a) above shall be liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or to a fine, or to both.
(16) A person guilty of an offence falling within subsection (13)(b) above shall be liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years or to a fine, or to both.
(17) If, on the trial on indictment of a person charged with an offence falling within subsection (13)(a) above, the jury find them not guilty of the offence charged, they may find them guilty of either basic offence mentioned in that provision.
(18) If, on the trial on indictment of a person charged with an offence falling within subsection (13)(b) above, the jury find them not guilty of the offence charged, they may find them guilty of an offence falling within subsection (13)(a) above.”
This new clause would create statutory aggravated offences motivated by hostility towards an individual’s disability status, sexual orientation or transgender identity (or perception thereof). The new clause would also protect people who are victims of hate crime because of their association with individuals based on their disability status, sexual orientation or transgender identity (or perception thereof).
New clause 123—Removal of parental responsibility for individuals convicted of sexual offences against children—
“(1) After section 2 (parental responsibility for children) of the Children Act 1989, insert —
‘2A Prisoners: suspension of parental responsibility
(1) This section applies where—
(a) a person (“P”) has been found guilty of a serious sexual offence involving or relating to a child or children; and
(b) P had parental responsibility for a child or children at the time at which the offence was committed.
(2) P ceases to have parental responsibility for a child or all children—
(a) until the child, or children, turns 18, or
(b) until an application by P to the family court to reinstate parental responsibility has been approved.’”
This new clause would terminate the parental rights of any individual convicted of child sex offences to any children the individual had at the time the crime was committed.
New clause 124—Duty to follow strategic priorities of police and crime plan—
“(1) The Police Reform and Social Responsibility Act 2011 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 8(1) (Duty to have regard to police and crime plan), for “have regard to” substitute ‘follow the strategic priorities of’.
(3) In section 8(2) for ‘have regard to’ substitute ‘follow the strategic priorities of’.
(4) In section 8(3) for ‘have regard to’ substitute ‘follow the strategic priorities of’.
(5) In section 8(4) for ‘have regard to’ substitute ‘follow the strategic priorities of’.”
This new clause would require Police and Crime Commissioners to follow the strategic priorities of the police and crime plan rather than have regard to it.
New clause 125—Amendment of the Police Act 1996—
“(1) Section 39A of the Police Act 1996 is amended as follows.
(2) After subsection (7) insert—
‘(8) The Secretary of State may require that the College of Policing revises the whole or any part of a code of practice issued under this section or any other guidance or standards for policing the College of Policing may issue.
(9) The Secretary of State may require that the National Police Chiefs’ Council revises the whole or any part of policy, strategic plan, action plan, or any other document intended direct policing practices.’”
This new clause gives the Secretary of State the power to amend, or require the withdrawal of, any Code of Practice issued by the College of Policing, or any document issued by the National Police Chiefs’ Council intended to direct policing practices.
New clause 126—Previous conduct as factor in deciding whether to investigate a complaint—
“(1) The Police Reform Act 2002 is amended as follows.
(2) In Schedule 3, paragraph 1(6B)(d), at end insert ‘or
(e) the complaint is made about a person serving with the police who has previous convictions or has had previous complaints made against them.’”
This new clause would make previous complaints or convictions a factor in determining how to handle a new complaint against a police officer.
New clause 127—Points on driving licence for fly tipping—
“(1) The Environmental Protection Act is amended as follows.
(2) In section 33, subsection 8(a) at end insert ‘and endorse their driving record with 3 penalty points;’”
This new clause would add penalty points to the driving licence of a person convicted of a fly-tipping offence.
New clause 128—Requirements in certain sentences imposed for third or subsequent shoplifting offence—
“(1) The Sentencing Code is amended as follows.
(2) In section 208 (community order: exercise of power to impose particular requirements), in subsections (3) and (6) after ‘subsection (10)’ insert ‘and sections 208A’.
(3) After that section insert—
“208A Community order: requirements for third or subsequent shoplifting offence
(1) This section applies where—
(a) a person is convicted of adult shoplifting (“the index offence”),
(b) when the index offence was committed, the offender had on at least two previous occasions been sentenced in respect of adult shoplifting or an equivalent Scottish or Northern Ireland offence, and
(c) the court makes a community order in respect of the index offence.
(2) The community order must, subject to subsection (3), include at least one of the following requirements—
(a) a curfew requirement;
(b) an exclusion requirement;
(c) an electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement.
(3) Subsection (2) does not apply if—
(a) the court is of the opinion that there are exceptional circumstances which—
(i) relate to any of the offences or the offender, an
(ii) justify the court not including any requirement of a kind mentioned in subsection (2), or
(b) neither of the following requirements could be included in the order—
(i) an electronic compliance monitoring requirement for securing compliance with a proposed curfew requirement or proposed exclusion requirement;
(ii) an electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement.
(4) In subsection (1)(b), the reference to an occasion on which an offender was sentenced in respect of adult shoplifting does not include an occasion if—
(a) each conviction for adult shoplifting for which the offender was dealt with on that occasion has been quashed, or
(b) the offender was re-sentenced for adult shoplifting (and was not otherwise dealt with for adult shoplifting) on that occasion.
(5) In this section—
“adult shoplifting” means an offence under section 1 of the Theft Act 1968 committed by a person aged 18 or over in circumstances where—
(a) the stolen goods were being offered for sale in a shop or any other premises, stall, vehicle or place from which a trade or business was carried on, and
(b) at the time of the offence, the offender was, or was purporting to be, a customer or potential customer of the person offering the goods for sale;
“equivalent Scottish or Northern Ireland offence” means—
(a) in Scotland, theft committed by a person aged 18 or over in the circumstances mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b) of the definition of “adult shoplifting”, or
(b) in Northern Ireland, an offence under section 1 of the Theft Act (Northern Ireland) 1969 committed by a person aged 18 or over in those circumstances.
(6) Nothing in subsection (2) enables a requirement to be included in a community order if it could not otherwise be so included.
(7) Where—
(a) in a case to which this section applies, a court makes a community order which includes a requirement of a kind mentioned in subsection (2),
(b) a previous conviction of the offender is subsequently set aside on appeal, and
(c) without the previous conviction this section would not have applied, notice of appeal against the sentence may be given at any time within 28 days from the day on which the previous conviction was set aside (despite anything in section 18 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968).”
(4) After section 292 insert—
“292A Suspended sentence order: community requirements for third or subsequent shoplifting offence
(1) This section applies where—
(a) a person is convicted of adult shoplifting (“the index offence”),
(b) when the index offence was committed, the offender had on at least two previous occasions been sentenced in respect of adult shoplifting or an equivalent Scottish or Northern Ireland offence, and
(c) the court makes a suspended sentence order in respect of the index offence.
(2) The suspended sentence order must, subject to subsection (3), impose at least one of the following requirements—
(a) a curfew requirement;
(b) an exclusion requirement;
(c) an electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement.
(3) Subsection (2) does not apply if—
(a) the court is of the opinion that there are exceptional circumstances which—
(i) relate to any of the offences or the offender, and
(ii) justify the court not imposing on the offender any requirement of a kind mentioned in subsection (2), or
(b) neither of the following requirements could be imposed on the offender—
(i) an electronic compliance monitoring requirement for securing compliance with a proposed curfew requirement or proposed exclusion requirement;
(ii) an electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement.
(4) Section 208A(4) (occasions to be disregarded) applies for the purposes of subsection (1)(b).
(5) In this section “adult shoplifting” and “equivalent Scottish or Northern Ireland offence” have the meaning given by section 208A.
(6) Nothing in subsection (2) enables a requirement to be imposed by a suspended sentence order if it could not otherwise be so imposed.
(7) Where—
(a) in a case to which this section applies, a court makes a suspended sentence order which imposes a requirement of a kind mentioned in subsection (2),
(b) a previous conviction of the offender is subsequently set aside on appeal, and
(c) without the previous conviction this section would not have applied, notice of appeal against the sentence may be given at any time within 28 days from the day on which the previous conviction was set aside (despite anything in section 18 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968).’”
This new clause imposes a duty (subject to certain exceptions) to impose a curfew requirement, an exclusion requirement or an electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement on certain persons convicted of shoplifting, where the offender is given a community sentence or suspended sentence order.
New clause 129—Requirements in certain sentences imposed for third assault of retail worker offence—
“(1) The Sentencing Code is amended as follows.
(2) In section 208 (community order: exercise of power to impose particular requirements), in subsections (3) and (6) after ‘and sections 208B’ (inserted by section [Requirements in certain sentences imposed for third shoplifting offence] of this Act) insert ‘and 208B’.
(3) After sections 208B insert—
‘208B Community order: requirements for third or subsequent assault of retail worker offence
(1) This section applies where—
(a) a person is convicted of an offence under section 14 of the Crime and Policing Act 2025 (assault of retail worker) (“the index offence”),
(b) when the index offence was committed, the offender had on at least two previous occasions been sentenced in respect of an offence under section (Assault of retail worker) of the Crime and Policing Act 2025 committed when the offender was aged 18 or over, and
(c) the court makes a community order in respect of the index offence.
(2) The community order must, subject to subsection (3), include at least one of the following requirements—
(a) a curfew requirement;
(b) an exclusion requirement;
(c) an electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement.
(3) Subsection (2) does not apply if—
(a) the court is of the opinion that there are exceptional circumstances which—
(i) relate to any of the offences or the offender, and
(ii) justify the court not including any requirement of a kind mentioned in subsection (2), or
(b) neither of the following requirements could be included in the order—
(i) an electronic compliance monitoring requirement for securing compliance with a proposed curfew requirement or proposed exclusion requirement;
(ii) an electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement.’
(4) Nothing in subsection (2) enables a requirement to be included in a community order if it could not otherwise be so included.
(5) After section 292A (inserted by section [Requirements in certain sentences imposed for third shoplifting offence] of this Act) insert—
‘292B Suspended sentence order: community requirements for third or subsequent assault of retail worker offence
(1) This section applies where—
(a) a person is convicted of an offence under section (Assault of retail worker) of the Crime and Policing Act 2025 (assault of retail worker) (“the index offence”),
(b) when the index offence was committed, the offender had on at least two previous occasions been sentenced in respect of an offence under section (Assault of retail worker) of the Crime and Policing Act 2025 committed when the offender was aged 18 or over, and
(c) the court makes a suspended sentence order in respect of the index offence.
(2) The suspended sentence order must, subject to subsection (3), impose at least one of the following requirements—
(a) a curfew requirement;
(b) an exclusion requirement;
(c) an electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement.
(3) Subsection (2) does not apply if—
(a) the court is of the opinion that there are exceptional circumstances which—
(i) relate to any of the offences or the offender, and
(ii) justify the court not imposing on the offender any requirement of a kind mentioned in subsection (2), or
(b) neither of the following requirements could be imposed on the offender—
(i) an electronic compliance monitoring requirement for securing compliance with a proposed curfew requirement or proposed exclusion requirement;
(ii) an electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement.
(4) Nothing in subsection (2) enables a requirement to be imposed by a suspended sentence order if it could not otherwise be so imposed.’”
This new clause imposes a duty (subject to certain exceptions) to impose a curfew requirement, an exclusion requirement or an electronic whereabouts monitoring requirement on certain persons convicted of an offence under section 15, where the offender is given a community sentence or suspended sentence order.
New clause 130—Theft of tools: prevention of re-sale and prosecution of offences—
“(1) The Equipment Theft Act 2023 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 3 (Enforcement), subsection (2) at end insert ‘equal to—
(a) the replacement cost of the equipment,
(b) the cost of repairing any damage caused during the theft, and
(c) the trading losses incurred by the offended party.’
(3) In section 3 (Enforcement), after subsection (3) insert—
‘(3A) An enforcement authority must put in place an enforcement plan to enforce regulations made under section 1 at temporary markets in their area.’
(4) The Sentencing Act 2020 is amended as follows.
(5) In Chapter 3, Aggravating Factors, after section 72 insert—
‘72A Theft of tools from tradesmen
(1) This section applies where the court is considering the seriousness of an offence specified in section 7 of the Theft Act 1968.
(2) If the theft was of tools from a tradesman, the court—
(a) must treat that fact as an aggravating factor, and
(b) must state in open court that the offence is so aggravated.’”
New clause 131—Power to deport foreign nationals for possession of child sexual abuse images—
“(1) The Protection of Children Act 1978 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 1 (Indecent photographs of children) after subsection (4) insert—
‘(4A) Where a person is a foreign national and is charged with—
(a) an offence under subsection (1), or
(b) is found to be carrying an electronic device storing child sexual abuse images under section 164B of the Customs and Excise Management Act 1979,
the Secretary of State must make a deportation order in accordance with section 32 of the UK Borders Act 2007.’”
This new clause would make foreign nationals found in possession of child sexual abuse images subject to automatic deportation.
New clause 132—Annual report on police actions in areas with high levels of serious offences—
“(1) The Secretary of State must publish an annual report on police actions in areas with high levels of serious offences.
(2) Each such report must include data from police forces in England and Wales to identify areas with the highest rates of serious offences.
(3) For each area specified under subsection (2), each report must include data on—
(a) levels of police officers on duty;
(b) use of powers under section 1 (power of constable to stop and search persons, vehicles etc.) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984; and
(c) use of live facial recognition technology.
(4) The first such report must be laid before Parliament within a period ending 6 months after the passing of this Act.
(5) Each subsequent report must be laid before Parliament within 12 months of the publication of the last report under this section.
(6) For the purposes of this section, ‘serious offences’ has the same meaning as in Schedule 1 of the Serious Crime Act 2007.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to publish annual reports on police presence, use of stop and search, and live facial recognition technology in areas with the highest levels of serious crime.
New clause 133—Stop and search—
“(1) The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 60(1)(a) and (aa) leave out ‘serious.’”
This new clause lowers the threshold for stop and search to “violence” rather than “serious violence.”
New clause 134—Seizure of motor vehicles: driving licence penalties—
“(1) The Police Reform Act 2002 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 59 (Vehicles used in a manner causing alarm, distress or annoyance), after subsection (6) insert—
‘(6A) A person who is convicted of repeat offences under subsection (6) will have their driving licence endorsed with penalty points up to and including the revocation of their driving licence.’”
This new clause would make a person guilty of repeat offences of using vehicles in a manner causing alarm, distress or annoyance liable to penalty points on their driving licence or the revocation of their licence.
New clause 135—Automatic dismissal of officers who fail vetting—
“(1) The Police Act 1996 is amended in accordance with subsection (2).
(2) In section 39A (Codes of practice for chief officers), after subsection (1) insert—
‘(1A) Without prejudice to subsection (1) and subject to subsection (1B), a code of practice may provide for an officer to be dismissed without notice where—
(a) the officer fails vetting, and
(b) it is not reasonable to expect that the officer will be capable of being deployed to full duties within a reasonable time frame.
(1B) Subsection (1A) does not apply where a chief officer concludes that—
(a) the officer, notwithstanding his vetting failure, is capable of being deployed to a substantial majority of duties appropriate for an officer of his rank; and
(b) it would be disproportionate to the operational effectiveness of the force for the officer to be dismissed without notice.’”
This new clause would ensure police officers who failed their vetting can be dismissed.
New clause 136—Theft from farms—
“(1) The Sentencing Act 2020 is amended as follows.
(2) In Chapter 3, Aggravating Factors, after section 72 insert—
‘(72A) Theft from farms
(1) This section applies where the court is considering the seriousness of an offence specified in section 7 of The Theft Act 1968.
(2) If the theft was of high value farming equipment, the court—
(a) must treat that fact as an aggravating factor, and
(b) must state in open court that the offence is so aggravated.
(3) For the purposes of this section—
“high value farming equipment” is machinery and tools used in agricultural operations to enhance productivity and efficiency, with a value of at least £10,000.’”
This new clause makes theft of high value farming equipment an aggravating factor on sentencing.
New clause 137—Defence to criminal damage—
“(1) The Criminal Damage Act 1971 is amended as follows.
(2) Leave out subsection (5)(3) and insert—
‘(3) For the purposes of this section, a belief must be both honestly held and reasonable.’”
This new clause would change the defence to criminal damage in the Criminal Damage Act 1971 to specify that the belief that the owner of the property would have consented must be reasonable.
New clause 138—Meaning of serious disruption to the life of the community—
“(1) Section 12 of the Public Order Act 1986 (imposing conditions on public processions) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (2A), for the words from ‘, the cases’ to the end substitute—
‘(a) the cases in which a public procession in England and Wales may result in serious disruption to the life of the community include, in particular, where it may, by way of physical obstruction, result in—
(i) the prevention of, or a hindrance that is more than minor to, the carrying out of day-to-day activities (including in particular the making of a journey),
(ii) the prevention of, or a delay that is more than minor to, the delivery of a time-sensitive product to consumers of that product, or
(iii) the prevention of, or a disruption that is more than minor to, access to any essential goods or any essential service,
(b) in considering whether a public procession in England and Wales may result in serious disruption to the life of the community, the senior police officer—
(i) must take into account all relevant disruption, and
(ii) may take into account any relevant cumulative disruption, and
(c) “community” in relation to a public procession in England and Wales, means any group of persons that may be affected by the procession, whether or not all or any of those persons live or work in the vicinity of the procession.’
(3) In subsection (2B), for ‘subsection (2A)(a)’ substitute ‘subsection (2A) and this subsection—
“access to any essential goods or any essential service” in particular, access to—
(a) the supply of money, food, water, energy or fuel,
(b) a system of communication,
(c) a place of worship,
(d) a transport facility,
(e) an educational institution, or
(f) a service relating to health;
‘area’, in relation to a public procession or public assembly, means such area as the senior police officer considers appropriate, having regard to the nature and extent of the disruption that may result from the procession or assembly;
‘relevant cumulative disruption’, in relation to a public procession in England and Wales, means the cumulative disruption to the life of the community resulting from—
(a) the procession,
(b) any other public procession in England and Wales that was held, is being held or is intended to be held in the same area as the area in which the procession mentioned in paragraph (a) is being held or is intended to be held (whether or not directions have been given under subsection (1) in relation to that other procession), and
(c) any public assembly in England and Wales that was held, is being held or is intended to be held in the same area in which the procession mentioned in paragraph (a) is being held or is intended to be held (whether or not directions have been given under section 14(1A) in relation to that assembly), and it does not matter whether or not the procession mentioned in paragraph (a) and any procession or assembly within paragraph (b) or (c) are organised by the same person, are attended by any of the same persons or are held or are intended to be held at the same time;
‘relevant disruption’, in relation to a public procession in England and Wales, means all disruption to the life of the community—
(a) that may result from the procession, or
(b) that may occur regardless of whether the procession is held (including in particular normal traffic congestion);”.’
(4) Section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 (imposing conditions on public assemblies) is amended as follows.
(5) In subsection (2A), for the words from ‘, the cases’ to the end substitute—
“(a) the cases in which a public assembly in England and Wales may result in serious disruption to the life of the community include, in particular, where it may, by way of physical obstruction, result in—
(i) the prevention of, or a hindrance that is more than minor to, the carrying out of day-to-day activities (including in particular the making of a journey),
(ii) the prevention of, or a delay that is more than minor to, the delivery of a time-sensitive product to consumers of that product, or
(iii) the prevention of, or a disruption that is more than minor to, access to any essential goods or any essential service,
(b) in considering whether a public assembly in England and Wales may result in serious disruption to the life of the community, the senior police officer—
(i) must take into account all relevant disruption, and
(ii) may take into account any relevant cumulative disruption, and
(c) ‘community’ in relation to a public assembly in England and Wales, means any group of persons that may be affected by the assembly, whether or not all or any of those persons live or work in the vicinity of the assembly.’
(6) In subsection (2B), for ‘subsection (2A)(a)’ substitute ‘subsection (2A) and this subsection—
“access to any essential goods or any essential service”, includes, in particular, access to—
(a) the supply of money, food, water, energy or fuel,
(b) a system of communication,
(c) a place of worship,
(d) a transport facility,
(e) an educational institution, or
(f) a service relating to health;
‘area’, in relation to a public assembly or public procession, means such area as the senior police officer considers appropriate, having regard to the nature and extent of the disruption that may result from the assembly or procession;
‘relevant cumulative disruption’, in relation to a public assembly in England and Wales, means the cumulative disruption to the life of the community resulting from—
(a) the assembly,
(b) any other public assembly in England and Wales that was held, is being held or is intended to be held in the same area in which the assembly mentioned in paragraph (a) is being held or is intended to be held (whether or not directions have been given under subsection (1A) in relation to that other assembly), and
(c) any public procession in England and Wales that was held, is being held or is intended to be held in the same area as the area in which the assembly mentioned in paragraph (a) is being held or is intended to be held (whether or not directions have been given under section 12(1) in relation to that procession), and it does not matter whether or not the assembly mentioned in paragraph (a) and any assembly or procession within paragraph (b) or (c) are organised by the same person, are attended by any of the same persons or are held or are intended to be held at the same time;
‘relevant disruption’, in relation to a public assembly in England and Wales, means all disruption to the life of the community—
(a) that may result from the assembly, or
(b) that may occur regardless of whether the assembly is held (including in particular normal traffic congestion).”
This new clause defines “serious disruption to the life of the community” so as to amend the effects of the Zeigler judgement.
New clause 139—Removal of prohibition on entering a private dwelling to confiscate an off-road bike and ensure their destruction—
“(1) The Road Traffic Act 1988 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 165A, after subsection (5)(c) insert—
‘(5A) In exercising their powers under subsection (5), a constable may enter a private dwelling house for the purposes of seizing an off-road bike’.
(3) The Police Reform Act 2002 is amended as follows.
(4) In section 59(7), at end insert ‘, except where the intention is to seize an off-road bike.’
(5) The Road Traffic Act 1988 is amended as follows.
(6) In section 165B(2), at end insert—
‘; (g) where the seized motor vehicle is an off-road bike, to ensure its destruction by the police’.
(7) The Police Reform Act 2002 is amended as follows.
(8) In section 60(2), at end insert—
‘; (g) where the seized motor vehicle is an off-road bike, to ensure its destruction by the police.’”
This new clause would remove the prohibition on the police entering a private dwelling to confiscate an off-road bike that is driven without a licence, uninsured, or being used illegally and would create a duty to destroy off-road bikes.
New clause 140—Police access to the UK tobacco track and trace system—
“The Secretary of State must, through regulations, make provision for the police to access the HMRC tobacco track and trace system for the purposes of determining the provenance of tobacco products sold by retailers.”
This new clause would allow the police to access the UK Tobacco Track and Trace system for the purposes of determining whether a retailer has obtained stolen or counterfeit tobacco illegally.
New clause 141—Soliciting Prostitution for Rent Offence—
“(1) The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 52 (causing or inciting prostitution for gain) insert—
‘52A Soliciting prostitution for rent
(1) A person commits an offence if—
(a) they intentionally cause or incite a person to become a prostitute in exchange for accommodation;
(b) they intentionally cause or incite a person to become a prostitute in exchange for a reduction in money paid as rent for a property;
(c) they attempt to cause or incite a person to become a prostitute in exchange for accommodation; or
(d) they attempt to cause or incite a person to become a prostitute in exchange for a reduction in money paid as rent for a property.
These offences refer to both properties owned or resided in by the offender.
(2) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—
(a) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum or both;
(b) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years; or
(c) to a “banning order” as defined in part 2, chapter 2 of the Housing and Planning Act 2016.’”
This new clause would create a new offence of soliciting prostitution in exchange for rent and allow offenders to be banned from renting properties after the offence.
New clause 142—Travel abroad to support a proscribed organisation—
“(1) A person commits an offence if they travel outside of the United Kingdom to support a proscribed organisation.
(2) For the purposes of this section, ‘support’ includes—
(a) becoming a member of a proscribed organisation, or an affiliated group of a proscribed organisation;
(b) working for any entity, either voluntarily or for financial gain, run by a proscribed organisation;
(c) attending political, religious or social gatherings in support of a proscribed organisation;
(d) meeting with members of a proscribed organisation;
(e) creating content, both online and offline, to raise support for a proscribed organisation; or
(f) travelling to territory controlled by a proscribed organisation without an exemption.
(3) This section does not apply to—
(a) accredited non-governmental organisations and humanitarian organisations;
(b) accredited media outlets and journalists;
(c) diplomats and other governmental officials travelling in an official capacity; or
(d) independent journalists and content creators reporting on a proscribed organisation, or in a territory with a proscribed organisation present.
(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable—
(a) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 14 years, to a fine (or both), or
(b) on summary conviction, to imprisonment of a term not exceeding 6 months, to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum (or both).”
This new clause would make travelling abroad to support a proscribed organisation an offence.
New clause 143—Individual preparation for mass casualty attack—
“(1) A person commits an offence, if, with the intention of—
(a) killing two or more people, or
(b) attempting to kill two or more people, they engage in any conduct in preparation for giving effect to their intention.
(2) A person found guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable, on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for life.”
This new clause would allow the police to intervene early to prevent attacks, like in terrorism cases, without causing unintended consequences for wider counter-terrorism efforts. It gives effect to a recommendation by the independent reviewer of terrorist legislation following the Southport attack.
New clause 144—Requirement to bring forward proposals for a national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs—
“(1) The Secretary of State must, within 3 months of the passing of this Act, publish proposals for approval by the House of Commons for the setting up of a statutory inquiry into grooming gangs.
(2) The Secretary of State’s proposals for an inquiry must include, but may not be limited to identification of—
(a) common patterns of behaviour and offending between grooming gangs;
(b) the type, extent and volume of crimes committed by grooming gangs;
(c) the number of victims of crimes committed by grooming gangs;
(d) the ethnicity of members of grooming gangs;
(e) any failings, by action, omission or deliberate suppression, by—
(i) police,
(ii) local authorities,
(iii) prosecutors,
(iv) charities,
(v) political parties,
(vi) local and national government,
(vii) healthcare providers and health services, or
(viii) other agencies or bodies, in the committal of crimes by grooming;
(f) such national safeguarding actions as may be required to minimise the risk of further such offending occurring in future; and
(g) good practice in protecting children.
(3) The Secretary of State’s proposals for an inquiry must stipulate that the inquiry may do anything it considers is calculated to facilitate, or is incidental or conducive to the carrying out of its functions and the achievement of the requirements of subsection (2).
(4) The Secretary of State’s proposals must make provision for the timetable of any inquiry, including that a report must be published within two years of its launch.
(5) For the purposes of this section—
‘gang’ means a group of at least three adults whose purpose or intention is to commit a sexual offence against the same victim or group of victims;
‘grooming’ means—
(a) activity carried out with the primary intention of committing sexual offences against the victim;
(b) activity that is carried out, or predominantly carried out, in person;
(c) activity that includes the provision of illicit substances and/or alcohol either as part of the grooming or concurrent with the commission of the sexual offence.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to bring forward proposals on the setting up of a national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs for approval by the House of Commons.
New clause 145—Annual statement on ethnicity of members of grooming gangs—
“The Secretary of State must make an annual statement to the House of Commons on the ethnicity of convicted members of grooming gangs.”
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to make an annual statement to the House on ethnicity data of convicted members of grooming gangs.
New clause 146—Publication of sex offender’s ethnicity data—
“(1) The Secretary of State for the Home Office must publish—
(a) quarterly; and
(b) yearly; datasets containing all national data pertaining to the ethnicity of sex offenders.
(2) For the purposes of this section, a ‘sex offender’ is anyone convicted of—
(a) an offence under section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978 (taking etc indecent photograph of child),
(b) an offence under section 160 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (possession of indecent photograph of child),
(c) an offence under any of sections 5 to 8 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (rape and other offences against children under 13),
(d) an offence under any sections 9 to 12 of that Act (other child 25 sex offences),
(e) an offence under section 14 of that Act (arranging or facilitating commission of child sex offence),
(f) an offence under any of sections 16 to 19 of that Act (abuse of position of trust),
(g) an offence under section 25 or 26 of that Act (familial child sex offences), or
(h) an offence under any of sections 47 to 50 of that Act (sexual exploitation of children),
(i) an offence under any of sections 1 to 4 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (rape, assault and causing sexual activity without consent),
(j) an offence under any of sections 30 to 41 of that Act (sexual offences relating to persons with mental disorder),
(k) an offence under any of sections 61 to 63 of that Act (preparatory offences), or
(l) an offence under any of sections 66 to 67A of that Act (exposure and voyeurism),
(m) an offence under section 71 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sexual activity in a public lavatory) and a person involved in the activity in question was under the age of 18.”
This new clause would introduce a requirement that ethnicity data of sex offenders be published on a quarterly and a yearly basis.
New clause 147—Financial gain from child sexual exploitation and abuse—
“(1) The Sentencing Act 2020 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 70 insert—
‘70A Financial gain from child sexual exploitation
(1) This section applies where—
(a) a court is considering the seriousness of a specified child sex offence; or
(b) the offence is aggravated by financial gain; and
(c) the offender was aged 18 or over when the offence was committed.
(2) The court—
(a) must treat the fact that the offence is aggravated by financial gain from a specified child sex offence or child sexual abuse material as an aggravating factor; and
(b) must state in open court that the offence is so aggravated.
(3) An offence is “aggravated by financial gain from a specified child sex offence or child sexual abuse material as an aggravating factor” if—
(a) the offence was facilitated by, or involved, the offender financially profiting from a child sexual offence; or
(b) the offence was facilitated by, or involved, a person other than the offender financially profiting from a child sex offence, and the offender knew, or could have reasonably been expected to know that the said person was financially profiting from said child sex offence.
(4) In this section “specified child sex offence” means—
(a) an offence within any of subsections (5) to (7); or
(b) an inchoate offence in relation to any such offence.
(5) An offence is within this subsection if it is—
(a) an offence under section 1 of the Protection of Children Act 1978 (taking etc indecent photograph of child);
(b) an offence under section 160 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (possession of indecent photograph of child);
(c) an offence under any of sections 5 to 8 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (rape and other offences against children under 13);
(d) an offence under any of sections 9 to 12 of that Act (other child sex offences);
(e) an offence under section 14 of that Act (arranging or facilitating commission of child sex offence);
(f) an offence under any of sections 16 to 19 of that Act (abuse of position of trust);
(g) an offence under section 25 or 26 of that Act (familial child sex offences); or
(h) an offence under any of sections 47 to 50 of that Act (sexual exploitation of children).
(6) An offence is within this subsection if it is—
(a) an offence under any of sections 1 to 4 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (rape, assault and causing sexual activity without consent);
(b) an offence under any of sections 30 to 41 of that Act (sexual offences relating to persons with mental disorder);
(c) an offence under any of sections 61 to 63 of that Act (preparatory offences); or
(d) an offence under any of sections 66 to 67A of that Act (exposure and voyeurism), and the victim or intended victim was under the age of 18.
(7) An offence is within this subsection if it is an offence under section 71 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (sexual activity in a public lavatory) and a person involved in the activity in question was under the age of 18.
(8) For the purposes of this section “financially profiting” means receiving money, goods, or any other form of payment.’”
This new clause would create an aggravating factor when sentencing for any individual who has financially benefited from the creation, distribution, possession or publication of any specified child sexual abuse offence.
New clause 148—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.
New clause 149—Child Murder Sentencing Guidelines—
“(1) The Sentencing Act 2020 is amended as follows.
(2) In Schedule 21, paragraph 2(2) omit (b) and (ba) and insert—
‘(zb) the murder of a child’.”
This new clause would make the starting punishment for child murder a whole life order. Currently a child murderer must have abducted, sexually abused or put substantial planning into the murder to receive a whole life order. Any child murderer should receive a whole life order.
New clause 150—Prohibition on sexual relationships between first cousins—
“(1) The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 27 (family relationships), subsection (2)(a) after ‘uncle,’ insert ‘first cousin,’.
(3) In section 64 (sex with an adult relative: penetration), subsection (2) after ‘niece’ insert ‘or first cousin.’
(4) In subsection 64(3) at end insert—
‘(c) “first cousin” means the child of a parent’s sibling.’
(5) This section does not affect the continued sexual relationships between first cousins that had begun before the Crime and Policing Act 2025 received Royal Assent.”
This new clause would ban sexual relationships between first cousins after the passing of this Act.
New clause 151—Threshold for intentional harassment, alarm or distress—
“(1) The Public Order Act 1986 is amended as follows.
(2) In sections 4A(1)(a) and (b) leave out ‘or insulting.’.”
New clause 152—Points on driving licence for littering out of a vehicle window—
“(1) The Environmental Protection Act 1990 is amended as follows.
(2) In section 87, subsection (5), at end insert—
‘(5A) Where a person is found guilty of an offence of littering committed under section 87(1) that occurs as a result of litter being thrown, dropped or otherwise deposited from a vehicle, they shall also be liable to an endorsement of 3 penalty points on their driving record.’”
This new clause would add penalty points to the driving licence of a person convicted of littering from a vehicle.
New clause 153—Access to public funds for organisations supporting criminal conduct—
“An organisation or group will not be eligible for public funding if there is evidence that it—
(a) actively promotes or supports criminal conduct, or
(b) seeks to subvert the constitutional integrity or democratic institutions of the United Kingdom through violent or illegal means.”
This new clause would prevent organisations or groups which support criminal conduct or use violence to seek to subvert the constitutional integrity or democratic functions of the UK from accessing public funds.
New clause 155—Report on an economic crime fighting fund—
“(1) The Secretary of State must undertake an assessment of the viability, and potential merits, of establishing an economic crime fighting fund based on the principle of reinvesting a proportion of receipts resulting from economic crime enforcement into a pooled fund for the purposes of providing multi-year resourcing for tackling economic crime.
(2) The assessment specified in subsection (1) must also examine whether such a fund could address how annularity rules can prevent some law enforcement agencies from benefiting from recovered assets under the asset recovery incentivisation scheme.
(3) In carrying out the assessment, the Secretary of State must consult such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.
(4) The Secretary of State must publish and lay before Parliament a report on the outcome of the assessment by the end of the period of 12 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”
New clause 156—Filming and distributing violent acts: offence—
“(1) It is an offence for person (X) to film and distribute violent acts involving person (Y) where there was clear premeditation, and deliberately participate with intent, by X to humiliate and/or distress Y.
(2) It is also an offence under this section for any person, whether X or another individual, to have made the recording with the premeditated intention that it will be distributed, streamed or broadcast, with the intent to humiliate and/or distress Y.
(3) When sentencing an individual convicted of an offence under subsection (1) or (2) (or both), the courts are to treat the age and vulnerability of person Y as aggravating factors.
(4) An offence is not committed where the footage is used for public interest journalism or evidentiary purposes.”
New clause 157—Processing of data in relation to a case-file prepared by the police service for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision—
“(1) The Data Protection Act 2018 is amended as follows.
(2) After Section 40, insert—
‘40A Processing of data in relation to a case-file prepared by the police service for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision
(1) This section applies to a set of processing operations consisting of the preparation of a case-file by the police service for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision, the making of a charging decision by the Crown Prosecution Service, and the return of the case-file by the Crown Prosecution Service to the police service after a charging decision has been made.
(2) The police service is not obliged to comply with the first data protection principle except insofar as that principle requires processing to be fair, or the third data protection principle, in preparing a case-file for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision.
(3) The Crown Prosecution Service is not obliged to comply with the first data protection principle except insofar as that principle requires processing to be fair, or the third data protection principle, in making a charging decision on a case-file submitted for that purpose by the police service.
(4) If the Crown Prosecution Service decides that a charge will not be pursued when it makes a charging decision on a case-file submitted for that purpose by the police service it must take all steps reasonably required to destroy and delete all copies of the case-file in its possession.
(5) If the Crown Prosecution Service decides that a charge will be pursued when it makes a charging decision on a case-file submitted for that purpose by the police service it must return the case-file to the police service and take all steps reasonably required to destroy and delete all copies of the case-file in its possession.
(6) Where the Crown Prosecution Service decides that a charge will be pursued when it makes a charging decision on a case-file submitted for that purpose by the police service and returns the case-file to the police service under subsection (5), the police service must comply with the first data protection principle and the third data protection principle in relation to any subsequent processing of the data contained in the case-file.
(7) For the purposes of this section—
(a) the police service means—
(i) constabulary maintained by virtue of an enactment, or
(ii) subject to section 126 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (prison staff not to be regarded as in police service), any other service whose members have the powers or privileges of a constable,
(b) the preparation of, or preparing, a case-file by the police service for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision includes the submission of the file,
(c) a case-file includes all information obtained by the police service for the purpose of preparing a case-file for submission to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision.’”
This new clause adjusts Section 40 of the Data Protection Act 2018 to exempt the police service and the Crown Prosecution Service from the first and third data protection principles contained within the 2018 Act so that they can share unredacted data with one another when making a charging decision.
New clause 158—Anti-social behaviour: definition and enforcement—
“(1) For the purposes of—
(a) section 2(1) of the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, and
(b) Part 1 of this Act,
conduct shall not be considered ‘anti-social behaviour’ solely on the basis that it involves—
(i) rough sleeping,
(ii) non-aggressive begging,
(iii) the use of public space for shelter, rest, or subsistence-related activity,
(iv) any conduct arising directly from homelessness, socio-economic need or vulnerability, or lack of access to housing or essential services.
(2) For conduct to meet the threshold of being ‘likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to any person’, it must—
(a) involve behaviour that is targeted, threatening, or persistently disruptive to others, and
(b) give rise to a genuine and ongoing risk of harm or serious nuisance beyond mere visibility or discomfort caused by socio-economic need or vulnerability.
(3) In assessing whether behaviour constitutes anti-social behaviour under either Act, the relevant authority or court must have regard to—
(a) whether the conduct reflects socio-economic need or vulnerability rather than intent to harm or harass,
(b) the individual’s housing status, mental and physical health, and access to support, and
(c) whether alternative, non-punitive interventions have been offered or exhausted.
(4) An order, injunction, or direction under either Act must not be imposed where the conduct arises from destitution or homelessness unless—
(a) the conduct poses a demonstrable and ongoing risk to the public, and
(b) enforcement is necessary and proportionate, and
(c) appropriate support, including housing or welfare assistance, has been actively sought and reasonably refused.
(5) Nothing in this section shall prevent proportionate enforcement action where conduct constitutes a demonstrable and ongoing threat to public safety or the rights and freedoms of others, and where such action is necessary and proportionate in the circumstances.”
This new clause would make clear that rough sleeping, passive begging, or visibly using public space for shelter or subsistence does not, on its own, amount to anti-social behaviour. It would place a legal duty on authorities to consider context, vulnerability, and proportionality when assessing whether behaviour constitutes anti-social behaviour.
New clause 159—Duty for church, faith groups and other bodies to report suspected child sex offences—
“(1) An individual must make a notification under this section if they are given reason to suspect that a child sex offence may have been committed (at any time).
(2) A notification—
(a) must be made to a relevant police force or a relevant local authority (but may be made to both);
(b) must identify each person believed to have been involved in the suspected offence (so far as known) and explain why the notification is made;
(c) must be made as soon as practicable; and
(d) may be made orally or in writing.
(3) The duty under subsection (1) applies to—
(a) any person undertaking work on either a paid or voluntary basis, or holding a leadership position, within the Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim or Sikh faiths, or any other religion or faith, and
(b) any other belief system or cult.”
New clause 160—Removal of 12-Month Limitation Period for Historic Sexual Offences—
“(1) The Sexual Offences Act 2003 is amended as follows.
(2) After section 8, insert—
‘(8A) Removal of 12-Month Limitation Period for Historic Sexual Offences
(1) Proceedings may be instituted at any time for the offence of unlawful sexual intercourse with a person aged 13 to 15 under section 6 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956, regardless of the time elapsed since the alleged offence.
(2) Subsection (1) applies to offences alleged to have been committed before 1 May 2004.’”
This new clause removes the 12-month limitation period for offences under section 6 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 where the offence occurred before 1 May 2004.
Tonia Antoniazzi
I am proud to have stood on a manifesto pledge to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, and I know that colleagues on the Front Bench take that extremely seriously. There are significant measures in this Bill on intimate image abuse, stalking, spiking and the sexual exploitation of children. I know they mark only the beginning of the Government’s mission to tackle those shameful crimes. As a national inquiry into child sexual exploitation perpetrated by grooming gangs rightly gets under way, we must now also confront the adult sexual exploitation being perpetrated on an industrial scale by pimping websites and men who pay for sex, both of which currently enjoy near-total legal impunity.
Laws against the commercial sexual exploitation of adults in this country are outdated, unjust and totally ineffective. In fact, our current legal framework creates a conducive context for commercial sexual exploitation—a failing that overwhelmingly affects women. Pimping websites, which function as massive online brothels, operate openly and freely, supercharging the sex trafficking trade by making it easier and quicker for exploiters to advertise their victims. Those online mega-brothels make millions of pounds every year by advertising thousands of vulnerable women from across the world for prostitution in the UK. Sadly, our legislation allows that.
Men who pay for sex, so often left out of conversations on prostitution and sex trafficking but who are the beating heart of such a brutal trade, abuse with impunity. Their demand and their money drives the sex trafficking trade, yet we do very little to deter them. Let us therefore start that process today by making it crystal clear as a Parliament that it is not possible to buy sexual consent. Giving someone money, accommodation, goods or services in exchange for sex acts is sexual exploitation and abuse; it is never acceptable.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady and her party for bringing this legislation forward. She is probably well aware that we in Northern Ireland, through Lord Morrow and the Assembly sometime back, brought in specific legislation on this, for the first time in the United Kingdom. Has she had an opportunity to look at that legislative change we had at Stormont? What she brings forward is even better than what we had originally tried to get at the Assembly. Does she feel, in all honesty, that women will be protected from sexual exploitation, as she has clearly said that they should?
Tonia Antoniazzi
The hon. Member is right to say that there is excellent practice in Northern Ireland, and the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, which I chair, is looking at that. He may be interested in that.
Nadia Whittome (Nottingham East) (Lab)
Why should we implement this model for sex work when the evidence from the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland shows that it has increased violence towards sex workers?
Tonia Antoniazzi
My hon. Friend and I obviously do not look at this through the same lens. For me, it is prostitution and not sex work, and we need to see some more examples of that being used. We currently have a situation where sex buyers enjoy near-total impunity while the vulnerable women they exploit can face criminal sanctions if they solicit on the street. The state hands out fines to women in a self-defeating effort to stop them soliciting on the street, ignoring the question of where those women are most likely to earn the money to pay their fine. Sanctioning victims of sexual exploitation is counterproductive and a barrier to seeking help and exiting this ruthless trade.
That is why I have tabled amendments new clauses 2, 3 and 4. New clause 2 would make it a criminal offence to enable or profit from the prostitution of another person online and offline, thereby outlawing dangerous pimping websites that are fuelling demand and facilitating sex trafficking. New clauses 3 and 4 would together shift the burden of criminality off victims of sexual exploitation and on to perpetrators. New clause 3 would make it a criminal offence to pay for sex, sending a clear message to boys that that is not an acceptable way to treat women and an equally clear message to men who are considering paying for sex that they face prosecution. We know from research with UK sex buyers that this would be an effective deterrent. Over half of 1,200 sex buyers questioned in one study said that they would definitely, probably or possibly change their behaviour if a law were introduced that made it a crime to pay for sex.
New clause 4 would repeal sanctions against victims of sexual exploitation who solicit on the street to remove that barrier to women exiting prostitution and rebuilding their lives. It is also widely agreed that the expunging of criminal records of section 1 offences is necessary to end the unjust stigmatisation that these women continue to experience. That is why I have also tabled new clause 19 to introduce such a mechanism.
The Home Affairs Committee has recommended that
“the Home Office change existing legislation so that soliciting is no longer an offence”,
and
“legislate for the deletion of previous convictions and cautions for prostitution from the record of sex workers by amending the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.”
For most of these women, their record of convictions is a record of their exploitation and abuse, and they live in fear of having to disclose that history when applying for jobs or volunteering. Decriminalising section 1 offences and allowing for the expunging of those historical convictions would allow those women to finally be free of the record of their abuse and the stigma they have endured for decades.
My amendments would usher in a legal framework that recognises that prostitution is violence against women, and the only way to end this violence is to deter the perpetrators and profiteers. I am delighted, then, that more than 50 hon. Members have signed new clauses 2 to 4. I particularly thank members of the all-party parliamentary group on commercial sexual exploitation, which I chair, for their support. The amendments are informed and supported by survivors and best practice frontline support services such as NIA, Kairos Women Working Together, and Women@TheWell.
I note that, unsurprisingly, some of my proposals are hated by pimping websites, one of which, Vivastreet, emailed its allies, urging them to mobilise against my amendments. A recent Sky News investigation found that over half of the 14,000 prostitution adverts on Vivastreet displayed a phone number linked to another advert on the site, which is a key red flag for organised sexual exploitation. I therefore find it reassuring that those prostitution pedlars are unnerved by my proposals.
I want to address a myth promoted by defenders of pimping websites that shutting down these sites will make no difference to the scale of sexual exploitation taking place and will, instead, simply drive it all into the dark web and make it harder to identify. That is patently nonsense, lacking in logic and evidence. The dark web carries major disadvantages for both traffickers and sex buyers. It would require significant technical expertise to post, as well as locate and access, prostitution adverts on the dark web, thereby substantially restricting the pool of exploiters able to engage in this crime. There is also no evidence that such a shift has taken place in jurisdictions that have outlawed pimping websites. The reality is that police simply cannot keep up with the scale of sexual exploitation taking place via pimping websites on the open web.
Another myth I want to address was all too visible in the written submissions opposing my amendments submitted to the Public Bill Committee. Every single one of the organisations who argued that pimping websites should be allowed to operate described prostitution as work—as “sex work”. The idea that paying someone to perform sex acts is an ordinary consumer activity—that ordering a woman online to perform a blow job is the equivalent of ordering a cappuccino—is a pernicious and harmful myth. Prostitution is violence against women.
Let us legislate to put pimps and traffickers out of business. We must protect individuals from exploitation today, but also address the historical criminalisation of victims and abuse. I thank Members on the Front Bench for their engagement on this issue and I look forward to working with them very closely.
Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
I rise to speak to new clauses 12 and 123 in my name, new clause 43 in the name of the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) and new clause 121 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage).
New clause 43 seeks to commence the Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023, which was taken through the House as a private Member’s Bill by Greg Clark, the predecessor of the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells. Greg did great work on this Bill. I was one of its supporters and a member of the Bill Committee. I spoke on Second Reading, Third Reading and in Committee. It is a simple Act, which had cross-party support—it was not in any way a controversial piece of legislation. It corrected an oversight in the law that had been missed out in a previous piece of legislation.
As so often happens, a private Member’s Bill requires a statutory instrument to commence it, and that statutory instrument has not yet been laid in this House. I am sure the Minister is well aware of that and is seeking to do so. This new clause would allow the Act to commence now, rather than requiring that statutory instrument, thereby saving her a little bit of time. I hope, therefore, that she might look favourably on it. As I say, this was an Act that was supported across the House. There was no Division on it; it was very much something that we all wanted to see, so I hope that the Government accept the new clause and that the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells can follow on in the footsteps of his predecessor in making sure that this Act of Parliament becomes live and real for the people who need it.
Let me turn now to new clause 121 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport. I was almost disappointed not to be able to table this new clause myself, because it fits with the work that I have done previously on these issues. I was Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport when the Digital Economy Act 2017 introduced age verification for pornography. Again, new clause 121 is a simple piece of legislation, which would make non-fatal strangulation a criminal act if in pornography. This does not impact on what people may wish to do in their private lives, but it does mean that those images would not then be available to be seen in pornographic films. It also means that there is protection for children who may be looking at this pornography—we do not want them to look at it, but we are realists and recognise that this happens—and that it does not normalise what is a really dangerous act, which should not be promoted in any way.
I know from experience that social media companies will remove content if it is illegal. They will not remove it if it is not. Therefore this simple change would mean that the depiction of non-fatal strangulation would become illegal content and social media companies would therefore be forced to act. I hope that this is something that can be supported across the House. Although I understand that we will be pushed to Division this evening, I do hope that the Minister can say something about the Government introducing something similar—perhaps in the other place—so that we can make sure that this inappropriate content is illegal and therefore not available to be seen by children.
Let me turn now to the new clauses in my name. I wish to start with new clause 123, because my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), who has been such a champion of this legislation, has to go to a Delegated Legislation Committee at 2.30 pm. I also wish him a very happy birthday. He is choosing to spend his birthday in this Chamber and attending a DL Committee—what a hero! Again, I think that this new clause will have cross-party support. It concerns the removal of parental responsibility for individuals convicted of sexual offences against children. When I have talked about this to colleagues and asked them to consider supporting the new clause, they have been utterly amazed that anybody convicted of a sexual offence against a child may be allowed to have parental responsibility for their own child. That responsibility is stopped only if the offence is committed against their own child. That cannot be right.
How can it be that a convicted sex offender—somebody who has been convicted of a sexual offence against a child—is allowed to make parental decisions about their own children? My hon. Friend’s constituent has talked about this—I believe that they are known as “Bethan” in this situation—and has been a real champion on this issue. In this particular case, a man who was convicted of raping a relative who was a child still has parental responsibility for his own child. That cannot be acceptable. Again, this feels like a piece of legislation where, at some point, we just failed to address this one issue. I hope, therefore, that this can be seen as a defect in the legislation that we all agree should be corrected.
New clause 12 is a relatively simple amendment to the Modern Slavery Act 2015, but it reflects a phenomenon that we simply did not know about when we introduced the Act 10 years ago. As the Minister on the Bill, I remember going through many definitions of what constituted trafficking and exploitation, but, at the time, the phenomenon of orphanage trafficking was simply not known. That may be a shock to some in this Chamber, because there is such awareness of the issue in Australia and New Zealand but we simply do not know about it here.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I appreciate being called to speak, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also really appreciate being able to follow in the wake of my two friends—my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley)—who have been incredible campaigners on these issues. I know from first-hand experience of meeting the victims and survivors they spoke about that there are gaping holes in our legislation. I hope that the House will support their amendments, because that would do something to close them.
I rise to speak first about my new clauses 9, 10 and 18, which seek to better protect child victims of sexual and criminal exploitation and empower our frontline responders to keep them safe. I welcome the Government’s introduction of the mandatory duty to report, which was recommendation 13 of the independent inquiry into child sexual exploitation, as it has the potential to strengthen our child protection system. However, following detailed conversations and meetings with Rotherham and Sheffield NHS safeguarding staff, I share their concerns about the finer details of its implementation.
To put it bluntly, the duty will not protect children as intended unless mandated reporters are adequately trained. Recognising, reporting and—crucially—responding to child sexual abuse is far from straightforward, so to prevent overwhelming an already strained system, all those under the duty must be trained to know what to look for and how to report it.
Let me give an example. A nursery nurse might see bruising around the genital areas of a toddler, and with the fear—I put it that way—of her duty on mandatory reporting, she will report it to the hotline or directly to the NHS safeguarding teams, which is absolutely the right thing to do. However, toddlers fall over and they fall in awkward places, so that nursery worker needs to have the skills and experience to be able to know when it is appropriate to report and when it is not appropriate, along with what evidence to gather and what not to. At the moment, I am scared that everything will be reported and that the system, which is there to protect and safeguard those children, will be unable to cope. I hope that a standard training package will be given to all people who fall under the duty.
I will now turn to new clauses 10 and 18, on child criminal exploitation, which I know the safeguarding Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), is very familiar with, I having campaigned on this with her for many years in previous Parliaments. As Baroness Casey’s report states, right now criminally exploited children are at risk of prosecution rather than protection. These new clauses seek to change that. They have the backing of Action for Children. ECPAT UK, Barnardo’s and many other children’s charities.
In 2024 alone, more than 2,891 children were referred to the national referral mechanism as potential child victims of criminal exploitation, but many more ended up in courtrooms, not safeguarding systems. As my police chief said to me, it is deeply sad that the first time we see these criminally exploited children is when we are looking to criminalise them. We cannot get above this and ahead of it.
Clause 38 rightly creates a new offence of CCE, recognising the severity of that abuse. However, without corresponding changes to the Modern Slavery Act 2015, legal protections remain inconsistent and inadequate. New clause 10 seeks to fix that.
In a similar vein, new clause 18 would insert a definition of “child criminal exploitation” alongside the offence in clause 38. Evidence from the Jay review into criminal exploitation of children demonstrates that the current lack of a definition contributes to significant inconsistencies in practice across the country and persistent failures to identify children as victims. I saw that time and again in Rotherham, with young, exploited girls all too often referred to as “child prostitutes” and not given the support they needed. The shift started only after we got the statutory definition for child sexual exploitation. Clear, consistent legislation empowers professionals to intervene earlier, prevents inappropriate prosecutions and ensures that exploited children receive the safeguarding support that they need.
I turn to my amendment 9, on registered sex offenders, which is supported by 39 MPs from across the parties. It will not be new to many in the House as I have brought it up in the last three Parliaments. Between 2019 and 2022, 11,500 sex offenders were prosecuted for failure to notify changes of information. The same ongoing pattern allows offenders to slip through the cracks, with over 700 going completely missing in those years. I welcome the new measures in the Bill that require some offenders to seek police authorisation before applying to change their name on UK passports and driving licences, which will genuinely make a difference.
However, I remain deeply concerned that many of the new measures lack strength and could lead to confusion. Clause 80 states that sex offenders must give seven days’ notice of using a new name but does not define what “using” means. The amendment seeks to provide much-needed clarity. It would require offenders to notify the police of an intention to change their name seven days before doing so by deed poll. That would allow vital time for the authorities to conduct appropriate risk assessments. More than that, I want to draw attention to the fact that the Bill still relies too heavily on a sex offender doing the right thing, which is something they rarely do.
Finally, I will speak to my new clauses 99 and 100, in my capacity as Chair of the International Development Committee. Last week my Committee published its report on international humanitarian law. It is vital that those responsible for attacks on aid workers and unlawful blockages of humanitarian assistance are brought to justice. Throughout the inquiry, it became apparent that the UK needed powers to exercise universal jurisdiction over crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. There must be no safe haven for those who commit such heinous crimes.
My new clauses would allow the relevant authorities to prosecute people suspected of those crimes without any requirement for a connection to the UK. At a time when the legitimacy and impartiality of some international courts is being questioned, the UK must stand firm in support of these important mechanisms for accountability, to prevent impunity for serious violations of international humanitarian law while ensuring that we have the domestic powers needed to hold perpetrators to account, no matter where their crimes are committed.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I rise to speak to new clause 5, which stands in my name and is supported by hon. Friends in different political positions across the House. But, before I do so, I want to congratulate the Government—that is unusual from the Opposition, but I will do so anyway. I think that the Minister will know what I am about to say. The cuckooing amendment, which was moved in the last Parliament—the previous Government and she, in particular, were in discussions on that—has been passported through, as it were, so that cuckooing will be a criminal offence. That will hugely help those who have their houses taken over—the vulnerable and the elderly—and, where crimes are committed from those houses, the police will have a reason to go in without explicit knowledge of the crime being committed other than the cuckooing. To that extent, I thank the Government for making that a law. Hopefully it will go through without too much problem in the other place. I and many others appreciate that enormously.
New clause 5 is consequential to an amendment to an earlier Bill on reckless and dangerous cycling, because there were no offences that were relevant to that and people were being killed and injured as a result of cyclists’ bad behaviour on the roads. One person in particular who campaigned for that amendment was Matt Briggs, and he was the reason that I brought that amendment forward. The Government accepted that amendment and it is now bound into legislation. However, there was an issue at the time about the danger of e-bikes. We know from talking to the police that e-bikes are now becoming responsible for some of the worst crimes on the streets, involving antisocial and threatening behaviour. They are silent and they can creep up on people rather quickly, and a lot of things that were being snatched by people on motorised scooters are now being snatched using e-bikes.
Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
I have a similar concern about mobility scooters. Obviously, they are a fabulous tool, enabling so many in our constituencies to get out and about, but the number of serious injuries caused by mobility scooters has gone up by nearly 60% in the last 10 years, and the number of fatalities has doubled. These heavy class 3 mobility scooters, which can go up to 8 mph and travel on the roads, are not subject to insurance rules and cannot be penalised under dangerous driving regulations. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is something the Government also need to consider very carefully? I would really love the Minister to look at whether there is any legislation that would be implementable in cases such as these.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
My hon. Friend is right, and I hope the Government will respond to that. However, she will forgive me if I focus on the essence of new clause 5, which is e-bikes.
The definition of a legal e-bike is one that uses pedals and also uses electricity to assist the cyclist. All the other ones are illegal. This brings me to the problem that, if this measure is going to go through into law, as it will, will the Government press the police to start arresting and prosecuting not only the people who deliberately use e-bikes for nefarious purposes but more importantly, those who just cycle dangerously on footpaths? E-bikes are now more dangerous than bicycles in the sense that they are e-bicycles and therefore get up to higher speeds. Even though the speeds are supposed to be governed, they are still higher than most cyclists will get up to in the normal act of pedalling their way to work.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
My right hon. Friend and I had a discussion about this earlier. On the subject of illegal e-bikes, does he agree that we need to clamp down on the illegal conversion kits that are readily accessible online which allow an ordinary bicycle to be converted to do anything up to 30 or 40 mph? I tabled a written question about that, and the Government said that it was for the Office for Product Safety and Standards and local authority trading standards to enforce that, but could the Government do more to crack down on it?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
It is funny that my hon. Friend raises that point, because I was just about to get on to it. I am glad he has pinched my speech, but we are on the same side, so let me thank him for getting ahead of me.
I reinforce that point: the Government now need to decide whether to do something about that issue in the other place. All non-bicycle electricity-supported cycles are legal, but all the others are either illegal or have to be used on the road and therefore have to qualify for road use, which means in many cases taking instruction and passing a test, or treating the e-bike like a car or a motorcycle. The problem is that most people do not know that. They are either ignorant of it or they deliberately do not care, and they can buy these illegal bikes in lots of legal shops in the UK. It seems bizarre that we are allowing people to buy these bikes—many are not bikes; they could be boards or all sorts of contraptions—and they then think they are able to use them. Most people do not check up on the highway code or the law; they just get on and use them. They are deeply dangerous to themselves, but also to other road users. I would press the Government to look at this again in the other place—it is too late to do it here—to see whether there is some way in which selling these things to people without proper licences could be made illegal.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I have listened to the right hon. Gentleman’s speech with genuine interest. This is not a party political point at all. Is there perhaps work that could be done on a public information campaign to make people aware of these bikes? As he has just said, many people do not realise that they are illegal. If they can buy them in legal shops, they do not realise that they are doing anything wrong in the first place. Does he agree that a public campaign like that would be welcome?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I am all in favour of public campaigns and I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be a very good idea for people to know that what they were buying was illegal. I suspect many of them already do so. That notwithstanding, if such a campaign could be backed up by a penalty for selling illegal bikes in shops, that would be a far better way of dealing with it. Right now, lots of kids do not know that the bikes are illegal, and they go and take these things and they can pay for them, and that is where the danger comes from. We are shutting the door too late. These kids have gone on to the roads, they have created an accident and they have killed themselves. That is too late for us. What we need to do is get ahead of this and try to figure it out completely.
The final bit of this issue is the fact that people can change the monitors inside the boxes, even on the legal bikes, and lots of them do so. We see them going down the road at 30 mph, which is incredibly dangerous. I am a motorcyclist, I have to say, but Members should not go looking for the leather jacket; I left it at home.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
Don’t get excited—it’s not that great!
Motorcyclists have to be tested even more than car drivers. There are balancing tests and they have to know everything like that. This is absolutely critical, because it is a slightly more dangerous mode of transport—more exciting, yes, but more dangerous. Someone cannot buy a motorcycle in a shop and take it away unless they are able to show their licence and that they are qualified to ride that bike, and that really requires instruction, but people can buy e-bikes—these electric vehicles—without any sort of licence. It seems bizarre that that should be allowed. Even though we want people not to use petrol, diesel and all the rest of it because of the environment, this goes beyond that.
Dawn Butler (Brent East) (Lab)
Is the right hon. Member aware of Simon Cowell’s campaign? He purchased an electric bike, flipped over backwards and almost broke his back. That is definitely a clear indication of how dangerous these bikes can be.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
These bikes often accelerate fast, and only someone who is used to riding something that can move quickly on two wheels can do that. If not, they will go off the back. In a car, they would be restrained by the seat, but that is not the case on a bike or motorcycle. Knowing that does take some instruction—being ready, leaning into it and all the rest of it. My main point is that that is a good illustration of how we are being a bit too casual about these modes of transport, and too many young kids do not understand that they should have some training. For their sake, we should do more on this issue.
Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has been generous with taking interventions. I support his amendment and note that his amendment helpfully includes e-scooters, because there is a real problem. As e-scooters do not meet the criteria in the Highways Act 1980, they are effectively banned. When I speak to the hard-working police in Waterlooville, they say that e-scooters are banned in public areas. We have a real problem with illegal usage in public areas and in the shopping centre. However, people do not know that, and we need the law to be more proactive, deliberate and expressive, and that is why an amendment like this is right. Is there anything he would like to add on the issue of e-scooters?
Sir Iain Duncan Smith
I bow before my right hon. Friend’s greater knowledge in these matters, having headed up the Department. I simply say that for this particular purpose, I agree with her. I am urging the Government to take this matter away and look at it in the other place. Although I will not press my amendment, because legal bikes are incorporated in the earlier cycling amendment that I put forward and the Government accepted, we need more work on illegal bikes and e-scooters.
My worry, as I have said again and again, is that people can buy these things without any qualification whatsoever, whereas if I as a motorcyclist buy a bike, I have to be able to demonstrate that I am qualified to ride it away from the shop. People are not required to do so with e-bikes and e-scooters, so there is a peculiarity. Everywhere else in our legislation, we follow through. This one has dropped through the grid, and I therefore urge the Minister and the Department to look closely at the matter and see whether we can define that better in the other place and ensure that shops are unable to sell those bikes. I will not press this new clause because I think we are at the right place so far with the Government.
Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith and Chiswick) (Lab)
I will speak to new clauses 23, 24 and 25 in my name. New clauses 23 and 24 propose restrictions on the delivery and display of pointed knives to avoid death and serious injury from knife attacks. New clause 25 repeals certain unnecessary and unlawful punitive measures directed against Roma, Gypsy and Traveller communities.
I am grateful for the interest the Minister has shown in these matters and for meeting me to discuss them. I do not intend to press them to a vote, but I look forward to her response as to how they may be progressed. I support many other amendments and new clauses to the Bill. I have signed new clause 13 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) and new clause 155 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) on setting up an economic crime fighting fund. I of course congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) on her new clause 1 which was debated and passed yesterday.
On Second Reading, I expressed a general concern that the necessary and complex legislation affecting the criminal justice system set out in the Bill and in other Bills and reports in this Session would place an even greater strain on an already creaking system. I will not repeat what I said then, but I hope and trust that Ministers from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice are working together to ensure that resources are in place to deal with the unintended consequences when supply in one part of the criminal justice system causes demand in another. More police numbers mean more arrests, prosecutions, convictions and incarcerations, but early release or community alternatives to custody can create more work for probation and for the police.
New clauses 23 and 24 would change the selling practices of manufacturers and retailers in the following ways. First, they would prevent the delivery of lethal pointed knives to domestic premises, remote lockers and collection points. Nothing in them would prevent the delivery of pointed knives to chefs, butchers, fishmongers or any other commercial enterprise that uses pointed knives in the course of business. Secondly, they would prevent the display of pointed knives in shops, but would allow safer, rounded knives to be openly displayed in shops, and delivered by courier or mail with minimal restrictions.
Dawn Butler
I support my hon. Friend’s new clauses. In fact, when I was Minister for Young Citizens and Youth Engagement, we posed this question of whether there should be rounded knives. I am glad to see that the debate has moved on, because at that point, people found the idea that this would help solve the knife crime problem almost comical, so I thank him for pursuing this issue.
Andy Slaughter
When it was people like me proposing it, it was regarded as comical, but now Idris Elba is in favour of it, as well as experts across the field. I pay tribute to not just those celebrities, but victims and experts, particularly those on the Safer Knives group, of which I am member. It looks at the legal, medical and psychological effects of knife crime, and suggests practical ways of not eliminating but reducing the number of deaths and serious injuries.
New clause 25 seeks to repeal draconian police powers relating to unauthorised encampments. Those powers were introduced to the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which became law under the previous Government. These punitive and hostile powers led to the victimisation of Romani, Gypsy and Irish Travellers, who are among the most marginalised groups in UK society.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
I am clear that Traveller and minority groups absolutely do have rights, but they also have responsibilities. When this law was put in place, there was good reason for it: to redress some of the imbalance. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that repealing this law would leave our communities unprotected against unauthorised Traveller encampments? In areas like mine, the police became involved in a game of cat and mouse. Excrement, litter and worse was left in our communities. Would not a repeal leave the police with no powers to tackle the issue?
Andy Slaughter
I am afraid that is the sort of nonsense that I hear a lot of the time. Let me read to the right hon. Lady some of the measures that were in force before the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act was passed: temporary stop notices, injunctions to protect land from unauthorised encampments, licensing of caravan sites, possession orders, interim possession orders, local byelaws, the local authority power to direct unauthorised campers to leave land, addressing obstructions to the public highway, planning contravention notices, enforcement notices and retrospective planning, stop notices, breach of condition notices, powers of entry on to land, power of the police to direct unauthorised campers to leave land, and police powers to direct trespassers to an alternative site. That was the position before that Act came into effect. There were ample powers to deal with these matters.
Andy Slaughter
No, I will not give way again. Frankly, I found the right hon. Lady’s last intervention a bit beyond the pale, so I am not giving her another opportunity. I am afraid that the sort of information she peddles leads to the situation that we are in. The constant threat of criminalisation of nomadic lifestyles has a devastating impact on families. That is why human rights campaigners and international bodies, including the Council of Europe and the United Nations, have raised concerns about the legality of the provisions that I am addressing.
Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)
The hon. Member has just painted a complex legislative picture. Does he not agree that there was a need for the 2022 legislation, because all the measures that he has just read out simply were not working?
Andy Slaughter
The powers are there, but we must look at their implementation. I am always sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman, because he was such a good opponent for me at two elections, and I take to heart the measured way in which he puts his point, but to counter what he says, in May 2024, following a judicial review of part 4 of the 2022 Act brought by Wendy Smith against the Home Office, the High Court issued a declaration of incompatibility with the Human Rights Act 1998. The Court found that certain provisions on the extension of a ban on returning to a particular area from three months to 12 months constituted unjustified discrimination against Gypsies and Travellers. Despite that, the powers remain in force, and although the declaration of incompatibility with our laws relates only to the provisions I just mentioned, I put it to the Minister that all of part 4 could be scrapped without any detriment to the enforcement of previous laws.
Police and local authorities already have a whole spectrum of other powers, as I have set out, which they can and do use against encampments. If they are failing to use those, it is for them to say why. I also know that the police did not seek those powers; they were simply imposed on them. The Crime and Policing Bill presents the perfect opportunity for the Government to put this right by repealing part 4 of the 2022 Act, which, let us remember, allows police to ban Gypsies and Travellers from an area, to arrest and fine them, and even to seize their home.
I hope to receive positive news today, but if my right hon. Friend the Minister wishes to discuss these matters further, I would be happy to engage in that discussion—I have great support from Friends, Families and Travellers, and other excellent groups representing the Roma Gypsy and Traveller communities—to see how the law can be made fair to nomadic and non-nomadic communities. That is what is being asked for here. Frankly, at the moment the law does not create a balance; it creates a bias one way.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (North Cotswolds) (Con)
I rise to speak in support of new clause 41, which is in my name, and in the names of others. It is a very simple amendment that would require His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services to include firearms licencing in their PEEL—police effectiveness, efficiency and legitimacy—obligations. I declare an interest as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on shooting and conservation, and as a firearms owner.
I first thank the Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention for attending our most recent meeting of the APPG to answer a range of questions from our members; we were very grateful for her time. I share her commitment to protecting public safety through sensible firearms law and an effective and efficient firearms licensing system. It is not in the interests of the public or the shooting community for the wrong people to have guns in their possession. That is why I am proposing the new clause.
Members will be aware that the firearms licensing system in the UK is a postcode lottery. With 43 separate licencing authorities, inconsistency in the application of the law, guidance and services is endemic across the system. A quarter of police forces are taking a year or more to process applications for certificates, with delays across the system. Gloucestershire constabulary—the force that I know best—recently put out a statement saying that it was not accepting any new firearm licence applications for two years, due to a lack of trained firearms officers. I intervened, and the police acted quickly to reverse the decision, setting up a gold command, and I now receive regular updates from the team. However, that wait is not good enough, especially when the Government are imposing a 133% hike in fees.
An inefficient and ineffective licensing department endangers the public. The inquest on the tragic murders in Keyham, Plymouth, revealed that the Devon and Cornwall police firearms licensing department, which had issued a certificate to the murderer, removed his firearm after an assault but, unbelievably, gave it back to him once he had done an anger management course. The department was described as a “chaotic shambles” that could not operate its own risk matrix. It identified the murderer as low-risk, when in reality he was high-risk and should never have received a certificate.
I appreciate that the Minister has given assurances that data on licensing department waiting times, for both renewals and new applications, are now being made available to the public. However, that does not go far enough to ensure that police forces take their inefficiencies seriously and put an action plan in place to improve departments across both England and Wales.
PEEL inspections take place every year or so for every police force in England and Wales. They include themes such as treating the public fairly, responding to the public, and resources and value for money. Firearms licensing comes under all three categories, yet there is no mention of it in any previously published PEEL inspection. In addition, although the Minister has reassured us that all funds received from the full cost recovery of firearms licensing will be ringfenced for improving firearms licensing departments, that is not guaranteed. The British Association for Shooting and Conservation, which acts as my secretariat on the APPG, wrote to all forces when the increase in firearms licensing fees was imposed, seeking assurances that all funds would go to firearms licensing. To date, only a third of constabularies have given that assurance.
Including firearms licensing in PEEL inspections is a powerful way to ensure that police forces are publicly accountable, funded properly and run efficiently for the benefit of public safety. New clause 41 is a sensible and proportionate probing amendment that I hope the Minister might feel able to accept, if it were to be tabled in the other place.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
I rise to speak in support of new clause 107, which stands in my name, and to lend my support to other vital amendments, particularly those relating to protest rights, joint enterprise, facial recognition and predictive policing technologies.
New clause 107 would require the Home Secretary to publish a comprehensive equality impact assessment within 12 months of the Bill becoming law. I acknowledge the initial equality impact assessments, but I must stress that they are no substitute for a thorough and ongoing review of how the powers will be used and who they will affect. This Bill touches every part of our criminal justice system, from police powers and sentencing to surveillance. If we know anything from decades of experience, it is that such legislation rarely lands equally. We already know, for example, that black men are disproportionately stopped and searched; that Muslim communities are targeted by counter-terrorism laws; and that ethnic minority communities are more likely to face over-policing, under-protection and systemic mistrust.
We must also talk frankly about how the system fails women, particularly in the context of violence against women and girls.
While the state has found countless new ways to expand police powers and increase maximum sentences, we are yet to find the will to use those powers to properly protect women: not when women who report domestic abuse and sexual violence are ignored; not when black, minoritised and working-class women who report violence are dismissed; and not when rape is effectively decriminalised, with cases rarely making it to court. Let us not forget those cases that have shocked the nation, the reports that have exposed misogyny, racism and abuse within police ranks, and the institutional discrimination and failures that some forces still fail to admit exists.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I apply an immediate five-minute time limit.
Mr Louie French (Old Bexley and Sidcup) (Con)
I rise to speak in favour of new clause 130 to strengthen the law on tool theft.
In early May this year, I joined police officers from Sidcup and Havering in a raid to uncover stolen tools at a boot sale in east London. Unlicensed boot sales are notorious for selling stolen goods. However, I was still astounded by what officers found. As they arrived in police vans and unmarked cars, there was a flurry of action among some traders: stolen goods were hidden, a van tried to flee and the keys to vehicles crowded with tools were suddenly lost. But the police had struck quickly and in numbers. Stolen tools were uncovered across traders’ stalls, six arrests were made and, eventually, officers struck the mother lode—a van overflowing with stolen tools.
The raid took officers to a second site, where even more stolen tools were uncovered. Over 1,650 stolen tools were found, worth around half a million pounds, on just one day. Officers were even able to return some marked tools to their owners. The raid shows why tradespeople must mark their tools properly. If they are marked with the likes of DNA tagging, the police can easily prove they are stolen and lock up the thieves responsible. They can also return the stolen tools to the hard-working tradespeople across the country.
But marking tools alone will not stop tool theft. Vans are being broken into in broad daylight and tools sold openly across the country. It is a disgrace. The law must change to punish the thieves responsible and crack down on the boot sales driving the crime wave. That is why I encourage all Members to support new clause 130, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers). First, it would increase fines to better match the severity of the crime, reflecting the cost of replacing tools and repairing damage to vans and of lost work.
Wendy Morton
Does my hon. Friend agree that accepting the amendment is one way in which the Government could reach out to businesses and traders and show that they are on the side of local businesses and the people who get up every morning and go out to work—in effect, “white van man”—for whom tools are key to being able to do the job, as are the farm implements that are also subject to theft?
Mr French
I thank my right hon. Friend for her vital contribution. We must back the makers, not the law breakers, whether they are “white van men” or rural farmers who are having their tools stolen. The impact on their ability to go to work is significant, but it also has an impact on their families because of their ability to buy food and other goods. We must back the makers and not the law breakers.
Secondly, the Bill would impose tougher sentences on thieves by recognising the seriousness of the crime. Finally, it would require councils to create an enforcement plan to stop the sale of stolen tools at boot sales. These are all necessary changes to help stop tool theft across the country.
Tradespeople and industry cannot afford parliamentary dither and delay. As campaigners, tradespeople, policing experts and industry have told us, action is needed now. Every 12 minutes, a van is broken into and tools are stolen, costing tradespeople thousands of pounds, hurting their mental health and stopping them from earning a living.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not just about thefts from vans? This is about people’s whole livelihood and ability to work. Businesses can be struck down. Does he agree that this is therefore worthy of its own offence?
Mr French
I agree with my hon. Friend’s vital contribution. I will come on to a couple of the larger impacts.
We often think about small businesses, but we have found from our roundtable that very large companies also suffer a lot of damage. For example, on average Openreach vans are hit three times a day, which delays the fibre rollout in rural communities. Over £2 million of surveying equipment was stolen from Balfour Beatty’s vans in just three months, impacting HS2, which we have discussed today. If any MPs are unsure about the need to act now, they need to speak to Shoaib Awan, Frankie Williams, Sergeant Dave Catlow, PC Dan Austin and the teams at SelectaDNA, Checkatrade and On The Tools, among many others who have worked tirelessly on this issue. I thank them all, especially the Sidcup police team who are leading a lot of that hard work.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; he is making a very eloquent speech. Will he acknowledge Alex Insley, from my constituency, who runs a podcast for tradespeople and who brought this issue to my attention?
Mr French
I applaud all the efforts by podcasters and tradespeople who are going online and sharing their experiences. Any hon. Member can look up the likes of Stolen Tools UK or the Gas Expert on Instagram and they will see cases, every single day, of people having their tools stolen and the damage that is doing to their financial and mental health. The impact of this on the wider economy is now so severe that we must act: Parliament must act across party to change the law—today, I hope.
I also thank the police and crime commissioners across the country who are getting stuck into the problem. I have highlighted examples from the Met of Sidcup and Havering police forces in particular, but I know that the PCCs in Kent and Sussex are also doing great work tackling this issue.
As I have highlighted, this is not a party-political issue and I appreciate the work of the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) in shining a spotlight on it. Today we can work cross-party and get the law changed now, and I hope, in all sincerity, that all MPs get behind this amendment and that the Government can help us change the law today, get on the side of the makers and tackle the lawbreakers.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
I rise to speak in support of new clause 13 in my name and new clause 50 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel).
New clause 13 proposes to change the law on joint enterprise. For those who do not know, this is a centuries-old doctrine that allows multiple people to be convicted of a crime, usually murder or manslaughter, even if only one person committed the fatal act. Evidence demonstrates it leads to unjust convictions, disproportionately impacting young black and working-class people, with young black men 16 times more likely to be convicted under joint enterprise than their white counterparts. I thank all who supported my private Member’s Bill that had its Second Reading in February 2024 and for their continued support for the campaign, particularly Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association.
As a result of a judicial review brought by Liberty and JENGbA, the Crown Prosecution Service conducted a pilot survey of joint enterprise cases, resulting in access to accurate data and highlighting the racial disparities that exist. Case law on joint enterprise was reversed by a Supreme Court ruling in 2016. The Jogee case identified how the law had taken “a wrong turn” for 30 years. The Law Commission is now undertaking a review of homicide and the sentencing framework for murder. It will examine the law on joint enterprise in light of the Supreme Court ruling on Jogee, with campaigners anticipating clear solutions on the disparities and inequality.
While I understand the Government have some reservations about my amendment, it is clear that there is recognition across the House that joint enterprise needs to be fixed. The prosecution of joint enterprise cases is flawed and racialised. The 2016 Supreme Court ruling did not resolve the key problems with the law. Speculative prosecution theories are accepted in place of strong evidence. This allows and encourages racist stereotyping, using gang narratives to imply collective intent, and using a person’s taste in music as evidence of being in a gang, with police being called as expert witnesses on drill music, which is a conflict of interest.
Art not Evidence is making significant inroads in this space, proposing a criminal evidence (creative and artistic expression) Bill to limit the admissibility of evidence of a person’s creative and artistic expression in criminal proceedings and for connected purposes. The Westminster Commission on Joint Enterprise is gathering evidence and will produce a report for the Government in 2026.
Reform of joint enterprise is long overdue. It has gone as far as it can in the courts, and it is now for Parliament to act; that is what the former Director of Public Prosecutions who is now the Prime Minister has said.
New clause 50 would enshrine the right to protest in law. The purpose of this amendment is to keep public authority powers proportionate and to uphold the right of our society to protest peacefully as a fundamental pillar of free and equal democracy. The right to protest and the freedom to express dissent goes back centuries and is championed across the political spectrum. From the peasants revolt to the suffragettes, we celebrate the great British tradition of direct action. So many of our freedoms have been won this way, including workers’ rights. Most recently, we have seen the farmers protesting outside Parliament, the mass trespass organised by the Ramblers’ Association in defence of our right to roam, striking workers, anti-war protesters and beyond. Millions of people have marched peacefully against the genocide in Gaza. Thousands of disabled people have protested against proposed welfare and disabled benefit changes. We have seen protesters outside Parliament against the assisted dying Bill and yesterday pro-life protesters gathered outside this place.
The ability to protest and freedom of expression and assembly are protected by articles 10 and 11 of the European convention on human rights and are enshrined in UK law. The planned demonstration outside the BBC headquarters in January demanding impartial coverage of Israel’s war in Gaza was banned by the Met police on the basis that the headquarters are in close proximity to a synagogue. This was after weeks of meetings and agreement of the route with the Met police. This is a serious infringement of our right to protest. If we cannot protest outside the headquarters of our public broadcaster, what does that say about our democracy? This should be of concern for all who believe in democracy and free society. The Government have a chance now to change course and roll back on these clampdowns for our rights and freedoms, for our democracy.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
I rise to speak in support of new clause 43 in my name and in the name of the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley) and of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), both of whom I thank for their support. It is also co-signed by 100 Members from across the House representing our entire political spectrum from almost every party, including many Members of the Labour party.
New clause 43 seeks to do something very simple: to commence the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023, which has already received Royal Assent. This Act simply criminalises the harassment of people in public based on their sex, but this is a crime that overwhelmingly affects women so this really is about the criminalisation of harassment of women in public.
The Act started life as a private Member’s Bill laid by my constituency predecessor, Greg Clark. He was approached by a sixth-former in our constituency who said that she had been harassed while coming home from school. One third of schoolgirls in the United Kingdom say they have been harassed in their school uniforms. We should be ashamed of that statistic, and Greg was ashamed and he took action.
The 2023 Act, as passed, creates a specific offence of harassment on account of someone’s sex. Like the new clause I rise to speak in support of, it received cross-party support, including, it must be said, from the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), who is now the Minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls.
The Act criminalises harassing, following and shouting degrading comments and making obscene gestures at women and girls in public with the deliberate intention of causing them harm or distress, and it carries a maximum sentence of two years. So I am quite disappointed and confused by the interactions that I have had with the Government on this issue. Every time I have pressed them for an update on commencement, I have not really received a substantive answer. For example, eight months ago I asked a question in this House and received a letter from the Government telling me that the Home Office is making all the necessary arrangements and that I would be contacted when a commencement date is confirmed. As a new MP, I thought this was quite promising. Five months ago, I tabled a written question and the Government responded saying that they would publish next steps at the earliest opportunity. Then two weeks ago I received a reply from the Government to a further communication stating that an update on commencement would be provided in due course. Each communication I receive from the Government is a little vaguer, a little bit less definitive about commencement.
Yesterday, at her instigation, I met with the Minister for VAWG and I thought, “Fantastic, finally we will get some answers.” But there was nothing, I am afraid—there was nada, zip. I gently ask the Minister present now—not the Minister for VAWG—what is the point in arranging a meeting if the Government are not going to say anything new to what they have previously said?
Lincoln Jopp
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, a fellow member of the Select Committee on Defence, for giving way, and I am proud to put my name to new clause 43 in his name. I also pay tribute to him for taking forward Greg Clark’s previous work in a very cross-party way for the benefit of the community. Does he share my frustration and slight bewilderment at the way in which the Government appear to be blocking commencement?
Mike Martin
In the Government’s defence, I do not think that this is a difference in policy; it is a difference in timing, but the timing seems to be very elastic. We seek a definitive time when the Act will be commenced—perhaps the Minister can respond at the Dispatch Box.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
As somebody who was incredibly proud to work with the hon. Gentleman’s predecessor on this legislation, having worked for many, many years to recognise misogyny in our hate crime framework, let me say that it will be two years in September since this House agreed to this legislation on a cross-party basis. It will be two years in September of the work being done, in theory, to be able to commence the legislation. Many of us on the Government Benches are proud of our commitment to recognising misogyny in hate crime, so will the hon. Gentleman join me in saying that we really want to understand what the barriers might be to getting on with the job that we know across this House will keep women and girls safer on our streets?
Mike Martin
I can actually give the hon. Lady a very specific time: it is 21 months to the day since this Act received Royal Assent. If the Minister would be so gracious, we might have from her either a time for commencement or, as the hon. Member for Walthamstow says, a specific problem that is stopping the Act being commenced, rather than some of the more general responses we have had to date.
I am doubly disappointed that although this Act was passed in a previous Parliament—expressing the unanimous will of Parliament, as it passed without a Division—it is entirely commensurate with the Labour Government’s policy to halve violence against women and girls. Harassment and violence are on a continuum and a spectrum. One of the things we are trying to do is to change the culture of men in how they act towards women; this Act is a part of that and really does contribute to the Labour Government’s priorities and manifesto. Indeed, the Minister for VAWG sat on the Public Bill Committee for the Act in 2023 and said that the Labour party would work with the then Conservative Government to ensure that the Bill passed without a Division, and so it did.
The Government have signalled that they will vote against new clause 43, which has been selected for a vote tonight. When the new clause has cross-party support and the original Act had unanimous cross-party support, why will the Government vote against the new clause? It seems to me that they are voting against their own manifesto and their own commitments while in opposition. That is difficult to understand, because I think we all want the same thing.
I will conclude. Implementing the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act is an important step in helping the Labour Government to achieve their own manifesto commitments. Let this not be another speech without action. I urge hon. and right hon. Members to vote for new clause 43.
Dawn Butler
I rise to speak to new clause 47 in my name. This is a very simple new clause, in a way, about how we stop mobile phones that have been stolen from being reconnected to the cloud and sold on. If we can break that link, we can stop the proliferation of mobile phone theft, which has increased by 150%.
Some 200 mobile phones are snatched every single day, and there has been a marked increase in Westminster. I know that a number of MPs have had their mobile phones stolen—some of them are sat not too far away from me. The amount of money in this crime is incredible. I do not believe phone manufacturers are that keen to stop this crime, because I feel it is part of their business model: when somebody has their mobile phone stolen, they go and buy another mobile phone.
New clause 47 says that once somebody’s phone has been stolen and they report it to the police, the police must report it to Apple, Google, Samsung or whoever, which then stops that phone from being reconnected to the cloud. In effect, that phone would become inactive. If the manufacturer failed to do that within 48 hours, it would be fined £10,000. We need to ensure that the manufacturers take this issue seriously, because they are not. Here is the simple thing: if we want to stop mobile phones being stolen to order, we need to ensure that the manufacturers take the issue seriously. We need to ensure that IMEI numbers are easily accessible, and we need to ensure that thieves cannot reconnect the mobile phones.
Dame Caroline Dinenage
I rise to speak to new clause 121, which is tabled in my name and supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) and, I am very pleased to say, by Members from both sides of this Chamber. It would extend the definition of extreme pornography to include depictions of non-fatal strangulation, known as NFS.
NFS was made a criminal offence in 2021 under the last Government, not because we think the Government should necessarily stick their nose into what people want to get up to in the bedroom, but because abusers use non-fatal strangulation without consent, as it leaves little visible injury and makes it hard to prosecute under domestic abuse cases. When a woman dies from strangulation, it is becoming increasingly common to use the defence that it was a sex game gone wrong.
Non-fatal strangulation has a life out there in the world of online porn. As we know, the UK is a large porn consumer. In any given month, more than 10 million adults in the UK will access online porn, and the vast majority of them will be chaps. That is up to them—we do not judge—but we know from research that online porn is so widespread that one in 10 children have seen it by the age of nine. Unfortunately, it is the guide that many young people use to learn about sex.
That is why I am extremely worried that non-fatal strangulation has been found to be rife on porn sites. Evidence has shown that it is directly influencing the sexual behaviour of young men, who are non-consensually strangling young women during consensual sex. Recent polling has suggested that 17% of 16 to 34-year-olds have been strangled without giving consent during consensual sex.
We are not being prudes in calling for this misogynistic act to be banned in online porn. Health experts warn that there is no way to strangle someone without risk, given that blood and airflow may both be restricted. A person can become unconscious within 10 seconds of being choked, and within 17 seconds they can have a seizure due to lack of oxygen. Death can occur within 150 seconds of being rendered unconscious.
Almost 20% of the women killed in the UK since 2014 were strangled by an intimate partner. Perpetrators who choke their partners are seven times more likely to kill them. I am sure the Minister will agree that it is alarming to hear reports of young men and boys seeking advice on how they can safely strangle their partner in bed and that girls are expected to accept that kind of behaviour. There was even a report last year, which the Minister may have heard about, of draft personal, social, health and economic education guidance from a Welsh local authority including safe choking during sex for a child sex education class. We need to send a signal that strangling your partner in bed is not safe—it can be a precursor to coercive, abusive behaviour. I know that the Government also want to send that signal, because in February they said, in their response to an independent review commissioned by the previous Government:
“The government will take urgent action to ensure pornography platforms, law enforcement and prosecutors are taking all necessary steps to tackle this increasingly prevalent harm.”
I therefore urge the Minister to support my new clause 121, which sets out one of the necessary steps referred to in the Government’s response. We need to back this amendment, ban this harmful practice, and send out a very strong message that depictions of non-fatal strangulation in porn normalise something that is not normal and is not safe.
Joe Powell (Kensington and Bayswater) (Lab)
I rise to speak to new clause 155, which stands in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) and is supported by the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax. I welcome the Bill for its clear and ambitious strategy to tackle antisocial behaviour and crime, but if we want truly safer streets, we must also step up our efforts to tackle financial and economic crime. That is the aim of our amendment, which is supported by at least 30 Members from across the House.
Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)
I rise to speak in support of Liberal Democrat new clauses 83, 84, 85 and 86, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart). I also commend my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) on his new clause 43.
Representing one of the most rural constituencies in the UK, I know just how deeply rural crime affects my constituents’ lives and livelihoods. I am not talking about the occasional petty theft from a property; the problem we face is calculated organised crime, and it is devastating North Cornwall’s farmers, small businesses and entire communities in our rural areas. Take the farmer in St Kew who lost more than £3,000-worth of tools and equipment in a single night, or the farming couple in Blisland who had two of their quad bikes stolen, worth £15,000. In that case, the police did not even arrive until three days later. To this day, the couple have heard nothing more. That is not to blame our hard-working local constables, who are stretched to breaking point.
It is no wonder that 86% of countryside residents say that rural crime is harming their mental wellbeing, and these are not isolated incidents. They are all part of a growing pattern that successive Governments have allowed to thrive under their watch. New clause 83 would finally extend the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 to cover GPS units, which are some of the most commonly stolen pieces of farm tech. Separately, new clause 84 would establish a dedicated rural crime taskforce, on which the Liberal Democrats have long campaigned. It is working in Scotland and a handful of regional police forces, so it is time that the Government developed and rolled out a properly funded and equipped taskforce nationwide.
I am pleased that, after years of pressure from me and my Liberal Democrat colleagues, the Government have finally announced that they will be committing to a full rural crime strategy. I hope that the Minister can today update the House on its timing. Strategy alone, however, will not stop thefts; it must come with proper enforcement. That is why new clause 85 and new clause 86 matter. They would guarantee minimal levels of neighbourhood policing and ensure that every local authority area has officers exclusively dedicated to community-based work.
In Cornwall, the police are doing all they can, but when the force gets less money per head than almost anywhere else in England, it is not enough. Officers are overstretched and underfunded. We need boots on the ground, with officers who understand the rural landscapes they are serving. That is why I urge the House to back these amendments, for the tradesmen who have lost their tools, for the farmers who have lost their machinery and vehicles, and for every rural community that has lost faith that justice will ever be done.
Separately, new clauses 87 and 88 would make it a criminal offence for water companies to breach pollution performance commitments and would finally hold senior executives personally liable for their failures. In North Cornwall, my constituents are living with the consequences of systematic pollution for profit. In 2024, South West Water issued more than 3,000 sewage alerts in its region, including 540 during the official bathing season and a staggering 2,600 outside of it. This is a routine and preventable environmental harm. South West Water pledged to significantly reduce its sewage discharges, but freedom of information requests show that it increased its discharges by a shocking five times last year versus the previous year, and the human cost is real.
In Widemouth Bay, my three-year-old constituent Finley became severely ill with diarrhoea and vomiting after playing on the beach. A friend’s child who was there that same day suffered similar symptoms, and I was contacted at one of my surgeries a few weeks ago by a teenage girl who required hospital admission after surfing in Harlyn bay. In St Eval, I dealt with residents reporting brown water coming from their taps. As a result of cracks at Bears Down reservoir due to South West Water’s lack of maintenance, many had no water for days, and the compensation from South West Water was £50 a household.
The leadership behind these constant and shocking failures continues to be rewarded. Susan Davy, the chief executive of Pennon Group, which owns South West Water, was paid a total of £860,000 in 2024. That was a small increase of £300,000 from the year before. Our beaches, rivers and families are being failed and let down, especially by the last Conservative Government and now by this Government. That is why these new clauses offer a clear message—
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
On 30 April 1999, three nail bombs went off in London, killing four and injuring 140. One of them exploded at Brick Lane, the hub of London’s Bengali community; one exploded in Soho, at the Admiral Duncan pub, the heart of London’s gay district; and one exploded in Brixton, in an attack on south London’s black community. The sick terrorist who committed those evil acts was motivated by hatred. He hated Bengalis and black people because of their race. He hated LGBT people because of who they love and how they live their lives. He hated those groups because they were different from him. He hated them because of who they are.
I raise that appalling incident to remind the House that hatred comes in many forms, but whoever in our society it is against, we must all stand equally strongly against it. We must have hate crime laws that show that whether the hatred is for someone’s race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability, Britain is a country that will not tolerate it; that all hatred is equal; and that all those who commit vile acts of hatred will face the same grave consequences.
I regret to say that that is not currently the case. Today the law recognises five categories of hate crime—race, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity and disability—but only two, race and religion, are treated as aggravated offences subject to stronger sentencing powers; the other three are not. That discrepancy cannot be right. We cannot say, as a society, that some forms of hatred are more evil than others.
I was at university when section 28 was introduced—I remember it vividly. It was more than a law; it was an attack on the right of people like me to live openly. It stigmatised lesbians, gays and bisexual people; and it pushed us out of public life. I went into politics to fight that cruel law and everything it represented.
Hate corrodes our entire society. It does not just harm the individuals who are targeted; it creates fear—fear to go outside, fear to speak up, fear to be seen. It silences people. It makes us all afraid. Research by Stonewall found that less than half of LGBT+ people felt safe holding their partner’s hand in public. That is the impact that the fear of hatred has on people. It makes them afraid even to show the world that they exist.
Unfortunately, far too many recorded crimes never result in charges. Of 11,000 disability hate crimes recorded by police, 320 led to prosecutions. Of 22,000 homophobic hate crimes, 3,118 led to prosecutions. Of 4,000 hate crimes against transgender people, only 137 led to prosecutions. Behind those statistics are real people, whose scars may heal on the outside but who may never recover from the fear and trauma that they have suffered.
In 2024, a teenage far-right extremist was jailed for targeting and attacking a transgender woman. Along with another young man, he kicked her to the ground in a park in Swansea and hurled transphobic abuse at her. In 2022, Cassie, a PhD student and wheelchair user, was waiting outside a shop when two drunk men grabbed her wheelchair, pushed her down the road and made sexual comments. She had to escape by rolling into traffic.
We must fight back against this hatred. We must show that we are not content to stick with the status quo. The victims of these attacks deserve to live in a society that says that we take this hatred seriously and will not stand for it. Victims must be at the heart of our criminal justice system, and we must ensure that laws protect them. That is why my new clause 122 is so important.
LGBT and disabled people tell me that they do not feel as safe as they used to. We are seeing rising transphobia everywhere. Pride flags are being taken down at county halls, and some politicians are openly questioning whether disabilities are even real. I am proud that Labour, in our manifesto, committed to equalising our hate crime laws by making hate crimes against LGBT people and disabled people aggravated offences. I am proud to be bringing forward that change through new clause 122. I hope that I can persuade all my parliamentary colleagues to support the new clause today, and to take this important step forward for equal rights.
I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier) and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Dr Tidball) for standing shoulder to shoulder with me throughout this process, and I urge the House to support the new clause.
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
As MPs, we receive a wide range of correspondence from constituents during some of the most difficult times in their lives, but the email that I received from Emma Johnson was perhaps one of the most harrowing that I have ever received. It is because of Emma’s story that I have tabled new clause 51, and I will speak to it today.
Mary Kelly Foy (City of Durham) (Lab)
I rise to speak in support of new clause 25, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter). It seeks to repeal the unnecessary and arbitrary police powers introduced via the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, which introduced new powers to seize the homes of Gypsy and Traveller families, and to fine, arrest and imprison them. The powers contained in part 4 of the Act have had a devastating impact on Romani Gypsy and Irish Traveller communities, and on a culture that is not only centuries old but protected by law. The Government have a legal and moral duty to facilitate this way of life, not to legislate it out of existence.
As we heard earlier from my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick, in May 2024 the High Court found certain provisions in part 4 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act to be incompatible with the Human Rights Act. The Government have so far failed meaningfully to respond to that, let alone correct it. In issuing the declaration of incompatibility, the High Court recognised the lack of transit provision for Gypsy and Traveller communities across England, and the impact that the Act’s powers have on Gypsy and Traveller families. If there is any doubt in people’s minds about the state of transit provision in England, I refer them to the research published this year by Friends, Families and Travellers, which found that 92% of the 362 local authorities have no transit provision at all.
Notably, the introduction of the powers has an effect on the community’s fears of being targeted and sanctioned. I will share the words of someone from the Romany community who has been directly impacted by these powers, which highlight the human consequences of these laws:
“This law adds to the knock-on effects we face daily with access to healthcare and education; being moved on constantly has been detrimental to my health, as sometimes I have to drive over 100 miles to see a GP. I could be made a criminal and lose my home, all because I have never known any different.”
It is painfully obvious that what we need are not criminal sanctions for families who have nowhere to stop; the answer is, of course, to create laws which ensure there are enough places for people to stop—I might add that the Planning and Infrastructure Bill provides the perfect opportunity for that.
As I stand here today during Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month, I urge the Government not to delay further. Let us repeal part 4 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act through this Bill, and take a meaningful step towards justice, inclusion and respect for all communities.
Liz Jarvis (Eastleigh) (LD)
I would like to start by paying tribute to Berney Hall, who is in the Gallery today and who has been campaigning for a change in the law to remove the 12-month limitation period for historic cases of rape of 13 to 15-year-old girls, when they occurred before 2004. It can take years for victims of abuse to come forward. Baroness Kennedy of Cradley tabled amendments to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill in the other place which sought to close this loophole, but they were not taken forward by the previous Government. That is why I have tabled new clause 160. I hope the Government will give all survivors of this terrible crime the closure and justice they deserve.
I am supporting several amendments today, including new clause 9 tabled by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). I recently met a mum from my constituency whose ex-partner was convicted of sexual communication with a child and put on the sex offenders register, but was then allowed to change his name. Understandably, my constituent was horrified to learn that he could take on a new identity, and that other women might not be aware. New clause 9 would stop offenders avoiding monitoring measures that are important for public safety, as well as reassuring victims that perpetrators cannot dodge the repercussions of their actions.
I am also supporting new clauses 85 to 88, new clauses 121 and 122, and new clause 102. In addition, I support new clause 120, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), which would strengthen protections for emergency workers by addressing hate-motivated offences committed against them in private dwellings. No one doing their job to protect others should face abuse. Whether on the street or in someone’s home, hate-fuelled attacks on those who serve the public must be prosecuted with the seriousness they warrant.
Finally, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) for tabling new clause 43, which would ensure the Government implement the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023. No one should have to put up with sexual harassment and this change in the law is long overdue.
Jess Asato (Lowestoft) (Lab)
I rise to speak to new clauses 102 to 105 in my name. First, I thank the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) for her engagement on the issues I am about to discuss, and I pay tribute to UK Feminista, which runs the all-party parliamentary group on commercial sexual exploitation, to CEASE—the Centre to End All Sexual Exploitation—and to Barnardo’s for its steadfast campaign on tackling violence against women and girls, and the protection of children.
My new clauses reflect the recommendations of the very thorough recent review conducted for the Government by Baroness Gabby Bertin into online pornography. I am so proud that this Labour Government have made a commitment to halve violence against women and girls. I truly believe that regulating violent online pornography, which is viewed by nearly 40% of men once a week in the UK, will make a clear impact on that commitment.
As the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) has already powerfully argued, sexual strangulation is one of the most frequently found acts across all categories on mainstream pornography sites. Despite its dangers, it is portrayed as perfectly safe and a normal part of sex. In a Google search, CEASE found 30 million videos immediately for “choke her” porn. I want to share the story of Hannah, who met her killer, James Morton, on the day she died. Morton
“was reported as being obsessed with strangulation, frequently watching porn featuring strangulation of women. Although the judge said Morton had strangled Hannah ‘without warning or permission’, Morton claimed he began to lightly strangle Hannah…before more forcefully strangling her.”
Women and girls are paying the price of both an industry that seeks to profit from the most violent kinds of content and laws that are not fit for purpose. Despite the clear evidence of a direct connection between viewing strangulation content in mainstream pornography and undertaking such acts, the law requires the removal of this type of pornographic content only if the threshold of “life-threatening” is clearly met. New clause 102 would ban pornographic content depicting all strangulation and, with the requirement in the Online Safety Act 2023 to remove illegal content, would place a duty on platforms to remove strangulation videos or face sanction.
It is clear that we need stronger regulation. Offline, we have been regulating pornographic content since the Video Recordings Act 1984, which specifically prohibits offline content that the British Board of Film Classification would find unsuitable, yet our online regulation has not kept pace.
Of particular concern is content that depicts sexual activity with children. Known as “teen porn” or “incest porn”, this content features young-looking performers made to look under age through use of props such as stuffed toys, lollipops and school uniforms. Such content normalises children as objects of sexual desire and drives the demand for child sexual abuse material. Pornography producers have got around the ban on incest material by promoting porn videos in which there is step-incest. In a society where many of us have blended families, it is simply not right that step-daddy/daughter pornography is legal, no matter whether the actor is over 18 or not. New clause 103 would ensure that what is illegal offline is illegal online.
We must also ensure that all illegal pornographic content is regulated equally online, regardless of where that content is hosted. Duties under the Online Safety Act to combat illegal content apply only to pornography websites that host user-to-user interactions or user-generated content, and pornography websites that host only commercially produced pornography are exempt from illegal duties. We must not allow that to continue. New clause 104 would ensure that all pornography sites must adhere to illegal content duties.
Finally, it is important to remember that the acts of sexual violence I have spoken about today are perpetrated against real women and girls. This is not acting or performing. Women are often forced or coerced into this industry, and, once in it, even the most famous pornography performers are exploited. For example, Kate was trafficked from the UK to the pornography industry in America, where she suffered horrendous abuse and was forced to take part in dangerous and degrading sex acts on film. The consequences of what she endured have stayed with her despite her escaping the industry.
The truth is, there is no way of knowing whether the women who appear in pornography have given their consent, or whether they are even adults. New clause 105 would ensure that pornography websites accessed from the UK must verify the age and consent of every individual featured on their site and, crucially, enable individuals featured in pornography to withdraw their consent to its publication at any time.
I look forward to working with the Government and colleagues across the House to tackle the harmful impacts of this multibillion-pound industry.
Saqib Bhatti
I rise to speak to new clause 123 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley).
I have to say, I am a little surprised that I am having to speak to this new clause today, and I implore the Minister to give it due consideration, not least because it was presented on a cross-party basis in the previous Parliament by Baroness Harman. In fact, on the day it was debated, Baroness Harman, who had done all the work on it, was away due to a personal matter, and it was spoken to by the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), who is, of course, now the Minister for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls. The Minister will be aware that this issue directly concerns a constituent of mine, whose experience I will speak to later. I really encourage the Minister to give the new clause due consideration and, if it is not taken up, perhaps she can clarify in her remarks why there is a delay. Every engagement I have had with the Department has suggested that such a provision is well on its way, so I would be curious to know about that.
For the benefit of the House, the new clause seeks to remove the parental rights of convicted sex offenders. It is unconscionable to my constituents that children could be subject to living with a sex offender because the sex offender is their parent. It is reprehensible that the law allows that to happen. It allows convicted criminals who have committed the most heinous crimes to exploit the law, and it puts vulnerable children at risk.
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
I rise to support new clauses 15 and 16 in my name. The amendments address two specific but crucial failings in our current road traffic laws: the absence of adequate penalties for driving without ever having held a licence and insufficient consequences for people who fail to stop after an incident.
The amendments are in honour of Harry Parker, a much-loved 14-year-old whose life was tragically cut short on 25 November 2022 on his way to school. I engage with the family regularly, and this has truly rocked Adam and Kelly. It is utterly devastating for them to have lost their child at such an early point in his life. I extend my deepest sympathy to Harry’s parents, and I admire their courage in seeking change through their grief. The driver who killed Harry was driving without a licence, had no insurance and did not stop. Shockingly, all charges were dropped. The police and the Crown Prosecution Service followed the letter of the law, but that is why I am here. The law as it stands does not recognise the gravity of these offences when they are committed by someone who should never have been behind the wheel in the first place. That is why I have brought forward the two amendments.
New clause 15 on unlicensed drivers would amend section 87 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 to introduce tougher penalties for individuals who have never held a licence. New clause 16 on the offence of failure to stop would amend section 170 of the 1988 Act to allow courts to impose unlimited fines, a custodial sentence and a disqualification from driving for up to two years. More importantly, it would allow the courts to impose any combination of those penalties.
No law can bring Harry back. No sentence will ease the pain of the family and friends. These amendments are about restoring the balance and sending a clear message: if someone chooses to drive without a licence and if someone runs from the scene of a crash, there will be real-world consequences. I appreciate that the amendments may not progress, but I ask the Government to take them seriously with a road safety strategy, which I hope we can push forward in future.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
I rise to speak to new clause 156 in my name, which I bring forward because of Isabella, a 14-year-old girl who lives in my constituency. In May of this year, Isabella was hanging out with friends in Lyme Regis when she was lured to the cemetery. A group of young people were waiting. One of them had their phone out and was already filming her arrival. Moments later, another girl who Isabella knew launched a brutal assault. Her head was smashed against a concrete step, she was stamped on and kicked in the face again and again. While Isabella was being attacked, no one stopped to help; instead, they stood by and they filmed. They laughed and they demanded they be sent the video.
The attack was premeditated, but so too was the filming. The recording began before Isabella even arrived. It was not taken to provide evidence or to expose wrongdoing but taken deliberately to broadcast her humiliation and glorify the violence. I have seen the video; it is horrific. Isabella’s mother has seen the video, her friends have seen the video and hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people have seen the video because it was intentionally and maliciously circulated on social media and in private WhatsApp groups in schools across West Dorset. Children who were not there and who do not even know Isabella saw her brutal attack play out on their phones. The violence did not stop when the attack ended. It was shared, it was forwarded, it was replayed and it was whispered about.
Isabella’s attacker was charged with actual bodily harm. She received anger management classes and a six-month restraining order. That was bad enough, but the people who filmed it walked away entirely unpunished. The filming had started before the attack occurred, they knew the attack was coming, they planned to film it and then they proceeded to share the video while laughing. They did not walk away unpunished because there was no proof of what they did—the video was the proof—but because our law does not yet recognise such specific, premeditated and deeply harmful behaviour as the offence that it should be.
That is why I believe that new clause 156 is so important. It seeks to create a specific offence for premeditated filming and distribution of violent acts with the intent to humiliate, distress and psychologically harm the victims. It recognises what too many families already know: that this is not about a punch thrown or a kick delivered, but about the deliberate choice to film violence, broadcast it and humiliate the victim repeatedly for an audience that grows with every share, every click and every forwarded message.
We are not talking about evidence or journalism, or about someone catching wrongdoing to expose it. Indeed, new clause 156 makes it very clear and contains an explicit safeguard to protect public interest journalism and for footage being used as evidence. Yet where there is premeditation and where someone knowingly films or broadcasts an attack with the intent to amplify the victim’s humiliation, that behaviour must face consequences. Isabella’s case is not an isolated one.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman speaks with great passion about his constituent. Yesterday evening, I held a roundtable with parents in my constituency to talk about mobile phone use in schools. One of the parents was a GP and she spoke about how children who have been subject to such attacks have come to her surgery saying that they are contemplating suicide because of what they have faced. Does he agree that this goes well beyond mere humiliation and to some of the worst mental health problems our young people could face?
Edward Morello
I agree with the hon. Gentleman; we do not fully understand the lasting psychological damage, especially as this is a growing problem.
I have received further letters from other people, who have told me about similar incidents in other schools, other towns and other playgrounds. Nationally, the problem is rising. According to the Youth Endowment Fund’s 2024 survey, 70% of young people reported seeing real-world violence online in the past year and that most of that footage was of fights involving young people. It is happening in our communities right now and the law is failing to keep pace.
Our children already face enormous pressures from social media—from online bullying to apps designed to capture their attention and expose them to content far beyond their years. As parents, we do our best to protect them, but we cannot be everywhere. We have a duty to put proper deterrents in place where social media companies have continually failed us.
We have a duty to send a clear message that this behaviour is unacceptable, that it is dangerous and that it will not go unpunished. I will finish with the words of Isabella’s mother, Sarah. She said:
“I have to live with the flashbacks of watching my daughter being beaten. I also have to live knowing that this video will be forever available on social media.”
On behalf of Sarah and of Isabella, I hope that the Government will support a change to the law so that something positive can come from Isabella’s experience.
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for West Dorset (Edward Morello) for his speech and for advocating for new clause 156. He is a powerful advocate for his constituent who suffered such horrific things, and I thank him for that.
I rise to speak in support of new clause 48, which stands in my name. It would create a new, stand-alone offence of assaulting a delivery worker. Before I begin, though, let me refer Members to my entry in the Register of Member’s Financial Interests and my membership of the GMB Union.
Delivery workers are vital to our local economies. They link shops with homes, cafés with customers and communities with each other. They help keep our high streets alive and our homes supplied. But too often, they are abused, assaulted, and attacked just for doing their job.
Rolston, who rides for Deliveroo, has been verbally abused and threatened with violence on people’s doorsteps for asking for ID when delivering alcohol, as the law requires him to do. Emiliana has been riding in Kent since 2018. She has had two motorbikes stolen and has been pelted. Sometimes it is far worse. Claudiu Carol Kondor was an Amazon delivery driver. He was killed in Leeds last year. A thief jumped into his van while he was delivering parcels. Claudiu tried to stop him, clinging to his vehicle for half a mile, pleading with the thief to stop. He was deliberately knocked off and killed. He had bought that van just three weeks earlier and was trying to protect his livelihood. Instead, he lost his life. No one should leave home to go to work and not come back.
Those are just a few stories, but they are not isolated incidents. The Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers has found that 77% of delivery workers for major retailers such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Ocado, Morrisons and Iceland have been a victim of abuse in the past year. A quarter have turned down deliveries because they feared for their safety, and 13% have been physically assaulted. And this is happening during an epidemic of retail crime. Shoplifting has nearly doubled since the pandemic, and rose by 23% last year alone. In-store retail staff also face absolutely shocking abuse.
I welcome the Labour Government’s commitment to protecting retail workers with a stand-alone offence, which USDAW, through its freedom from fear campaign, has campaigned on for years. It is the right move, because no one should feel unsafe, or face abuse—verbal or physical—just for doing their job.
Delivery workers are on the frontline, too. They work alone, often at night. They are public-facing and can be vulnerable. When something goes wrong—a delay, a missing item, or the wrong order—they are the ones who face the backlash. Too often frustration turns into abuse, violence, or worse. Delivery workers deserve the same protection that this Government are rightly offering to staff in stores. When Parliament places extra responsibilities on delivery riders to police much-needed laws on age verification, it should legislate to provide additional protections for them. New clause 48 is backed by the GMB Union, USDAW, Deliveroo, the British Retail Consortium and UKHospitality. Trade bodies and trade unions are campaigning together, because they know the reality. They see what delivery workers face every day. Since the covid pandemic, delivery riders have become a part of how we shop and we rely on them.
Ben Obese-Jecty
I wish to speak about new clauses 84 to 86 and return once again to policing and police funding. In new clause 86 on neighbourhood policing, the Liberal Democrats seek to address the Government’s recently announced neighbourhood policing plan. The plan pledges to recruit an additional 13,000 police officers—a figure that still simply does not stack up. I spoke last week in Westminster Hall about the discrepancies in the Government’s pledge, the lack of clarity around the baseline figure against which progress will be measured, the fuzziness around how the 3,000 officers transferred from other roles will be determined or implemented, and the fact that the 2,611 officers overcounted as being in neighbourhood roles by 29 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales means that the 3,000 officers the Government have announced this year is all but net neutral in terms of additional warranted police officers—it is an in-year increase of just 389 officers once the adjustment is taken into account.
Kirith Entwistle (Bolton North East) (Lab)
I rise to speak to new clause 44, otherwise known as Banaz’s law, tabled in my name and in memory of Banaz Mahmod. I am grateful for the cross-party support that I have received for the new clause from 54 Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members and for the opportunity to continue the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), and the last Women and Equalities Committee; I am proud to be a member of the Committee.
Banaz was a young woman from south London. In 2006, she was murdered by her father, her uncle and five male cousins in a so-called honour killing. Her crime, in their eyes, was to leave an abusive husband, whom she had bravely reported for rape and violence, and to seek love with a man of her own choosing. Believing she had brought shame and dishonour upon the family, they convened what they chillingly called a council of war and plotted her death. Banaz’s body was found months later buried in a suitcase in a back garden in Birmingham.
This horrific injustice did not begin with her murder, however. Banaz went to the police five times. She reported rape, she named her abusers, she predicted her own death and still her cries for help were dismissed. An investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission into the police handling of Banaz’s case later found multiple serious failings. This was not only a family crime; it was a community crime. Police estimated that as many as 50 men were involved in plotting the murder, covering it up or encouraging this honour narrative. Banaz’s uncle called her death “justice”. Others called him a hero.
Banaz’s case is not unique. Shafilea Ahmed, Somaiya Begum, Raneem Oudeh, Khaola Saleem and Fawziyah Javed were all women subjected to honour-based abuse. The Domestic Abuse Commissioner estimates that at least 12 honour killings take place in the UK every year. More than 7,000 incidents of honour-based abuse are recorded annually, but the true scale is almost certainly greater.
While I fully support the important steps this Bill takes to tackle violence against women and girls, I am concerned by its insufficient focus on honour-based abuse and I am grateful to the Minister for Victims, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), for taking the time to meet me. However, I must stress that subsuming honour-based abuse within extant law does not adequately contend with these issues and is not sufficiently capable of yielding the change promised by Banaz’s law.
My new clause calls for honour-based abuse to be recognised in law as an aggravating factor in sentencing. It also calls for victim-survivors who act in self-defence or under coercion after years of abuse to have that context recognised as a mitigating factor. With this new clause, statutory guidance across the criminal justice system could be given so that police, prosecutors and courts could be trained to recognise and respond to this high-risk, often collective, form of abuse.
I want to pay tribute to the Bekhal Mahmod, Banaz’s sister. Her courage and the tireless work of Southall Black Sisters have brought us to this point. I will not be pressing my new clause to a vote today, but I hope that Ministers will take this opportunity to reflect on the need to take further action against all forms of honour-based abuse, because the need for reform is undeniable.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I think the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle) just ran out of time. I remember that I too raised Banaz’s case as a Back Bencher.
Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I rise to speak in support of six of the new clauses that go to the heart of our responsibilities as legislators—safeguarding children, restoring public confidence in the law and defending free expression—although due to the lack of time, I will not be able to go into them all in detail.
New clause 45, standing in my name, seeks to ensure that where an individual under the age of 18 has been cautioned or convicted of a child sex offence, the police must notify any organisation that that child is involved in, where they are with other children, or an organisation that that person is seeking to join. This new clause stems from a real case in my own constituency and would close a dangerous and demonstrably harmful safeguarding loophole, which I have already discussed privately with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips). I hope that the Government will look at this as they take this legislation through the other place.
New clause 46, also standing my name, addresses another gap in legislation: a person’s ability to buy a car without providing any form of verifiable ID, or indeed proving that they can actually drive. This is in memory of Andrew Rowlands, with the support of his family, and it would make it harder for criminals and reckless drivers to use untraceable vehicles with impunity and kill people, as happened in Andrew’s case.
New clause 108, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), seeks to reaffirm the right to speak freely about religion or belief, including criticism, satire and dissent, by restoring clarity to our public order laws. I know he will be speaking to it later, and I wholly support it. It is closely aligned to new clause 7, which is being put forward by the Opposition Front Bench today. We need to start addressing some of these non-crime hate incidents, which I think are becoming a pernicious attack upon freedom in our society.
More broadly, it was great to hear the hon. Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) speak about pornography and some of the amendments she has put forward. I support new clause 103. In fact, I have been doing some work recently with the British Board of Film Classification because there are clearly major issues between what is allowed to be broadcast and age rated within traditional broadcast settings and what is available online. There is a growing body of evidence linking violent and abusive pornography with increased rates of sexual aggression, especially towards women and girls. I fully support the new clause and hope that the Government pay attention to what the hon. Member proposed.
I support new clause 150 relating to cousin marriage. I am glad that the Opposition Front Bench has put it forward, and I spoke at length about the matter earlier in Westminster Hall. This is not a knee-jerk reaction; it represents the next logical step in a serious and ongoing effort to protect the vulnerable and promote social cohesion. I have already introduced a private Member’s Bill in this Session on the marriage element, following the successful challenge banning virginity testing and hymenoplasty in the last Session, because when it comes to protecting women and men from outdated, coercive and harmful practices, this House must not look the other way.
This is not about race or religion; it is about freedom, societal cohesion and health. It is about freedom because consent is meaningless when extended families can pressure young men and women into cousin marriages that they do not want. We must stand up for those without a voice and give them the legal backing to say no. It is about cohesion because multigenerational cousin marriage often fosters huge issues around social segregation, locking individuals into closed systems of authority. When countries like Norway and Denmark have acted decisively, there is no excuse for this country to lag behind others with progressive credentials. It is about health because there is a real risk. The Born in Bradford study, which has been going on for many years, has found the real societal implications, and we still do not know the full side effects of multigenerational first cousin marriages.
We rightly prohibit relationships where power distorts consent—between teachers and pupils, doctors and patients, and within close family settings. The same logic clearly applies here as well. This new clause is rooted in compassion, not condemnation. It speaks to freedom, especially for women, and the courage to legislate where silence simply causes harm.
Each of these amendments addresses a different risk—child safety, public accountability and freedom of expression—but they are united in the common principle that the law should protect the vulnerable, demand responsibility, and preserve the freedoms on which a healthy and confident society depends.
Dr Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
I rise to support new clause 122, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor).
In 2007, Fiona Pilkington drove herself and her 18-year-old daughter, Francecca Hardwick, to a lay-by near her home. She also took the family’s pet rabbit to soothe her daughter, who had severe learning disabilities. She then set the car on fire, killing them both. An inquest two years later heard how the family had been kept virtual prisoners in their home by youths who threw stones, flour and other objects and kept up a relentless stream of abuse. At the time, the Independent Police Complaints Commission concluded that one of the police’s main failings was in not identifying the abuse as hate crime.
The case prompted wider concern that many police forces were failing to properly identify hate crimes motivated by disability, and thus treating them as low-priority antisocial behaviour—something disability campaigners say too often remains the case. I am proud that last year our Labour manifesto
“committed to championing the rights of disabled people and to the principle of working with them, so that their views and voices will be at the heart of all we do.”
I support my hon. Friend’s new clause 122, which would implement our manifesto commitment to protect LGBT+ and disabled people by making all existing strands of hate crime an aggravated offence. The new clause would finally place the Law Commission’s recommendations on a statutory footing. As the commission has said:
“It is undesirable for the current law to give the impression of a ‘hierarchy’ of victims.”
The Bill will be powerful in delivering the Government’s safer streets mission and plan for change. It will help to tackle the crimes that matter most to communities but that have been ignored for too long, after 14 years of the Tory dereliction of duty on law and order.
Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
Let me start by highlighting my support for new clauses 85 and 86, which deal with neighbourhood policing. They would ensure that police forces are required to practise community policing
“at a level necessary to ensure effective community engagement and crime prevention”.
It is a shame that the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) is not in his place to intervene for a definition on that. It is about engaging with local communities and ward panels to define the appropriate levels in their areas—which I am sure he would support— rather than taking a top-down view. The new clauses would compel the Secretary of State to produce an annual report on the state of community policing.
We have outlined a way of funding that too: 20% of future police grants would be ringfenced for community policing activities, literally making crime pay—in the reverse of the manner in which that phrase is normally used—by allocating funds recovered from the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 to community policing. That is important, because commitments to policing numbers mean little without serious action to reverse the scale of forthcoming cuts, such as the cuts of 1,419 officers and staff that we in London are about to experience this year. Indeed, as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner recently told the BBC,
“ambition and money go alongside each other”.
I urge Members across the House to support those new clauses.
I will now turn to my new clauses 95 and 96. It is good to see the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Birmingham Yardley (Jess Phillips), in her place to continue a conversation that we have had many times on stalking. Stalking is a heinous crime: it throws lives into chaos, leaves victims in life-changing and near-constant terror, and too often goes unpunished. The current legislation forces too many victims to meet an improbably high bar of evidence, forcing them to jump through hoops to be a perfect victim, just to prove the scale of the threat against them.
I have heard from victims in my Sutton and Cheam constituency who have had their lives completely upended by their stalkers, and who are completely at their wit’s end after facing so many obstacles to getting justice. It is clear that the two relevant sections of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 are the root of those obstacles. The distinction between a lesser section 2A offence and a more severe section 4A offence is failing victims and fails to recognise the total scope of stalking.
Successful prosecutions of section 4A offences are far too hard to achieve. The burden of proof is placed so heavily on the victim.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
Even celebrities such as Emma Raducanu, and others in the public eye who have been affected by stalkers, feel unsafe and unprotected by existing legislation. Does the hon. Member agree that is clear additional evidence that the law needs strengthening?
Luke Taylor
The hon. Member provides a clear and visible example of how the legislation is not working, if somebody with such a high profile and with additional security protection cannot be protected from stalkers. I thank him for his apt intervention.
The burden of proof means that many victims withdraw from the process completely and give up on gaining justice. My new clauses would compel the Secretary of State to publish a review into the two clauses within six months of the Act receiving Royal Assent, and to make time for that review to be properly considered in the House upon its completion. They would also compel the Secretary of State to launch a review into the effectiveness and adequacy of the stalking awareness guidance provided by public bodies in England and Wales, and to make similar provision for proper consideration and debate in this House. I know that aim is supported by the Minister, so I would like to hear how it is being brought forward.
New clause 43, tabled by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin), is incredibly important and deserves the support of the House. The new clause automatically commences the Protection from Sex-based Harassment in Public Act 2023 when the Crime and Policing Bill receives Royal Assent. That he has managed to corral together such luminaries in this House as the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), and the hon. Members for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy), for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry) and for Clacton (Nigel Farage), to support the measure is a triumph in itself.
We spoke about new clause 130 in Committee, and I very much support its measures on tool theft. It would add the theft of tools from tradesmen to the list of aggravating factors in the Sentencing Act 2020, and present a way forward towards more sensible regulations of temporary markets, where too many stolen tools are often sold out of car boots. I recently visited the Kimpton industrial estate in Stonecot in my constituency, where I heard more about the awful impact of that kind of theft from tradespeople, who too often are left with their livelihoods wrecked and very little proper recourse to getting their lives back on track, other than to fork out huge amounts to buy new tools, which in many cases are later stolen again. It is a horrible cycle, which I also heard about at the Stop Tool Theft rally on the streets outside this Chamber earlier this year.
The measures set out in the new clause provide a good path forward but will not solve the issue alone. Without the kind of commitment to restoring community policing that I mentioned in reference to new clauses 85 and 86, police forces will remain too overstretched to mobilise the resources to investigate these crimes in the first place.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
My hon. Friend talks about community policing and getting police officers back into the community, so does he support my new clause 157, which seeks to streamline the way police case files are prepared and submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service? It is a common-sense approach that would reduce red tape and, most importantly, get police back out supporting victims and building the community trust that they need?
Luke Taylor
My hon. Friend’s words have convinced me and hon. Members across the House about her new clause.
The Met police recently responded to a freedom of information request about tool theft, which revealed that nine in 10 tool thefts in the last five years in London went unsolved, which shows the scale of the problem and the importance of supporting new clause 130 today.
I would like quickly to draw attention to some other amendments. New clauses 87 and 88, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove, would hold water company executives to account properly for the first time, and that would mark a huge step forward in tackling the sewage crisis we face in this country. Those individuals should be held liable for their carelessness and fixation with raising bills, while running companies into the ground and ruining our rivers. I wish I had more time to outline my reasons for supporting the clauses, but I refer the House to my many prior contributions on the subject.
New clause 44, tabled by the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Kirith Entwistle), would mark a step forward in providing support to victims of honour-based violence and murder.
New clause 122, tabled by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor), would strengthen the law on hate crimes directed at disabled, LGBT+ people, and rightly seeks to protect people who are victims of hate crime because of their association with individuals in those groups, and I wholeheartedly support it.
In contract, new clause 7, tabled by the official Opposition, would weaken hate crime legislation in this country, and I fear it is motivated by a complete lack of respect for the decades of progress we have made in recognising the types of discrimination faced by people the length and breadth of this country. For this Bill to push us forward, and not drag us backwards, that new clause must be rejected.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, as a proud member of the trade union movement.
No one should go to work with the uncertainty each day that their safety might be put at risk. We as a Government clearly support that for emergency workers, and of course we are legislating for retail workers too. New clause 48, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley), addresses delivery workers, and today I stand to speak for my new clause 11, which would do the same for transport workers.
Every day, transport workers face verbal abuse, sexual harassment or physical assault, whether on bus, tram or ferry. Transport workers, alongside their trade union, the RMT, are calling for new measures to protect them at work: first, the introduction of a specific offence of assaulting or abusing a transport worker; and secondly, an extension in the maximum sentence, from six to 12 months—not least if sentences are now to be served in the community.
Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)
I had meant to speak to my amendment 120 today, but that intention was superseded by the Government’s movement on this, which I really welcome. It will close a loophole so that it will now be an offence to abuse an emergency worker on the grounds of race, religion or sexual orientation in somebody’s private dwelling. I congratulate the Government on that.
Rachael Maskell
I welcome the hon. Member’s intervention. This just goes to show the extent to which our public servants put themselves in harm’s way, often running towards danger on our behalf. When people are serving us—our constituents—day in, day out, they deserve the protections that we are aiming to introduce in this legislation.
Let us look at the scale of the abuse our transport workers are facing. Transport for London says that 10% of workers are physically assaulted, with 90% verbally abused and 60% experiencing violence at work, and that is just in the last 18 months. In fact, 10,493 TfL workers had incidents of violence or aggression perpetrated against them. More widely, the British Transport Police highlighted in 2024 that 7,027 offences were committed, and just in the last year there were 7,405 crimes, with 3,650 violent crimes. And there has been a 47% increase since 2021.
Out transport workers will not be safe unless more measures are included in this legislation. We are also hearing from other groups of workers, so we need to look holistically at the threats they are facing and how we can put those protections in place to ensure that specific measures are available to help keep them safe. That would also be better for the public.
We should also look at the work the RMT has done. It has surveyed its women workers, and 40% of transport workers who are women have been sexually harassed in the last year, and that, too, is on the rise. Two thirds of RMT members have experienced abuse, violence or antisocial behaviour, but 40% have not reported it as they are not confident that they will get the recourse they need. This is having an impact on their health and wellbeing. The level of post-traumatic stress disorder experienced by transport workers is double that of the general population. That is why they are calling for legal protection for all public transport workers—because of the scale and the prevalence. Moving forward with this will also deter perpetrators and support workers. It will improve action and response times and the support that is available.
We in this House need only think back to the covid pandemic. Belly Mujinga was spat at while working at Victoria station and, sadly, lost her life. She was there serving faithfully as a sales clerk during that period. Her union, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, has said:
“While we remember Belly today, our union continues to fight for safe and healthy workplaces for all of our members.”
That is why I am here today: to fight for them alongside the trade unions, the British Transport Police, the rail industry bodies, the Rail Delivery Group, Network Rail and all of the transport unions—standing together, saying they need more measures to keep workers safe on our transport systems.
We often hear about other safety risks that transport workers place themselves in, but today it is about their own personal safety, and I am sure this House will hear it. So I am asking for clear support for new clause 11, but of course I am willing to meet the Minister to discuss how we can advance the cause of transport workers and hope that, if we cannot make these amendments today, we will be able to do so in the other place.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
Before I turn to my new clause, I welcome in particular new clause 7, on non-crime hate incidents, and new clause 150, proposed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden), which would ban sexual relationships between first cousins.
This Bill presents an opportunity for the Government to support my new clause 108 to protect freedom of expression. That is urgently needed, because existing legislation has been manipulated to create a blasphemy law for the protection of Islam from criticism and protest. As I said in my speech last week, I am not a Muslim, and I reject any attempt to tell me that I cannot say what I think about any religion. No ideas or beliefs should be above criticism or scrutiny.
Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making a really impassioned speech. In some ways, I agree with elements of what he is saying; I was involved in extensive discussion with the humanists recently about exactly this issue. A gentleman was prosecuted for burning a Koran, and he just wanted to express his displeasure to the Turkish Government. Does the hon. Gentleman not think it would be preferable to ensure that the law is being adhered to correctly by those who administer it in the courts, rather than trying to bring in an additional law that could damage religious relations in some way?
Nick Timothy
I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution, but the point is that the courts are interpreting the law as they see it. If we in this place believe that interpretation to be wrong, it is our job to correct it through legislation, and I think the appropriate way to do so would be to extend section 29J of the Act in the way I have described.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Jess Phillips)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Nick Timothy
I do not know whether the Minister is allowed to intervene, but she would be welcome to do so. [Interruption.] She has been here longer than I have.
Jess Phillips
We did discuss whether or not I was allowed to intervene. I have been involved with cases of harassment and malicious communications involving antisemitism and anti-Jewish hatred. Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that criticising Jewish people should be allowed?
Nick Timothy
No, I think the Minister has misunderstood my point. Actually, I was about to move on to a related issue, which is that hating people and discriminating against them on the basis that they are Muslims, or indeed members of different religious groups, is already a crime. If someone were harassing Jewish people in the way that the Minister has just described, that would be a criminal offence, even if my amendment passed. However, as I was saying, Islamophobia is a made-up and nonsensical concept that elides the protection of individuals from hatred with the protection of ideas and beliefs, and—in my view—is therefore completely unacceptable in principle.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
Can I ask the hon. Gentleman what he would like me to tell the family of Mohammed Saleem, the 80-year-old grandfather who was stabbed simply for being a Muslim?
Nick Timothy
That was obviously an appalling crime —I remember it very well—but I do not think it has anything to do with what I am saying in this debate.
In a free and pluralistic society, we have to be free to criticise ideas. There are laws to protect people, but we cannot have laws that protect ideas from scrutiny or criticism. However, the Government are pressing on with their work on Islamophobia. Only this week, on the very day that Baroness Casey said that the rape gangs were often not prosecuted because of the ethnicity of the perpetrators, Ministers launched a consultation on the new Islamophobia definition. That consultation is open only to carefully selected, invited organisations; it will last for only four weeks; and it allows contributors to remain anonymous. In other words, as lots of people have put it to me, it is rigged, and that is completely unacceptable. Parliament repealed blasphemy laws years ago, and trials for blasphemy had stopped many decades back in any case, but they are with us once more. Parliament must act to restore our freedom of expression.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Ind)
Briefly, I would like to express my support for new clause 11. I declare my interest, as I am chair of the RMT parliamentary group and this issue is part of our campaigning, particularly given the rising number of assaults on bus drivers at the moment. I also express my support for new clause 13, and congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson) on her determined campaign on the joint enterprise initiative. Of course, I also support new clause 50, which deals with the right to protest, and who could not support new clause 122 after the speeches we have heard from Labour Members today?
I want to raise an anomaly that has arisen in debates about terrorism legislation since 2020. I do not want to go into too much technical detail, but basically, section 69(3) of the Sentencing Act 2020 gave the Crown Prosecution Service the power to allege a terrorist connection
“if the offence…(a) is, or takes place in the course of, an act of terrorism, or (b) is committed for the purposes of terrorism.”
The implementation of that legislation meant that if an offence was determined to have a terrorist connection, the sentences became aggravated and harsher restrictions were imposed, both within prison and on release. I believe that had cross-party support—there was no problem with it.
However, in 2021, the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act came along. The powers in the Sentencing Act related to schedule 1 offences such as murder, kidnapping and hijacking—things that we would naturally consider to be terrorism. The Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act extended the use of that definition to an offence that is
“punishable on indictment with imprisonment for more than 2 years”.
By moving away from a schedule of offences, almost any offence before the Crown court meeting that definition was brought into consideration. For example, protest cases involving damages of more than £5,000 became interpreted as terrorist-connected cases.
When we have had discussions about terrorism, we have always had problems with definition. Lord Carlile did a report for us way back in 2007, and he said that jury trial is one of the guards that can assist in protecting us from the misinterpretation of the range of definition. He said that
“jury trial provides an important protection against prosecutions the public find unreasonable or arbitrary.”
The problem is that the use of this section of the Counter-Terrorism and Sentencing Act 2021 does not involve juries. Such things are not brought before a jury; it is applied only by the judge at sentencing.
As a result, we have found that since late 2024, the provisions in the 2021 Act have been deployed for the first time against protesters. Someone who has possibly committed criminal damage, aggravated burglary or, yes, violent disorder in a protest activity now finds themselves with a terrorist connection allegation. That will never be brought before a jury, because it will be applied only at sentencing. Amnesty International has expressed its concern about direct action protests being subject to the UK’s overly broad definition of terrorism laws, which are
“open to misuse and abuse”.
Four UN rapporteurs have expressed their concerns to the Government about the misuse of the terrorism legislation in this instance. They have said that the legislation is being used against political prisoners, which is raising concerns about the potential infringement of their fundamental rights.
I raise that issue here because an increasing number of cases are being trapped by a misinterpretation of the legislation that we brought forward in 2020 and 2021. That is resulting, I think, in injustices and miscarriages of justice, an anomaly which we will have to address at some point if we do not address in this Bill, to correct a crucial misinterpretation of what this House intended back in 2021.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
The speaking limit is now reduced to four minutes.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
I will not be able to speak to all the amendments that Members have worked so hard on and that I have supported so many times by putting my name to them, but the Members know that I support them. New clauses 21, 25, 13, 18, 10, 43 and, in particular, new clause 122 are all important proposals that the Government should listen to. I do not support new clause 7 from the official Opposition, and I cannot support new clauses 2 and 3, as I do not believe there is any evidence that those measures would help make sex workers safer. We have to respect evidence and listen to sex workers and their voices on these issues.
Principally, I rise today to speak to my new clauses 26, 27, 109, 30 and 49, and new clause 50 from the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel). First, new clause 26 would require the Home Office to publish quarterly data on antisocial behaviour orders, including the number of times that stop-and-search powers were used prior to such orders being issued and the protected characteristics of individuals who receive those orders. That is important scrutiny to make sure the powers are being exercised fairly.
New clause 27 would enable regulations to vary the ability of police forces to use stop-and-search powers. Specifically, it would require the Government to suspend the use of those powers by any police force subject to Engage status under His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services. If a force has reached the point of requiring formal monitoring due to systemic issues, it is right that the most intrusive and abused police powers are subject to heightened scrutiny or even suspension.
New clause 30 would prohibit the deployment and use of certain forms of “predictive” policing technologies, particularly those that rely on automated decision-making, profiling and artificial intelligence, to assess the likelihood that individuals or groups will commit criminal offences. My hon. Friends will recognise that danger. Such technologies, however cleverly sold, will always need to be built on existing, flawed police data, or data from other flawed and biased public and private sources. That means that communities that have historically been over-policed will be more likely to be identified as being “at risk” of future criminal behaviour. As I have always said in the context of facial recognition, questions of accuracy and bias are not the only reason to be against these technologies. At their heart they infringe human rights, including the right to privacy and the right to be presumed innocent.
Michael Wheeler (Worsley and Eccles) (Lab)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, and my membership of the trade union USDAW.
I rise to support new clause 48, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley). Before becoming a Member of Parliament, I was proud to campaign for many years alongside retail workers as part of USDAW’s Freedom From Fear campaign, which successfully highlighted the epidemic of abuse and violence faced by retail workers and brought together workers, employers and sectoral bodies. For years there has been consensus outside this place that something needs to be done, but here there has been no consensus. Warm words did not lead to the necessary action from the last Government. The sacrifices made by retail workers during the pandemic were quickly forgotten, and given that the latest figures from USDAW show that one in 10 retail workers and one in eight delivery drivers have been assaulted at work in the past 12 months, it is well past time for us all to remember that these are frontline workers providing a vital service. That is why the introduction of a new stand-alone offence of assaulting a retail worker is so vital and so welcome.
Too many workers have suffered life-changing injuries while simply trying to enforce the law or provide a service. Upholding age-restricted sales is a key part of their role, bringing with it unique challenges. It is not a small responsibility, but a legal duty that often acts as a flashpoint for abuse. Failure to comply carries serious consequences for the worker, including disciplinary action or prosecution. We in this Chamber put that duty on them, we hold them accountable, and we need to give them the protection that they deserve. The new stand-alone offence will provide a clear deterrent, give prosecutors better tools, and send a powerful message to offenders that abuse will not be tolerated.
Rachel Taylor
I thank my hon. Friend for supporting the new clause and for signing it, along with other Members. Does he agree that our hard-working delivery drivers in the freight and logistics sector also need such backing, given that they often face attacks at knifepoint while delivering what our country needs?
Michael Wheeler
I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention, but I do not need to interrupt my speech, because I am about to deal with exactly that point. New clause 48 would create a specific offence along similar lines to cover delivery workers, which is incredibly welcome. These workers deserve protection just as much as in-store staff. They, too, are required to enforce the law and conduct age checks, and this Bill places additional requirements on them regarding the delivery of knives. But unlike in-store staff, they carry out their work without the safety net of colleagues, security or familiar surroundings. As is the case in Scotland following the passage of the Protection of Workers (Retail and Age-restricted Goods and Services) (Scotland) Act 2021, home delivery drivers must be included. It is only right that delivery workers in England and Wales receive equal protection, which must not stop at the shop door.
We should never underestimate the important contributions of retail workers. They serve our communities, bring essentials to our doors and keep the nation fed. Without them, the country would grind to a halt. New clause 48 provides the opportunity to give retail workers the protection they so obviously deserve, and I urge hon. Members to take that opportunity and to send a clear message from this place that abuse is not part of the job.
Esther McVey
I rise to support new clause 144, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers). On Monday, the Government hastily came to the House to deliver yet another U-turn and to announce a national inquiry into rape gangs. It is apparent that this U-turn was forced on them, because whenever any member of the public or Member of Parliament said that they wanted a national inquiry, the response from the Government was that they were “far right”, “jumping on a bandwagon” or even blowing a “dog whistle”—those were the words used by Ministers on the Front Bench.
This was a hasty U-turn. In fact, those on the Government Front Bench were somewhat taken aback, as it appears that the Prime Minister had appointed Baroness Casey of Blackstock in the hope that the whole thing would go away and that the inquiry would not happen. She said that she changed her mind because of the weight of evidence that confronted her. Her words were, “I think I have surprised people in Downing Street and beyond.” She did, and the clincher was that the local inquiries were inadequate, because local authorities could decide whether they were going to commission an inquiry and the Government would not intervene. She also said that of the five local inquiries, only one came forward—that was in Oldham. There was reluctance from local areas to face up to the facts and to accept their failings. Denial ran through absolutely everything.
Denial is like a poisonous thread: it weaves its way through all public bodies, strangles the truth and stops justice coming forward. It is essential that an investigation is held into all the failings of the police, local authorities, prosecutors, charities and political parties. The Prime Minister himself was in denial until Saturday, when the U-turn was forced upon him. He often brandishes his credentials as the former director of public prosecutions, and in 2014 he penned an article for the Guardian in which he acknowledged that there were at least 1,400 victims, but he did nothing until the U-turn was forced upon him.
We need to ask questions about the statutory inquiry, because the public need to know the answers. Who will chair the inquiry? What type of inquiry will it be? It already seems to have been watered down. Will it be independent, a national inquiry or, as it now seems, a national commission? What are the terms of reference? It is not good enough to say that we will hear “in due course”. What are the inquiry’s powers? That is unclear. Will there be judicial powers to subpoena people to give evidence?
Iqbal Mohamed
I welcome the inquiry and the investigation into who was responsible for helping this scourge to continue unabated, but does the right hon. Lady agree that the 20 recommendations of the Jay review urgently need to be implemented and that the inquiry should not delay the implementation of those recommendations?
Esther McVey
The inquiry should not delay that, but the inquiry needs to be done with speed and haste, not be watered down and not brushed under the carpet, because it is essential that the victims’ voices are heard and that they have justice.
The House also needs assurance there will be no exemptions from prosecution in exchange for evidence. It needs to know if witnesses can be compelled to produce documents protected by public interest immunity. When will that happen? It is not good enough that the Home Secretary was saying that it would be three years away, close to a general election. It needs to be done as soon as possible. I also wonder why it will be a statutory inquiry, not a criminal inquiry. Is it because a criminal inquiry can lead to arrest, charges and criminal prosecutions, whereas a statutory inquiry tends to make a series of recommendations to then be acted on? At the end of this inquiry, will we see prosecutions? Will we see deportations?
Time and again, we heard that community cohesion was put above working-class girls. That cannot ever happen again. That issues were not investigated for fear of people being labelled racist cannot ever happen again. If somebody does wrong, the colour of their skin or their religion do not matter: they have done wrong. If they have committed a criminal act it is right that they are brought to justice. This Government will not get away with a watered-down national inquiry. They have been dragged kicking and screaming to deliver a national inquiry. That national inquiry needs to be delivered.
Jacob Collier (Burton and Uttoxeter) (Lab)
I rise to speak in strong support of new clause 122, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor). I am proud to be the first signatory to it, as I believe it represents a vital step forward in the protection of some of the most marginalised people in our society.
New clause 122 would amend the Crime and Policing Bill to create aggravated offences where the underlying crime is motivated by hostility because of a person’s sexual orientation, transgender identity, disability or perceived identity. It would align the legal treatment of those forms of hate with the framework that already exists for racially and religiously aggravated offences. It delivers on a promise, a promise that we in the Labour party made in our manifesto to the British people: that we would act to close the gap in our hate crime laws and provide equal protection to LGBT+ people and disabled people in the criminal justice system. It is about living up to our values. Labour is the party of equality, fairness before the law and standing with those whose voices have too often been ignored. That is why I joined the Labour party and this amendment is rooted in that tradition.
It is also fitting that we are tabling this new clause in Pride Month and in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling which has caused so much anguish among the trans community. We know the scale of the problem. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation have risen by 112% over the last five years. Against trans people, that figure is 186%. The charity Galop, which supports LGBT+ victims of abuse, saw a 60% increase in referrals in the last year alone. In the year ending March 2024, 11,719 disability hate crime incidents were reported. Shamefully, just 1% of that hate crime involving violence resulted in a charge.
And yet, still, the majority of incidents go unreported. Too many victims still believe the system is not on their side. New clause 122 gives us the opportunity to change that. It would give police and prosecutors a clearer route to charge and convict offenders in a way that truly reflects the nature of these crimes. I know what it means to think twice about how you walk down a street, to pause before holding someone’s hand, and to wonder whether that shout from across the road is something that you can ignore or that you cannot afford to ignore. And I know I am not alone in that. I have spoken to my constituents and to people from far beyond, who tell me they do not feel safe reporting hate when it happens. They do not believe they will be taken seriously. There is a profound failure of trust, one that we in this House have a duty to repair.
This is also about dignity. It is about recognising that, whether you are a trans teenager being punched in a park, a gay couple being spat at on the tube, or a disabled man being harassed on his way to work, all people deserve the full protection of the law. They deserve to know that this country is on their side, and that if they are targeted for who they are, justice will not look the other way. New clause 122 would provide vital protection for disabled people, who remain far too invisible in the public conversation around hate crime despite facing damaging harassment, violence and abuse every single day.
This change is recommended by the Law Commission and supported by Stonewall, Galop and Disability Rights UK. I am proud that it is backed by 104 right hon. and hon. Members across the House. People are simply asking to live their lives in peace and have the right support when things go wrong. I hope we can take a step forward in advancing LGBT+ rights and disability rights today.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I am proud to follow the hon. Member for Burton and Uttoxeter (Jacob Collier), who made an incredibly powerful speech.
If people do not feel safe in their neighbourhoods, those neighbourhoods will not thrive; children are denied their independence because parents fear letting them walk to school or play in the park, while businesses suffer from not only the financial impact of shoplifting and worries about the safety of their workers, but the reluctance of customers—especially the elderly—who do not feel safe going out to those shops. When trust between different parts of our community breaks down, the very fabric of our society is weakened. To lead good lives, we all need to feel safe. I therefore welcome the Government’s mission for safer streets and the commitment in their manifesto, which rightly stated:
“Visible neighbourhood policing was the cornerstone of the British consent-based model. In too many areas it has been eroded, leaving the police a reactive service focused on crisis response, rather than preventing crime.”
However, actions speak louder than words.
While the promise of thousands of extra police officers is welcome, the National Police Chiefs’ Council has made clear that the amount
“falls far short of what is required to fund the Government’s ambitions”
and maintain the existing workforce. It fully supports the Government’s drive to cut crime and grow officer numbers, but says that for those goals to succeed,
“investment in policing must live up to the ambition.”
Let me bring this closer to home. Dorset is one of the lowest-funded police forces in the country, and I, too, am sad that the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) is not present to hear me say that I agree with his concerns about the funding formula. I am pleased that Dorset’s crime levels are lower than in many other areas, and accept that areas that face daily serious crime need the investment. However, our small, semi-rural towns and villages often feel completely forgotten.
In communities across Mid Dorset and North Poole, organised shoplifting is now on the rise. Offenders know the chances of being caught are slim. I welcome the Bill’s inclusion of the offence of assaulting a retail worker on behalf of Michelle, Nicola and Lewis, who have all written to me. One was told by a shoplifter who had been apprehended in her shop,
“I know where you live.”
However, this new offence is meaningless without enough police officers embedded in our neighbourhood. Another retailer told me:
“We have extensive CCTV, headsets, alarm systems, panic buttons and ANPR cameras”
but the individuals involved have no
“respect or fear of police action.”
They realise that the police are not equipped to tackle it, and do not believe the Government think it is “politically important”.
Dorset is home to award-winning beaches, a world heritage coastline and many historic towns and villages. We are less than two hours from London, the home counties and the midlands. Our population swells in the summer, putting huge pressure on police services, yet there is no recognition in police budgets of the need to boost police numbers to reflect the seasonal demand. That is why I support new clauses 85 and 86 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), which would require minimum levels of neighbourhood policing. Towns like Wimborne and Wareham should not have their resources stripped to support larger coastal towns.
I am also proud to support new clause 122, which would make offences aggravated when motivated by hostility towards sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability. We live in an increasingly divided society, and division and hate in the virtual world are fuelling real-world crime. LGBT+ people are four times more likely to experience violence than their straight counterparts; disabled adults are three times more likely to experience domestic abuse; and half of all transgender people have been sexually assaulted at least once in their lifetime.
That is why I cannot support new clause 7, which would remove the recording and retention of non-crime hate incidents. If we stopped recording those incidents, what would I say to my constituent Samreena, who told me:
“I fled domestic violence. I am a practising Muslim and wear a hijab. Since the day I arrived, I have faced…problems because of my religious identity”?
She says that going to parks, taking the bus and going shopping all feels like a “war zone”. We want safe streets and safe homes, but they will be safe only if they are safe for everyone.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I intend to start Front-Bench speeches at around 5.25 pm.
Paul Davies (Colne Valley) (Lab)
It is completely unacceptable for anyone to face abuse, harassment or discrimination due to their race, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation or gender identity. Hate crimes have a profound and lasting impact on their victims, as they target the very essence of who a person is.
In the year ending March 2024, over 26,000 hate crimes based on sexual orientation and nearly 5,000 targeting transgender individuals were recorded in England and Wales. These are not just statistics. These are real people, and they represent real trauma and a systemic failure to protect some of the most marginalised members of our society. We have seen this in my constituency with an appalling homophobic attack on a young man outside a local pub only this April. That is why I strongly support new clause 122, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor).
The new clause would create statutory aggravated offences for crimes motivated by hostility towards a person’s sexual orientation, transgender identity or disability—or even the perception of these characteristics. It would also extend protection to those targeted because of their association with individuals from these communities. This amendment is a vital step in recognising the specific harm caused by hate-motivated offences. It ensures that perpetrators of such crimes, whether they involve physical violence, harassment or criminal damage, are held fully accountable under law. It sends a clear message that hate has no place in our society, and that the law will reflect that.
While the amendment strengthens the legal framework, we must acknowledge that legislation alone cannot dismantle prejudice. We must go further. First, we must improve reporting mechanisms. Many LGBTQ and disabled individuals do not report hate crimes due to the fear of being dismissed or retraumatised. Police forces must build trust through community engagement and training that reflects the lived experience of those most affected.
Secondly, we must invest in education. Hatred is not innate; it is learned. Schools must be empowered to deliver inclusive curricula that promote empathy, respect and understanding from an early age. Education is our most powerful tool in preventing hate before it takes root.
Thirdly, we must ensure that support services for victims are fully funded and accessible. That includes mental health support, legal aid and safe spaces for those recovering from trauma. Victims must know that they are not alone and that help is available.
My message is clear: everyone has the right to feel safe, and we must collectively adopt a zero-tolerance stance against hate crime. This amendment is not just a legal reform but a moral imperative, and for us it is a manifesto promise. It reflects the values of the Labour party and wider society, which consist of dignity, equality and justice for all. Let us pass this amendment and continue the work of building a country where everyone can live free from fear and hatred.
Madam Deputy Speaker
I call Shockat Adam to make the final Back-Bench speech.
Shockat Adam
I would like to speak briefly to the issue of live facial recognition and new clauses 21 and 22 in my name. New clause 21 calls for a ban on live facial recognition because it is not safe, lacks legal legitimacy and is an attack on the fundamental democratic rights of the British people. It is the choice of authoritarian states and dictators and should have no place in British policing, which I remind the Minister is still by consent.
The technology is not safe. It was described by the Court of Appeal as “novel and controversial”. Academics have shown that the technology makes mistakes in the recognition of darker-skinned women in 21% to 35% of cases, yet 99% of light-skinned men were identified correctly. Caucasian females are also not safe—just ask Danielle Horan, who was escorted out of not one but two Home Bargains stores due to an apparent facial recognition mix-up. It is no wonder that the Court of Appeal, in striking down the south Wales experiment, ruled it a breach of public sector equalities duties in failing to recognise possible bias in the algorithms.
Facial recognition lacks legal legitimacy by operating under vague common law powers, unlike DNA or fingerprints. It is also an attack on hard-won democratic rights, undermining the principle that people should not be forced to identify themselves to police without suspicion. It has been used to monitor protesters, thus deterring lawful participation and threatening free assembly, which are some of our most important and enshrined civil liberties. Just ask the protesters picked up in Russia’s underground train stations or protesters and Uyghurs in China. The Government must think again.
New clause 22 calls for broader safeguards on automated decision making to ensure that law enforcement does not solely rely on AI algorithms and that there is always human review of its use. The new clause also calls for transparency, for the rights of people both to know what information is held about them and to contest decisions made by any AI, and to stop abuse by putting in the necessary checks. Those checks must meet high global standards, recommended by human rights organisations, and the best practice standards of our neighbours in the EU. Without human safeguards, the Government are ushering in a “Minority Report” world—a potential dystopia where the computer simply says no and there is nothing we as individuals can do about it.
Unamended, the Bill is dangerous and intrusive and breaks the fundamental contract between the British people and the police, along with the fundamental right to be considered innocent until proven otherwise. For those who think that that will never happen here, please take a look across the Atlantic. It certainly can happen here. It is time for the Government to admit that they have got this wrong. It is a sign of a strong, not a weak, Government if they listen to the evidence and change course as a result. Live facial recognition is not the answer and will cause more problems than it claims to solve. It needs to go.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
Our communities have been plagued by crime and antisocial behaviour for too long. Change is clearly needed after the former Conservative Government failed to get even the basics right on stopping and solving crime. More than 4,500 police community support officers have been taken off the streets since 2015, and more than 2 million crimes went unsolved across England and Wales in 2024. Even though there are many measures that we welcome in this wide-ranging Bill—we have heard some impassioned speeches today and I look forward to voting in favour of some changes—it remains the case that opportunities for the Government to take real action in a number of areas, from cracking down on sewage dumping and rural crime to supporting a real return to proper neighbourhood policing, have not been taken.
I will focus my remarks on the amendments in my name. The previous Conservative Government let water companies get away with pumping sewage into our rivers and on to our beaches for years, creating an environmental crisis and a public health emergency while the companies’ executives handed themselves huge bonuses. This Government have taken some steps in the right direction, but in our opinion, they have not gone nearly far enough. Everyone deserves the right to enjoy clean, safe rivers in their local communities, yet our waterways have been polluted, often with impunity, by water companies that operate under weak regulation and with the complicity of a negligent Conservative Government, who voted time and again throughout the last Parliament against tougher action on sewage dumping.
The scale of the crisis is undeniable. According to the Government’s own data, there were more than 500,000 sewage spills in 2024 alone, releasing 3.6 million hours’ worth of sewage into our rivers and coastal waters. Today, just 14% of rivers and lakes in the UK are in good ecological health, and despite that environmental failure, water company executives pocketed £20 million in pay and bonuses in the 2023-24 financial year. That is a damning reflection of a system that rewards pollution and punishes the public with higher bills and dirtier rivers. In my Hazel Grove constituency, sewage discharges into water bodies last year cumulatively lasted for almost 200 days. At the Otterspool Road outflow alone, sewage flowed into the beautiful River Goyt for more than 1,000 hours.
The Liberal Democrats have pushed, and will continue to push, to hold the companies and their leadership to account. I particularly commend my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Charlie Maynard) for his efforts in holding Thames Water to account for its failures. Last year, a Liberal Democrat amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill suggested creating an offence of failing to meet pollution performance commitment levels, but it was defeated by the Conservative Government. As we have scrutinised this Bill, it is clear that we are again witnessing a Government that do not go far enough to reform a broken water industry or hold polluters to account. Lib Dems have a plan to do exactly that.
With new clause 87, we would create a new offence of failing to meet pollution commitment levels, while new clause 88 would create senior manager liability for failure to meet those commitment levels. If this Government are serious about ending the national scandal of sewage dumping, they really should stop shielding those responsible and start delivering real accountability.
Luke Taylor
Was my hon. Friend as surprised as I was to hear the contribution from the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), who seemed to ridicule the concept of having a minimum level of policing for communities, which would surely protect them and help to prevent thefts of farm equipment, which was the example he gave in his speech.
Lisa Smart
I do not know why anybody would be against a minimum level of neighbourhood policing. It was in this Government’s manifesto that they wanted to see a proper restoration of neighbourhood policing. It is the model that has the most trust and the most support from my community—and, I am pretty sure, everybody’s community—and it seems daft, frankly, to oppose such a measure.
Ben Obese-Jecty
At no point did I say that I was against minimum levels of neighbourhood policing. I merely pointed out that the Liberal Democrats’ new clause is simply not good enough in articulating that point. This is where I would encourage the Liberal Democrats to put pressure on the Policing Minister to change the police allocation formula.
Lisa Smart
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for timing his arrival to the Chamber so beautifully—that is a skill. I agree with him about the importance of neighbourhood policing. I also agree that the funding formula should put enough weight behind neighbourhood policing so that all our communities that need that strong neighbourhood policing get it. [Interruption.] I cannot hear the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), who is speaking from a sedentary position, but I would be delighted to take an intervention.
Nick Timothy
I was inviting the hon. Lady to withdraw what she and her colleague said about my hon. Friend, because it was incorrect.
Lisa Smart
I do not recall mentioning the hon. Member’s hon. Friend; I said that somebody saying that it was incorrect to have minimum levels of neighbourhood policing was daft, and I hold to that belief.
New clauses 83 and 84 relate to rural crime. In rural areas, organised gangs target farm machinery, vehicles and GPS equipment, the cost of which soared to more than £52 million in 2023, according to the National Farmers’ Union. And I heard for myself, when I met local farmers recently, about the impact that organised fly-tipping and equipment theft have. I must applaud the work of my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Ben Maguire), who has been remarkably effective in pushing the Government on this area. In particular, he secured from the Home Secretary a commitment to establish a new rural and wildlife crime strategy, which of course is welcome. Liberal Democrat new clauses 83 and 84 would extend the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 to explicitly include the theft of GPS equipment and establish a rural crime taskforce to ensure that the new rural and wildlife crime strategy can be as effective as possible.
Something that is discussed often in this House is a duty of candour, and its introduction is a commitment that I welcome from this Government. Justice must be accessible to all, and survivors should never have their trauma compounded by Governments and courts that fail to uncover the truth and hold those responsible to account—as happened after the Hillsborough disaster. It continues to be deeply disappointing to see how slow this Government have been in implementing a legal duty of candour.
New clause 89 would ensure that police officers must be open and honest in all investigations and oversight processes, sharing relevant information proactively and truthfully. Failure to do so would lead to misconduct charges, including serious consequences for intentional or reckless breaches.
Too many police officers are struggling to access the mental health support they need, with a growing number on mental health leave as a result, so new clause 90 seeks to deal with that issue. We would require every police force to ensure that all police get proper training on how to deal with that.
I will conclude by commending my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) on his work on new clause 43. He is dressed in the colours of all parties, representing the cross-party work he has carried out to get support for it. I urge the Government and colleagues across the House to back that new clause and the changes that I have outlined so that our communities get the action they so urgently need.
Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)
I may have said it yesterday, but it cannot be said enough: once again, I pay tribute to the hard work of police officers, PCSOs and police staff across the country. They put themselves in harm’s way every day to keep our streets safe, under immense pressure. I hope that every Member across the House will join me in thanking them for their service.
Yesterday I mentioned the Opposition’s support for many of the measures in the Bill, although given that the vast majority are carried over from the previous Government’s Criminal Justice Bill, it is probably no great surprise. Enforcing the Bill will require resources. I have already outlined concerns about funding for our police forces and the devastating impact that will have on frontline police numbers. I asked that question of the Minister yesterday, and I am not quite sure I heard an answer. Will the Minister confirm whether there will be more police officers at the end of this Parliament than the record high levels achieved by the last Government in March 2024? [Interruption.] Yes, the highest number on record.
I turn to new clause 130, which relates to tool theft, and I declare an interest as the son of a builder.
Matt Vickers
He is not a toolmaker, no.
Tool theft is completely out of control, and I know the impact it has on people’s lives. Research from Direct Line shows that 45,000 tool thefts were reported to the police in a single year, amounting to one every 12 minutes. This country is built on the back of our tradesmen—they are the small businesses that make a huge contribution to our economy and literally build the world around us. Just imagine getting up at daft o’clock to go to work and earn a living, leaving the house only to find your van has been completely raided and all the tools stolen. The ability to work is stolen as well. The impact is huge: it is not only the cost of replacing the stolen tools, but days of lost work and disappointed customers, many of whom may have taken a day off work themselves. The issue is made worse still when tradesmen go to car boot sales only to see stolen equipment being sold in broad daylight, with no action taken by the authorities.
In recent months I have been campaigning alongside tradesmen for real action on this issue. Just last week the Leader of the Opposition and my hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr French) met tradesmen, businesses and the police to hear at first hand about the impact. We heard from campaigners, including the gas expert Shoaib Awan and Frankie from On The Tools, alongside affected businesses such as Checkatrade, Balfour Beatty and BT Openreach.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
If the Conservatives had won a 15th year in government, would they have started to tackle this epidemic?
Matt Vickers
One of the things we were doing was putting record funding into policing and putting a record number of police on the streets. The one thing we were not doing was taxing our police forces off the streets. We were making huge progress.
I would also like to mention Sergeant Dave Catlow of the Metropolitan police, who joined us last week. He is doing great work on this issue.
New clause 130 proposes three key changes. First, fines for perpetrators would equate to the cost of replacing equipment, repairing the damage caused and the loss of work. Secondly, theft of tools would be treated as an aggravated offence, meaning tougher sentences for the crooks who steal tradesmen’s vital equipment. Finally, councils would be required to put in place an enforcement plan to crack down on the sale of stolen tools at car boot sales.
I will also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) for her campaigning on this issue. I know how much she, too, wants to see action on tool theft. As the Minister knows, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) brought the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023 through the House. It could make a real difference on this issue. Will the Minister confirm when the Government will table a statutory instrument to put it into action?
I turn to non-crime hate incidents. New clause 7 would change legislation and guidance to remove the recording and retention of non-crime hate incidents. The use of non-crime hate incidents has spiralled out of all control and well beyond its originally intended purpose. The deal should be simple: if the law is broken, justice must be served. But non-crime hate incidents are a different beast—you did not break the law; you just said something daft and ended up logged on police records like a criminal. We need our police on the streets, not policing hurty words on Twitter. We have all seen the utterly barmy story of a nine-year-old who insulted another pupil in the playground. Is that unkind? Yes, of course it is. But instead of a quiet word with a teacher or a call to the parents, the police were brought in. I appeal to Members across the House—would they want that happening to their child, or would they rather give them a proper telling-off at home?
This also has a bigger effect. Our police officers are being tied up documenting playground spats and Twitter comments, treating childish jibes like national security threats, while real crimes such as burglary, robbery and even violent offences are being pushed to the back of the queue. In fact, research from Policy Exchange has found that, nationally, over 60,000 police hours are being spent on non-crime hate incidents. Our police need to get back to keeping our streets safe, not policing silly words or childish playground issues.
Before concluding my remarks, I would like to draw the House’s attention to some of the Opposition’s other amendment that could protect our communities and keep our streets safe. We would have been voting today on new clause 144 to secure that national statutory inquiry into grooming gangs—a scandal that is our country’s shame. Child sexual exploitation ruins lives; preying on the most vulnerable in our communities, exploiting them for horrific sexual acts and often coercing them into a life of crime. A national inquiry is what the victims wanted, so I am glad that the Prime Minister has finally U-turned, given into the pressure and joined what he described as the far-right bandwagon of people who wanted a national inquiry.
As the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, we must not have another whitewash. The national inquiry must ask the hard questions and leave no stone unturned. Criminal investigations must run in parallel to the inquiry. It must look at the whole system—Whitehall, the Crown Prosecution Service, the police and local authorities—and wherever there is wrongdoing, there should be prosecutions. Foreign perpetrators must be immediately deported, and the inquiry must be fully independent, with statutory powers covering all relevant towns. Local councils simply cannot be left to investigate themselves.
New clause 125 aims to reinstate people’s confidence in policing. We have recently seen the perverse anti-racism commitment issued by the National Police Chiefs’ Council. It calls for arrest rates to be artificially engineered to be the same across racial groups. Advice to treat black and white suspects differently is morally indefensible. It is, by definition, two-tier policing. It undermines trust and confidence in our police. This new clause would give the Home Secretary the power to amend or require the withdrawal of any code of practice intended to direct policing practices.
New clause 139 makes provisions in relation to off-road bikes. I know many Members across the House know the havoc being caused by them in local communities. The issue has been raised by Members on both sides of the House numerous times in Westminster Hall and in this place, and the tweak in approach that features in this Bill will simply not be enough. Using alternative legislation, the police are already able to seize off-road bikes without notice. The new clause would remove the prohibition on the police entering a private dwelling to confiscate an off-road bike and ensure that police destroyed seized bikes rather than selling them back into the market. I urge the Minister—in fact, I beg her—to look again comprehensively at how we tackle the scourge of off-road bikes.
I would also like to draw the House’s attention to new clause 131, which would introduce mandatory deportation for foreign nationals found in possession of child sexual abuse images. These sick paedophiles have no place in our country and they, along with all foreign offenders, should be deported.
To conclude, the British people want our police to be able to focus on putting real criminals behind bars—the thieves who nick our hard-working tradesmen’s tools—not spending time policing playground squabbles and treating them like crimes. Our Opposition new clauses are common-sense changes that I hope the whole House will get behind, protecting victims and restoring policing to what it is meant to be: tackling crime on our streets.
The Minister for Policing and Crime Prevention (Dame Diana Johnson)
I thank all hon. and right hon. Members, including the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Staffordshire Moorlands (Dame Karen Bradley), and the Chair of the Justice Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Chiswick (Andy Slaughter) who have taken part in the debate, and in particular those who have brought forward new clauses. There are well over 100 new clauses in this group, so I am sure the House will appreciate that, sadly, I will not be able to cover them all. I will do my best in the time remaining to respond to as many as I can.
Amanda Martin
I thank the Minister for acknowledging how tool theft affects people’s lives. Does she agree that this is not just about police on our streets and arrests, but about sentencing, and will she work with me, across Departments, to ensure that the aggravated circumstances powers that the courts already have reflect the real cost of such crime?
Dame Diana Johnson
Yes, I am very happy to do that. I congratulate my hon. Friend on taking this campaign forward and on being such a worthy advocate for it. We take the issue very seriously and we are fully committed to implementing the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023. We are finalising our plans for commencement and we will update the House in due course.
Dame Diana Johnson
I am going to keep going, because I am conscious that I do not have much time.
To reiterate to the shadow Minister what I said in Committee, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has been clear that a consistent and common-sense approach must be taken with non-crime hate incidents. Accordingly, it has been agreed with the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing that they will conduct a review of this area. I say to the shadow Minister that it was the shadow Home Secretary, when he was the Policing Minister, who introduced the current code of practice and police guidance on non-crime hate incidents. He said:
“The Government fully recognises the importance of ensuring that vulnerable individuals, groups and communities continue to be protected by the police; indeed, this is the purpose of non-crime hate incident recording. We are confident that the code does precisely this.”
It seems odd that he said that the approach was right at that stage, but now he wants to scrap it.
On new clause 144, I was disappointed that the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) seemed to have missed the announcement made by the Home Secretary on Monday, which answered a number of her questions. The shadow Minister did not seem to be aware of the announcement either. Using existing legislation in the Inquiries Act 2005, the independent commission will be set up under a national inquiry with full powers to compel individuals to testify, with the aim of holding institutions to account for current and historic failures in their response to group-based child sexual exploitation. The Home Secretary was clear that she is accepting all the recommendations from Baroness Casey.
Dame Diana Johnson
No, I am going to carry on.
The hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) mentioned new clauses 87 and 88. This Government have been clear that water companies must accelerate action to reduce pollution to the environment. The Water (Special Measures) Act, which received Royal Assent earlier this year, significantly strengthens the power of the regulators and delivers on the Government’s commitment to put failing water companies under special measures. Among other measures, the Act introduced automatic penalties on polluters and banned bonuses for water company executives if they fail to meet adequate standards.
Dame Diana Johnson
No.
On new clauses 85 and 86 about neighbourhood policing, it is clear that this Government are starting to implement our neighbourhood policing guarantee.
On new clause 13, introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Riverside (Kim Johnson), the Government recognise the serious consequences that can result from joint enterprise convictions. However, joint enterprise ensures that those who act together in committing a crime are all held responsible. We saw that in the cases of Ben Kinsella and Garry Newlove, as well as many others. We are aware of the concerns raised by my hon. Friend and we will continue to look at that.
I apologise to right hon. and hon. Members for not being able to get through all 100 amendments that were tabled. I also need to leave time for the person whose new clause leads the group to respond.
Tonia Antoniazzi
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the new clause.
New clause 2, by leave, withdrawn.
New Clause 7
Abolition of non-crime hate incidents
“(1) Non-crime hate incidents as a special category of incident to be recognised by police authorities are abolished. Reporting, recording and investigation of such incidents should occur only in the limited circumstances provided for in this section.
(2) For the purposes of Article 6(1) of the UK GDPR, section 35 of the Data Protection Act 2018 (“the Act”) and Article 8 of the Law Enforcement Directive, the processing of relevant data by a police authority is unlawful.
(3) In this section, “relevant data” means personal data relating to the conduct or alleged of a data subject which is unlikely to constitute criminal conduct and which has been perceived by another person to be motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility or prejudice towards one or more persons who have or who are or have been perceived to have one or more relevant characteristics and with that hostility or prejudice arising due to that or the perception of those protected characteristics.
(4) For the purposes of subsection (3), the following are relevant characteristics—
(a) race,
(b) religion,
(c) sexual orientation,
(d) disability,
(e) transgender identity.
(5) Subsection (2) does not apply in respect of the processing of relevant data—
(a) pursuant to an ongoing criminal investigation or prosecution,
(b) for the purposes of the internal administrative functions of the police authority.
(6) Subsection (2) does not apply in respect of the retention of a record (a “non-crime perception record”) of relevant data where a police officer (the “certifying officer”) of the rank of inspector or above certifies that in their opinion the retention of the non-crime perception record is likely materially to assist in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct which may occur in the future.
(7) Where a certifying officer certifies the retention of a non-crime perception record pursuant to subsection (6)—
(a) the certifying officer must include in the record a description of the future criminal conduct they have in mind and the reasons they believe that the retention of the record may assist in its detection or prevention,
(b) the relevant data which may be retained as part of the record may be no more than the certifying officer believes is likely materially to assist in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct,
(c) a copy of the record must be expeditiously provided to the data subject unless an officer of the of the rank of superintendent or above certifies that—
(i) the provision of the record to the data subject may interfere in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct, or
(ii) the officer is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable to provide a copy of the record to the data subject.
(8) If the data subject objects to the retention of the non-crime perception record, subsection (6) does not apply unless a police officer of the rank of superintendent or above certifies that in their opinion the retention of the non-crime perception record is likely materially to assist in the detection or prevention of criminal conduct which may occur in the future.
(9) No police authority or police officer can be held under any circumstances to be under any duty to undertake the retention of any relevant data.
(10) After subsection 113B(3) of the Police Act 1997 insert—
“(3A) An enhanced criminal record certificate must not give the details of a relevant matter to the extent that doing so would result in the disclosure of relevant data as defined in section (The retention by the police of non-crime perception records) of the Crime and Policing Act 2025.”
(11) For subsection 39A(3) of the Police Act 1996 substitute—
“(3) No part of any Code of Practice issued by the College of Policing may be in a form which could be issued by the Secretary of State pursuant to section 60 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.”
(12) Section 60 the 2022 Act is to be amended as follows—
(a) the cross heading to be changed to “Non-crime perception records”,
(b) the section heading to be changed to “Code of practice relating to non-crime perception records”,
(c) in subsection (1) leave out from “by” to the end of the subsection and insert “of relevant data”,
(d) omit subsection (2),
(e) in subsection (3)(a), leave out “personal data relating to a hate incident” and insert “relevant data”,
(f) in subsections (3)(b), (c), (d) and (e), for “such personal data” substitute “relevant data”,
(g) in subsection (4)(a), for “personal data” substitute “relevant data”,
(h) in subsection (4)(b), leave out “personal data relating to the alleged perpetrator of a hate incident” and insert “relevant data relating to the alleged perpetrator”,
(i) in subsection (7), at end, insert “relevant data” has the meaning given by section (The retention by the police of non-crime perception records) of the Crime and Policing Act 2025”.
(13) Any code of practice previously issued under section 60 of the 2022 Act is deemed to be withdrawn.
(14) Within three months of the commencement of each calendar year, each police authority which is retaining non-crime perception records must—
(a) undertake a review of the relevant data by an independent person to ensure that any retention of such records is in compliance with the provisions of this section.
(b) publish a report in respect of the review prepared by the independent person including setting—
(i) the total number of non-crime perception records retained by the police authority;
(ii) the total number of data subject to which those records relate; and
(iii) the equivalent numbers of those records added in the previous year.
(15) In this section—
(a) “a police authority” means—
(i) a person specified or described in paragraphs 5 to 17 of Schedule 7 of the Act,
(ii) a person acting under the authority of such a person,
(b) the terms “data subject”, “processing” and “the UK GDPR” have the same meanings as under section 3 of the Act,
(c) “the Law Enforcement Directive” means the Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament,
(d) “the 2022 Act” means the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022.”—(Matt Vickers.)
Brought up, and read the First time.
Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.
Delegated Legislation
Anti-Stab and Anti-Slash Protective Gear in Prisons
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Gateshead South) (Lab)
I rise to present this petition in the light of recent horrific attacks on prison officers by inmates. Debate about whether prison officers should all be provided with anti-stab and anti-slash gear has been brought to the forefront of political discussion recently. We know that attacks can happen in any prison, as it did to my very brave constituent Claire Lewis, who as a result set up a Change.org petition calling for mandatory protective gear—it currently has 32,000 signatures. We must ensure that this is available to all officers, not just those working in high-security prisons.
The petition states:
“The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the concerns of the petitioners and take immediate action to ensure that all prison officers are equipped with mandatory anti-stab and anti-slash protective gear to keep them safe from violent prisoners.
And the petitioners remain, etc.”
Following is the full text of the petition:
[The petition of residents of the constituency of Washington and Gateshead South
Declares that the government and prison authorities should make anti-stab and anti-slash protective gear mandatory for all prison officers. There is also a separate online petition on this issue, which has generated over 32,000 signatures.
The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to take into account the concerns of the petitioners and take immediate action to ensure that all prison officers are equipped with mandatory anti-stab and anti-slash protective gear to keep them safe from violent prisoners.
And the petitioners remain, etc.]
[P003083]
Post-industrial Towns
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
The post-industrial towns of the red wall areas are dying on their feet. Our young people are moving away, never to return, to the cities, to London and to the surrounding commuter towns, for good jobs, skills and higher pay. The good apprenticeships are too few, and we have low-skilled populations who are growing older, with higher health demands on our NHS and care services. Aspiration levels have plummeted and there is a collective mindset that says people have to move out in order to get on.
All too often such towns have been ignored by successive Governments when wealth building or investment initiatives have been brought forward, and disregarded because they are on the “too difficult to do” list. This Government are the first in over a generation to be rebuilding our economy through the development of a strategic plan. This is the end of the free market being allowed to run free, with patchy Government intervention and growth ambitions reliant more on hope and prayers. The left-behind towns in red wall areas, such as Bassetlaw, will have their locked-in potential unleashed and will become wealth builders only through a national industrial strategy that aligns itself to their future.
As deputy leader with responsibility for regeneration at Bassetlaw council at the time, I remember the last attempt to develop a strategy, under Prime Minister Theresa May. We heard lots of warm words at all levels of government, including mine, but then there was silence—it went nowhere. Now is our opportunity to define a strategy that aligns itself to our national priorities and feeds into the ambitions and vision of local areas such as Bassetlaw.
Alex Ballinger (Halesowen) (Lab)
The Black Country forged the steel that built Britain. Places such as Cradley Heath in Halesowen still have that pride and passion in their towns. Does my hon. Friend agree that the industrial strategy should focus on aerospace, defence and manufacturing so that places like ours can be revitalised because of this Labour Government?
Jo White
I agree with my hon. Friend. We have to invest in areas like his and mine to rebuild those jobs and our industry. Such areas in our constituencies must become the engines of the future.
In Bassetlaw we have just welcomed the award of £2.5 billion for the development of fusion energy in north Nottinghamshire. In addition, £30 million has been committed to Doncaster airport to kick-start it as it reopens. The closure of Doncaster airport in November 2022 was devastating for the city and surrounding areas. The commitment from this Government will get the airport reopened, attract businesses to the area and see the economy grow, meaning there will be new jobs across the region, including in Bassetlaw.
Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)
My hon. Friend tempts me to intervene because she knows how passionate and driven I am to see Doncaster-Sheffield airport open, revitalised and ready to take flights in the near future. That will bring new jobs, prosperity and longer-term ambition for the young people who live in the area. Does she agree that the Government support to help develop skills in the local area, around aviation, logistics and green technologies, is exactly what we need?
Jo White
I totally agree with my hon. Friend. I want young people in my constituency to think about the wider opportunities, including what is happening at Doncaster airport. Approximately 800 jobs were lost, which impacted people who live in Bassetlaw, but I am very supportive of what is coming forward.
Several hon. Members rose—
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that further education is integral to turbocharging the skills revolution that we need? Every area in the country should have strong provision in further education, particularly, as is the case in my constituency, through providers such as West Notts college, rather than solely relying on universities?
Jo White
I very much agree and will refer to that later in my contribution. For too long people have moved away to university and never come back. We need good apprenticeships aligned to our local FE colleges. They have to be a part of the engine of the future and our industrial strategy has to focus on that as well as where businesses go in the future.
Luke Myer (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
My community in East Cleveland was once home to the ironstone mines and the steelworks that helped build this great country, but I often speak to steelworkers who say that when they left school they had a guaranteed job for life and this is not the case any more. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a role for our combined authorities to play not just in creating jobs but in having a skills strategy that guarantees decent, well-paid jobs for our young people years into the future?
Lillian Jones (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab)
My constituency has a proud industrial heritage and is renowned for the rich diversity of its industrial output during the 19th century. We had the world famous Johnnie Walker whisky plant which was linked to Kilmarnock for more than 190 years, Saxone, a shoe manufacturing and retail company, Massey Ferguson, producer of tractors and combine harvesters across the world, and BMK, a major carpet manufacturer which played a prominent role in Kilmarnock’s industrial landscape, even producing the red carpet for Queen Elizabeth’s wedding in 1947 and carpets for the movie “Titanic”. Does my hon. Friend agree that while these industries have, sadly, gone, post-industrial towns across Ayrshire do have a bright future and that there is potential for exciting developments in aerospace, renewable energy, AI and data centres to name just a few sectors, driven by a modern industrial strategy to support long-term sustainable growth?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. I spoke to her beforehand and know exactly what she is after, and we all support her in that. The remnants of factories—I think of my old crepe weavers factory in Newtownards and Strangford as one example—are a reminder of the decline of industrial units in the textile sector in particular, and the impact of that on the local economy. Does the hon. Lady agree that greater investment in rebuilding these vacant spaces must come? We welcome the Labour Government’s commitment to that strategy, and does the hon. Lady also agree that making the change that really matters must come from here at Westminster?
Jo White
I totally agree. This Government are making the change. We are being strategic and we know what our future is. We cannot rely on the market as we move forward. It is absolutely essential that we think about growing the economy, ensuring that wealth lies in the hands of the people who live in those communities so that we can build our lives back again.
I want to agree with all the interventions that have just been made—
Jo White
Absolutely. [Laughter.] We are going to have no disagreement whatsoever because what we need is a Government who will deliver the jobs and skills that have already been identified. While the investment into STEP—spherical tokamak for energy production—fusion in north Nottinghamshire has the potential in time to unlock new skills, jobs and opportunities that will completely change the industrial landscape of my area for years to come, my demand of Government is an industrial strategy that encompasses and prioritises the left-behind areas.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
Will my hon. Friend agree to include post-industrial towns in places like Cornwall which used to mine and have been post-industrial for longer than many other towns in this country? Now, with opportunities in renewables and critical minerals, they could be rich again under this new industrial strategy.
Jo White
I totally agree. It has been too easy to invest in our metropolitan and city areas, so areas such as ours have missed out time and again. The fact that my hon. Friend’s constituency is in the far corner of England has made it far too difficult for previous Governments and industries to think about her communities and what they need in order to be strong again. I am so delighted that we have a Labour Government who are focused on the same priorities that we all share.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
While the hon. Lady is talking about the south-west of England, I would hate for her to forget Axminster, which still has a flourishing carpet maker, but it does not have quite the same level of employment that it did in its heyday. Does she agree that Government can help by investing in superfast broadband, given that Axminster is in the 10% of places in the country with the least superfast broadband?
Jo White
The development and growth of our infrastructure must include superfast broadband, so that we can all benefit from it. Too many areas are missing out, particularly remote, rural areas.
We need a strong economy that includes superfast broadband, AI and energy provision to ensure that we are supercharged for the future. The announcement made by the Government yesterday that British railways will use British steel is a welcome example. That commitment must be replicated in every infrastructure project across the country, in our nuclear ambitions, roadbuilding, munitions, prisons and hospital-building projects. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that the industrial strategy gives priority to British companies while addressing our ambitious infrastructure commitments?
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
The towns of my constituency, Dewsbury and Batley, lie at the heart of West Yorkshire’s heavy woollen district. We have a proud history of textiles, and we were the centre for recycled wool textiles called shoddy and mungo. Today, we are actually the UK’s capital, if not the European capital, of putting people to sleep—that is, making beds. However, there has been very little investment from Government to help the furniture industry in my constituency. Does the hon. Member agree that, as well as technological investments, the Government should look to revitalise the workforces and niche industries in all parts of our country and help them to expand, grow and overcome the Brexit barriers?
Jo White
Again, I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. We all have our localised industries that we are proud of, but we need a Government who recognise that and enable local businesses to thrive and survive. This is about how we invest and encourage new businesses to invest in our local economies, which is an essential element of the industrial strategy.
Mrs Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that a targeted industrial strategy for post-industrial towns and cities such as ours will lead to more highly skilled jobs to lift the ceiling of average earnings in our constituencies, so that they have real opportunities for secure, good and well-paid jobs and apprenticeships?
Jo White
Again, I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. We need to build wealth in our local areas, and we need to stop young people having to make the horrific choice of whether to move away. By building wealth locally, we are actually able to build good houses, we have people spending money in the local economy, and we support the new independent businesses that come along. It is a circular thing, and we as a Government have to invest in that. Whether this Government focus on investment zones, improved infrastructure or high-performing colleges that turn people out who are work-fit and raring to go, they have the ability to target growth into areas where the engines that once powered our economy stopped running too many years ago.
Alan Strickland (Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor) (Lab)
My constituency had the Stockton and Darlington railway, which began the passenger railway. Since the election, after years of Tory dither and delay, we are proud to have had £800 million put into a world-class train factory. Does my hon. Friend agree that, with the right investment by an active Labour Government, the industrial areas that powered our past can really power our future?
Jo White
I totally agree with my hon. Friend—that is the way in which we supercharge our constituencies. It is about recognising their strengths and working with the local community, local government and our MPs to ensure we get the investment we need.
We also have to focus on the fact that previous Governments have consistently relied on Treasury methodology to determine their priorities, applying a cost-benefit analysis framework that always results in the cities and huge conurbations scoring highly, opening up waves of funding for infrastructure and investment. It is a formula that is applied across Government, influencing a wide range of decisions, including where flood alleviation schemes go and where sports provision and support for heritage and the arts end up. It is not just red wall areas that are impacted by that methodology, and I welcome the fact that hon. Friends from Scotland and Cornwall are in their places.
Jo White
The Treasury’s use of that formula is the simple explanation for why we have left-behind towns across the whole of the UK. I value and welcome the fact that the Government have listened, and have resolved to overhaul the Green Book and use a place-based analysis as an integral element of the formula in future. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Andy MacNae) for his work with Ministers on this issue. That change is fundamental, because being left behind means failure. We had a Government who were only interested in the easy solutions, and were willing to see parts of the country become no-go areas for new industry and new opportunities.
Andy MacNae (Rossendale and Darwen) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for the acknowledgement. The Green Book review has rightly identified issues of capacity and capability when it comes to business case development in certain areas, and of course the spending review allocated lots of money to areas with high capability, such as Manchester and Liverpool. That highlights the opportunities that devolution will eventually bring to places such as Lancashire, which have been left behind for too long, but does my hon. Friend agree that we cannot wait? We need to see proper investment in developing the capacity and capability that Lancashire needs to bring forward its own business cases now.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and I think the fact that so many Members are in the Chamber for an Adjournment debate shows the importance of this subject.
While she is talking about the immediate outputs needed, can I make my usual plea to Members on the Treasury Bench via you, Mr Speaker? When the industrial strategy—which is so important to all our communities—comes, it must address the chronic, crippling effect of industrial energy prices, which are hurting so many of the manufacturing sectors we have mentioned today. Whether it is in Bassetlaw, in Stoke-on-Trent or even in Chorley, there will be businesses that are struggling. I know that my hon. Friend agrees, but when the Minister addresses us later, I hope she will be able to confirm that industrial energy prices will be dealt with in the industrial strategy, to benefit us all.
Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
The most recent data, from 2023, showed that 25% of manufacturing jobs in Stoke-on-Trent were in ceramics. Ceramics—especially advanced ceramics—is critical to strategic industries such as defence, nuclear energy and steel. Does my hon. Friend agree that the industrial strategy must recognise the foundational industry of ceramics, which is vital for the future not only of Stoke-on-Trent but the country?
Jo White
I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. I hope that Ministers are listening, as the products produced in the three constituencies of my hon. Friends from Stoke-on-Trent are critical for our industrial future.
My challenge to Government is to bring forward an industrial strategy that allows the whole nation to grow, but also resources and targets the towns that are crying out for change. I begin by demanding a skills revolution in our post-industrial areas. For much of the past century, areas such as mine were dominated by key industries. In Bassetlaw, we had thousands of men working down the pits while their wives, sisters and mothers headed into the big textile factories. The history of key industries is not exclusive to Bassetlaw—there are vital and historic British industries with their roots in many red wall areas. Ceramics, fishing, automotive, steel and shipping all dominated the midlands and the north of England. While some still remain, they are struggling, fighting an ongoing international race for cheap labour and parts, with successive Governments failing them time and again.
In Bassetlaw, as the mines closed and the textile factories moved to countries with cheap labour, the employment opportunities shifted, with warehousing and logistics springing up on the old pit sites. At that time, skills provision, under the auspices of the Manpower Services Commission, developed into a simplistic system. It was literally controlled by the main employers, who wanted to mould the workforce into their own needs from age 16. In Bassetlaw, it was Tony Wilkinson of Wilko and Richard Budge of Budge Mining who ran the system. For a small number, skills training was via the university route, with most never returning. The middle ground between the two was a low priority for Government, and the lazy solution has been to import the skills we need. That is the history of the past 14 years, where cheap imported skills have been used to meet industry’s short-term needs, methodically sidelining local young people and adding to soaring legal migration. We have the kernel of an alternative, with high-skilled apprenticeships, but they are not yet ingrained across the system or the country.
Mr Adnan Hussain (Blackburn) (Ind)
As Chorley, Rossendale and Darwen have had a mention, I feel it is only right that the Member for Blackburn should speak. Does the hon. Member agree that we need to invest in our people, in local business and in small businesses? Our people in Blackburn and the surrounding areas have the ability and the creativity. All they need is a bit of investment, a bit more support and a push.
Jo White
I totally agree with the hon. Member. An industrial strategy has to support the SMEs, because they have to be part of the supply chain. They have to be part of that engine of growth, because they are an integral part of all our communities. I want to see them benefit when there is big industrial investment. They are part of that chain, and they can grow with it.
David Williams
On the point of skills, there is a risk with non-mayoral areas that we do not get the same level of investment as goes into city mayoral areas. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that we see that money flow into all our communities across the United Kingdom?
Jo White
Again, I totally agree with my hon. Friend. I am fortunate, as I have a new mayor, the Mayor of the East Midlands. I can already see the benefits of having a mayoral combined authority. That partnership with local government, the mayor and me is critical for investment. I had a conversation with her on Saturday and talked about my hon. Friend’s area, because areas like his will get left behind if they do not have the opportunity to have a combined authority and mayor. It makes an incredible difference, and my ask of Government is to move fast and get that sorted. [Interruption.] I need to wind up, I am being told, so I will go to the end of my speech to give the Minister the opportunity to wind up.
Mr Speaker
Come on. This debate is far too important to start scoring party political points at this stage.
Jo White
I will finish by saying that time is running out. It is not handouts we are asking for, or sympathy; our demand is strategic investment. My ask of the Minister is give us the tools. Is it little Britain or Great Britain? Is it little Englanders looking over their shoulders or Great Britons looking out to the future?
Imogen Walker (Hamilton and Clyde Valley) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White) for initiating this important debate.
My constituency contains both rural communities and towns with a proud industrial history. Members will be familiar with New Lanark, which is famous throughout the world as the place where Robert Owen championed better working conditions. He showed that productivity does not need to come at the expense of workers’ rights, and we have built on that legacy in this Parliament. Further west, Hamilton was a proud coalmining area for 200 years, with textiles and heavy industry making the town an economic and industrial force to be reckoned with. However, our towns are showing the neglect of 15 years of the Tories and 18 years of the Scottish National party. The work of the people who built our nation was not respected or rewarded by either Government, and the impact is there for all of us to see in the boarded-up shops in our high streets.
But when it comes to demonstrating what our priorities are, what a difference a year makes! Following the spending review, the UK Government are providing £50.9 billion a year for the Scottish Government—the biggest settlement in the history of devolution—and there is more: there are trade deals, investment zones, city and growth deals, direct investment, and the strategic defence review. My constituents have told me time and again that they do not understand why they see services being rebuilt south of the border but not at home, and sadly I know the answer. Bad loans, bad deals, bad investments and bad decisions have taken money from where it needed to be.
I see that no SNP Members are in the Chamber this evening, and I am sorry to say that does not surprise me, but it does send a clear message to my constituents. I know what my communities are capable of, given the chance, and that is why what we have done in just under a year of government is so important. The work of change has already begun, and we are here to see it through.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rushanara Ali)
I have only a few minutes in which to speak, but I should be happy to write to Members to provide further details.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (Jo White) on securing this important debate. The turnout and the contributions from other Members demonstrated their strongly held views and passionate commitment to their constituencies, and illustrated the challenges facing our post-industrial areas, which are deep, structural and long-term.
My hon. Friend drew attention to regional inequalities that have been exacerbated in recent decades. We have a responsibility and a duty to turn that around, and the Government are committed to doing so. The devolution agenda is central to that work and is one of the key areas on which my Department is leading, devolving power and budgets so that local areas can shape their future and enable all communities to benefit, and ensuring that those historic inequities are addressed. The Government have already given local authorities an additional £3.4 billion in grant funding, and we are also developing a long-term housing strategy. We have committed ourselves to billions of pounds of investment in housing, and are investing £1.5 billion in our plan for neighbourhoods.
My hon. Friend, and others, raised a number of issues related to the industrial strategy. I know that the Business Secretary will be following closely the points that have been raised about support for the ceramics industry and broadband and ensuring that the industries in these communities are harnessed. Members rightly raised the subject of steel, and they will be aware of the work that the Business Secretary has done in that regard. The investment zones are key to economic growth and development, and the industrial strategy is, of course, vital. The last Government made many promises of an industrial strategy, but it did not happen, and we are determined to address that.
As we announced last week, the Government have committed a record £2.5 billion of investment for fusion energy, including support for a prototype fusion energy plant located in my hon. Friend’s constituency. That project alone will generate more than 10,000 jobs. This Government are committed to renewing our economy, tackling regional inequalities, supporting—
Draft Enterprise Act 2002 (Mergers Involving Newspaper Enterprises and Foreign Powers) Regulations 2025
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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The Chair
Before we start, I take this opportunity to wish my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden and Solihull East a happy birthday—I can think of no finer way of celebrating. Members, including those on the Front Bench, may remove their jackets, if they wish to do so.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Enterprise Act 2002 (Mergers Involving Newspaper Enterprises and Foreign Powers) Regulations 2025.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I also begin by wishing the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East, happy birthday. These regulations were laid before the House, in draft, on 15 May. This Government are clear in our commitment to a free and pluralistic media where all citizens, in all parts of the UK, can access high-quality news and other information from a range of sources, enabling them to form their own opinions. The public’s continued access to diverse news, views and information is fundamental to the health of our democracy and wellbeing as a nation.
It is therefore vital that the UK has in place strong measures ensuring that foreign states, whether allies or foes, cannot control or influence UK newspapers or news periodicals. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 amended the Enterprise Act 2002, creating a new foreign state influence merger control regime for UK newspapers and news periodicals.
The changes were introduced by the previous Government in response to concerns raised by Parliament about gaps in the UK’s media merger regime. There was wide cross-party support for the principle that all foreign states, including long-standing allies, should not be able to control or influence the policy of UK newspapers or news periodicals. The question on the level of acceptable thresholds for investments made by state-owned investors was not settled, which is of course why we are here today, and these regulations will address that issue.
State-owned investors include sovereign wealth funds and public pension or social security schemes that make long-term investments on behalf of states. In many cases, these are operated at arm’s length. They are global investors, holding interests in a wide range of UK and international companies and businesses. The previous Government consulted on proposals to create exceptions for passive investments made by state-owned investors using powers contained in the amendments to the 2002 Act. These included a complex cap on investments held by state-owned investors, which was set at 5% of shareholdings, but at 10% if the state-owned investor held shares in a UK newspaper indirectly as part of a diverse business.
We have looked carefully at the responses to the consultation. In particular, we have paid close regard to the views of UK newspaper groups. They are concerned that the level of threshold settled on by the previous Government was drawn too tightly and could have a detrimental impact on their ability to raise investment funding that they may need to support future sustainability. In coming to a final view, we have had to carefully weigh up a number of things. First, there is the need for strong measures, which is what Parliament intended when, with Labour party support, it passed the amendments, creating the foreign state influence regime. Secondly, there are the concerns about the unintended effects of the exception regulations, such as risking a chilling effect on investment in the UK newspaper industry.
Having considered that, we have decided to set the threshold for state-owned investment at 15% of shares or voting rights in a newspaper or news magazine, where this is a passive investment. In our view, this is an effective, simple and proportionate approach. The 15% threshold is below the level where the Competition and Markets Authority typically believes that material influence may arise. It is also well below the 25% level, which is the lowest trigger point for mandatory notifications under the National Security and Investment Act 2021.
The changes we have made to the thresholds carefully balance the need for strong protections from foreign state influence, with the need for UK newspapers and news magazines to have access to a range of investment. The changes will also avoid the need for the Secretary of State to refer low levels of investment by state-owned investors to the Competition and Markets Authority where there is no likelihood at all of foreign state influence, such as where state-owned investors acquire shares in newspaper groups that are part of listed companies.
The regulations will, as the previous Government proposed and as permitted by the 2002 Act, come into force with retrospective effect on 13 March 2024. There are three important considerations that relate to the 15% threshold that are relevant to the Committee’s deliberations. First, state-owned investors acting on behalf of foreign powers can benefit from the exception only if the investment is a passive one. The legislation will not permit state-owned investors to acquire rights to directly, or indirectly, appoint directors or other officers of the company, or any rights to direct, control or influence the policy or activities of a UK newspaper.
If the Secretary of State has grounds for suspecting that a state-owned investor has secured, or will secure, the right to direct, control or influence a UK newspaper, they must ask the Competition and Markets Authority to review the case. If the Competition and Markets Authority concludes that the transaction has resulted, or will result, in a foreign state acquiring control or influence, the Secretary of State must take action to unwind the transaction or block such a transaction. The four-month time limit for the Secretary of State to intervene in a completed merger will start running from the point at which facts about whether there is foreign state influence come to light. This means that action can be taken years after the transaction is completed, if relevant information was concealed beforehand, which will act as an important deterrent.
Finally, the legislation includes specific provisions for joint arrangements. These state that if a foreign power and other entities—potentially other foreign powers—own shares in a UK newspaper as part of a joint arrangement, each party is considered to hold the combined shares or voting rights of all. If these provisions applied to a joint arrangement between state-owned investors from different countries, and the total of the state-owned investors’ combined shares or voting rights in a newspaper exceeds 15%, the Secretary of State would again be required to take action.
Our policy intention has always been to prevent any foreign state influence over the affairs and policies of UK newspapers and news periodicals. Although a remote risk, we acknowledge that, in some circumstances, different state-owned investors from different states could, in theory, each acquire up to 15% of a UK newspaper enterprise. They would then be able to organise arrangements so that each was treated as a passive investor with no ability, at least on paper, to influence a newspaper in any way, but still collectively own the majority of the enterprise.
As explained, there are measures in the legislation that mean that the Secretary of State must refer a merger to the Competition and Markets Authority if they suspect that there is a joint arrangement of this kind, and the combined holding of shares or voting rights of the parties to the arrangement exceeds the 15% limit. The Secretary of State is also able to consider the range of relevant public interest considerations in the core media merger regime provided by the 2002 Act.
We also recognise the strong views expressed by Members, and in the other place, that the issue should be put beyond doubt. I can therefore confirm to the Committee that the Government intend to lay, in draft, a second statutory instrument in the autumn to amend the foreign state investment exemptions to put the issue beyond doubt. We have chosen not to withdraw the regulations before us today due to the pressing need to have the main foreign state investment exemptions in place as soon as possible. It is important in order to give UK newspapers and potential investors greater certainty about the overall regime. We will, however, publish a draft of the secondary statutory instrument for consultation by 16 July. This approach will allow time for the detailed provisions to be considered and ensure that the drafting does not create unintended consequences. The second statutory instrument would also be subject to the affirmative procedure, requiring review and approval by Parliament.
I stress that the UK has a strong track record for encouraging investment critical to growth within the media industry. These regulations ensure that the foreign state influence regime operates in a way that minimises the burden for UK newspapers while strengthening the robust regulatory framework that protects press freedom and free speech. Accordingly, I commend the draft regulations to the Committee.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger—I can confirm that there is no place I would rather be today. I thank the Minister for bringing forward this instrument and for her continued engagement on this issue. I will pose some questions, and I request that the Minister takes them in the context of not just this SI but the further SI that she will be putting forward for consultation.
The freedom of the press is the cornerstone of our democracy. It is an essential necessity in our democratic process. It allows the public to remain informed of current events, it questions and challenges those in power, and it keeps national debate balanced and accountable. Put very simply, if the freedom of the press is undermined the integrity of democracy is under threat.
The previous Conservative Government took decisive action to prevent majority control of a British newspaper by foreign states. These were vital measures to help protect the strength of our democracy. While His Majesty’s official Opposition support the changes, which will help to ensure the continued survival of our world-leading press industry, we would like the Minister to provide some reassurances on the foreign state influence regime. We have some serious concerns about the potential for the growing risk of state interference in British news media. We want cast-iron guarantees that the Government are taking the necessary steps to make changes to existing security provisions that must not jeopardise the UK’s freedom of the press.
The draft statutory instrument rightly sets a threshold for state-owned investment in a newspaper or news magazine at 15% of shares or voting rights. However, we have alerted the Government to the fact that, should various state-owned investors each purchase a 15% share, that could expose the UK’s freedom of the press to significant risk—a risk that the Minister acknowledges. Were multiple states to purchase 15% of shares, in particular when they have shared aims or purposes, that could have a chilling effect on the UK’s freedom of the press. Will the Minister reconfirm that any measures, including in secondary legislation, will also cover arm’s length bodies such as pension funds and other bodies controlled by states that might have influence?
The Minister is aware of the risk and, if I am not mistaken, has already given assurances that the Government will take action to prevent that from happening to relevant stakeholders. Can the Minister provide any further details on what form that action will take, when it will come into effect and whether the Government have considered other potential risks that might be coming down the road? I put on the record my special thanks to Baroness Stowell, who has been highlighting the risk with the Government and raising awareness of the dangers posed by allowing the loophole to come into force.
The previous Government had a proud record of taking decisive action in strengthening national security, in particular with the National Security and Investment Act 2021 and the National Security Act 2023, which showed that the Government must be alive to the risk posed by foreign states and be aware that the threats are ever-changing due to technological advances.
Last week, as the Minister may be aware, the shadow Secretary of State wrote to the Department seeking assurances. We have not yet received a response. I am sure it will be forthcoming, but I ask the Minister directly: are existing powers under the 2021 Act sufficient? Will they be used to help protect press freedoms against foreign interference, including cases involving minority shareholdings or instances of editorial pressure? Equally, the Government have suggested that the Secretary of State will have new powers to act when the independence of the press is under threat. Can the Minister give any further details on that, if possible at this time? If not, is she open to writing to us?
We, the Conservatives, of course welcome foreign investment, but we will never compromise on the integrity of our democracy. Many private foreign investors are interested in investing in a whole swathe of our industry, subject to our national security limitations or concerns. To that end, what consideration have the Government made about interpreting investment from certain states? Certain states work together, for example, and I name two that we always have to be conscious of: China and Iran. They almost always have institutions or investors that interlink with the state. What are the Government doing to ensure that our democratic principles are not undermined by foreign investment from bodies or private individuals in those particular countries?
I hope we can all agree on the importance of the freedom of the press and on the benefits that foreign investment brings to the UK economy. However, freedom of the press is one of the cornerstones of our society, and the Government must ensure that newspapers are given the opportunity to attract investment, while not threatening the principle of the freedom of the press. I hope that the Minister agrees with that principle. Any legislation must do more than gesture towards foreign state-backed shareholders and the risks that they pose to our democracy; it must be robust, have credible safeguards and protect our journalists, and it must ensure our fully independent free press and, ultimately, the integrity of our democracy.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger.
Without the free press, democracy cannot function, as the Opposition spokesperson just said. We therefore cannot allow foreign states to use their wealth and influence to hold stakes that threaten the independence and integrity of British journalism. The Government-proposed 15% non-cumulative threshold opens the door to exactly that kind of foreign influence that the draft regulations were initially meant to prevent.
In the Secretary of State’s statement on this matter, she said that the policy intention was that the Government wanted to ensure that state-owned investment vehicles, where they do invest, could not have influence over the business of a UK newspaper. Given the struggles of many traditional media outlets, however, I ask the Minister, why do the Government think that a foreign state might want to invest in UK media? Many organisations are well known to be struggling to turn significant profits, so is it perhaps because those foreign states might wish to exercise some other kind of influence over our public debate? Important lines must be drawn here, and we are interested in what the Government think about those lines.
Would the Government be comfortable with a company owned by the Chinese Government, directly accountable to President Xi, buying 15% of a UK newspaper? What about a consortium involving the Chinese Government and another state, perhaps Iran or any other hostile state, owning 30% or more of a British media brand? We can imagine the Government might not welcome investment by a future North Korean company reporting to Kim Jong Un, but will the Minister confirm whether the proposed legislation will explicitly bar that? Will any other bits of legislation bar it?
As the legislation stands, British newspapers could be fully owned by foreign Governments, opening our press to foreign interference, and interference in journalism and journalists as individuals that would go against the interests of the British people and the liberal democratic values that we hold dear. The Liberal Democrats therefore urge the Culture Secretary to revise the draft statutory instrument immediately, and to remove the right of foreign states to own any part of the British news media ecosystem.
Stephanie Peacock
This has been an important and interesting debate and I am grateful for the contributions by the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats. The debate has shown the wide support across the House for stronger measures to protect UK newspapers and news periodicals. It also highlights the challenge in setting exceptions in a way that balances Parliament’s desires against the legitimate concerns about the ability of UK newspapers to raise investment if restrictions are set too tightly.
Government need to balance the importance of creating certainty and sustainability for our newspaper industry with the need to protect against the risk of foreign state influence by setting a clear threshold for exceptions within the regime at 15%. We believe that we have done that effectively. Safeguards in the legislation will prevent multiple states each investing up to 15% via state-owned investors from acquiring control or influence over the policy of a newspaper enterprise, whether acting alone or in a joint arrangement. We have listened to the concerns, however, and have committed—I commit to this again now—to further legislation to put this beyond any doubt.
To respond to the points made, we have reached a final position on thresholds due to the concerns expressed by newspaper groups about the unintended effects of the strict threshold proposed by the previous Government. We have considered those points, and we agree with the concerns to reset the level of the threshold, which is still below the level at which material influence generally arises in merger cases. The change balances the need to protect our press from foreign state influence against sufficient flexibility to support inward investment by newspaper groups that poses no risk of foreign influence or control.
I will endeavour to follow up on that letter from the shadow Secretary of State. On the question on new powers from the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East, there is now a duty for the Secretary of State to report to the Competition and Markets Authority if there are any concerns or uncertainty. Also, the “state-owned investor” definition will include public pension funds if they satisfy the conditions for eligibility in the legislation. I am happy to continue the conversation with Members from across the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Space Industry (Indemnities) Bill
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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The Chair
Before we begin, may I welcome everybody and say that it looks as though the arrangement is quite simple today? We have one group, consisting of clause 1 stand part and clause 2 stand part, and I will call the promoter of the Bill first.
Clause 1
Licence terms relating to indemnification of government etc
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I believe that you studied law at the University of St Andrews, and I very much hope that you feel at home with a room full of Scottish MPs.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
And St Andrews graduates.
John Grady
I do not want to cause some sort of inter-university fight first thing in the morning.
The purpose of the Bill is to help push forward vital investment in the UK’s space sector, which is vital for economic growth and also for the defence of the UK and Scotland. The UK, Scotland and Glasgow have great opportunities in the sector, which already employs more than 52,000 people with 126,000 jobs across the supply chain. It is worth over £18.9 billion to the economy. It is now possible to launch satellites from the UK, and Glasgow, my home city, builds more small satellites than anywhere outside California.
Clause 1 amends two sections of the Space Industry Act 2018 to provide legal certainty that all spaceflight operator licences must include a limit on the amount of an operator’s liability to the Government under section 36 of the Act. Section 36 provides for spaceflight operators to indemnify the Government in certain circumstances and the current risk for spaceflight operators is that claims from the Government exceed the carefully assessed insurance that is put in place by the spaceflight operators, following significant regulatory oversight by the Civil Aviation Authority. The current legislation does not require the Government and the CAA to cap operators’ liability; the Bill changes that, in essence by changing “may” to “must”.
Investors are unwilling to invest in companies that hold unlimited liability. It is not generally possible to insure against an unlimited liability in the space insurance market and there is very limited capacity in this specialist sector. The UK Government have a clear policy that licensees’ liability will be capped, but the issue for investors is that this is set out in a policy document and not in statute. This means that the Government and regulators could change the policy with comparative ease, which could mean that investors would find that they had exposure to unlimited liabilities. That deters future investment.
The issue is causing investors real concern and investors in the space industry have raised it with Government many times. It is a long-standing unresolved issue, on which I believe there is cross-party consensus. All our competitor nations limit liabilities or provide a state guarantee for launch activities of the type that take place from their territory. That puts the UK at serious risk of competitive disadvantage at a time when we are trying to grow the economy and focus on this important sector. The Bill, and these two simple clauses, confront the problem and make the UK, Scotland and, of course, Glasgow a much more attractive place to invest in space.
Clause 2 deals with the extent, commencement and short title of the Bill consistently, as one might expect, with the 2018 Act.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mike Kane)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Christopher, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East for promoting this short but important Bill. He is without doubt a doughty champion for the space industry in his great city of Glasgow.
From the contributions we heard on Second Reading and this morning, we know how beneficial the Bill will be to many businesses in the UK’s thriving space sector, which contributes over £17.5 billion to the UK economy and directly employs more than 48,000 people. I am pleased to confirm that the Bill has the full support of the Government. The Government have economic growth at the heart of their agenda and this speaks directly to that. With 16% of UK GDP depending on satellite services, there is no doubt that the space sector is important to us as a nation, as my hon. Friend pointed out. The Bill, while advocating a minor change to legislation, will provide the sector with the legal certainty it is looking for to boost investor confidence and stimulate further growth in the UK economy.
The UK space sector is bolstered by being a member of the European Space Agency. Britian does better because of that key partnership. In the last quarter of 2024, UK businesses’ net revenues from the ESA were £80 million higher than our contribution. That is a record for any member state. As my hon. Friend pointed out, we now produce more satellites in this country, second only to California in the USA.
The Government recognise the question of liability insurance is of utmost concern. The industry has made clear it that holding unlimited liabilities will have an adverse effect on the UK spaceflight industry. If the Government did not limit a spaceflight operator’s liability, spaceflight companies and investors might move to other jurisdictions with more favourable liability regimes, where operator liability is limited and states provide guarantees to meet all claims or those above the operator’s limit of liability. That is why the Space Industry Act contains powers to limit a spaceflight operator’s liability when carrying out spaceflight activities from the United Kingdom. It is Government policy that the regulator should use those powers and specify a limit on operator liability in the licence.
The Bill is therefore fully consistent with Government policy. Furthermore, it improves the Space Industry Act by meeting a key request from industry to provide legislative certainty that spaceflight operators will not face unlimited liability when operating from the UK. For those reasons, we are pleased to support it.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill to be reported, without amendment.
Westminster Hall
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Future of the Gas Grid
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the future of the gas grid.
It is a pleasure to lead a Westminster Hall debate for the first time with you in the Chair, Dame Siobhain, in particular given that it is my birthday today. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Thank you, everyone.
I thank colleagues from across the House for joining me in this important discussion about the future of Britain’s gas grid. First, I pay tribute to the men and women who work in our gas industry, from extraction and refining through to transmission and product engineers. They literally keep the lights on and our houses warm—not that we need a lot of assistance with heating in the month of June, but of course we rely on gas heating for much of the year.
Tom Collins (Worcester) (Lab)
I take this opportunity to wish my hon. Friend and office mate a very happy birthday. This is a very important debate, and I am grateful to him for securing it. I am looking forward to the discussion and I have much to share later, but for now I emphasise how timely the debate is as we face uncertainty in national security and a huge energy transition that will create opportunities as well as challenges.
Josh Newbury
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and I pay tribute to him for all his years of work in the gas industry and for the knowledge that he brings to the House and indeed to this debate. I look forward to hearing from him later.
Previously, I worked for the Energy and Utilities Alliance, which is a trade association primarily representing companies in the gas heating industry. Recently, however, I had a heat pump installed at home, so I will not be using gas at all in future. I am certainly not a believer in silver bullets or dominant solutions. That heat pump cost £15,000, though, and the installation was fraught with complications, so it is fair to say that I have mixed views in this space.
Gas is an essential part of our energy system, accounting for 40% of the UK’s total energy consumption and about a third of total electricity generation. Crucially, it provides vital flexibility to make up for peaks and troughs in generation from renewables, which should of course be our focus—but they cannot be the whole solution for the foreseeable future. Indeed, the Government’s clean power by 2030 mission foresees a role for gas power stations as flexible generation for up to 5% of demand, but it will take a huge amount of energy storage to enable us to reduce our gas usage for power generation even to that level.
Looking ahead, the National Infrastructure Commission and the Climate Change Committee have recognised that gas, in one form or another, will continue to play a vital role in the energy system for decades to come, as a crucial component of a diverse and secure energy supply. All realistic projections for the UK’s energy transition envisage a continued role for gas, alongside carbon capture and storage and hydrogen, which I will come on to.
A key area of interest to me—and, I am sure, to every Member wishing to contribute to this debate—is the role of gas in domestic heating. Nationally, the gas grid serves more than 24 million homes and half a million businesses. It carries three times more energy than the electricity grid does annually and, on peak winter days, that figure rises to five times as much. Eighty-three per cent of homes rely on mains gas, and in my Cannock Chase constituency 95% of households are on the gas grid. Meanwhile, 6,460 households in my towns and villages live in fuel poverty.
Given that gas heating is clearly the cheapest form of domestic heating we have today, the future of the gas grid is not just a technical issue, but a cost of living issue. Heat pumps are a potential solution for many homes, in particular those off the gas grid, but we have to be honest about the persistent cost barriers. With the average heat pump installation coming in at about £13,000 and only just over half of that paid for by the £7,500 boiler upgrade scheme, heat pumps are clearly still the preserve of able-to-pay households and niche house builders.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)
The Government are doing really important work on social justice and the environment, but my constituency is similar to my hon. Friend’s in terms of fuel poverty. Is he aware that, of the £300 million spent on the boiler upgrade scheme over the past few years, only 3% of grants in Cambridgeshire went to Peterborough, the poorest constituency? As we advance and develop these schemes, we need to root social justice alongside carbon reduction.
Josh Newbury
I could not have put it better myself. My hon. Friend must have been reading my mind, because I was about to come to that point about my neck of the woods.
My fear is that, without a substantial shift in the cost barrier and a clear focus by the Government on inequality, as my hon. Friend said, decarbonisation inequality will widen. That inequality is apparent in the number of boiler upgrade scheme vouchers issued in the three years to March this year. That stood at just 27 for my Cannock Chase constituency but 316—nearly 12 times as many—in North Devon.
One solution that is not spoken about as much as it perhaps should be is the hybrid heat pump—the combination of a combi boiler with a smaller heat pump. Those systems typically use the heat pump for space heating and hot water production almost exclusively for most of the year, with the gas boiler supplementing it on cold days or when a boost of heat is needed.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
I wish my hon. Friend a happy birthday. My constituency has very small houses with not much space, and heat pumps might not always be an option. There are lots of flats with no outside space. Does he agree that other technologies, such as heat batteries, might also be an option, and that it would be worth the Government’s considering whether they should be included in the boiler upgrade scheme and assessing whether the current VAT situation is the most useful?
Josh Newbury
Absolutely. That was a topic of huge discussion when I worked in the sector. I go back to my point that there are no silver bullets or dominant technologies, or at least there should not be. We need to ensure that each household—smaller properties, in particular, of which there are many in my constituency—has the right solution. She is right that we need to consider a range of options, and I am sure the Minister will touch on that.
Hybrids were the topic of discussion at a fascinating all-party parliamentary group for energy studies meeting last night. We heard from a Dutch energy expert who explained that hybrids are the norm in the Netherlands. Three provinces have told households that they will not be able to install heat pump-only systems, due to a lack of capacity on the electricity grid. Overloading of the grid is paralysing development in some areas of Holland. With our Government’s ambitious house building target, the message from our Dutch friend was, “Please make sure that Britain doesn’t end up where we are.”
The Dutch are finding that gas demand from households that have installed a hybrid heat pump is down by around 75%, while the increase in electricity demand is minimal. Given that our highly developed electricity and gas grids are very reliably serving the nation, that would seem to be a sensible balance for the UK, too. Substantially reduced gas demand opens the door for zero carbon gases such as biomethane and hydrogen to play a much bigger role in our energy future.
The main barrier to hybrids in the UK is a policy one. The policies we inherited from the previous Government are inconsistent on hybrids. The energy company obligation fully pays for a hybrid installation and the clean heat market mechanism gives 0.5 credits for a hybrid system, but the boiler upgrade scheme does not allow for hybrids at all. I hope the Minister can say something about the Government’s view on hybrids.
Our gas grid stretches over 275,000 km and its operation and maintenance provide highly skilled, well paid, often unionised jobs. It is estimated that the oil and gas sector supports one in every 160 jobs nationwide. Significantly for Scottish colleagues, that figure is around one in 20 jobs in Scotland. We are fortunate to have hundreds of thousands of some of the most skilled energy sector workers in the world. A gradual transition that leverages that as an advantage will help us maintain those good jobs, as well as our technological edge.
Gas is clearly a critical industry for many other sectors in the UK, such as glass, cement, ceramics and paper. Those sectors employ more than 1 million people and support essential supply chains, including in defence. Around a third of gas-reliant businesses say they cannot electrify due to technical or economic constraints. Again, those jobs are often in the high-skilled, high-wage sectors that we need more of. Hard-to-abate sectors such as ceramics, which as a Staffordshire MP I have to single out, depend on parliamentarians to navigate a way to net zero that does not leave them behind, and I believe that low-carbon gases could be the answer.
So what does the future look like? It starts with blending hydrogen into our existing network—a step our European neighbours are already taking. Blending even small amounts can kick-start demand in the hydrogen economy, lower the cost of the fuel and give the industry confidence to invest. I welcome the Government’s backing for the creation of a core hydrogen network and the repurposing of parts of the existing gas transmission system to carry 100% hydrogen to industrial clusters, power stations and storage sites across Britain. The Chancellor’s recent vote of confidence in Britain as a leader in carbon capture, utilisation and storage puts rocket boosters under that and will, of course, enable huge emissions reductions in some of the most greenhouse gas-intensive industries.
We also need to talk about the role of renewable gases, such as biomethane, which already contribute about 1% of our gas supply and have plenty of room to grow. Supporting the domestic production of low-carbon gases strengthens our energy security, supports rural economies and reduces emissions. In the light of the introduction of weekly food waste collections across England next April, our anaerobic digestion capacity will be more important than ever, so I ask the Minister to confirm that the green gas support scheme, which was extended to 2028 in the final weeks of the last Parliament, will be maintained at least until then, if not beyond.
What is required for us to decarbonise our gas grid, as other nations, such as the Netherlands, are doing? The replacement of our old iron mains is nearly complete, so that major hurdle is already being cleared. Other core infrastructure will need to accommodate hydrogen, but work is under way. For example, National Gas has already invested £350 million in hydrogen blend-ready compressors, and has demonstrated through its FutureGrid project at RAF Spadeadam that blending up to 20% hydrogen, and even operating at 100%, is both safe and feasible.
As has been discussed many times before, clear regulatory frameworks that enable innovation and investment are critical, as is public engagement, which we often overlook in these technical discussions about the energy sector. We need conversations with the public to be honest and inclusive, and to address concerns about safety, jobs, cost and fairness.
An energy system is only as resilient as the storage capacity that backs it up. When I first entered the energy sector way back in 2016, the Rough gas storage facility in the North sea was threatened with closure, and one of my first tasks was to furiously campaign for it to be rescued by the then Government. Sadly, they did not heed the dire warning from the industry, and Rough closed. It was able to reopen five years later, but only partially. With geopolitical events being what they are, we are suffering the effects of the previous Government’s short-sighted inaction. I am proud to be part of a Government who not only talk about gas storage but actively value it as a critical piece of national resilience.
I ask the Minister to strongly reject the inflammatory rhetoric around the transition that needs to take place in our gas grid, which is often designed to frame the issue in solely negative terms. Talk of ripping out boilers is as inaccurate as it is worrying for consumers. I also ask the Department to drive forward as quickly as possible the opportunities presented by hydrogen produced by carbon capture and storage and renewable energy. This transformation offers real opportunities, thousands of skilled, well-paid jobs, greater energy security by reducing our dependence on volatile international fossil fuel markets, and of course the chance to lead the world in green technology and innovation. The future of the gas grid is not about choosing between the past and the future; it is about building a bridge to a very British net zero.
Seamus Logan (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for securing this important debate and for his excellent and very well-informed contribution. I wish him not only a happy birthday but success with his new heat pump.
The future of the gas grid will impact all these islands. Gas is a critical component for more than half a million businesses across the country and all the workers that they employ. Research by Robert Gordon University suggests that if Scotland is successful in delivering its 2030 energy ambitions, the workforce—currently about 80,000—will increase by 25%. However, if it is unsuccessful, the workforce could fall by about 40%, with the loss of key skills, capabilities and associated supply chains.
A green future offers the possibility of new jobs by creating certainty for industry and investors. According to the UK Government’s 2021 hydrogen strategy, transitioning to green gases could create 12,000 jobs by 2030 and 100,000 by 2050. That would contribute to a thriving UK economy, increased production, improved public services and global leadership on the climate agenda.
New jobs and the associated economic growth will also complement electrification. Many workers in the gas industry have the very skills needed to secure a net zero future, and that future will be built in, and with, communities with a rich energy heritage, especially those in Scotland, as former fossil fuel jobs are replaced with green jobs.
Low-carbon hydrogen is required for all net zero scenarios. The UK needs to act fast and at scale to ensure energy security and independence to meet decarbonisation targets and achieve its legally binding net zero 2050 commitments. I appreciate that the Minister fully understands these matters.
Existing gas infrastructure can be adapted to deliver low-cost and low-impact net zero solutions. As the hon. Member for Cannock Chase mentioned, renewable biomethane gas can play a significantly larger role in the transition to net zero, reducing the overall cost of the transition and benefiting energy customers. Many of our European counterparts are already making very significant progress in these areas, and we need to catch up.
The Scottish gas network is already fuelling 10% of households in Scotland on their network with biomethane, and there are plans to grow that to 1 million homes by 2031. The prize on offer is not only a green gas that can sustainably decarbonise energy-intensive industries and retain jobs, but the growth of a new sector that will add up to 12,000 jobs by 2030 and £13 billion in gross value added.
A word about Peterhead power station in my constituency: commissioned in 1982, the power station continues to play a critical role in our energy supply, and also has the potential to play a major role in our future systems. The Peterhead carbon capture power station is a joint venture with Equinor, and the plan is to build a new 900 MW power station that will use technology to capture a minimum of 90% of carbon emissions. As I say, that is a minimum: SSE tells me that it could be as much as 95%.
The station would connect to a shared infrastructure being developed by the Scottish cluster, meaning that CO2 captured from the power station will be safely transported and stored offshore at the Acorn storage site. The existing station directly supports 80 full- time employees, three graduates, 13 apprentices and 30 contractors, but with the new development we could be talking about 1,000 new jobs during construction and 240 new jobs on an ongoing basis. I will come back to the issue of sustainability, because construction is one thing but sustaining jobs into the future is quite another.
I want to acknowledge the role of SSE Thermal in my local constituency in supporting local community projects. They are very important to local communities, particularly young people, schools, and businesses, as well as the environment.
Lastly, I will turn to Acorn. As the Minister knows, £200 million was announced last week to support the Acorn carbon capture and underground storage project in my constituency. I am sure that others have heard in the Chamber that it has the potential to capture and store the amount of carbon gas emitted since before the industrial revolution—that is the scale of the project.
The £200 million represented a start, but it is small compared with the £9.4 billion earmarked in the spending review for carbon capture, usage and storage before 2029. The investment is very welcome, especially in the context of the previous Government’s needless delays, but I also want to mention in connection with Acorn how important the connectivity with Grangemouth will be. Some of my colleagues asked me how many pipes there are between Acorn and Grangemouth. There are five, so there is no problem with the infrastructure. We do not need to spend billions of pounds building this thing; it is already there. That is really important to understand.
Given what is at stake for the north-east—jobs, supply chain opportunities and our green industrial transformation as part of climate action and economic growth—Scotland must be given our fair share. Two hundred million pounds is a start, but we want to see that figure climb very quickly, once the final investment decision is made, to the scale of the £22 billion already invested in England. As this debate has shown, the future of the gas grid is about working in tandem with projects such as Acorn, so the availability and implementation of funding is something that we should all push for.
I want to make one final point, from the workers’ perspective. I have spoken about the massive construction opportunities that will come with these projects. However, if we take a project such as the Viking project in the far north of Scotland, in Shetland, we are talking about 2,000 jobs during construction and a very small number—perhaps 200—afterwards, so it is fine to construct the projects, but we need to have solutions that work for people in the longer term. We need sustainability; we need regulation, so that workers are not taken advantage of; and we need to implement the Labour Government’s vision for better contractual terms and conditions.
I look forward to a very bright future for the north-east of Scotland, playing its role in our transition to a new future for the gas grid.
Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I think this is my second Westminster Hall debate, so I am still learning the ropes. Let me put on the record my GMB membership and the support that it has given me; and my previous role, before the election, as deputy general secretary of the Prospect trade union, covering workers in the gas and energy sector.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for securing this debate. I have learned this morning that he shares his birthday with the legend who is Derrick Stone, who also happens to be my dad and who is celebrating his 87th birthday today.
Debates about the nation’s energy security are always of the highest importance, but given the ongoing events in the middle east and uncertainty around the world—as my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins) said—debating the future and resilience of our energy system has become all the more necessary. The UK runs on gas; 40% of our energy comes from gas. Today every part of our country and economy still depends on it. Our national gas network collectively connects more than 30 large gas power stations, 24 million homes and half a million businesses. That includes several critical heavy industries—to name just a few, glass, chemicals, heavy machinery production, and sugar production and British Sugar around my constituency, in the east of England. They all need gas to produce their products for the British people and for us to sell to the world. We need those industries—and the 1 million jobs that depend on them—not only to stay in the UK, but to grow and thrive here and create more prosperity during the transition.
Our gas grid, with our world-leading national transmission system as the backbone, will play a leading role in the transformation of our energy network. As the Climate Change Committee recently said, many industries—such as those that I have just named—simply cannot fully electrify; they will always need a form of gas to keep their operations running. The discussion on the future of the gas grid is not about whether it will continue to exist, but about what will flow through it—natural gas, as we see today, or clean, home-grown forms of gas, such as hydrogen, in the future.
I am a passionate advocate for clean power and supporter of this Government’s green ambition. It will usher in industrial renewal and breathe new life into neglected towns and cities such as mine—Peterborough. It has the potential to create jobs, bring in new investment and deliver the long-term energy security that our country needs.
This is not just wishful thinking or some hypothecated plan for 10 or 20 years’ time. It is happening right now in places such as my constituency. Peterborough is fast becoming the King’s Cross of hydrogen—a hub where innovation, infrastructure and ambition meet. At the Peterborough gas compressor station, the crossroads of our national transmission system, National Gas, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase said, has already announced £350 million to install new, state-of-the-art hydrogen-blend-ready turbines—an investment that initially will create 100 jobs and apprentices in Peterborough, with the potential to grow more across the UK. That investment not only will help locally to create jobs, boost the economy and grow our skillset, but will be vital in delivering the Government’s green growth mission nationally. Today that compressor station moves natural gas across the country to fuel heavy industry and power stations, but it is now able to move hydrogen instead, starting with a blend, and eventually moving to 100% hydrogen if we get there and decarbonising the country while protecting jobs in industry in all parts of the United Kingdom. That is the role Peterborough is playing in the green transition, and it is the future of the gas grid. Such projects show that hydrogen has a critical role to play in the future of British energy. I am proud that my constituency is playing a key role in supporting this Government’s ambitions and that transition.
However, to really kick-start that revolution there are some quick, easy actions that the Government can take. I have a few questions, which I hope the Minister will be able to expand upon in his remarks. Can the Minister confirm when we might see the release of the consultation on hydrogen blending into the gas transmission system, which was promised by the last Government and, we are told, may be coming shortly? That would help kick-start the hydrogen economy and unleash a wave of investment in Britain. What are the next steps in the Government’s plans for a core hydrogen network, as recommended by the Climate Change Committee and others, and how will that build on the exciting and excellent steps we have seen in recent days with Cadent and others through the Government’s announcements around hydrogen? Finally, what assessment can the Minister give us of the skills need and skill potential in communities such as mine that are crying out for good, decent, unionised opportunities that the gas transition could provide, not just in Peterborough but throughout the UK?
It has been a pleasure to speak with passion about my constituency again this morning, and also with passion about this Government’s drive to deliver us the green transition. Gas networks have helped build our industrial past and our current prosperity. Our gas networks of the future have the ability to power our transition and movement to net zero, while bringing communities with us.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, as always, Dame Siobhain. I give special thanks to the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for leading today’s debate. We were counting down the last 10 seconds before the debate and the hon. Gentleman walked in on No. 8 —well done! He may have been a bit breathless. I wish him a happy birthday and thank him for his contributions in this House during the time that he has been here. They are always on subject matter that we are all interested in.
If we want to be progressive and visionary in this House, which we do, we need to look to the future for the things that are important. All areas of the United Kingdom are adapting their own strategies to contribute to net zero. Northern Ireland has set a target of net zero emissions by 2050, and developing renewable energy will be a key part of those plans. It is very important that we play our part. The hon. Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) referred a number of times to the whole of the United Kingdom. He is right, because like me and others in this Chamber, with one exception, we are committed to this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and what we can do better together—not that we are better than anyone else, by the way. We see the advantages and it is important that we look forward.
I welcome the Minister to his place. I always enjoy the Minister’s responses to our questions. He seems relaxed no matter how hard the questions are. I will not ask any hard questions; it is not in my nature to do so, but I do ask questions to hopefully progress the debate. The Minister knows that my questions will come from a Northern Ireland perspective. He has always answered in the past on what we want to do and what our strategies are back home. I look forward to his contribution. It is also nice to see the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), in his place and I look forward to his contribution as well.
Only last year Northern Ireland’s gas operators took their biomethane case to Stormont. There are two operators, but I want to focus on Phoenix Gas. It has been stated that adding biomethane to the gas network could cut Northern Ireland’s carbon emissions where we have ambitious, but very much achievable, targets. Doing so would deliver significant benefits and create hundreds of new jobs. It is where the potential is. Northern Ireland wants to play its part because the spin-offs for us all are quite significant. Arguments for that include that biomethane is almost identical to natural gas and can be transported through the existing gas pipelines, as the hon. Member for Cannock Chase mentioned. As we have already seen, it has been successfully injected into the gas network at Granville Ecopark in Dungannon. There is a strategy in place and significant progress there, but there is still a lot more to do.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
My hon. Friend talked about Phoenix, and the other company is Firmus Energy. Consumers want to see more competitive pricing. In Northern Ireland, there is some degree of competitive pricing, but because the two companies operate in separate parts of Northern Ireland, they do not compete directly with each other. Consumers want prices to be driven down, but it seems to take a long time for Phoenix and Firmus to reduce their prices—they do not always change rapidly—when international gas prices fall.
Jim Shannon
My hon. Friend is right to highlight that issue. Yesterday, in the hydrogen aviation debate, we talked about how costly energy is at the moment. In the past, we had the tidal wave and sea project in the Narrows in Portaferry in my constituency. The pilot scheme was successful in showing that it could be done, but it did not provide a cheaper price. Today, however, it could. I am quite confident that with a better understanding, and better offers for the supply of gas grid in Northern Ireland, we could ensure that prices would drop—I am confident that they will.
The operators pointed to research by the Centre for Advanced Sustainable Energy Research, which shows that biomethane has the potential to supply 6,000 GWh a year, equal to about 80% of the current gas distribution network demands. That shows the potential, and that it can be done. It would reduce Northern Ireland’s CO2 emissions by some 845,000 tonnes per annum, a fantastic contribution to net zero targets. That shows how Northern Ireland and the UK can work better together and contribute to net zero targets collectively, with advantages for us all. What is done here in England helps us in Northern Ireland, and vice versa.
Yesterday, I spoke in Westminster Hall on the potential benefits of hydrogen in aviation, as I referred to earlier. There are numerous sectors in which hydrogen could play a key role in the transition. The UK Government aim to establish up to 100 GW of low-carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030. The national gas grid is leading efforts to develop a hydrogen transmission backbone that will repurpose existing gas pipelines to transport hydrogen. Those visionary projects, which can deliver much for us all, are well in hand, but there is a lot more to do.
I look forward to hearing and witnessing how those developments play out in the future. There is so much that the devolved Administrations and institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can do to play a role in the transition to net zero, and this is one of those ways. I ask the Minister very kindly to engage, as I know he does, with the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment back home to ensure that we can be leaders in our green and net zero plans together. Within this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, we can do that. Even our friends in Scotland can benefit and help us to benefit. That is the goal I try to achieve in this place.
Seamus Logan
I cannot let the hon. Gentleman get away with these continual references to Scotland. Of course, whatever the future constitutional arrangements—they are in some doubt—the gas network on this side supplies not only Ireland but, as I understand it, Belgium and part of the Netherlands. There is already a shared international context in how the grid operates.
Jim Shannon
Of course there is. The hon. Gentleman is a product of Northern Ireland, as his accent shows—although he is now very much a Scottish nationalist—and I believe he recognises the importance of working together. Whether that is within the United Kingdom or further afield is not the issue. I never want to see Scotland moving away from us, because he is my Gaelic cousin, and together with many others, we have the same history and culture; we just have a different idea about the constitution. The people of Scotland, of course, have already spoken on the constitution and, although I know that is a different debate, I say very clearly that we are always better together.
Tom Collins (Worcester) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. What better birthday present could my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) have than debating such a crucial and timely topic? I anticipate that perhaps, as he blows out the candles on his cake, as someone who cares deeply about the energy transition, he might wish for something remarkably similar to a clean and green national gas network.
Electrification is inevitably going to be a go-to tool for decarbonising many parts of our economy, but it is equally clear that it cannot do everything. First, gas can do things that electricity cannot. Industry needs it: around half a million businesses in the UK currently rely on gas for their operations, and around 30% of those say that electrification is simply not feasible for them, technically or economically. Those businesses are spread across our nation, not just in clusters, so a national gas system is the only way for UK industry to not only survive but thrive.
Secondly, our national security depends on us having a multi-vector energy system. The UK has always ensured that homes, businesses and critical infrastructure have multiple energy sources available, typically electricity and either gas or oil fuels. As the world becomes increasingly uncertain and dangerous, now is not the time to roll back on the essential principles of security and resilience.
Thirdly, as we face the challenge of rapidly delivering an energy transition, gas provides us with vital flexibility and optionality, which means that we can make it over the finish line in our target time. Industry, transport and heat are all transitioning with uncertainty about the final mix of technologies. Government can secure the successful transition not by picking technologies to win or lose but by specifying a clear set of core energy vectors for the transition and investing in their core infrastructure. I put on record that those might be, for example, electricity, hydrogen and ammonia.
As a case in point, my hon. Friend mentioned that his installation of a heat pump was fairly typical, costing around £15,000. My discussions with industry indicate that the installation of a hybrid heating system, even a new one, would typically come in at under £7,000—a significant difference in the up-front cost, which is a major barrier for homeowners. Alongside that, installation times are shorter, and homeowners avoid the need to install hot water storage tanks or replace radiators.
Industry has already indicated that it will be ready, in four years, to make all its boilers 100% hydrogen-ready. It also indicated to a previous Secretary of State that it would provide price equivalence with the products in existence then. I recognise that the Climate Change Committee has tried to move us along by suggesting that there is no role for gas in the future of heat, but as someone who spent my entire career trying to decarbonise heat, I would humbly say that, although that guidance was well intended, it might be misguided.
Even as electricity remains our primary energy vector, reliable energy generation depends on large-scale energy storage, and that means gas. A system that can produce, store and utilise clean gas is vital for electrification to be successful. Although gas is seen as cheap and dirty today, it does not have to remain so tomorrow. Its versatility means that it will be a valuable resource in the future. While forecasts are for the cost of clean gas to reduce dramatically in the future, its role will be one where its value is recognised, and cost parity with today is not a prerequisite for a future clean gas market.
Private capital has successfully been released to deliver billions of pounds of investment into our gas networks, making them safe, fit for the future, and ready for future gases such as hydrogen and methane. More capital stands poised and ready to be invested. However, our previous Government, who should be congratulated on putting the UK in a leading position for a few years in the 2010s, then created a cloud of uncertainty that has left our gas industry in limbo.
Our mission to make the UK a clean energy superpower should be a powerful beacon that burns that uncertainty away, but it must include a tangible future role for the gas networks in our envisaged energy system. Ambition must be converted into some techno-economic goals that are clear and certain. For gas, that means committing to two things: storage and transportation. The prize is for the UK to once again lead and be an innovating leader in a new global energy outlook.
It has become dazzlingly clear from my discussions with industry that storage is a key enabler. It provides a price and a sink for producers to make clean gas, and a price and a source for users to plan their transition. It could be delivered by establishing and planning a progressive build-out of a strategic national clean energy reserve, which could utilise private capital but, crucially, be publicly commissioned, operating in the national interest for resilience and stable markets.
For those markets to develop, storage must be backed up by transportation. Fortunately, that solution already exists in our world-leading gas networks and can be completed through the delivery of a national hydrogen backbone. We could make a decision on blending now, and that would unlock those markets and allow for the large-scale production of clean gas.
The key signal to unlock all that is reassurance from the Government that the gas system, having transitioned to low-carbon gas, has a future for decades to come. That single declaration—one line that says, “We can see clean gas playing a role in the energy future of our towns and cities”—would be transformational. With it, we can ensure that the industrial economy spread across our country has a sure and hopeful future of opportunity and renewal. With it, we can ensure that the UK’s energy system is resilient, robust, secure and a source of strength, not vulnerability, in our national security. With it, we can deliver a deep and rapid energy transition through agility, partnership and UK innovation. With it, we will be on a strong pathway to making the UK a clean energy superpower.
Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) on securing this important debate.
I, too, commend the Government’s commitment to clean power and our clean energy mission. I will speak about not industry but the impact of the gas grid on rural communities, because many of my constituents do not have the luxury of being connected to the gas grid. Many of them rely on other means of heating their homes, which are subject to price fluctuations and greater disruption, and then shut them out of opportunities. Before I turn to the impact on rural communities, however, I put on record my support for reaching net zero, decarbonising our economy and decarbonising our energy system; I look back at the relatively halcyon days when it was not politically controversial to say that, and hope at some point that we can get back to that.
It is vital that rural communities are at the heart of these discussions, and I hope that the Minister will bear them in mind when he goes back to his Department. For many communities across Northumberland, being shut out of the gas grid contributes to a wider feeling of being shut out from broader opportunities. They are unable to access the essential energy infrastructure that often facilitates the growth of small businesses and local economies and helps to attract tourism.
I read an article last week that said that people in the Coquet valley, of which I represent a small part—it is mainly represented by my hon. Friend the Member for North Northumberland (David Smith)—felt cut off and on the edge of society because they were not connected. That feeling is present not just in the Coquet valley, but across the rural extremities of Northumberland. When I hold my surgeries in those places, I get that feedback constantly. The fact that there is not just inadequate gas, but inadequate electricity and phone signal, emphasises that lack of connection. These communities are not just off the grid; they are shut out from opportunities that urban parts of our country often take for granted.
One of the major failures of the last Government was that they did not properly boost and invest in rural economies and the opportunities of people in places such as Otterburn. That has deprived rural residents of lower heating costs, efficient services and opportunities that individuals in urban regions access daily.
What can the Government do to ensure that rural communities such as those dotted around my constituency get the services they need and the energy they depend on—at the price that they deserve—to prevent that feeling of being on the edge of society? Rural communities must not be deprived of basic necessities purely because of their geographical location. We need to ensure that that feeling of being at the extremity ends with this Labour Government.
With the National Energy System Operator, we already have a highly resilient electricity system. I regularly see the community action, investment and spirit that is brought about by storm events, when communities club together to provide for one another. I know that is something continually looked at by communities and organisations working in Northumberland.
I wanted to come to this debate, not because I have any great industrial expertise—I will leave that to some of my illustrious colleagues who spoke before me—but because, in the past, MPs representing my constituency have not been the voice that rural communities need. It is important that MPs from Northumberland make sure that Ministers do not go back to their Departments without first considering the needs of communities that are not connected to the gas grid.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I am pleased to speak in this important and timely debate on the future of the gas grid. I thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for securing this increasingly urgent debate and for his expertise on the matter, and I wish him many happy returns.
Gas has long been the backbone of how we heat our homes and power our economy. However, times are changing, and so must our approach to energy. The Liberal Democrats fully support a transition away from fossil fuels towards clean, home-grown renewable energy to deal with the energy trilemma that needs to be balanced in energy policy: cutting polluting emissions, protecting people, households and businesses from future price shocks, and strengthening our energy and national security through reliable home-grown clean energy supplies.
The future of our gas grid is a real challenge. It must be defined by clarity, urgency and care, addressing the challenges we have heard today with affordability, the promotion of alternatives—whether dominant or not—their costs, and the resilience and flexibility of our grid. We have heard about the importance of securing multi-vector energy systems throughout this transition, and that is key.
Gas remains the largest source of energy in the UK, accounting for more than half of our carbon emissions and providing 39% of the energy used across electricity, heating and industry. Although it is strategically important to our economy and to people’s lives, that dependency is also a strategic vulnerability. Around half of the UK’s gas is imported, and that reliance is our Achilles’ heel. In times of geopolitical instability, we are dangerously exposed.
The illegal invasion of Ukraine by Putin and the resulting spike in global energy prices highlighted just how risky it is to depend on imported gas. The Climate Change Committee, in its seventh carbon budget, made clear that if we transition away from gas, and there were to be another spike in gas prices due to an incident like the invasion of Ukraine, then by 2040 the average household would be 15 times less sensitive to those price shocks and skyrocketing energy costs.
Not proceeding with the transition does not just undermine our national security; it hits people in their wallets. That damages our businesses and economic growth. Energy has never been so costly, and that matters particularly in a cost of living crisis. Today, 11% of households in England live in fuel poverty, including nearly 9% in my constituency of South Cambridgeshire. That means many people have to choose between eating and heating their homes every winter. That is the lived reality of our dependence on the gas grid, tied to volatile international markets. We must remember that in 2022 prices peaked at more than 20 times the 2020 average.
It is clear that ending our overreliance on gas must be a national priority if we are to strengthen energy security, unlock low-carbon alternatives and bring prices down. We need resilience and flexibility in the grid, which is currently provided by gas. The Climate Change Committee and the National Grid have confirmed that, to meet our net zero targets, the UK’s natural gas use must fall by a staggering 90% by 2050, accounting for just 6% of our energy mix—and even then, only if emissions are captured through carbon capture and storage.
There is no escaping the scale of the challenge. With over 85% of UK homes still connected to the gas grid, we face having to overhaul our national infrastructure. Our gas pipeline network spans more than 284,000 km, or nearly seven times around the Earth, so simply abandoning the infrastructure is not an option. We are talking about a massive repurposing challenge. As we have already heard today, that repurposing also needs to cover green hydrogen, low-carbon hydrogen, biomethane, district heating and many other options.
Additionally, policy needs to look at demand, including for new homes and house building. The Climate Change Committee has been clear that no new homes should be connected to the gas grid after 2026, yet we have had dither and delay since 2016. Under the Conservatives, we ditched the zero-carbon homes policy and since then we have been building homes without proper energy efficiency and without the connections through solar panels to the grid that we should have had. We are also still waiting for the future homes standard and other standards to be brought forward.
Those actions were short-sighted, which is why it is fantastic that we have seen the Government take on board the private Member’s Bill promoted my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson). It is “the sunshine Bill”, mandating that there will be solar panels on every roof. That Bill will come forward with the future homes standard, which is fantastic. In addition, the future homes standard is committing to low-carbon heating. Today, we have asked whether that mandates how we get to that low-carbon heating with dominant technologies, or whether it should be left to the market to come up with innovations. I will be interested to hear from people with much more expertise than me on that. However, given the time that has already been lost, we must move forward.
Let me pick up on the comments from the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) about rural communities. While we are considering the cost of decarbonising heating through solar panels, heat pumps and induction hobs, we also have to consider the many people in rural communities who live off-grid. These households also need certainty and direction from the Government about how they can decarbonise their heating. The situation in South Cambridgeshire is similar to the situation in Hexham, with one in five communities living off-grid and relying on heating oil. They are among 4 million people and 250,000 businesses in this situation across the UK, which are often served by small, rural, family-owned firms. In addition, off-grid homes are some of the most difficult and expensive to decarbonise because of their age, rural location and construction methods.
The National Grid’s “Future Energy Scenarios” report estimates that 1 million UK homes will require alternatives to electrified heating because of the high cost of local grid upgrades. Renewable liquid fuels such as hydrotreated vegetable oil offer a drop-in replacement for heating oil. These fuels have already been trialled in rural communities, and the Governments in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland have embraced them as part of their decarbonisation strategies. We now need a comprehensive UK-wide plan and I hope the Minister will confirm that the forthcoming warm homes plan and future homes standard will also acknowledge and address the specific needs of rural off-grid consumers.
However, although we are hearing about the challenges and barriers, within this transition lies opportunity. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a just transition plan to protect jobs, retain skills and support communities whose economies are still built around oil and gas. That means a national retraining programme to help workers to enter the green economy, incentives for oil and gas firms to pivot towards clean technologies, ending the red tape that frustrates climate tech start-ups, many of which are in my constituency of South Cambridgeshire, and finally—as many Members have already said—investment in hydrogen innovation, where the UK can lead with world-class research in its industrial base. We have heard today about hydrogen blending, which could make hydrogen 20% of the natural gas supply, helping to reduce the carbon intensity of gas and meeting the gas demand in the medium term while we adapt our infrastructure.
We are also looking at having a resilient and flexible energy system that could be supported by green hydrogen, with storage and flexible power. We welcome the Government’s recent announcement of investment in hydrogen, but we would like to see that investment being part of a comprehensive plan to support low-carbon technology across the board. We felt that such a plan was absent from the Chancellor’s most recent spending review, so, as we have already heard today, it would be good to get clarity about the role of hydrogen and the level of investment in it.
Like other Members, I have recently had a heat pump installed, and we are now completely off gas—off the grid—with an induction hob. As many have said, it is not easy, and it can be costly up front. We have to recognise that we need a 10-year emergency insulation programme, with free upgrades for low-income households and those for whom such decarbonisation of heating is not a possibility, which is what the Liberal Democrats have called for. All new homes must be built to the future homes standard, as zero carbon-ready from day one. We need investment in heat pumps and alternatives, with full cost coverage for the most vulnerable, and investment in low-carbon, green and wild hydrogen to provide greater flexibility in the grid. Once again, I thank the hon. Member for Cannock Chase for bringing forward this debate.
Nick Timothy (West Suffolk) (Con)
I am pleased to respond to this debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) on moving his motion just in time, and on his birthday. He gave an excellent speech, once he got his breath back, and I thought his warning about an overloaded electricity grid was very wise.
There was a lot of agreement in the debate. The hon. Member for Ealing Southall (Deirdre Costigan) joined the hon. Member for Cannock Chase in pointing out the prohibitive cost of heat pumps. The hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) pointed out the particular challenges for rural communities. The hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan) rightly did his duty representing that part of the country by talking about the jobs that depend on oil and gas.
The hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), from the land of my grandmother’s birth, reminded us of the Northern Ireland experience and the importance of geography when we debate energy. That was reinforced by the hon. Member for Worcester (Tom Collins), who rightly said that we will continue to need a national gas grid, because of the nature of the demand for gas. I thought he was right to criticise the Climate Change Committee for proposing no gas for heating homes. I think the hon. Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes) put it well when he said that Britain runs on gas. He noted the challenge of reconciling the policy to decarbonise with maintaining fairness for families.
We must always be honest about trade-offs when we talk about policy, which is one of the things about which I will try to warn the Minister. The Government may come to regret their failure to do so on several fronts, particularly on net zero. Sadly, that is a lesson, especially on net zero, that my party has drawn from its time in office, including the unhappy end of that time.
Many businesses will continue to use gas and do not have the option to go fully electric. Half a million businesses rely on gas, and not all of them will survive the switch to electricity. As the hon. Member for Peterborough mentioned, big industries continue to rely on gas, such as chemicals, ceramics and—we have similar constituency interests—the sugar industry, among many others. Smaller businesses are just as affected. Chip shops, curry houses and many businesses I do not frequent will also face cost increases from electrification because of higher levies on their energy bills. Unfortunately, Ministers have said little to reassure those businesses that there is a plan to help them and to remember them.
This is also putting a significant cost on ordinary families. Let us look at gas boilers. I challenged the Minister on that during Energy questions last week, but the Energy Secretary and the ministerial team have refused to rule out new taxes, charges or levies on gas bills to fund lower levies on electricity bills, which means a net tax rise for the 80% of households that rely on gas. This was not even mentioned before the general election, although hon. Members will remember the promise to cut everyone’s energy bills by £300 by the end of this Parliament. Instead, energy bills have risen so far by an average of £111. While Labour sought to take the credit for the recent fall in wholesale gas prices, the policy costs for which they are responsible are rising.
Running down gas also denies how important it still is as a reliable source of power. Just this morning, a new National Gas report found an 18% increase in gas for power generation last year compared with the year before. At its peak, 65% of our power came from gas, with a half-hourly peak of 73%. This was caused partly by a major drop in wind power, which meant that we had to import more gas from countries as varied as the US, Norway, Qatar, Peru, Trinidad and other places. NESO might be planning another gas-free 30 minutes for the grid this summer, but the power of gas remains formidable and essential. People do not want to be forced to give up gas. Around 80% of the country relies on gas in some way or another. That is more than 20 million homes put at risk by any policy to force people off gas and on to less reliable and more expensive alternatives.
The Chancellor said during her statement on the spending review that
“energy security is national security.”—[Official Report, 11 June 2025; Vol. 768, c. 979.]
We agree with that, which is why the anti-gas stance of the Energy Secretary is baffling. We continue to rely on gas—in any given year, 40% of the energy used in the UK comes from it. It is a flexible and reliable source of power. It ensures that there is inertia in the grid, preventing blackouts of the kind that we recently saw in Spain and Portugal, where a lack of conventional power generation from sources such as gas contributed to mass power outages. New data centres are connecting to the gas grid to secure on-site power, instead of using wind or solar, and with good reason. But the Government want to reduce gas to below 5% of our electricity supply by 2030, and use it only as a back-up for unreliable renewables.
The Energy Secretary is being very ideological and basing decisions on dodgy claims about global fossil fuel markets. There is no single global gas market in the way that he has described on several occasions. Fossil fuel prices are higher in Europe than America, which is more dependent on fossil fuels than we are. The prices are higher here because of policy choices.
For example, blocking new oil and gas licences in the North sea only makes us more dependent on expensive, dirtier foreign imports, to the benefit of others. We are importing oil and gas from Norway from the very same seabed that we could exploit, while insisting that we are “too good” and “too green” to do that ourselves. British businesses and jobs could be benefiting from this industry, rather than being cut off. The policy does not even work on its own terms, because liquefied natural gas has four times the emissions of North sea oil and gas. As the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East mentioned, 120,000 jobs in the North sea are at risk. It does not make sense to shut down our own gas production when Norwegian oil and gas continues to be drilled from the North sea.
That is why I am glad that the Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), announced that our party is committed to stopping the punishment of our domestic energy industry with damaging taxation. It is wrong for the energy profits levy to continue until 2030; we believe that it should be removed altogether, along with the ban on oil and gas exports. This change would actually increase revenue in the long run.
It is not just the North sea that we should worry about. Britain is the largest gas boiler manufacturer in Europe. Our gas grid is world-leading, but 130,000 gas engineers and 150,000 oil and gas sector jobs are now under threat. Deliberately winding down the gas industry is an extraordinary act of economic self-harm.
For all the Government’s talking down of fossil fuels, our gas grid is incredibly stable and resilient. The gas grid depends on over 30 large gas power stations, and the gas comes in through interconnectors, LNG imports, and from Norway and the North sea. Our gas grid is a vital connection point for the European gas supply, especially following the Ukraine invasion.
Major public investment has already gone into the gas grid to help modernise and reduce failures and leaks. This makes up 5,000 miles of steel pipes and more than 60 jet engines to move the gas around the country. Our gas grid can also play an important role in reducing carbon emissions through, for example, expanding the use of hydrogen. In contrast, the cost of decommissioning the gas grid has been estimated at between £46 billion and £70 billion.
The Government’s plans are causing major uncertainty for investors, businesses and workers when they should be standing squarely behind a critical industry that has an important role to play in our economic prosperity and energy security. Ministers are allowing policy to race ahead of the technology, threatening to destabilise the grid and our economy. It is clear that the gas grid has a crucial role to play in our energy mix if we are to protect families and businesses from rising costs. I do not doubt that the Minister will say that he agrees with that, but the test will be in action and policy, not words.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Michael Shanks)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this morning, Dame Siobhain. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for securing today’s debate, and I wish him a very happy birthday. He gave a breathless speech, which was fantastic, and I do not know what better celebration he could ask for than being in Westminster Hall this morning. I thought at one point that he was going to tell us he got the heat pump as a birthday present, which would have been a significant contribution to the cause. Nevertheless, I hope he has a brilliant day.
My hon. Friend gave a brilliant speech, and in fact we have had a number of important contributions today, highlighting not only the breadth of experience that we have in this House, which I am always hugely impressed by, but generally our ability, particularly in this part of Parliament, to move outside some of our party political boxes and engage with the wider issue. I think that is hugely helpful.
I will return to some of the specific points raised in the debate, but I want to start where my hon. Friend concluded, with his critical point around rhetoric. We need to base the future of our discussions on the gas network in not only fact but pragmatism and a rational look at how we make the best use of an extraordinarily important resource. He also said something that we so often forget in this place: there is no one silver bullet for these things. There are a number of solutions, all of which will play a part in different ways, and we should not discount any of them. Crucially, as many hon. Members have said, if we get this right, there is the potential for tens of thousands of jobs, long into the future, which is so important.
I also thank everybody else for their contributions today. It was good to hear the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy), acknowledge—I think for the first time—that there are some lessons to be learned from the past 14 years, although I suspect he has learned the wrong ones, unfortunately. Nevertheless, I will return to some of his points.
I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about the future of our gas network—a topic that has for too long been overlooked by, in all candour, successive Governments. That is partly because the gas network is incredibly efficient. It works quietly in the background of all of our lives in one way or another, so often we do not talk about it as much as we talk about the electricity system, but it is incredibly important. I agree with Members about the importance of us having a diverse and secure energy supply; the importance of a gas network is not just to gas itself, but to our electricity system, where it currently plays a critical role.
The transition that is already underway is unstoppable, but it is also incredibly important for the future of our country and it needs to involve every community, so I welcome and agree with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) and others about the importance of all communities and households being part of it. There is huge potential in the transition to improve on where some of our communities are, so that they feel, as he rightly said, not on the edges of society but part of the innovation. We all have work to do on that, so his message is very keenly heard.
Let me discuss some of the context, and then come on to some specific points raised in the debate. This Government have set out to achieve a once-in-a-generation transition in our energy system to ensure that it is fundamentally fit for the future and resilient and tackles, as the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Pippa Heylings) said, the energy trilemma before us: how we bring down bills, deliver on energy security and tackle the climate crisis.
Through the spending review, we will invest £13 billion into our warm homes plan over the next five years, helping to cut household bills by up to £600 through the installation of energy efficiency measures. We have secured development funding for the Acorn and Viking CCUS projects, which I will come back to later, supporting our clean power ambition and creating jobs and growth at the same time. By harnessing clean power from green sources in the UK, we also reduce our dependence on volatile fossil fuels. Geopolitical uncertainty in the world is never far away at the moment, which underlines how important it is that we move as quickly as possible towards that place.
As I have often said, our focus in our energy system is on the electricity system. This is perhaps understandable, given the scale of the transformation necessary there, but it is good to take time today to talk about the future of the gas network. To reiterate, the Government have the future of the gas network right at the heart of our thinking for the future of our energy system.
Gas has been part of this country’s energy story for centuries, from the use of town gas from the late 18th century to the discovery of natural gas in the North sea in the 1960s and the conversion programme. That was an extraordinary feat of transformation in households right across the country over the 1960s and 1970s, which I am far too young to remember. Some hon. Members will be old enough, but I am not naming any individuals.
Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)
Don’t look at me or you will find that your speech is very short.
Michael Shanks
I will look over here, Ms McDonagh.
Our North sea gas supply and our gas storage infrastructure mean that we can deliver heat and power across the country whenever it is needed. The fact that we so often do not discuss the resilience of the system underlines how resilient it is and how well it does its work. Even during exceptionally difficult moments, such as the “beast from the east” in 2018 or after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the gas system continued to meet the needs of millions of consumers. It safely and reliably provides the energy we need.
As our largest primary fuel, representing more than a third of the UK’s energy consumption, natural gas is central to meeting our electricity demands, but it is also crucial that we look towards the future. The gas network itself—the system of underground pipes that transport gas the length and breadth of the country and meet the demands of millions of consumers daily—is critically important.
Looking to the future, the natural gas system is a key enabler of our net zero transition. It will allow us to phase out coal and reduce emissions faster than any other major economy. As the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire pointed out—I have the figure in miles and she had it in kilometres; that is the difference between Labour and the Liberal Democrats—there are 175,000 miles of pipework in the network associated with various infrastructure. It is an extraordinary thing, and we must remember the absolute scale of it. I pay tribute to the workers up and down the network who keep it going every single day, in really difficult circumstances at times. Some 26,000 workers are employed in the gas system, which demonstrates the size and scale of the industry.
However, it is important that we are not trapped in nostalgia about the system and that we have a clear-headed view of its future. The role of gas needs to change and has already begun to do so, so it is important that we set out how to get the change right. The Government are clear that making Britain a clean energy superpower is one of our defining missions, and that means that gas will play a smaller and smaller role in our electricity generation. That is the right thing to do. In a broader sense, net zero also requires a wide-ranging transformation of the rest of the economy. The transformation will mean a sea change in how infrastructure, industry, business and our homes work. The power sector, domestic buildings and transportation will all have to undergo significant change, and that will require not one solution but many things.
Part of the solution is the warm homes plan, which is about transforming our homes by making them cleaner and cheaper to run. We are also helping to unlock the potential of electric vehicle infrastructure right across the country. New clean heating solutions mean that fewer homes will rely on gas boilers. Our transition presents an incredible opportunity to build on the skills of the existing gas workforce as we build what comes next. That will lead to thousands of new jobs and training opportunities across the country. As we decarbonise industry, we will also see a growing role for carbon capture and low-carbon gases such as hydrogen and biomethane, which will help ensure that we meet our objective of net zero, while still providing secure, reliable and affordable energy.
One of my hon. Friends asked about the green gas support scheme. I can confirm that it will close for new applications in 2028, but we are looking at the responses to a call for evidence on its future.
It is clear that the gas network will continue to play a critical role in meeting our energy needs out to 2050 and beyond. Even when we achieve our clean power mission, as we will, gas will play an important strategic back-up role, so it will still be important to maintain that system. The Government are clear that gas use will decline overall, and that how we use gas in our system will change. We therefore have to think critically about this nationally important asset. We must repurpose it and make sure that we do not take any options off the table. We will set out our views on the future of the gas system in much more detail very soon.
We have to acknowledge the challenges, as this will not be straightforward. Ensuring that we remain energy independent and that the gas network continues to operate as needed during the transition means that we will have to make some difficult choices, and maintaining investor confidence is absolutely key. We must maintain the current system and drive in the investment that we need for the future. We have been working with Ofgem on its RIIO-3 plans for the price control period from 2026 to 2031, to make sure that investment in industry is fair and affordable. We also recognise that, as the demand for gas declines due to homes and industry increasingly relying on electricity, there will need to be an orderly transition across our energy network. We will continue to work with Ofgem on that.
A number of contributions focused on what the future of the gas network will look like. Given the country’s huge technological expertise and investment, to have such a secure and reliable network, we need to think about how we protect it while considering the different demands that will be placed on it in future—we are looking at all possible options in this space. We are aware of the need for clarity on the future of the gas grid and how these repurposing options fit within that, and we will say more on that in due course.
I will turn to two specific things that have been mentioned today. First, the potential of hydrogen is clearly quite significant both for heating and industrial demand. We are doing a serious amount of work and taking further evidence on how we repurpose our gas networks to enable that. Several Members, including my friend, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon)—he is ever present in this Chamber—spoke about working together across the UK on solutions. I will resist being drawn into constitutional arguments, although it is difficult to resist that temptation. The hon. Gentleman made an important point about working together on skills and jobs. Indeed, perfectly timed for his contribution, I am meeting Minister Archibald from the Northern Ireland Executive later today to talk about many of these issues and our co-operation with Northern Ireland.
On the question of blending, a mix of natural gas and hydrogen could be used in gas networks to decarbonise our gas use. The Government are actively looking at the question of blending and considering the appropriate decision points. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Andrew Pakes)—I think he said his constituency is the King’s Cross of the hydrogen world, which is an interesting analogy—asked about consultation on hydrogen blending. I can say that we will soon be publishing a consultation on transmission blending. On the core network, we agree that many benefits can be achieved from the hydrogen economy, but there are areas on which we require further evidence, as we really want to get this right. We are moving as quickly as possible, but we will need more evidence in some areas.
The Government want to provide strategic clarity on decarbonising home heating to best support our mission. To support that, we are assessing all the latest evidence, and we will consult later this year on the role of hydrogen in home heating. We also plan to bring forward a clear plan for industrial decarbonisation and a renewed industrial decarbonisation strategy, which will set out the strategic direction for our approach with industry.
The Government are enabling the development of the carbon capture, usage and storage sector to create jobs, reduce emissions and put the UK at the forefront of global CCUS. The Government are working on developing the strategic direction of CO2 transport networks. At the spending review, the Government announced that they will be providing development funding to advance the delivery of Viking and Acorn, with a final investment decision taken later in this Parliament.
I am grateful for the typically thoughtful contribution of the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East (Seamus Logan), who I have met a number of times, and we have had fruitful conversations. I was pleased to visit his constituency a few months ago, when I went to St Fergus, one of our most important gas terminals, and I welcome his comments on the Acorn project. We see it as a crucial project, and the funding we committed to it in the spending review will help drive it forward. It represents our commitment after years of dither and delay from the previous Government.
We think there is a role for biomethane in decarbonising all end users in the gas grid. It is already being used in the gas network, and we expect it to play a role in reaching our net zero target. It can be used flexibly, and that flexibility is valuable as it enables us to adapt to the hard-to-predict cost curves and deployment trajectories of existing technologies. Our biomass strategy sets out our ambition through to 2050.
With all repurposing and future use options, we need to determine the extent to which they are feasible, considering a range of factors. They must also be investable, to ensure that the gas industry can attract the necessary investment needed to build sustainable, viable networks. Crucial to that is that they have to provide value for money, providing affordable solutions for consumers who might use them.
To return to the point I started with, we need to be pragmatic on all this. Where repurposing is not viable, long-term consideration will be needed on whether we should decommission unused parts of the gas network and on the appropriate timeline for that. I want to be clear that none of this is straightforward. After successive Governments have not looked at this in the round, we are now grappling with how to deliver a future gas network that takes all the options into account and does not decommission things that we may wish we still had in the future.
There are lots of questions, and the Government do not have all the answers about the future, which is why the calls for evidence are so important. It is complex and challenging and, although we are not rushing, the Government cannot continue to ignore it. We are grappling with some of these big questions and will continue to work with industry and regulators on how best to meet the challenges.
The challenge before us is formidable but, like much of the energy transition we are embarking on, it is not insurmountable. As I frequently say, the point of being in government is to tackle the hard stuff. As with any issue that will outlive any Government, it is important to start the work now.
Our gas network will ensure that we can meet the transition challenges, providing us with the resilience and flexibility needed to deliver a fair, smooth and co-ordinated transition while protecting our energy security and independence in an affordable way. It can also be the foundation of new, innovative energy solutions to repurpose and adapt to future energy needs in a sustainable way.
Our plans announced in last week’s spending review set us on the right path, allowing us to build on those foundations. We need to harness the expertise and the passion within the gas industry, which I have had the huge privilege to learn from over the past 11 months in this job. We will combine that with the Government’s ability and determination to get this right as we broker a consensus on the way forward with a shared vision for the future of our incredibly important gas network.
As the Secretary of State set out at the International Energy Agency summit in London a few weeks ago, we will soon set out in much more detail our views on the future of the gas system. I look forward to continuing to work with the hon. Members present, not least because they have so many helpful suggestions about what the future will look like, and so much expertise to draw on.
Contrary to what the shadow Minister said, this is an area in which there is very little ideology. This is a practical problem that we have to solve as a country, so that the gas network is fit for the future, so that consumers benefit and so that we deliver on our energy security in the long term and have the opportunities for economic growth that the gas network can provide.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase again for securing the debate. I wish the rest of his birthday to be just as joyous as this debate, now that he has caught his breath. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions.
Josh Newbury
It is genuinely a pleasure to lead this debate on my birthday. Some people might sooner spend their birthday at Alton Towers or on the sofa, but an energy wonk like me would rather be here, among such knowledgeable and passionate Members, to discuss an issue of such significance to our nation’s future.
I thank hon. Members for their thoughtful and well-informed contributions. I am pleased to see the amount of consensus, which is a rare thing or even a dirty word in the current political climate. Many of our constituents believe we spend our weeks shouting at each other, but this debate has been a prime example of the reasoned and respectful engagement that I think defines Parliament.
We have heard from three of our four nations and covered a huge range of angles, from affordability, jobs and industry through to resilience, flexibility and, most importantly, communities and people. I welcome the Minister’s statement of confidence in the gas grid of today and tomorrow. He is right to say that we need to be pragmatic, and I welcome the clarity he has given us today. I worked in the industry for many years, so I know that is something we have not always had from previous Energy Ministers.
I look forward to continuing this debate in the months and years to come. As the Minister said, tackling the hard stuff is what we do in this place. I look forward to a bright future for our gas grid and, therefore, our whole unique energy system. Once again, I thank you, Dame Siobhain, for ably chairing the debate and hon. Members for making it such a rich discussion.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the future of the gas grid.
Marriage between First Cousins
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)
I will call Richard Holden to move the motion. I will then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up, as is the convention in 30-minute debates. I call Richard Holden to move the motion.
Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government policy on marriage between first cousins.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I rise to speak on a topic that many in our country assume is already settled. People assume that the marriage of first cousins is prohibited, as it was for 1,000 years in England. Yet that is not the case today. Despite deep cultural, medical and societal reasons to avoid such unions, our laws have remained unchanged since the era of Henry VIII. To many, that is a source of bewilderment and bafflement—as it was to me, until I dug deeper and realised some of the real dangers that widescale first cousin marriage can bring.
The Church banned first cousin marriage in the fifth century. By the 11th century it had prohibited marriage up to sixth cousins. That ban was reversed by a Tudor monarch with a perhaps chequered marital record and we have remained broadly silent on the issue ever since. However, the rights and freedoms of individual citizens, society and our broader understanding have moved on, and our laws must do the same.
This is not a call for a legislative knee-jerk reaction. Silence, as Matthew Syed has powerfully written in The Times, does not constitute neutrality. Silence is a fundamental choice with serious consequences, both for children born with preventable disorders, and even more so for men and women denied basic freedoms and for communities fragmented from wider society. I urge the House and the Minister to recognise the scale of the issue and—I hope—the moral imperative to act. My argument rests on three key tenets: freedom, social cohesion and health.
During the last Parliament I worked with campaigners to end virginity testing and hymenoplasty. In doing so I stood on the shoulders of giants: brave women from many organisations who support young women trapped in oppressive familial and extended family tribal systems. I pushed for a private Member’s Bill, and then via amendments to the Health and Care Act 2022, with Baroness Sugg in the House of Lords helping as well; the Government accepted the argument by tabling their own amendments. When I picked up that campaign, via a chance encounter with an item on BBC Radio 1’s “Newsbeat”, there was no politician of any party leading the charge in this House. Some of the activists involved might have been a bit miffed that a new, unknown Back-Bench Tory MP was leading their cause—but they got me, and we managed to push through some of the changes that they had been fighting for so bravely and with such strength for such a long time.
What was the reason behind women being forced to undergo procedures that are at best pseudo-scientific, and at worst deeply harmful? It was unscientific concepts of virginity linked to gender-oppressive ideas of purity in an oppressive patriarchal culture. Often those were linked to forced marriages. Some of their stories will never leave me: young women who had had their education and ambitions cut short being sent to marry men they had never met—men chosen not for compatibility or affection, but to preserve family alliances, assets or bastardised notions of honour.
Such arrangements are not just about culture; they are also about control. The system is upheld by pressure and enforced through silence, and people attempt to justify it through tradition. When marriage is confined within families, the cost of refusal rises astronomically: it is not simply turning down a partner, but rejecting grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts and the entire network of family and friends—and that has a price. Choice under those circumstances is no choice at all. That is why I see the legislation that I put forward in my private Member’s Bill, the Marriage (Prohibited Degrees of Relationship) Bill, and the debate we are having today as an extension of the work I did in the last Parliament.
We have heard, rightly, about patriarchal systems that rob women of autonomy, but in cousin marriage those systems are particularly resilient. Why? Because the families are not just connected, but fused—inextricably joined. The pressure is not just external, from legal systems; it is intimate and wholly inescapable, especially when it is generation after generation.
Men are trapped too; I have been told of British Pakistani men forced into such arrangements by community and familial obligations, terrified to defy expectations and cut ties with cousins whom they often consider, because of the closeness of their relationship, almost as siblings. There are even cases of gay men and women who have been forced to marry out of familial obligation. That is not hypothetical: since raising this issue, I have been contacted by scores of youth workers, healthcare professionals and ordinary members of the community who have thanked me for raising it and asked me to keep going. They need politicians to speak up, because they feel that they cannot.
Beneath the surface and behind closed doors, there is support and a real hunger for change in these communities. Sadly, what is lacking is the political courage to match that quiet majority—and it is a quiet majority in all parts of our community: polls show that support for reform is not linked to the black, white or other populations, and a YouGov poll just a few weeks ago showed that a majority of British Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities back a ban on first cousin marriage. The vain virtue signallers who said that moves in this direction would be racist must take a look at themselves; they are the ones opposing a majority of the communities that they play-act at representing.
For people in the communities I am speaking up for—most of the British Pakistani community, where this is a big issue, and to a lesser extent the Traveller community—cousin marriage is entangled with status, tradition and expectations, and speaking out can be very dangerous. As with forced marriage and female genital mutilation, silence only enables the system. Only sunlight breaks the cycle, and that means naming the issue, debating it and legislating against it.
Some critics say a ban would infringe upon people’s freedom—but what freedom are we protecting? The reality for so many is a life predetermined by bloodline and birth order. We are not protecting a freedom; we are perpetuating oppression. Whose freedom, if any, are we protecting? Purely the freedom of the oppressor to oppress and keep down—not the freedom of the individual. The state already intervenes where power dynamics distort consent. We rightly outlaw relationships between teachers and pupils or therapists and clients, because of the imbalance. The same must apply here.
Let us not forget that most cousin marriages are not one-offs. In some cases, they are multi-generational. With each generation, the chance to choose diminishes further. The net tightens and lives are lost in the gaps.
I move now beyond individual freedom to the broader issue of social cohesion. Patrick Nash, an Oxford theologian, argues that cousin marriage undermines trust in public institutions; when communities marry inward, loyalty is channelled inward to extended families and clan structures, rather than to the important shared civic values of the nation state and wider society.
At Harvard, Joseph Henrich has documented how the decline of cousin marriage helped to build western liberal democracies. When families are forced to look beyond their kin networks for marriage partners, new alliances form. Societies move beyond tribal loyalty to a broader civic trust. Studies show that, where cousin marriage continues, there is reduced integration, lower social mobility and higher incidence of corruption. Why? Because when job, marriage, dispute resolution and identity all sit within the same extended family structure, wider society fades from relevance.
If we want a society that functions on the basis of fairness, where the rule of law prevails and where people engage beyond their own, we cannot allow closed family systems to continue to flourish unchallenged. So-called community leaders—often unelected and unaccountable—who derive their authority from familial networks become gatekeepers for those people and communities. They decide who speaks, who marries whom and who gets heard. This system is self-perpetuating. These are not British values, and those who perpetuate such systems should be exposed. In many cases, those leaders are the ones resisting reform, not because the arguments for change are weak, but because their own power depends on those structures being preserved. Reform threatens their influence. That is why this issue matters so much.
We must remember that cousin marriage is not a religious obligation, but a cultural tradition, and traditions can and must change. Other nations have already exhibited powerful leadership in this area; we should look towards countries such as Norway, Sweden and Denmark for a steer. Those countries are liberal democracies with incredibly strong human rights records. They are not reactionary or anachronistic, but fundamentally progressive. Why, then, are we allowing Britain to lag behind? We hear concerns about cultural insensitivity—I have been accused of it myself—but is it not far more insensitive to ignore the pleas of those trapped within those structures? Is it not condescending to assume that communities cannot adapt or reform?
We should be empowering individuals, not entrenching power in extended family hierarchies. The state’s job is not to ratify patriarchal bargains, but to protect liberty, health and the chance of every citizen to live a full and independent life. When cousin marriage is prevalent, society and integration suffer, and shared spaces become fewer; school catchments, neighbourhoods and even workplaces can fracture along the lines of extended kin. That is not diversity at its best, but division at its worst. It is not about faith or race. It is about what sort of country we want to live in: one ruled by fear masquerading as family loyalty, or one where each citizen stands equal, with rights and responsibilities to each other deeper than those of family and clan. Those fundamentals are the foundation of a modern nation state and ones I believe this Parliament, this Government and this House should uphold.
Finally, I come to science and the health issue, because the best understood point against cousin marriage, though it is not core to my argument, is health. The Born in Bradford study, one of the UK’s most comprehensive birth cohort analyses, has followed 11,000 children.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the right hon. Gentleman for bringing this issue forward. It is a difficult subject, and one that can be hard to listen to and respond to in a balanced way. I thank him for doing that well. Does he not agree that the science showing that the prevalence of birth defects doubling in cases of cousin marriage is reason enough to consider drastic legal action? While education is an enviable end-goal pathway, the stats show that it is not effective enough at present. In the interim, for the sake of children and communities, does he agree that action should be taken?
Mr Holden
The hon. Member contributes so often to our debates in such a thoughtful way. He raises an important point about health, which I will develop. The health issues are of fundamental importance but, as I have said in my speech, there are broader societal concerns that mean this issue should be higher up the Government’s agenda more generally as well.
For unrelated parents, the Born in Bradford study found that around one in 40 children are born with serious birth defects. Among first cousins, that rises to roughly one in 15, even when controlling for poverty, education and maternal age. That is more than double the risk. It cannot be stressed enough that this is not an isolated issue. In some communities, cousin marriage remains par for the course—the typical, not the atypical. In parts of Bradford, for instance, over half of all mothers of Pakistani heritage are married to first or second cousins.
That is hardly new information; as far back as the 19th century, the British Medical Journal documented inherited risks from unions between first cousins. Charles Darwin himself was married to his first cousin, and he suspected a link between his marriage and the poor health of his children, three of whom died young and five of whom suffered from chronic illnesses or disability.
The genetic risks run from the well-known Tay-Sachs, thalassaemia and cystic fibrosis to the under-recognised microcephaly, heart defects and intellectual disabilities. Those disorders are often lifelong, and the toll is felt not just by families, but by wider society—by the NHS, by our special educational needs system and across communities.
Alison Shaw, professor of social anthropology at Oxford, has written extensively on cousin marriage in British-Pakistani communities. Drawing on public health data, she highlights that children born to first cousins face roughly double the risk of serious genetic disorders compared with those of unrelated parents. Some have suggested that genetic testing could solve the problem but, while certain conditions can be screened for, many cannot. More importantly, testing does nothing to address the broader issues I have already spoken of around coercion and lack of real choice.
Moreover, as UK Biobank studies demonstrate, multi-generational first cousin marriages exponentially compound risk. The DNA profiles in such families begin almost to mirror those of siblings, or certainly uncle-niece relationships, which often carry much higher risks of severe birth defects, when first cousin marriage occurs generation after generation. In broader culture, people often think of the Habsburgs as a reference point, but this issue is more than mere historical curiosity; it is sadly representative of a contemporary crisis that continues to affect families today.
Behind every statistic lie families, clinicians and patients struggling to manage lifelong consequences. What makes this more painful is that so many of these conditions are entirely preventable. When the science is clear, it beggars belief that we still choose not to do anything. We must stop pretending that this is a marginal issue. The data is clear: it is not anecdotal, but systematic. The status quo is not neutral; it is a form of abandonment, and sustaining it is indefensible.
If we were to design a system that throttled personal freedom, threw in major health issues and undermined national cohesion, we could hardly do better than the widespread practice of first cousin marriage. We ban incest for good reasons. We recognise the power imbalances inherent to sexual relationships between teachers and pupils, doctors and patients, uncles and aunts and their nieces and nephews, and parents and their children. We legislate to protect the vulnerable, so why are we silent here? Sadly, I fear that it is because we fear being called intolerant and it is sometimes easier not to look. The truth is that inaction is not neutrality; it is complicity. We must do better.
We need only to look at what has happened in recent days with the release of the report on grooming gangs. I think back to the Labour MPs who raised that issue at a much earlier stage, such as Ann Cryer, who spoke passionately about it almost two decades ago. There is a lot to learn from people who have gone before us.
My Bill currently sits before the House. I thank the Members who have already put their names to it, including the hon. Member for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden), my right hon. Friends the Members for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) and for Newark (Robert Jenrick), the hon. Member for North Northumberland (David Smith), my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston (Neil O’Brien), the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), my hon. Friends the Members for Fylde (Mr Snowden), for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), for West Suffolk (Nick Timothy) and for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott).
I urge the Government to take this matter seriously and to listen to the survivors, to professionals and to the silent majorities in the affected communities. We must stop treating such issues as a taboo. If the so-called community leaders had got their way, we would have kept marriage under 16 and we would not have banned hymenoplasty and virginity testing or people being taken abroad for forced marriage. This should not be a taboo issue; it is a public health issue. It is about liberty and integration.
The aim is not to condemn, but to liberate, in order to ensure that our country is one where freedom does not end at the edge of tradition, where cohesion is built on our common citizenship, not inherited constraint, and where children are not born into suffering that we have the power to prevent. We have a chance to take a lead and make a statement that in 21st century Britain, freedom, health and integration matter. I hope the Minister will hear that call.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Davies-Jones)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) for securing this important debate and commend him for all his brilliant work to support women, in the previous Parliament and going forward. I know that he feels strongly about this issue and, as he said, has introduced a private Member’s Bill on the subject. It goes without saying that it is a sensitive and complex issue, which requires nuance and respect. I thank him for the way he presented his arguments today.
It is important first to understand the current law around marriage. In England and Wales, marriage law is governed primarily by the Marriage Act 1949, which outlines the conditions under which a marriage is considered void, meaning not legally valid. That includes situations where one party is under 18 or where one party is serving a whole-life order in prison. Under the Act, marriages between individuals who are considered too closely related are also considered void. Those relationships fall within so-called prohibited degrees of relationship, which include close blood relations, such as siblings, and certain step relations, such as someone marrying the child of a former spouse.
As we all know, the prohibited degrees of relationship in the 1949 Act do not include first cousins. To understand why that exception exists, it is helpful to consider the context. As the right hon. Member mentioned when he introduced his Bill and in his speech today, marriage between first cousins has been permitted since Henry VIII changed the law in order to marry Anne Boleyn’s cousin, Catherine Howard.
The list of relationships that are legally too close for marriage—prohibited degrees—has been around for centuries. It was first officially written into law in the Marriage Act 1835. It was updated by various laws passed between 1907 and 1931, and was eventually brought together into the 1949 Act. The law has continued to evolve since then; for example, the Children Act 1975 added a prohibition on marriages between adoptive parents and their adopted children.
There have been studies that seem to reinforce our anecdotal understanding that individuals from communities are increasingly moving away from traditional practices and opting for relationships outside their extended families. This shift reflects a broader trend of integration into wider society, alongside awareness of certain health and societal implications that are associated, as the right hon. Member mentioned, with cousin marriage.
Let me address the right hon. Member’s concerns about those health risks, and specifically the risk of congenital disease in children. There is a continued debate about the genetic risks involved in first cousin marriages. As my noble Friend Baroness Merron highlighted in the other place earlier this year, the NHS offers support for families who may be at higher risk of genetic abnormalities. The Government also understand the importance of having better data in this area, which is why the National Congenital Anomaly and Rare Disease Registration Service collects and analyses data to support doctors, charities and policymakers to improve treatments and care in England. NHS England has also recently published guidance to improve recording of national data on closely related couples.
I listened carefully to the right hon. Member’s argument that banning first cousin marriage could promote community integration. We recognise that the practice is permitted in some faith communities, while it is not permitted in others. As I have said, this is a complex and sensitive area of law, and I am happy to continue to engage with him on it as the Government consider the issue more broadly.
The right hon. Member also suggested that banning first cousin marriage could help to reduce forced marriages. Let me be absolutely clear: forced marriage is a serious human rights violation. It is illegal and carries a maximum prison sentence of up to seven years. It is a complex form of honour or culture-based abuse, and our response must be comprehensive, with a focus on preventing such crimes, on supporting and protecting survivors and those at risk, and on bringing perpetrators to justice.
Tackling forced marriage is a key part of the Government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls within a decade. The forced marriage unit, which is a joint effort between the Home Office and the Foreign Office, works tirelessly to combat forced marriage, both at home and abroad. The unit provides a vital range of materials, including free e-learning. Last year alone, over 5,800 professionals, such as registrars, completed that training. A new forced marriage resource pack has also been launched to help raise awareness of forced marriage among professionals.
I recognise that there is a lot of interest across the House in bringing forward a number of changes to weddings law more generally. I know that many Members are keen to see changes brought forward quickly, but it is important that any such changes are made in the round. Just last week, during a debate on humanist marriage, I explained to a packed Westminster Hall that it is not possible for the Government simply to ignore the Law Commission’s 2022 report. We cannot ignore the fact that that report identified a number of complex and significant issues within the current legal framework.
Mr Holden
May I take the Minister back to a point she made about forced marriage? I understand her commitment, and that of the Government, on this issue, but surely she must recognise that when we are looking at a rate of first cousin marriages of between one in 200 and one in 500 in normal society, but a rate of one in two in certain communities, real questions must be asked. How can anybody in those communities really speak out about that issue and the concerns around forced marriage? It is so clear that the family ties are so strong, generation after generation, that they make it almost impossible for people to come forward.
Alex Davies-Jones
I totally agree with the right hon. Member. He makes a very powerful point, which speaks to why we need to look at this issue very carefully. With certain groups engaging in this practice, we cannot just have a knee-jerk reaction; he mentioned that in his speech. Others are calling for me to have a knee-jerk reaction on humanist weddings, for example, and to just quickly lay a statutory instrument to make that change possible. I am not about creating piecemeal legislation in an area that is very complex.
I want to reassure the right hon. Member that the Government are not ignoring this issue. We are considering it deeply and in the round, but it is responsible of us to consider it carefully and with the appropriate communities, which he mentioned, so that we get a full picture of the situation.
That brings me to the central proposal in this debate, which is to ban first cousin marriage. It is worth noting that during the past 14 years, when the prevalence of first cousin marriage was higher than it is now, the previous Government, in which the right hon. Member was a Minister, took no steps to introduce a ban. As I have said, first cousin marriage is complex and sensitive, and this Government are considering it with the seriousness that it rightly deserves.
The right hon. Member will also be aware that in 2022, when the Law Commission published its comprehensive review of weddings law, the previous Government had ample opportunity to raise the issue of first cousin marriage in response to that report, but they chose not to respond at all. In the report, the Law Commission set out a number of issues with marriage law, including inconsistency and unfairness across different groups and faith communities. We are considering the report and the wider issues of weddings law, including first cousin marriage, and I want to put that on record today.
My officials are working hard on weddings law reform, as am I, and an update from the Government on our position will come very soon. I am happy to continue to engage with the right hon. Member and any other Members or those outside this place who want to discuss this matter further as we prepare our plan for weddings reform.
Question put and agreed to.
Businesses in Rural Areas
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Matt Western (in the Chair)
I am pleased to see so many Members here. It is a warm afternoon, so if you wish to remove your jackets, you may do so. I do not necessarily expect a hot debate on this subject; however, a great many of you are expecting to speak, so we will start with a time limit of two minutes—and I am already anticipating that it could be reduced—and you may wish to prepare your speeches accordingly. I remind you all to speak through the Chair.
Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered Government support for businesses in rural areas.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western, and I am delighted to secure this important debate. We need growth. It is a key part of the Government’s agenda and it is a fact agreed across the House: our economy has to get going again. I want to make the simple but firm case that the Government can secure that much-needed growth if they give our rural economy the support it needs.
For hundreds of years, our country was driven primarily by the rural economy. North Norfolk was a vital trading hub, with the Glaven valley becoming highly prosperous as a key component of the wool trade, importing shipments from Europe and benefiting from our ease of access to the Netherlands by sea. While the Glaven ports are no longer economic powerhouses, the rural economy continues to play a major role. Nowadays, about a quarter of businesses are based in rural areas, and they contribute a whopping £240 billion to the economy per year. However, we are acutely affected by the specific challenges that rural economies face.
When people in North Norfolk think about economic growth and success, they do not need to dive head first into the spreadsheets of the Financial Times to decide about business confidence; they take a look at what is happening in their communities. Their economic indicators are not hedge fund billions, but on the high street. They take things such as the expansion of Coffeesmiths in North Walsham as a sign that more people are visiting our rural market towns, and they see from the opening of new businesses in Stalham that the Norfolk broads and their communities retain their unique appeal.
However, people in North Norfolk also see the closure of our local bank branches and think about how small businesses and sole traders will struggle with their business banking. They see our inadequate public transport system and wonder how our businesses can recruit or young people can train outside the immediate area.
Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)
The hon. Member is doing a great job in advocating for rural businesses. I was speaking the other day to the Suffolk chamber of commerce, which highlighted just how critical rural bus services are for people being able to get to work, training and other activities, and therefore how critical they are for our rural economy. Does he agree that we need better funding for rural bus services not only to support the economy, but to tackle social isolation?
Steff Aquarone
I agree entirely—if only there was a buses Bill before the House. We are also going to get the Transport Committee’s report on buses connecting rural communities, and I would be interested in his thoughts on that in due course.
Meanwhile, rural residents see the Chancellor and the Business Secretary courting the banks and hedge funds, or flying overseas to seek investment. They know that that is important, but they would like to see similar care and engagement for the businesses that matter to them. The Chancellor is keen to get the ear of BlackRock’s Larry Fink, but what about the insights of Larry’s Pizzeria in Hoveton? Meg and Jamie, the hard-working owners, recently showed me how perilous the situation is for rural businesses like theirs. They have excellent reviews, a busy restaurant and a prime broads location, but the cash still just does not add up. The ever-growing cost of supplies, the broken business rates system and high energy costs mean that it has rarely been tougher for a rural business like theirs.
Business owners, employees, trainees and jobseekers have all shared their insights about how these rural economic challenges are impacting them. Chief among them is attracting, training and retaining the workforce. Although we in North Norfolk are proud to have the oldest population in the country, we are blessed with many eager and talented young people who are keen to cut their teeth in a range of sectors. However, the sad reality is that young people in rural areas are missing out on opportunities and seeing their career paths limited by the difficulty of accessing training, apprenticeships and early career development, which are simply too far away and take too long to reach to be feasible.
A large part of that is down to our public transport struggles. During the debate on the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill, I spoke about a young woman from my constituency who is eager to get an apprenticeship working in childcare, but buses will not get her to the right part of Norwich in time for the 8 am start.
Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)
High streets in market towns such as Melksham, Devizes and Bradford-on-Avon in my constituency suffer from a lack of footfall, which is exacerbated by poor public transport connections. Does my hon. Friend agree that improving bus and train services, as well as providing safe cycle lanes, is crucial for business development?
Steff Aquarone
I wholeheartedly agree. It is not just the reduction in social isolation and the improved access to healthcare, but the access to training and development, and the ability of customers to get to places to spend their money in the local economy, that make the case for improvement in public transport such a compelling one.
As I was saying, a large part of this situation is down to our transport struggles. The would-be apprentice in childcare I mentioned cannot get to the right place in Norwich at the right time. Training providers themselves struggle to recruit and retain the necessary staff and professionals to deliver consistent and wide-ranging vocational training offers.
I want to highlight the work of one of my constituents in trying to tackle these training and employment challenges head-on. Mitzi from Mundesley has set up a business that employs young local people to turn empty second homes into affordable rental properties. She currently has three such young people—Jake, Jeremy and Sandor—and they are getting practical skills and training in the construction industry while helping to deliver much-needed affordable homes for people just like them.
Community-centred entrepreneurs like Mitzi are not a rarity in rural areas. People start the businesses that their communities want and need, and they provide just as much, if not more, than they receive. However, rural entrepreneurs such as Mitzi, and business owners and managers across rural areas, also struggle with a lack of networks and experience, which are more easily clustered in urban settings. In the square mile of the City of London, there are 22,000 businesses; in the 360 square miles of North Norfolk, there are 5,000. There is a lack of easy networking, shared expertise and experience, and paths to mentorship and training, which are far more viable in an urban business setting, and yet we have no less ability to develop cutting-edge innovation, global leadership and breakaway sector success.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I was very lucky last year, on the day after the general election was called, to celebrate my birthday at Albourne Estate, which is a vineyard that produces exceptional English wine. As those of us in areas such as Sussex look towards devolution, does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that businesses like Albourne are given support through the incoming mayors, and that those mayors have the powers in areas such as transport, training and skills to deal with the issues that he is outlining?
Steff Aquarone
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention, and I am grateful to that business in her constituency for providing such a great product, which I have sampled. It is mostly breweries in North Norfolk, so I think I will be safe.
I totally agree with my hon. Friend: devolution is a great opportunity. Whatever people feel about devolution, the opportunity that it provides, both in transport and for economic growth leadership, is clear and we must embrace it. Devolution is happening, including in Norfolk and Suffolk, and she has outlined one of the things in favour of it.
Clean Tech East, which is in a business park that straddles my constituency and that of the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild), is one example of sector-led success, but it is also a great example of the support that is needed from Government, which is slightly different. In particular, we need Government to empower local leaders to take action.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
It is good news that the rural prosperity fund has been extended for another year, but it has been reduced to £33 million this year. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need a firm, long-term commitment to solving the challenges of rural infrastructure provision?
Steff Aquarone
I am relieved that my hon. Friend asked that question, because much as funding is welcome in all forms—I know that many of my constituency businesses and their supporters have applied for funds, received them and been part of schemes—we need long-term settlements, long-term funding and local accountability. We cannot just be queuing up to make our pitches to Whitehall; we must have things decided and delivered on the ground.
The support that is needed in rural areas is different. Rural economic development can be, and must be, more exciting, inventive and far-reaching than just building and leasing business parks. Even where they are useful, local authorities and local leaders have to get to the root causes of rural economic struggles and support businesses to address them.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
In Winchester we have the fantastic Sparsholt agricultural college, which engages with local businesses and stakeholders to ensure that it trains students in the skills that the local economy will need. A good example is its vineyard management course, which takes advantage of the amazing new vineyards popping up on our amazing chalk soil. Does my hon. Friend agree that we need Government support to ensure that there are accessible courses to give students of all backgrounds the skills to drive our rural economy?
Steff Aquarone
I totally agree. We are developing a bit of a wine theme here, but let me return to a subject that Members might have heard Liberal Democrats talk about a lot, which is care. We are proud to have the oldest demographic in the country in North Norfolk. We should not be afraid of the fact that we have a care industry, which we should celebrate and encourage, and in which we should create career paths and provide training opportunities. Workforce development is key to tackling rural economic development.
I am delighted that some innovative, locally led programmes have been delivered by Lib Dem-led North Norfolk district council. Business owners have told me of the positive experiences they have had with the support and training that is available, and many more will benefit from the recently launched Invest North Norfolk hub. Local leaders, however, need to break the mould and provide innovative, far-reaching support and strategy to supercharge every rural economy. The rural economy is far from immune to the general business challenges that many face across the country; in fact, many of those struggles are only made greater by the nature of rural areas. Rural businesses struggle more with access to funding for investment and seed capital, and they struggle more to meet the cost of decarbonisation.
At the same time, in North Norfolk we have seen large community benefit funds from energy giants that host renewable infrastructure in our area, but the restrictions on those funds are incredibly onerous and they eventually run short of projects to fund. There are only so many bus stops in North Norfolk that they can attempt to gold plate. If access to the funds were liberalised, allowing businesses to secure the important support that they need to grow, adapt and improve, they could have a greater and wider-reaching economic impact, and they could support wider aims to secure environmental benefits and benefits for the communities that their infrastructure affects.
Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)
I wonder whether I can make the case for real support from the Government for community benefit from renewable energy. It is being proposed at a fairly modest level by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, but it is one of the biggest opportunities for rural Britain to transform its economy.
Steff Aquarone
We have started the list, so let me reinforce and add my support to that ask. I hope it is something the Minister might be able to discuss with colleagues in DESNZ, to see whether some joined-up thinking might happen.
I have spoken much about challenges and struggles, but I also want to talk about the huge opportunities that our rural businesses could seize on with the right support from the Government. The unique character of our rural areas sets them up perfectly to benefit from some of the most exciting advances in science and research. Norwich research park, which is not in my constituency but is not far away, hosts many of the country’s world-leading research institutes in the field of agriscience, and they are making incredible scientific progress that could make our food and farming healthier, more efficient and more sustainable. Having such research excellence almost on our doorstep is incredibly exciting, and its location within touching distance of many of our farming and agricultural businesses provides opportunities for easy roll-out of a new generation of science. Our farmers could benefit from world-leading research, and our researchers are already benefiting from our world-leading farmers.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman concerned that the trade agreement signed with the EU will stymie gene editing and the important research that the United Kingdom is doing in that field? In fact, the treaty will prevent us from rolling out gene-edited crops in the United Kingdom.
Steff Aquarone
I am a cautious supporter of the latest developments in food science. I have met the researchers who are leading on the development of that scientific frontier and the safeguards as well. I am concerned about some of the detail. I accept that there is a difficult trade-off with the other demands that farmers make of me, to ensure standardisation for import-export and harmonisation with the European market that they can sell into. However, I welcome the hon. Member’s intervention; it is an important point, well made.
It is not just the deployment of research that can benefit our rural areas; these businesses add an exciting new link to our supply chain. With better connectivity and support for these new, progressive, science-led businesses to source locally, our rural businesses can see a huge boost from encouraging progress in our cutting-edge science and tech sectors.
However, we must not forget the middle of the chain. Still, too much of what is grown and reared in North Norfolk is shipped elsewhere for value adding and processing. With greater support for local leadership, we could create more resilient local supply chains from R&D all the way through to the finished product. That could vastly reduce food miles and improve quality standards and innovation. Additionally, many researchers, scientists and more might choose to come and live in North Norfolk if we had the necessary public transport links to make us a commutable destination. Instead, they are contributing to the overheating of the housing market in our main city.
Alison Hume (Scarborough and Whitby) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making an impassioned speech, as is his norm. While tourism is vital for our rural economies, he touched on accommodation, and many businesses in my constituency of Scarborough and Whitby are finding it harder and harder to employ enough staff because of the increase in short-term holiday lets, which is forcing local people to move out. Does he agree that the Government must urgently bring forward registration of short-term holiday lets to avoid our rural areas being overwhelmed, so that employees have somewhere to live and businesses enough people to employ?
Steff Aquarone
On balance, I agree—partly to manage the local housing supply and encourage the local tourism economy, but also for reasons of public safety and improved standards. The people I speak to and who approach me are usually the ones whose standards I have no worries about, but there are many out there who probably would benefit from registration. That is the right, balanced approach, so I support what the hon. Lady says.
Going back to buses, with the right public transport infrastructure constituents of mine could commute to the many thousands of jobs emerging in what is fast becoming the global centre of excellence for agritech. Likewise, those bringing their expertise to Norfolk could more fully enjoy the environmental and lifestyle benefits of our county and my constituency, while bringing a new and expanding clientele to our local businesses.
I look forward to hearing from many others about the rural businesses in their areas. I am grateful for the interventions so far and I expect that we will hear of many shared challenges and frustrations, but I am also excited about the opportunities just waiting for the support they need to kick-start them. The rural economy is a sleeping giant waiting to be awoken. Let us do for rural and coastal communities what we did as a country for industrialised towns and cities in the second half of the last century. We just need the Government to grasp the reins and tackle the challenges that we face.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
I believe there was a rural White Paper in 1995, followed by a similar one in 2000, but then a 15-year gap until the productivity plan and another eight-year gap until the “Unleashing rural opportunity” paper of 2023, which was 28 pages in total. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need a clear, defined rural strategy that ties all those elements together to release the potential of rural Britain?
Steff Aquarone
I agree, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me the perfect platform to remind the House of my support for a coastal communities Minister—but that is outside the scope of this particular debate. This issue requires not only strategic vision and leadership from the top, but empowerment and resources on the ground; if another strategy will help that, I support it. The number of papers the hon. Gentleman referred to reminds us all of the cross-party ambition here—we just have to get on and do it, and this feels like a good time to grasp that nettle. We already contribute hundreds of billions to the economy, but there are billions more just waiting to be unlocked all over our country. With real support, vision and strategy, we can transform the rural economy into the powerhouse it has been before and should be in the future.
Several hon. Members rose—
Matt Western (in the Chair)
It is good to see so many Members bobbing; I remind Members that they should bob throughout if they wish to be called in the debate. I am going to set a two-minute time limit, but we may have to reduce that at some point, given the amount of interventions that have been taken—I am not criticising that but, when speaking, please bear in mind that should you take an intervention you will prevent others from speaking later.
Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I commend the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for securing this important debate.
Rural businesses are a core part of the economy in places such as Macclesfield, which—as you will know, Mr Western—is a beautiful part of the world, on the western edge of the Peak district. Field, farm and forest bring, in equal measure, community and economic activity. Businesses are vital in rural areas, be they the local pub, the farms that feed us or the businesses that support the tourism industry—a critical part of the economy in my area.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
At the end of the high season for tourists, does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should reduce tourism VAT to lower prices and allow businesses to increase investment, particularly in coastal and rural communities such as those in my constituency? That would boost growth in tourist economies. There is such a system in Italy, France and Spain, and it brings much more money in.
Tim Roca
I agree that we should be open-minded about such measures, just as I was open-minded about taking interventions—although that may change.
On that point, I want to celebrate the value of the visitor economy, which has been mentioned. It has risen to more than £1 billion in Cheshire East, which means that 10,000 jobs depend on that sector in my area. Many hon. Members have spoken, and no doubt will speak, eloquently about the challenges facing rural businesses, and I will talk briefly about a couple of those challenges too.
First, Macclesfield residents have great difficulty finding transport, so they are reliant on a car to get around. If they want to go to a local pub such as the Rose and Crown in Wincle or the Swan Inn in Kettleshulme, and they do not have a car, they must depend on bus routes that are unreliable, infrequent or simply not there. I welcome the more than £5.5 million in extra funding from the Government for Cheshire East council to improve local bus services, and I hope that we continue with efforts to improve rural transport connectivity and the road network—for those hon. Members were present for my Westminster Hall debate on roadworks in Cheshire, the B4570 remains closed from Macclesfield through Rainow.
Secondly, digital connectivity is incredibly important. In many parts of my constituency, phone signal is impossible to come by. I looked at Ofcom’s network coverage map prior to this debate, and there is limited data and not much voice access over huge chunks of my constituency. That strongly affects businesses, because we all know that internet access is a critical part of the rural economy. I welcome the schemes that are supporting further roll-outs, but more needs to be done.
Thirdly, I am sure that other hon. Members will talk powerfully about the impact of energy costs on rural businesses, and I am keen to hear more about what the Government are doing to ensure that those costs are reduced. The Country Land and Business Association powerfully said in 2024 that the rural economy was 14% less productive than the national average. If we close that gap, £40 billion extra could be added to England’s gross value added.
Our rural economy is critical, as is investment in it. There is a great opportunity for us, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister about the good work that the Government are doing to support that.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. As we know, rural businesses are the backbone of our communities, but they are being asked to compete with one hand tied behind their back. Across South Devon, local entrepreneurs—farmers, shopkeepers, tradespeople, producers and publicans—are working tirelessly to keep their communities vibrant, providing jobs, supporting local supply chains and bringing people together, but the odds are stacked against them.
One of the most urgent and unacceptable barriers that rural businesses face is poor broadband and mobile phone coverage. In some parts of my constituency, people cannot send an email without it crashing halfway, and taking card payments is a gamble. How can a small rural business compete in a digital economy if it cannot get online? Poor coverage is not just an inconvenience; it is a direct threat to livelihoods.
I will also address the way in which the Government are implementing the extended producer responsibility scheme, which is hitting local hospitality businesses hard. I welcome the Government’s efforts to make manufacturing more sustainable, but that must not come at the cost of adding further financial uncertainty for small businesses that are already under pressure.
The New Inn, a historical pub in the small village of Moreleigh in my constituency, has been informed by the brewery that supplies it that prices will increase by 7p per bottle of beer and cider and up to 21p per bottle of wine. The brewery will not deal with the bottles afterwards, however, so the pub also has to pay for the disposal of the glassware. The proprietor said:
“in effect we are paying twice…The hospitality trade is being unfairly targeted by this government. Trading is becoming increasingly difficult. After our business just surviving Covid—we are still paying the bounce back loan—then being hit with the Employer’s NI hike and now this, I am beginning to wonder if after 14 years it’s really worth it any more.”
These pubs are not major polluters; they are local employers and community hubs. They are vital to the social and economic life of our villages and towns. More than just pubs, they are third spaces and social hubs that are vital to community life. Yet under this scheme they are treated the same as massive supermarket chains. That is unfair, out of touch and economically harmful.
Elaine Stewart (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. It has taken until 2025, but Barr, a rural south Ayrshire village, is finally able to enjoy a mobile phone signal. I was pleased for the community; I had my photograph taken with residents, and the local papers covered the story. It should have been a non-event—this is 2025, after all—but rural communities are too often left behind when it comes to digital connectivity, which is why it was an important moment for Barr. That is the first of three points that I want to make about businesses in rural communities such as Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock.
My second point is that businesses employ local people, and people buy houses and spend their money in the local community. Sometimes the issue is finding local talent, and that is made more difficult by a skills mismatch. Take green energy: many rural communities are hosting new wind farm projects, but vacancies for local engineers and maintenance staff for wind farms are not always easy to find. I am sure that that is also common in many other areas. We have talent in Ayrshire, but we do not have the right skills. We need to train our young people with the right skillsets for local jobs for the future. I want growth deals, such as the Ayrshire growth deal, to invest in skills for the future, and I made that case to the Scotland Office yesterday.
My final point is about broader infrastructure such as transport. Poor road connectivity and limited public transport options hinder people’s access to work. The A77 in Ayrshire is in desperate need of an upgrade. It is plagued by congestion and shocking road surfaces, which make travel difficult for residents and businesses alike. Last week, the Government announced £15.6 billion for transport in the spending review. The spending review shows that the Government are backing the devolved Administrations. Those funds should be used directly to ensure that Scotland’s transport network is efficient and accessible. I have again written to the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Fiona Hyslop, about the state of the A77.
I want to finish on a broader point—
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Western.
The family farm tax was a hammer blow to our agricultural businesses. We understand that the Government seek to raise money, but there is an alternative on the table: the so-called clawback proposal. I hope that the Minister will update us on that and, if the Government do not think that the clawback proposal would work and raise potentially even more money than the current policy, I hope that he can explain that.
More broadly, the Government have said that they will increase spending on environmental land management schemes, but they are cutting back in other areas. The overall budget for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is coming down in real terms. What will that mean for our agricultural businesses?
Beyond specifically rural businesses such as farms, rural constituencies have all manner of other businesses that just happen to be in rural areas. As colleagues have said, those businesses face additional challenges, first among which is connectivity. I hope that the Government will do more on the shared rural network; it is going quite well in Scotland and Wales, but we need more of it in England.
On the transition to VoIP—voice over internet protocol —we need to ensure that businesses have proper power back-up systems in place for power cuts. We need a rapid expansion of banking hubs, because the loss of banking infrastructure is felt particularly in rural areas, where banks are more spread out, and we need full utilisation of the national post office network.
As well as dealing with problems, we must seize opportunities. A couple of colleagues have already mentioned the wine sector, which is a great growth opportunity for rural areas. Much more could also be done on tourism, both inbound and domestic, as well as agritourism. We need to ensure that young people growing up in our constituencies have the same opportunities as others, and that means a particular focus on T-level industrial placements for children from rural areas, as well as ensuring that they can get to work; I would love to see a national version of the wheels to work programme, renting scooters to young people.
Terry Jermy (South West Norfolk) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I thank my Norfolk colleague, the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), for securing the debate.
One of the real pleasures of being a Member of Parliament is visiting businesses across the constituency. That is something I aim to do regularly in South West Norfolk. I have two questions when I visit: what are your challenges, and what are your opportunities? The responses are nearly always the same: skills and connectivity.
The Heygates flour mill in Downham Market is nearly 200 years old. When I visited, the owners told me that they have to bring over engineers from Turkey, which is a big flour-producing country, to service the machines. They cannot recruit engineers locally, so they bring them in from Turkey at great expense.
On healthcare, 85 million drip bags are produced every year in Thetford in my constituency. Those businesses tell me that they are moving away from having people on production lines and towards automation, so they need trained, skilled individuals to help with technology. They struggle to recruit locally for that critical part of our healthcare system, located in a rural community.
The Wissington sugar beet factory near Downham Market is the largest sugar beet factory in Europe. The owners tell me that they have vibration sensors on the machinery, linked with artificial intelligence, so they can proactively plan maintenance to reduce the number of breakdowns, but they struggle to recruit people with the right skills.
Those are the issues that come up time and again. Hon. Members have already mentioned connectivity, and I would agree that issues with connectivity in the broadest possible sense—mobile phone signals, broadband, trains, buses and road infrastructure—really hold us back in my part of the world. I therefore ask the Minister to comment on skills and connectivity.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for securing this important debate and for his excellent speech.
Small rural businesses are the heartbeat of the economy in Glastonbury and Somerton, but many are in crisis. The Government’s increase in employer’s national insurance contributions is an aggressive measure that disproportionately burdens the rural economy. Jacqueline, the owner of two businesses in my constituency, has gone from being in profit to laying off four members of staff. The Liberal Democrats have opposed the rise at every turn, knowing the devastating impact that it will have on rural businesses.
The Chancellor’s choice to introduce permanently lower multipliers for retail, hospitality and leisure properties from 2026 will punish significant rural employers at a time when the Government should be supporting them. The Kings Arms in Charlton Horethorne is a thriving rural pub, but the owners contacted me recently to say that the changes to business rates could cause its closure. Overt Locke, a Somerton hardware store, is also experiencing economic collapse. Indeed, it did close—the previous owners had to sell up—but luckily the new owners, Rob and Louise, have resurrected the business; however, it will be profitable only if business rates relief is sustained at 75%.
The Liberal Democrats would scrap the broken business rates system and replace it with a commercial landowner levy that taxes land value, not productive investment. When rural businesses fail, we lose not just livelihoods but the social and economic fabric of our countryside.
Maya Ellis (Ribble Valley) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for securing this brilliant debate.
My constituency is a fantastic mix of urban pockets and vast rural areas, with some incredible businesses, including Butlers Farmhouse Cheeses, James’ Places hotels and Massey Feeds. I have just come from the Countryside Alliance awards in the House of Lords, and the hottest restaurant in the north-west, Eight at Gazegill, has just won the rural enterprise award.
Hon. Members have raised really important issues, including affordable housing, transport and congested country roads, but I want to focus on a particular point that I am concerned about following the spending review last week. My rural constituency in the county of Lancashire and many other areas across the UK are about to lose the last pockets of business support funding.
The areas that remain without a mayoral devolution deal are predominantly rural shire counties, and in the spending review it was confirmed that the shared prosperity fund will end in 2026. It was obviously meant to be a bridging fund to replace the millions of pounds of regional development funding that areas such as Lancashire used to receive from the EU, and it predominantly funded business growth hubs and other business support.
As of next year, all local growth and business support funding will be channelled into mayoral areas. I would be grateful if the Minister could assure us that further plans will be made to continue supporting innovative and high-growth businesses across our non-mayoral areas; otherwise, we are set to miss out on huge opportunities for innovation in the often more community-driven and community-embedded businesses that we value and want to encourage.
I am conscious of time, so I will end by saying that I look forward to the Government building out our strategies to understand rural economies more. I support the calls for a proper strategy. We need to grip the rural opportunity in this country, and that starts with the rural businesses that keep those areas thriving.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Western. In eastern and mid Devon, we have many ordinary medium-sized and small businesses, but they are facing extraordinary barriers, including being held back by a lack of reliable broadband in rural areas. I appreciate that that is not in the Minister’s brief, but I urge him to lobby and talk to his colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology to try to get some movement on the issue.
Under the recent spending review, the 99% target for national coverage moved from 2030 to 2032, which was deeply disappointing. According to Ofcom’s “Connected Nations” update in January, only 56% of premises in mid Devon have access to full-fibre broadband, which is way below the national average.
Daniel Lennox lives in Sidbury with his family. He works remotely and he runs a home-based business called Stagely, a digital platform that helps people to discover regional theatre productions. The business sets out to showcase local productions, and it is backed by Innovate UK. It is exactly the kind of enterprise that we want to be encouraging. It is creative, based in the community and part of the future digital economy. However, it cannot run properly, given the lack of a decent internet connection to Daniel’s property, which has been left with a part-copper line that is unreliable, slow and not sufficient for a digital business.
Daniel’s case is far from unique, and while I welcome the Government’s £5 billion investment in Project Gigabit, the delivery is falling behind. We must ensure that rural businesses such as Daniel’s on the edge of villages succeed, and that they do not fail because of unreliable or unavailable broadband.
Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Suffolk Coastal) (Lab)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I start by thanking the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for bringing forward this important debate.
I would like to celebrate the success of Orford General Store, which, just 45 minutes ago in the House of Lords, was highly commended in the Countryside Alliance’s national award category of best village shop. Susan and her team have built an incredible business that supports the local and regional supply chain. It procures from more than 50 local businesses, acts as an important champion of local and regional food producers, and supports the local community. It is, of course, just one example of the many local businesses across Suffolk Coastal that demonstrates the best of our rural businesses.
In Suffolk Coastal, we have 4,210 businesses, of which 4,135 are small or micro businesses. It is those small businesses that make up the lifeblood of business in rural areas. Micro, small and medium-sized businesses truly drive the regional and local economy. They do more than just invest directly and indirectly; their local money employs local people, uses local contractors, sells local produce and celebrates the best of our local offering. They provide local services to our community.
In fact, those businesses are more than just the lifeblood; they are the bones that hold us together and the very organs that make rural life possible. More needs to be done to ensure that we truly understand the challenges that they face.
I am conscious of time, but I am going to provide a shopping list of some of the issues that we would like to be addressed. Digital connectivity has been talked about a lot. We also need investment in our B roads; we have no motorways in the entirety of Suffolk, and B roads are the lifeblood of our areas. Transport, housing, planning restrictions and a cashless society are also challenges for rural businesses. I support the hon. Member in calling on the Government for a rural strategy.
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) on securing this excellent debate. In preparation, I surveyed local businesses to hear from them directly. What came through loud and clear is that rural businesses face the same mounting pressures as many others. As one business in Tring said:
“The cost of business is the highest it has ever been.”
Another told me:
“Currently, there is no incentive for small businesses to employ staff or even start up.”
I grew up helping my mum on the shop floor in a rural market town, so that breaks my heart. Such businesses are the backbone of our community.
Practically all the businesses who responded cited the combined impact of Government Budget measures, from the employment costs faced by Claire in Wheathampstead, who runs 2by2 Holidays, to Tring Martial Arts Academy and DJ’s Play Zone, which are reducing operating hours and workforce, and shelving expansion plans. How does that support the growth of our economy?
Accountants are often the canary in the coal mine when it comes to business health. AngloDutch accountants in Tring confirms that numerous clients, especially in hospitality, are struggling with employer’s national insurance increases alongside rising business rates. There are also the rising costs of day-to-day operations, from energy bills to products, as highlighted by Savage’s and Tabure in Berkhamsted. The cost of living has an impact on customers too. Chantal from Wheathampstead tells me that people simply are not buying like they used to, a concern also raised by businesses such as iQuilt.
As has been mentioned, our rural businesses face additional structural burdens. Connecting people to businesses in person or online is hindered by terrible internet and inadequate transport services. Flamstead, Markyate, Gaddesden and parts of Wheathampstead are in the worst 10% for connectivity nationwide. What is more, under the Conservatives, Hertfordshire saw the biggest cut—56.5%—in vehicle mileage on bus services from 2016 to 2021. I call on the Minister to take action for our rural businesses.
Matt Western (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members to keep an eye on the clock. The time limit is two minutes.
Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Western. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) on securing the debate.
In Lichfield, Burntwood and the villages in my part of rural Staffordshire, we have an amazing number of great local businesses—far too many to name in only one minute and 45 seconds. Many businesses are held back by poor connectivity, both broadband and 5G. Although the Government’s investment of £5 billion at the spending review is welcome, we need to crowd in private sector investment to drive the much faster roll-out of broadband and 5G.
There is a potential lever for us to pull on broadband. BT Openreach owns the infrastructure that broadband providers rent—the poles and holes, as it is referred to in the industry. The rental of that infrastructure is charged by the metre, not by address or business, which means that access to it is 20 times more expensive in rural areas. Although I welcome Ofcom’s ongoing review of that charging structure, I hope that the outcome will reduce costs for rural businesses and level the playing field between what is urban and what is not.
There is also work to do on 5G, because the current roll-out is the slowest in the G7. The simple fact is that we need more masts; 5G works better because it is higher frequency and shorter range. Unfortunately, the tower companies that own the masts are driving down rentals for landowners and litigating against them using legislation introduced by the previous Government. Our Government should look at how the market structure operates, and how legislative change could allow a competitive market to bring forward new masts to provide the physical infrastructure to allow that connectivity to happen.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I want to make two brief points that have been raised with me in the highlands. First, the gov.uk One website is proving difficult, with customer services support problems. I do not expect the Minister to reply but I would be grateful if that could be passed on to civil servants.
Secondly, on 1 November 1965, the then Labour Government had the wisdom to put in place the Highlands and Islands development board. That was a red letter day because it helped to halt depopulation of the highlands, boosted little businesses and got them off the ground. It was a great body, and many of us in the highlands had cause to be grateful for its work over the years. Today, it exists as Highlands and Islands Enterprise which, I am bound to say, is not what its ancestor once was, notwithstanding its best efforts. The budgets are lower and it is less able to target resources.
Hon. Members know that I have a cordial relationship with the Scottish National party. We have worked together over the years in a friendly and amicable way, and I am saddened that its representatives are not here today to listen to my words. I wish they were, because perhaps they could take the message back to their masters in Edinburgh to say, “Please, look at this problem. It is too bad that this excellent organisation is withering on the vine.”
The Minister would be within his rights to say, “That’s devolved, mate.” But there is something called the Scottish election coming up next year, so I am speaking through the ether, as it were, to the structure of the Scottish Parliament in a year’s time: “Please remember my words, look at Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and think about building it back to what it once was.”
Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. South Northamptonshire is 92% agricultural, forest or semi-natural, so it really is a quintessential rural constituency. It is home to 5,300 businesses, of which 5,200 are small or medium sized. Reports say that almost a quarter of British businesses are in rural constituencies, but they often feel that their voice is not heard. That will certainly not be the case on my watch. I run a series of business breakfasts where I listen to the concerns that they raise, and they all say that they need support to be able to grow. That is across all sectors, from Yummy Grains, just outside of Towcester, which sells granola and free range eggs, all the way up to BPY Plastics in Brackley.
The Government talk about growth, but the policies such as the hikes in employers’ national insurance disproportionately affect small and medium-sized enterprises. Whittlebury Hall, for example, is a huge employer in my constituency and the hike hit it with a bill of nearly £1 million bill overnight. That makes offering new jobs totally unsustainable. The hairdressers and beauty salons in my constituency are scared that they will not be able to continue to offer apprenticeships. Indeed, it is said that by 2027 there will be no new apprenticeship starts.
The 95 pubs in my constituency, such as the White Hart in Hackleton, supply local jobs for local people, but this Government’s policies are really hurting them. As for my farmers—my poor farmers—please do not get me started on them. They do absolutely all that they can. They work relentlessly, but this Government are not giving them the ability to plan correctly. Changes to agricultural property relief, business property relief, the sustainable farming incentive and capital grants, as well as the double-cab pick-up tax and the fertiliser tax all make things unsustainable. They are the backbone of our society. Establishing and running a business is a risk, and we need to give our entrepreneurs some security and some hope for the future. I ask the Government to go back to the drawing board to help back British rural business.
Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)
I want to make the case for a review of the VAT system. VAT starts at £90,000 and above, and I think that that level should be increased to £250,000. The UK has 3.1 million sole traders. Many of them do not want to grow above £90,000 because they do not think they are in the business of administration, and quite a lot do cash business in March just to get past that. If we lift the limit to £250,000, many of them would employ an apprentice or two. Some might become quite major. We would enable a junior level of people who were not particularly good at school to join the trades sector, in plumbing, for example. This is a fantastic opportunity if we want to take the foot off the neck of micro-businesses and would allow us to grow a worthwhile SME sector.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. Since the election last year, our rural businesses have been let down by the Labour Government. Their family farm tax has had a grave impact on the rural economy. Constituents talk to me of the enormous worry that that proposal is causing them. It threatens their family businesses with a huge tax bill when the owner of the farm dies. It is causing investment in rural areas to fall as families wonder how they can pay the tax; many will be forced to sell productive land or assets just to pay it. That not only is deeply wrong, but puts our food security at risk. If we combine it with the Chancellor’s jobs tax, the Government seem to be designing a system to cause as much damage as possible to family-run businesses in rural areas.
New taxes are not the only issue causing harm to businesses. Look at the disastrous scrapping of the sustainable farming incentive scheme earlier this year. The SFI was one of the main sources of Government support available to farmers, but it was closed to new applications with no warning whatsoever in a move the National Farmers Union described as “crushing”.
Digital infrastructure is critical to supporting the rural economy. Across Somerset, the Government have scaled back plans to install gigabit-capable broadband. In my constituency of Bridgwater, average speeds are already far below the national average, and now 1,450 properties have been descoped and are not included in the new deal. In the spending review, the target for Project Gigabit has been pushed back from 2030 to 2032. Minister, how can we close the productivity gap between urban and rural areas when digital infrastructure is not a priority for the Government?
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) on the welcome focus on our vital rural businesses. When we talk about rural business, we are talking about the lifeblood of our countryside. In Taunton and Wellington, and across Somerset, businesses are not just economic units but the backbone of our communities. Family farms are not taxation units for inheritance purposes; they put food on our tables. The Government should think hard about their family farm tax, and should do so urgently.
Rural entrepreneurs face rising costs across the board, unreliable infrastructure and a postcode lottery in support. Constituents in villages such as West Hatch, Staple Fitzpaine and West Buckland, as well as those around Wellington, simply cannot get reliable broadband or mobile signals. Transport is another key concern, which is why the Liberal Democrats proposed an amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that would have provided compensation for rural firms, such as Apple Campers, Western Recovery Services and TLC, that are losing business due to the closure of junction 26 on the M5 for three whole months under National Highways requirements.
Public transport is also essential. It is about connecting the parts of our UK economy to make a stronger whole. Banking and postal access are also vital to our rural businesses. Although I welcome the introduction of the banking hub model in Wellington, as I know the Minister does, it is somewhat bizarre for residents to see, in a town that has no post office, a building with the Post Office logo above the door and window that is not a post office and does not provide post office services. That craziness is straight out of “Yes, Minister” and needs to change urgently.
Rural businesses do not ask for special favours. All they ask for is fairness and for a level playing field for infrastructure, support and services.
Llinos Medi (Ynys Môn) (PC)
Diolch, Cadeirydd—it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. SMEs employ nearly 750,000 people in Wales, with a combined annual turnover of over £50 billion. There are more rural businesses in Wales, at 46.2%, than in the UK as a whole, at 31.9%. Supporting rural businesses is therefore especially important for the Welsh economy.
The spending review announced an increase in R&D funding to benefit businesses. However, Wales makes up 5% of the UK population and yet received just 2% of the R&D spend. We need a fair R&D funding policy to ensure that Wales’s proportion reflects its population share. The Federation of Small Businesses in Wales is calling on the UK Government to set a target that half of all direct Government business enterprise expenditure on R&D funding should be directed to SMEs.
The spending review also announced billions of pounds for improving transport connectivity in English regions, such as Manchester. However, there was nothing for rural Wales. Poor transport links in rural areas are a drain on businesses’ time, and it limits their ability to grow. Ynys Môn also has some of the worst digital connectivity in the UK, with 35% of the constituency receiving gigabit broadband, compared with 78% of the UK on average. Business needs both physical and digital infrastructure to flourish.
There are changes that the Government could make now to support specific industries. An example is food and drink. I declare that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on hospitality, events, major food and drink businesses in Wales. In Scotland, the Scottish Government have introduced a guest beer agreement as part of the Scottish pubs code. This could benefit Bragdy Mona and Bragdy Cybi breweries in my constituency. The pub code is currently under review, so I ask the Minister whether the Government will look at the merits of including a guest beer agreement in the pubs code, as has been done in Scotland.
The Government must use their industrial strategy to prioritise rural businesses, which are the backbone of our rural communities.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
There are over 3,400 fantastic businesses in Yeovil that provide amazing services for our communities, from big employers such as Screwfix and Leonardo to local businesses such as Ben Russell’s hairdressers or the Somerset Cheesecakery in Ilminster. Thanks to terrible Government Budgets, unfair trade deals and soaring energy prices, many businesses in Yeovil do not feel supported by central Government. This Government can change that.
I am sorry if this sounds like a list of local demands but, well, it basically is. The Government changes to national insurance are an unfair jobs tax. Let us get rid of that, and instead, reverse Conservative tax cuts for big banks, increase the digital services tax to 6% on social media giants and raise the remote gambling duty for online gambling companies.
Next is our family farms. Farmers deserve some actual support, because in Yeovil they have lost trust in this Government. To start, the family farm tax has to go, or at least be delayed until April ’27 as the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee suggests. We also need to strengthen the grocery code so it has some actual teeth to support farmers.
Finally, our high street businesses need banking hubs. I was happy to have secured a banking hub for Crewkerne, but, despite having the same needs, Chard and Ilminster were denied one because they had cash machines. They are not alone. Will the Government expand the criteria for approving banking hubs and commit to rolling out a few more than 350 banking hubs?
I could go on about funding for vital bus services, such as the No. 11 bus in Yeovil, and the need for better broadband, greater investment in apprenticeships, greater defence spending to support jobs in Yeovil and so on, but time is short, so I will just say that I hope the Government take on board my asks and those from hon. Members today, because then we might finally start to get a Government who help rural businesses thrive rather than getting in the way.
Matt Western (in the Chair)
Last, but certainly not least, I call Jim Shannon.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The book is very clear, Mr Western:
“the last shall be first, the first shall be last”.
Today I am the last; the next day I will be the first. I thank the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for setting the scene so well. I want to give a Northern Ireland perspective—I know that is not the Minister’s responsibility, but I always sew it into debates, and I have one question for him at the end.
As the MP for Strangford, a wonderful mixed rural and urban area, I have the ability to see success in both areas, which I am thankful for. Although there is no doubt that business is more difficult to carry out logistically in rural areas, I believe there is greater potential—it is massive. Rural businesses in Northern Ireland are a vital part of the economy, with 58% of all businesses located in rural areas, although they only account for a smaller percentage of the total employment—21%—and a turnover of 25%. However, they are still critical for the area. The businesses are heavily concentrated in sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fishing and construction.
Support for rural business is available through various initiatives, such as the rural business investment scheme and the rural business development grant scheme. They are administered by the local Ards and North Down council, but the money comes from the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs and the tackling rural poverty and social isolation framework. I commend my honourable friend and colleague Councillor Alderman Robert Adair.
The development grants are between £500 and almost £5,000, and are available to micro-enterprises based in rural areas to support sustainability and growth. Over the last short time, £100,000 has been allocated to 32 rural businesses in my area. The scheme is oversubscribed. It was an annual scheme, but there is a question mark over what will happen in the future. I highlight that to the Minister—it is not his responsibility, but he is an hon. Gentleman, a good Minister and he does good for us all. Will he engage with the relevant Minister at the Northern Ireland Assembly to ensure that we continue to have the business growth that is available in my constituency of Strangford and across all of Ards and North Down?
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for securing this debate and his excellent opening speech, which touched on Liberal Democrat enthusiasms such as buses and microbreweries, but also his characteristic interest and enthusiasm for the opportunities created by science and tech in rural areas as much as across the rest of the country. Small businesses have had a tough time for years. I thank my hon. Friend for his eloquent speech, particularly outlining the challenges that businesses in his constituency face and touching on the broader challenges facing rural businesses in all corners of the country.
When I speak to businesses, their owners repeatedly tell me that their bills are too high, and that causes them to question their future, as they see their neighbouring shops and businesses close down. As we have seen, soaring energy costs over the past few years and costs related to transport, energy and supply chains can disadvantage rural businesses, and many of the Government relief schemes that exist do not sufficiently account for unique rural pressures.
Nowhere is that clearer than in the changes to national insurance contributions announced by this Government. The changes are an unfair jobs tax that will hit small businesses, social care providers and GPs. The NICs changes present an additional challenge to businesses already struggling with rising energy prices, interest rates and input costs. These businesses were hammered by the previous Conservative Government, who broke their promise to reform business rates, and instead trapped businesses under mountains of red tape, stopping them trading internationally. Making things even harder for small businesses and their workers will not grow the economy. Raising the employment allowance will shield only the very smallest employers, but thousands of small businesses will be seriously affected.
A significant amount of the income of many businesses goes straight out the door via our outdated businesses rates system. Business rates are harmful for the economy, because they directly tax capital investment in structures and equipment, rather than taxing profits or the fixed stock of land. I am sure the Government would agree with that assessment, given their pre-election promise to overhaul our business rates system. Nearly a year into this Government’s time in power, however, and this commitment seems to have been forgotten. Meanwhile, businesses across the UK are continuing to struggle with a system that is unfit for a modern economy. The Liberal Democrats are committed to replacing business rates in England with a commercial landowner levy based solely on the land value of commercial sites, rather than their entire capital value, thereby stimulating investment and shifting the burden of taxation from tenants to landowners. I urge the Government to consider this change.
The decline of high street services in rural areas has been an ongoing issue in the UK, with banks, post offices and other essential services disappearing at an increasing rate. This has significant consequences for residents, particularly older people, those without digital access and small businesses—not least the confusion it appears to be causing in Wellington. In the past three years, nearly 2,000 banks have closed across the UK, including hundreds of rural branches, due to declining in-person transactions and the rise of online banking. Many villages and small towns now lack a single bank, forcing residents to travel long distances for financial services.
The challenges are often compounded by limited broadband or access to the internet, leading to swathes of people in rural communities being excluded from online services and digital banking. The Liberal Democrats are concerned about the inequality of provision as the 5G network is rolled out, and we believe it is wrong that people should be disadvantaged simply because of where they live. I urge the Government to prioritise major investment in broadband for underserved communities. Alternative solutions such as banking hubs are being developed, but there are not enough of them, and the Government should be facilitating more to ensure that people across the country can access vital services when they need them, and prevent the digital exclusion of people in rural areas.
As high street services close, rural public transport has also been cut, making it even harder for residents to reach alternative services.
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend recognise that rural communities always seem to carry the burden of losing out on everything? They have the businesses struggling to get people through the door, they lose their public transport and they lose their health provision. I am seeing that in my constituency, where a rural village is losing its GP surgery, but there is no bus to take people to the proposed GP surgery in the nearby town. We need to support our rural businesses because they are the backbone of these rural communities, and they are keeping these rural communities alive.
Sarah Olney
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is always the danger that we get into a vicious circle of declining transport provision leading to declining demand for services, which then lose viability and are withdrawn. The point about investment in public transport that my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk made so eloquently at the start of this debate would go a long way to managing some of those issues.
Bus route reductions leave some villages with little to no public transport, which worsens isolation. Bus services are the backbone of economic activity in communities across our country, but they are particularly crucial in rural areas, where accessible local amenities and services are greater distances apart.
Caroline Voaden
In fact, in the spending review, the whole of rural England was given a seventh of the money for transport plans that was given to urban areas. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is not sufficient to sustain and improve the rural bus transport network as much as we need?
Sarah Olney
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The way that some of the infrastructure and transport investment moneys have been distributed in the recent spending review has raised some eyebrows. Investing in rural bus services would certainly boost our struggling town centres and high streets, which would lead to economic growth.
The increase in the fare cap to £3 is a bus tax that will hit working people, rural communities and people on low incomes the most. Although the Government have made their red lines on taxation clear, a 50% increase to the bus cap is just taxation by other means. The Government have been left to make difficult choices, but they cannot allow the burden of fixing the Conservatives’ mess to fall on working people and small businesses. Neither Labour nor the Conservatives before seems to understand that for rural communities, having a reliable bus service is critical to enable daily tasks and commutes to be completed. I was also reflecting on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk about the impact of a lack of suitable transport infrastructure on training and the workforce.
Last week, the Liberal Democrats welcomed many of the Government’s public infrastructure and public transport investment announcements. However, we are concerned by the lack of provision allocated to rural bus services. Many communities without combined authority mayors—from Cumbria to Cornwall, and Norfolk to Newton Abbot—seem to have been left without new support for their transport networks. The Liberal Democrats continue to call on the Government to make sure that these areas see the investment that they so desperately need.
As the Government start implementing the new public infrastructure announcements, they must put the construction sector on a sustainable footing by introducing, in tandem, an industrial strategy to actually implement the projects. The general secretary of the Prospect trade union warned that the UK lacks the skilled workers required for new defence and nuclear infrastructure projects. Similarly, Make UK and the Federation of Small Businesses have highlighted a shortage of skilled works as a critical stumbling block for growth. Workforce shortages often disproportionately affect rural areas, with limited local training opportunities and housing affordability issues exacerbating the problem, making it harder for businesses to expand.
As we await the much-anticipated industrial strategy, I ask the Minister to ensure that it will include a strategic framework to effectively address the needs of businesses in rural areas, by collaborating with local, regional and devolved authorities in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to establish how the strategy will support and facilitate industrial regeneration and innovation across all UK nations and regions. My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I look forward to scrutinising the details of the proposals as they are brought forward.
Businesses and rural areas of the UK face a distinct set of challenges compared with their urban counterparts. Although Government support exists through various grants, loans and initiatives, several issues, including infrastructure challenges, the phasing out of EU funding and higher costs related to transport, energy and supply chains, can disadvantage rural businesses more severely. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk for securing this debate, and I look forward to hearing from the Minister about the steps the Government are taking to ensure that businesses in rural areas receive the additional support they so desperately need.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone). We have had many great contributions from across the Chamber. Given the number, I will not seek to name all the Members who spoke; I will just pick three at random who I thought were particularly good: my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool), my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox).
It is a privilege to speak on a subject that is close to the hearts and livelihoods of so many of my own constituents in my rural constituency of Mid Buckinghamshire. I pay tribute to the immense contribution that rural businesses make to the United Kingdom. Whether they be in farming, tourism, food production, forestry, hospitality or manufacturing, or our rural innovators, these enterprises are not simply economic units; they are custodians of heritage, engines of local employment and lifelines for communities that could otherwise be left behind.
Some of the challenges have been picked up through the course of the debate. We will start with communications. It was a Conservative Government who introduced the shared rural network in 2020, which was a £1 billion joint programme, at that point, with mobile operators to attempt to eliminate the so-called notspots in rural coverage. Many of those spots were found in my constituency and some still are, such in as the village of Cuddington. The initiative is transforming how farmers, tourism operators and remote workers do business, but it is clear from the debate, and indeed my own experience, that there is still some way to go. As others have said, if we cannot solve the communications challenges in the digital age, that will hold everyone back.
A thriving rural economy also depends on a fair tax system, which is why successive Conservative Chancellors took steps to freeze fuel duty—a vital measure for those who live miles from the nearest market, school or supplier. It is why we increased the VAT threshold for small businesses and championed business rates relief for village shops and pubs, demonstrating their community value as well as their commercial one. We also froze alcohol duty, offering a crucial boost to rural pubs, breweries, cider producers and vineyards, which are often vital employers and social hubs in rural areas. These measures reflect a Conservative belief in letting enterprise breathe, rather than smothering it under tax and bureaucracy.
We also need to combat rural crime far more harshly—another area in which I speak with some experience from this place. What began as my private Member’s Bill grew into the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act 2023. Once the Government finally introduce the secondary legislation required for it, it will protect farming businesses from agricultural machinery thefts.
Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Con)
On that point, I recollect a visit I made in 2023 to one of the fantastic farms in my hon. Friend’s constituency. I pay tribute to his doughty and indefatigable campaigning to create that new offence, which protects farmers from rural theft and is an important change to the law.
Does my hon. Friend agree that illegal encampments are also blighting our rural communities? In Denmead and parts of Southwick and Fareham, we have had real challenges with illegal encampments. The last Conservative Administration introduced more police powers to move on some of the groups that cause a nuisance, destruction and intimidation, and sometimes engage in illegal activity. Of course, we respect the rights of minorities, but does he agree that a lot more awareness needs to be raised among the police and communities so that we can combat the scourge of illegal encampments more successfully?
Greg Smith
I remember my right hon. Friend visiting the farm. It was in my constituency at the time, but the boundary changes actually took it away from me. Preventing the theft of machinery from not just farms but all rural businesses, which suffer so badly when equipment theft takes place, is a critical measure that we have to get right.
I take the important point that my right hon. Friend makes around illegal encampments. Any illegal development needs to be clamped down on in whatever form it takes. I pay tribute to Thames Valley police’s rural crime taskforce for some of its work on that. It would be good if the Minister could work with Home Office colleagues to extend that work across the whole country, and push the Minister for Policing, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), to introduce the statutory instruments that would bring the Equipment Theft (Prevention) Act into full force.
Let us turn to the direction of travel on rural business under this Government, which gives me real concern. First, as others have mentioned, the increase in national insurance contributions and changes to the NICs thresholds place a disproportionate burden on rural employers, many of whom already operate on the tightest of margins. For a rural farm employing five seasonal workers, or a family-run dairy business with a handful of long-serving staff, these extra costs are not abstract; they are the difference between hiring and firing.
The sharp rise in the national living wage is hitting rural sectors, with seasonal and low-margin employment—especially farming, food processing and rural tourism—hit particularly hard. These sectors do not have the luxury of passing on costs to consumers in the same way that some of the big urban retail or tech companies do. They face fixed contracts and price pressures from supermarkets, and this change risks hollowing out jobs that were previously viable.
Compounding that is the change to business property relief, which will strip tax protections from many family-run rural enterprises such as holiday accommodation and equestrian centres, undermining succession planning and deterring future investment in those rural businesses. Labour has targeted the very dynamism that it claims to support.
Labour’s Planning and Infrastructure Bill poses a serious threat to rural enterprise. By relaxing environmental safeguards and expanding compulsory purchase powers—removing hope value protections from prime farmland—the Bill risks allowing developers and central authorities to override local rural businesses and agricultural land. The removal of green belt-like protections from the mythical grey belt areas also paves the way for large-scale development in what were previously safe rural areas. Rural entrepreneurs now face heightened uncertainty over their long-term investments and succession plans. Farmers, holiday let providers and small rural manufacturers alike may wake up to find their economic foundations undermined by top-down planning interventions.
The Employment Rights Bill threatens significant administrative, legal and recruitment costs for rural businesses, which are estimated at up to £5 billion across the economy and are disproportionately heavier for small rural businesses, jeopardising their ability to hire flexibly or offer seasonal work.
But perhaps the most damaging of all is Labour’s recent change to agricultural property relief: the family farm tax. This is not simply a tweak to inheritance policy; it is a direct assault on the ability of farming families to pass on their land and their livelihoods from one generation to the next. An estimated 40,000 farming jobs will be lost under Labour’s plans to force all farmers to stop farming on up to 20% of their land.
The Government’s estimate of 27% of farms being impacted is based on outdated APR claims data from 2021-22 that does not reflect rising land values or the full economic picture of commercial family farms. Nearly 40% of farms rely on a combination of APR and BPR to mitigate inheritance tax liabilities. The £1 million threshold applies to both combined, making it far more restrictive than the Government’s modelling suggests. In my constituency, this is already causing disinvestment. I have spoken with farmers who are now deferring expansion, shelving plans for tourism ventures and, in some cases, considering breaking up long-held estates that have supported jobs and communities for generations.
Farm shops have, after years of successful trading, made the difficult decision to close. On rural high streets, costs have risen 15%. At Rumsey’s Handmade Chocolates in Wendover in my constituency, this is already leading to job losses and reduced hours for the staff they have been able to retain. The Pink and Lily pub in Lacey Green shut in February, just seven years after it first opened.
Rural Britain does not ask for favours, but it does demand fairness. It wants policies that reflect the unique challenges of doing business across distances, in smaller labour markets and with greater exposure to the weather, the global economy and regulatory interference. That is why the Opposition will continue to champion low tax, light-touch regulation and a level playing field for rural enterprise. The future of the rural economy cannot be sustained on sentiment alone; it must be underpinned by policy that understands the realities of rural life. On that test, thus far, Labour is failing.
Matt Western (in the Chair)
Before I call the Minister, I gently remind him to allow a couple of minutes for the mover of the motion at the end.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Gareth Thomas)
It is genuinely a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western—thank you for your reminder of the etiquette at the end of the debate—and to respond to what has been an extremely important debate on supporting the many remarkable rural businesses across the country. In the usual way, I take this opportunity to thank the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone) for securing this debate, and for what I understand is a long-standing interest in this vital issue for our rural community.
If there were any doubt about the importance of the rural economy, the sheer numbers of hon. Members who have contributed to this debate have surely put that to bed. I say gently to the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), that I heard some impressive speeches from Members on this side of the House, but I none the less recognise the significance of the contributions from those on the other side. Such was the range, I fear that I will not be able to do justice to all the different points that were made. I recognise that one or two contributions were as much about getting me to deliver messages to other parts of Government as they were about my own Department.
Rural businesses are without doubt the lifeblood of our countryside. More than half a million businesses are registered in rural areas, contributing over £315 billion a year to the economy in England alone. The diversity of the rural economy is striking: 86% of rural businesses span sectors beyond just agriculture, forestry and fishing. The Government fully recognise the immense potential for growth in our rural areas. That is why we are committed to creating the right conditions to allow rural enterprises of all kinds to thrive and succeed.
First, we are taking steps to improve rural infrastructure —the keys to unlocking that growth potential. The hon. Member for North Norfolk waxed lyrical about the significance of rural bus services, which I absolutely accept. He will be only too aware of the significance of the decisions, to which I think he alluded, that the Bus Services (No. 2) Bill will bring into force. It will put decision making about what bus routes should be provided into the hands of local leaders across England, including in rural areas. That will allow local communities to determine for themselves how best to design their bus services, so that they genuinely have control over routes and schedules, helping both local communities and—crucially, in the context of this debate—rural businesses.
Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)
On transport, it is not just buses but road infrastructure that is important for our communities and businesses, whether that is the Lord Crewe Arms in Blanchland, in the south of my constituency, or Falconry Days in Simonburn, in the north. Filling potholes is important to ensure that we can get to appointments and to businesses, but the lack of advertisements from councils on when they are conducting roadworks impacts tourism businesses. Does the Minister agree that Northumberland county council could do a far better job of communicating with small businesses about when it is repairing roads, so that tourism bookings do not drop off?
Gareth Thomas
I am disappointed to hear that my hon. Friend’s local county council is not liaising about roadworks more effectively with small businesses in the rural areas that he represents, and I hope that it will hear his intervention and take action. He is right that we need to ensure that we are investing not just in buses—I will come back to that point—but more generally in the roads that serve rural and urban areas. We have committed more than £2.3 billion for local transport links in smaller towns and villages, which I hope will make a real difference in all the communities where hon. Members have expressed concerns about the quality of bus services.
A key theme that has surfaced in this debate—certainly a lot of Government Members were keen to stress it—is digital connectivity. I hope that the fact that the Government are investing over £1.9 billion in broadband and 4G connectivity will help to give confidence across rural and urban communities that the crucial issue of digital connectivity is being taken forward in a way that supports residents and small businesses. Good digital and transport connections are essential for rural businesses to access markets, suppliers and talent.
As well as taking steps to improve rural infrastructure, we are backing rural entrepreneurs and businesses with finance and advice. The British Business Bank has supported more than 200,000 businesses, in every constituency of the UK, to grow over the past decade. Its regional funds provide vital debt and equity finance to firms outside London and the south-east.
Meanwhile, our nationwide network of growth hubs offers free, impartial guidance to rural enterprises on everything from start-up to scale-up. I hope that the business growth service, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business and Trade has announced, and which we will say more about shortly, will also help to make a significant difference to rural businesses in terms of the quality of advice that they can access.
Mr Angus MacDonald
Will the Minister acknowledge the disparity in energy price between rural areas and urban areas? Businesses in urban areas can access mains gas and pay 6p per kilowatt for their energy, whereas businesses in rural areas pay 24p per kilowatt for their energy. What a disadvantage that is for rural areas.
Gareth Thomas
The hon. Gentleman underlines the need for significant investment in green energy. Other hon. Members referred to the need to support renewable energy, particularly community renewable energy schemes, as part of the solution to issues around rural prosperity and to tackle the energy challenges that we are all familiar with.
We are investing directly in rural areas through schemes such as the rural England prosperity fund, which is worth £33 million this year. That funding will provide capital grants for new business facilities for product development and community infrastructure improvements that benefit local economies.
We are committed to sustaining vital services and amenities in rural areas. Our £2.7 billion a year for sustainable farming ensures continued investment in environmental land management and nature recovery, underpinning the agriculture sector. We are also working to enhance access to banking, particularly in rural areas, including through the roll-out of banking hubs across the UK by the end of this Parliament.
Rural businesses can also look forward to benefiting from measures such as reforms to the apprenticeship levy, helping them to invest in skills—a key concern that was raised in this debate. I know that rural businesses, as well as businesses in urban areas, are really concerned about that.
We also heard a couple of contributions from hon. Members about the significance of post offices in their communities. Again, I recognise the critical role that post offices play in rural communities, and indeed, the potential for the Post Office to do more. As some hon. Members will know, we are bringing forward a Green Paper on the future of the Post Office shortly, which I hope will give further confidence about the potential for the Post Office to do more in rural areas, as well as more generally.
Jamie Stone
The Minister may or may not know, although I thank him for it, that a banking hub will shortly open in Wick, in the extreme far north of the United Kingdom. I would be grateful if he could ask his civil servants to come up and take a look at it once it is up and running, because there might be something to learn from it as to how other very remote parts of the UK can be serviced.
Gareth Thomas
I thought the hon. Gentleman was going to invite me to come to Wick, but I will certainly pass on the invitation to my officials. We are keen to learn from the experience of the banking hubs that have worked, that are up and running, and that are now seen as being effective. There is more that the Post Office can do to provide more of the services that banking hubs provide, and we are keen to work with the financial services industry to make sure that that happens.
Hon. Members asked a series of questions about tax and I suspect that we will come back to those issues in a number of forms. I just say gently to the Opposition spokesperson that we inherited a very difficult financial situation—a £22 billion black hole. If we are to provide, as we rightly should, the schools, teachers, hospitals and police forces in rural communities, difficult decisions had to be made about the finances going forward.
Lastly, we also want to make sure that we are opening up new markets for businesses in rural communities to access, which is why the trade deals that we have agreed with the United States, India and—crucially, too—the European Union are so significant. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the importance of rural businesses to growth across the UK. We know that there is more to do in this space and we are determined to do it.
Steff Aquarone
I just reflect on the fact that this debate, far from being a game of constituency bingo, has seen hon. Members from across the House bring forward genuinely new issues and new ideas, for which I am deeply grateful.
I will end on a reminder of the importance of skills and the trade strategy. Just this morning, we were talking in the Transport Committee about the impact of boom and bust on rail infrastructure. We must get the offering right for our young people so that they can better enter training in rural areas.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered Government support for businesses in rural areas.
Asbestos Removal: Non-domestic Buildings
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Matt Western (in the Chair)
I will call Emma Lewell to move the motion and then call the Minister to respond. I remind other Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge of the debate and the Minister. As is the convention for a 30-minute debate, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.
Emma Lewell (South Shields) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the removal of asbestos from non-domestic buildings.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Western. Asbestos was banned in the UK in 1999, yet we still have one of the highest levels of deaths from mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos in the world. Asbestos continues to be the leading cause of work-related deaths in the UK, with the latest figures showing it causes the death of over 5,000 people per year.
This year new data has come to light showing that in my constituency people are dying from asbestos at a higher rate than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. In the north-east, with our legacy of heavy industry, we are sadly no strangers to the harms from asbestos. My generation has grown up surrounded by families whose dads, granddads, uncles and loved ones have suffered horrendous deaths from exposure to asbestos. We now know that even some of their wives have died from inhaling the fibres that were left on their overalls after work.
My own dad was a welder in the shipyards. He once told me about a day in the 1990s when he was told to go and work below deck. When he got there, he could see asbestos floating among and around all the lads he was supposed to join working that day. I remember when I was a little girl and the council came to do some work on our house. My mam asked me to keep out of the way because asbestos was found in our walls.
Just today I spoke to a constituent who worked in a local comprehensive science lab in one of our schools in the 1980s. He told me that after the fume-cupboard mats were changed in six of the schools’ labs, asbestos was disturbed. Upon re-entering the room, he saw thick layers of it on top of the cupboards. He and his colleagues refused to go and work in there, but the school sent all the pupils back into the classrooms regardless.
This is not our history. It is our present, too, because increasing numbers of teachers, school workers, porters, cleaners, caretakers, nurses and military personnel continue to come forward to say that they were exposed to asbestos in their respective workplaces.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady. The stories she tells about her father in the shipyards resonate with me and my constituency. They used to say that the asbestos was almost like clouds of snow; I wonder how anybody could survive that. Between 1985 and 1994, 527 asbestos-related deaths took place, with men making up 88% of them. That suggests that asbestosis continues to be a significant health concern, particularly among the older generations who were exposed to asbestos in the workplace. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Government must act now and that consideration has to be given to the older generations, who might have been exposed to asbestos in their working days and are now suffering with illnesses as a result?
Emma Lewell
I thank the hon. Member for cleverly pre-empting some of what I am going to say in my speech. He is absolutely right, but we also see people coming forward now, so it not just a historical issue. It is something we need to deal with right now, before it gets worse.
I pray to God that I do not end up suffering from it one day, but if our homes and public buildings have led to people being exposed, it is not a stretch to say that I and those around me could also have been exposed and could end up unwell. We know that from the point of feeling unwell to diagnosis can take up to and above 30 years.
Recently, the Daily Mail, as part of its ongoing campaign, revealed an asbestos ticking time bomb in our supermarkets. I am not being alarmist when I say that the investigative work undertaken by journalist Steve Boggan makes it clear that asbestos is all around us, including in this building. Of course, we know that it becomes a risk only when it is disturbed, which is why successive Governments have maintained the policy that if it is left in a reasonable condition, it should not be disturbed. But that is a risky strategy that I would say is no longer valid, because as asbestos ages, it breaks down, which means the deadly fibres are released and then inhaled. Asbestos-related disease is not only in our past and present; it will be in our future if we do not act.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech and I commend her for the honesty and sincerity with which she deals with these very difficult issues. She is right that, across the country, a large amount of building stock and commercial properties have this terrible material, and that a large number of illnesses and deaths may well still to be come. Does she agree that it is important for the Government to look at the matter, investigate it further, and see what more can be done to try to prevent the worst?
Emma Lewell
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think my right hon. Friend the Minister would also agree, because in his 2022 Work and Pensions Committee report, he asked for a central asbestos register and a deadline for the removal of asbestos from non-domestic buildings. The previous Government rejected that recommendation. Even now, people are still shocked when they discover that, despite the 1999 ban, there is no national database or register and, as a result, the Government do not have a comprehensive picture of where asbestos is. Consequently, there is no strategic plan to have it safely removed.
I thank the Minister for his engagement with me on the issue to date, and for his consideration of a census, whereby it will be mandatory for the owners of non-domestic buildings to advise if their buildings have asbestos or, if the building was built before 1999, they believe it to be there. He has promised to meet me and the Health and Safety Executive as it works towards timelines and a delivery plan, but I hope he can offer some updates today. As we continue to push for net zero and retrofitting, it makes sense that we start to remove asbestos as soon as possible.
I again make the plea that we start the census and the removal of asbestos in South Shields, and that the Minister helps me to discuss with our colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care a specialist clinical hub for South Shields, to improve diagnosis, care and support.
These are all familiar asks to the Minister, not just from me but from long-time campaigners such as the TUC, Asbestos Information CIC, Mesothelioma UK and so many more who have seen the pain that asbestos causes and are living with it daily. I pay tribute to the work that they have done and continue to do and, in particular, to the kindness that Liz Darlison from Mesothelioma UK and Steve Boggan showed me after I spoke about my lovely grandad at Prime Minister’s questions.
My grandad, John Henry Richardson, was a sheet-metal worker. He worked in shipyards all over the north-east, and then went on to work in the Elsy Gibbons factory, making water tanks. While he was there, they introduced an annual health check scheme, and they found a shadow on his lungs. He retired at 62 through ill health.
Grandad always had a terrible cough and had struggled with his breathing for years, but because he worked in heavy industry, no one thought it was serious. In our area in the ’80s and ’90s, most men who worked in heavy industry had persistent coughs. As my mam said, everyone thought that was just part of the job. Grandad ended up with three inhalers and could not walk anywhere, even to the local shops. It would take him half an hour just to walk down the small flight of stairs in his house because he had to stop on every single one to catch his breath.
My grandad spent the first five years of his forced retirement travelling all over the country for medical tests, and at constant hospital appointments. He kept saying that the Government were hoping he would die before they had to pay out his compensation. When he was 69 years old, he was admitted to hospital with a heart attack because his heart could no longer take the pressure. After nearly a week in hospital, he suffered another heart attack. He was surrounded by my family, listening to the slow, dying breaths of this smart, kind, gentle, hard-working family man as his heart broke away. A little piece of ours broke away with him too. He died in a hospital that most likely had asbestos in it, and those caring for him have probably also gone on to suffer from this awful disease, which will continue to haunt the north-east and elsewhere for generations to come.
Ian Lavery (Blyth and Ashington) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a really powerful, personal speech, which is extremely important. Does she agree that it is not just the likes of her grandad and all those who worked in heavy industry, manufacturing, the pits and shipbuilding who are suffering from the likes of mesothelioma? As she said, it is now about where the asbestos currently lies—in Parliament, schools, police stations, town halls and NHS buildings. Asbestos-related diseases, particularly mesothelioma, have a latency period of up to 40 years, so the problem has not gone away. In this country, 5,000 people die of mesothelioma every year—more than in road traffic accidents—so we have got to get a grip on it.
Emma Lewell
I thank my hon. Friend, my colleague from the north-east, for that powerful intervention. He is absolutely right: in my grandad’s time, we did not know about the risk from those devastating fibres, but we now do, so we absolutely cannot let this happen to anybody else.
The last time the House debated this issue was under a Conservative Government. We now have a Labour Government, and it is in our party’s DNA to do right by workers and the people we represent. The memories of those we lost mean that the sufferers of this silent killer, and I, will certainly not be silent until the Minister gives us what we are asking for, and what he asked for previously before he was elevated to his current esteemed position.
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
I am delighted to serve with you in the Chair, Mr Western—for the first time, I think—and I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Emma Lewell) for bringing this important debate to the House. She made the point that this is the first time under the current Government that we have had the opportunity to debate this issue, so I congratulate her on securing this debate.
I share in the grief of all those who, like my hon. Friend, have lost somebody close to them as a consequence of exposure to asbestos. As she and others reminded us, it is still by far the biggest cause of work-related deaths in the UK—it is responsible for 5,000-plus deaths per year—and many people live with the impact of asbestos-related disease. I join my hon. Friend in commending the work of the journalist Steve Boggan, who has highlighted this topic very helpfully.
Hanging in my office in the House of Commons, a few yards from here, I currently have a portrait of Mavis Nye and her husband, Ray. Ray Nye became an apprentice in the Chatham dockyard in 1953 and worked there for a number of years. Asbestos was everywhere. In 1957, during his apprenticeship, he met Mavis. He refers to that encounter as
“the most wonderful thing ever to enter my life”.
They married, and Mavis used to launder his overalls. At some point she breathed in asbestos dust. Fifty years later, in 2009, she was diagnosed with mesothelioma.
We have heard about very long latency periods. It appears that in Mavis’s case, it was 50 years before she was diagnosed. Thanks to pioneering treatment at the Royal Marsden hospital, she lived for another 14 years. She and Ray established the Mavis Nye Foundation to inspire mesothelioma victims. She was a force of nature. She sadly died in 2023, but it was her wish that her portrait should be hung in the House of Commons. In fulfilment of that wish, it hangs in my office this afternoon. It will soon be returned to Ray, but I am glad that we have been able to fulfil that wish and help celebrate the contribution of a remarkable woman—just one of the many thousands who have died as a result of earlier asbestos exposure in the last couple of years.
In Britain we have a mature and well-established approach to the management of asbestos in buildings. The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012, enforced by the Health and Safety Executive and other regulators, requires duty holders to assess whether asbestos is present, what condition it is in and whether it gives rise to a risk of exposure. The duty holder must then draw up a plan to manage the risk associated with asbestos, which must include removal if it cannot be safely managed where it remains. There is an existing legal obligation for duty holders to remove degrading asbestos and to share details of asbestos in their premises with people who work regularly in a building and may potentially disturb or damage materials which contain asbestos.
Ian Lavery
I place on record my sincere thanks to my right hon. Friend for the sterling work that he has done with regard to mesothelioma and asbestos-related disease in the past, but what has been mentioned is not working. We need the same as in other parts of this nation, where there has been a programme of statutory removal, but we are not doing that here in England. I wonder if my right hon. Friend can say why we are different from other nations of the UK.
Sir Stephen Timms
I will come on to address exactly the point that my hon. Friend raises. He is absolutely right to do so. Let me just make the point that asbestos does need to be removed before any major refurbishment work or before demolition. Under current arrangements it will eventually be removed, albeit over an extremely long time.
There are around 40,000 notifications of asbestos removal jobs every year. The HSE inspects to check that duty holders are managing asbestos effectively, both in the public and commercial sectors. Those inspections, I am pleased to say, have been significantly stepped up since the Select Committee on Work and Pensions report published in April 2022, at a time when I was Chair of the Committee, and to which my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields referred. That report was critical of the decline in the number of asbestos inspections and enforcement notices since 2010. The report pointed out that between 2011-12 and 2018-19, while the total number of enforcement notices from the HSE fell by 10%, the number of asbestos enforcement notices had fallen by 60% to less than 200 in the year 2018-19.
Increased activity by the HSE on asbestos since then has seen the overall number of enforcement notices climb to over 300 under the Control of Asbestos Regulations in 2024-25. Inspection activity is a means of providing assurance that the regulations are effective and that those with duties are complying with them. For example, between September 2022 and March 2025, HSE inspectors have visited over 1,000 schools to inspect their arrangements for managing asbestos. They found good levels of compliance in those 1,000 schools with the responsibilities to manage the risk of asbestos—albeit with 8% requiring enforcement notice action to improve their performance. This is particularly important given, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields pointed out, the proportionately higher number of cases of asbestos-related diseases among retired teachers compared with other professions. So it is right to focus on schools as a particularly pressing issue, along with hospitals and NHS premises, which she also mentioned. In the last year—2024-25—this work was expanded to include inspections of local authority head offices and premises. In his intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) referred to council buildings as being of concern, and he is absolutely right to do so, so current plans for this year—2025-26—include a further 600 visits to schools and local authorities to be completed by March next year.
The HSE is also focused on the management of asbestos in commercial sectors. In 2024-25, its inspections dealt with the management of asbestos more than 2,330 times. Of the buildings found to contain asbestos, 40% required either written advice or an enforcement notice. This was the first year of a multi-year focus on asbestos in commercial sectors.
Together with the guidance on asbestos published on the HSE website, communications campaigns are important in raising awareness and understanding. The Asbestos—Your Duty campaign was launched in January last year to reach those responsible for the maintenance and repair of non-domestic buildings built before 2000 and to raise awareness of the legal duty to manage asbestos. In his intervention, my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington made the point that the current arrangements are not always working, and we need to draw people’s attention to their legal responsibilities. That campaign is running alongside the Asbestos & You campaign, which focuses on reducing exposure to asbestos for tradespeople.
Ian Lavery
Can my right hon. Friend say if there are any records of the children who were in the same working environment as a lot of the teachers who, sadly, have passed on? Is it the duty of the inspectorate or a responsibility of a Department to hold records of the children in that working environment who might wait 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 years before a little tick of asbestos dust triggers mesothelioma?
Sir Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend raises a very interesting point. I am not aware of any data about that. From time to time, however, one hears of or comes across people who have succumbed to mesothelioma in their 20s or 30s, and an obvious possibility is that they were exposed at school to the dangerous asbestos that led to that catastrophic outcome.
Both my hon. Friends have pressed the case for asbestos to be removed, and I want us to have a better understanding of the size and scale of the asbestos legacy in the built environment and an evidence base for future strategic decisions on removal. I have been working on this with the HSE since last July. I chaired a roundtable event with stakeholders last October to explore the issue and consider what we need to tackle Britain’s asbestos legacy effectively.
As my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields pointed out, the Work and Pensions Committee made a strong and compelling case for the establishment of a national digital register of all workplace asbestos, bringing together into one accessible place all the separate records maintained—all over the place—by law at the moment. The Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 already require duty holders either to survey premises constructed before asbestos was banned or assume that it is present. A lot of duty holders commission external consultants to fulfil their obligations under the regulations, and they maintain records on their own databases, so compiling a national register would be a less gargantuan task than may initially be assumed. Establishing a national register would require significant resource from duty holders and the Government, at a time when resources are tight. With the HSE, I am looking at how we can develop better information on asbestos in buildings, and on ways of gathering a robust and reliable dataset to provide the foundation to inform longer-term strategy for the removal of asbestos.
If we cannot at this stage commit to a national register, a one-off asbestos census may be the way to start, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields suggested. The solution is likely to be a phased approach to improving information on buildings containing asbestos, to help us build an objective and reliable evidence base. A better understanding of the costs and associated impacts for the Government’s own estate—schools, hospitals and so on—would be a good place to start, before considering wider roll out. HSE is considering how best to take that forward in a way that will ensure we can obtain reliable, standardised data.
Alongside that, HSE is supporting digitalisation of built environment data, using building information modelling, or BIM. That approach enables improvements to the identification, recording, sharing and use of information on health and safety risks such as asbestos. The possibility of a surge in asbestos removal, triggered by actions on the part of the Government, needs to be planned for. Asbestos requires specialised waste disposal and removal, in many instances by licensed contractors. We would need to avoid the risk of duty holders removing asbestos without proper controls, and not disposing of it at licensed sites. That would present a significant exposure risk in itself.
In March, I attended part of the HSE’s asbestos research summit, which took place in Manchester. That brought together world-leading experts on asbestos, with duty holders, employer groups and mesothelioma support groups. I am pleased to say Liz Darlison was there. The summit was to inform where we should focus our efforts to ensure we continue to understand the nature of the asbestos exposure risk across the country.
Emma Lewell
I can tell the Minister is coming towards the end of his comments. I know resources are tight but people are dying, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth and Ashington (Ian Lavery) said, at a rate of 5,000 a year. As the Minister knows from the start of my speech, that is happening in my constituency at a faster rate than anywhere else in the country. Could he consider beginning a census in my patch of South Shields so that we can trial it and see how it works?
Sir Stephen Timms
I welcome the opportunity to discuss that proposal with my hon. Friend, to see what we can do. At the research summit, we talked about the need to ensure that everybody involved in the asbestos ecosystem understood their role and the impact their behaviours can have in preventing exposure for themselves and others through their activity at work.
Ian Lavery
I wonder whether the Minister is aware of the Asbestos Victims Support Group’s case against Cape plc, the producer of asbestos, and the claim for £10 million for research and development. If so, does the Minister support the claim?
Sir Stephen Timms
I am aware of that claim, and think there is a strong case. The HSE is working through the suggestions from the research summit to develop a broader programme and will publish the areas of focus for research later in the year. The aim is that that prospectus will shape work in this field for decades to come. There is a lot of work to do, a lot of work under way and a lot more progress still to be made. My hon. Friends are absolutely right to make the case for the goal of an asbestos-free Great Britain and a plan for asbestos to be removed across the country. I am grateful to them and others for continuing to press the case and for their support. I look forward to further discussions with them, and agree that we still need to do a great deal.
Question put and agreed to.
Political Prisoners
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the detention of Jimmy Lai and other political prisoners internationally.
It is a real honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I speak today on behalf of my constituent Jimmy Lai, who has been detained abroad since December 2020. Mr Lai was on trial for alleged offences against national security and alleged sedition through his work as a newspaper publisher. The offence has been ruled unlawful and arbitrary by the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention. I called for this debate to draw attention to what Mr Lai has suffered over the course of his detention and to bring together parliamentarians from across the House to speak with one voice on the matter of his detention and the detention of other political prisoners abroad.
Mr Lai is a much-loved father and grandfather, and a British citizen. He is 77 years of age, and is being held in solitary confinement in the blistering Hong Kong heat. This will be his fourth summer suffering temperatures that regularly reach 40°.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I make this intervention with your indulgence, Mr Western, because I am engaged in another debate in the main Chamber, and I apologise to the hon. Lady because my intervention deals with another individual, although I fully support her and congratulate her on raising the Jimmy Lai case, which I have argued many times. I hope she makes her case, and I am sure she will—it is a terrible thing.
However, there are other cases, and the person I want to mention, who is often forgotten, is Ryan Cornelius. He has been incarcerated for 17 years in the United Arab Emirates. The UN has said exactly the same: this is an illegal incarceration for which there is no legal basis. He has often been in solitary confinement. The British Government—not this one, necessarily, but all Governments—have too often failed to raise his case in the way they should. I mention the case because the Foreign Office needs to do its duty in raising it, regardless of the business deals that it wants to make.
Rachel Blake
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support for our task today and for raising that important case.
Despite Mr Lai’s being told that his trial would last only 80 days, today marks the 1,630th day of his detention. Every day that he is detained, his health deteriorates further and his family rightly worry about his chances of survival in prison. The detention of Mr Lai is a human tragedy that undermines the very principles of democracy, freedom and the rule of law on which our international order relies. The idea that a British citizen can be detained by a foreign Government for standing up and expressing the British values of democracy and freedom of speech is an affront to all of us in this House, and across the country, who hold those principles dear.
Mr Lai’s son Sebastien has campaigned tirelessly and admirably for his father’s release; I know that many hon. Members here have had the honour of hearing directly from him and Mr Lai’s legal counsel. At this very moment, Sebastien is addressing the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, and recently he has been in the United States and Canada to meet senior officials and lawmakers in both countries. Next week, he travels to Brussels to meet European parliamentarians and the European External Action Service.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She has just mentioned Canada; I understand that the Canadians are considering granting honorary citizenship to Jimmy Lai, as a small but significant contribution to demonstrating their commitment to him. Does she agree that that is something that the British Government could consider?
Rachel Blake
I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention; later in my remarks, I will come on to using all possible levers to secure Mr Lai’s freedom.
When Sebastien is at home, he is my constituent—a man deeply concerned about his father’s welfare. That is the position in which I speak to the Chamber today: as a Member of Parliament standing up for my constituents in the face of unbelievable, state-sanctioned cruelty.
I am grateful for the work of this Government and Members across the House to secure Mr Lai’s freedom. Already, Sebastien has met people across Government, and it has been encouraging to see the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister call for Mr Lai’s immediate and unconditional release. We cannot stay silent while Mr Lai remains detained. The Government calls for his release are welcome, but I want to see those included urgently in any trade negotiations and international meetings that Ministers of all Departments conduct with their Chinese counterparts.
I also support the calls for the Prime Minister to meet Sebastien to discuss his father’s case. We must use every lever at our disposal to make the case for Mr Lai’s safe return. The attention and time of our most senior politicians represent a clear signal from our Government that we will not let the international spotlight shift from Mr Lai’s arbitrary and illegal detention.
Mr Lai is not the only British person to be detained politically overseas. He was not the first and he will not be the last, and this debate is about the wider issue of unlawful detention. We cannot forget Craig and Lindsay Foreman or Alaa Abd el-Fattah, British citizens who remain imprisoned in Iran and Egypt, respectively. The events of the past few weeks, months and years have shown that inter-state relations have significant potential to get more tense, not less, and with that comes the potential for more political imprisonment of British nationals. We need to ensure that all British citizens imprisoned overseas have the same support and advocacy that Jimmy Lai has had.
Every day that my constituent Mr Lai remains in detention abroad is a day that the life and health of a British citizen is put at risk by a foreign state, and another day when democracy is undermined across the world. We must bring him home and we must bring him home now.
Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) on securing this important debate. It is heartening—at least, I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of this debate, but I think there will be cross-party unity on this issue, and an important statement from the UK Parliament not only to our Government, but to the world that we stand united behind the need to free Jimmy Lai. I am honoured to speak on his behalf.
Recently, I met Sebastien Lai and his legal team in Parliament. I was struck by the determination that Jimmy Lai’s son is demonstrating, not just here in the UK, but around the world, to galvanise international diplomatic support. There are expressions of support from the US Congress, other international organisations and Parliaments around the world. I am afraid it feels as though the UK Government are lagging behind, particularly when we remember that we are talking about a British citizen.
As the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster said, Jimmy has now been imprisoned for more than four years. He has been imprisoned under the Chinese state’s Hong Kong national security law, which effectively criminalises democracy and citizens’ freedom of speech against the Communist dictatorship. He has been denied his choice of legal representation and refused access to independent specialist medical treatment in prison. In October last year, Amnesty International recognised Mr Lai as a prisoner of conscience, and in November the UN working group on arbitrary detention published its opinion that Jimmy Lai is unlawfully and arbitrarily detained, and called for his immediate release.
As I said, the call for Jimmy’s release is backed by not just the United States of America, but Australia, the Canadian Parliament and the European Parliament. I learned from my meeting with Sebastien and the legal team that his trial has been the victim of an abuse of process; it was originally set for a date earlier this year, but it was pushed back and adjourned and we now have a trial date for 14 August this year. Procedural rules have been perverted and twisted against Mr Lai’s legal team. We can see this for what it is: a perversion of justice and a distortion of human rights.
I am very concerned about the actions that the Government do not seem to be taking at this time. I come here in the spirit of collaboration and cross-party unity, but I worry about the backsliding by the Government, particularly in the case of Jimmy Lai. I have several questions for the Minister about the case, which I hope he will address. What conversations have there been between the Foreign Secretary and his opposite number in the Chinese Communist party? What specific discussions has the Prime Minister himself had about Jimmy Lai’s case and prospects for his release? In their pursuit of closer economic ties with China, what actions have other Departments, notably the Treasury, taken to use the dialogue that they so value with the Communist party as an effective means of diplomacy and to do the right thing—in other words, to release Jimmy?
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
As the right hon. Lady is posing her questions to the Minister, perhaps she will come to this one, but if she does not, will she agree to add that the Government need to get together a coalition of international Governments who are on our side—she has already named some—to put significant pressure on the Chinese authorities to do the right thing and release Jimmy Lai?
Suella Braverman
Absolutely. The irony cannot be lost on us that this is a clear case of human rights violations. I note that the legal team representing Mr Lai hails from Doughty Street Chambers—a renowned human rights chambers in London and the old stomping-ground of our very own Prime Minister. If there were ever a human rights case for the Prime Minister to work on and be an advocate for, this is it. I can imagine that many years ago, he might well have taken up this case, had it come through the doors of Doughty Street Chambers. We have our very own human rights lawyer in Downing Street; if there were ever a time for him to deploy his legal skills, his human rights zeal and his passion for civil liberties, it is here and now, on behalf of our British citizen Jimmy Lai. I thank the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) for his comments.
I will finish by recalling my experience at the Home Office and by asking the Minister some further questions on the broader issue of China. We are supposed to be challenging China, not appeasing it. At the Home Office, I saw the impact of Chinese bellicosity in the UK. The list is too long for this Chamber, but in recent years we have been on the receiving end of prolific and malicious cyber-activity by APT10—one of the best known hacking groups—on behalf of the Ministry of State Security and the People’s Liberation Army; the targeting of UK parliamentarians and diplomats; vulnerable policing and security services due to the prevalence of the digital asbestos of Chinese technology; transnational repression of Chinese dissidents in the UK through “Chinese police stations”; Confucius Institutes throughout UK academia, many of which are run effectively by the Chinese Communist party under the guise of their “Chinese talent programmes”; covert and unlawful acquisition of data; espionage; supply chain disruption and control of critical national infrastructure disguised as investment.
As Home Secretary, I enacted the National Security Act 2023, which set about injecting more transparency into how China does business and carries out activities in the UK. I have been urging the Government to list China on the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme. They still have not done that, and they seem to be refusing to. I ask the Minister: on what grounds, particularly in the light of the human rights violations of Jimmy Lai, can the Government possibly justify not listing China on the enhanced tier of that scheme, if we are to take the threat posed by China seriously for the grave one it is? In conclusion, Jimmy Lai is an elderly man, a British citizen and the victim of grotesque human rights abuses. If we, in this House—and this Government—cannot stand up for him, then we do not deserve to be here.
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) and congratulate and commend her on all she is doing to help secure the release of Jimmy Lai, and her tireless work to keep his case high on the political agenda of this House, the media and the public.
Today’s debate references other political prisoners. I would like to highlight the current ongoing arbitrary detention of my West Dunbartonshire constituent, Jagtar Singh Johal. Jagtar is a British national, who has been arbitrarily detained in India since 2017 on political charges carrying the death penalty, based on a confession extracted under torture. On 4 March 2025, Jagtar was acquitted of all charges in a case at the district and sessions court in Moga, Punjab, after the court rejected the allegations against him made by Indian authorities. Prosecutors had seven years to present credible evidence against Jagtar and failed to do so.
However, Jagtar has not been released because he is facing eight other cases, which are essentially duplicates—all are based on the same so-called “confession”: his name signed on a blank piece of paper after police tortured him with electricity and brought petrol into his cell and threatened to burn him alive. For Jagtar to remain imprisoned after his acquittal while standing trial in other cases based on the same facts, torture confession and inadmissible and unreliable witness evidence, would be a mockery of justice. Under the double jeopardy principle, which protects people from being put on trial twice for the same crime—and is enshrined in both international law and India’s constitution—the remaining cases against him should be dropped.
Following his acquittal, Jagtar’s conditions in prison have deteriorated significantly, and he has been placed in a solitary cell. Speaking to the all-party parliamentary group on arbitrary detention and hostage affairs on 2 April 2025, Jagtar’s brother Gurpreet said:
“Jagtar’s conditions in prison have deteriorated. He’s had his basic privileges taken away, and he’s isolated in a cell on his own, not allowed to speak to other prisoners…As a result, he’s feeling mentally tortured.”
His family report that those more stringent conditions continue to date, and are affecting Jagtar mentally. As a result, Jagtar’s family are becoming increasingly concerned for his wellbeing.
The UN working group on arbitrary detention found in May 2022 that, under international law, Jagtar’s detention is arbitrary and lacks any legal basis, and that his fair trial rights had been gravely violated. It determined that Jagtar’s detention was based on discriminatory grounds owing to his Sikh faith and status as a human rights defender, and that he was subject to torture. The UN called for Jagtar to be immediately released.
The UK Government must act now to secure Jagtar’s release. This moment in time is a unique opportunity to secure a resolution with Indian authorities and bring this young British man back to his family in Dumbarton in my home of West Dunbartonshire. Without decisive diplomatic action, he faces being imprisoned for decades while the remaining trials drag on despite the complete lack of credible evidence against him.
I joined the APPG on arbitrary detention and hostage affairs because of my constituent’s detention, and it was there that I learned about Jimmy Lai and the other UK citizens unlawfully detained across the world as political prisoners. I implore my Government to redouble their efforts in securing the release of Jimmy, Jagtar, Ryan and all our unlawfully detained constituents.
Several hon. Members rose—
Matt Western (in the Chair)
Order. I would like to get everyone in with about equal amounts of time. Hopefully, we can do so with four minutes each.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I commend the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) for setting the scene so well. I have spoken about the imprisonment of Jimmy Lai on many other occasions in Westminster Hall and asked questions about it in the Chamber. I declare an interest as the chair of the APPG for international freedom of religion or belief, because I want to mention the human rights that have been denied to him.
Democracy has been ignored. The hard hand of China and the Hong Kong authorities has come down strongly on democrats, of which Jimmy Lai is one, whose only crime was to speak up for democracy, liberty and freedom. It seems to me that those democrats did that without violence, but with a verbal strength, and I commend them for it. Hong Kong was once a bastion of western principles. I have supported many debates on it and sponsored pro-Hong Kong democracy events in this House to highlight Jimmy Lai and others.
The Chinese Communist party has denied Jimmy Lai his right to worship his God with freedom. He is a practising Roman Catholic. He is not able to have the mass he wants or the freedom of religious worship that he had before he was put in prison—for some 1,630 days, let us remember. His health has deteriorated and he is in a worsened condition.
Jimmy Lai is a British citizen. I say this circumspectly and with great respect to the Minister and the Government: there was a time when a British passport meant more than it perhaps means today. There was a gunboat diplomacy in that. If a UK citizen was under threat, they could expect the full weight of British authority to be used on their behalf. That does not happen today. But what we do, or try to do—the Minister and the Government do this all the time—is exercise the diplomacy that we need to.
Jimmy Lai’s staunch criticism of the Chinese Government led to his arrest in 2020. His story is a rallying point for those defending democratic values and human rights in the face of increasing authoritarianism. His trial began in December 2023, with his son Sebastien fighting for his release. Jimmy Lai testified for 52 days. Closing arguments were scheduled for August 2025. The 77-year-old has lived in Hong Kong since he was 12 years old. Having stowed away on a fishing boat from China and worked as a child labourer in a garment factory, he built up a fashion empire. He has been an advocate for democracy since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in China. He set up a magazine in Hong Kong.
Jimmy Lai has never held a Chinese or Hong Kong passport. Hong Kong authorities deem him to be a Chinese citizen because he was born in mainland China, even though he is as British as what you are, Mr Western, and what I am. Mr Lai has homes all over the world. It is only right that we advocate for his release.
I am reminded of Romans 12:18:
“If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”
That is a call not only to personal conduct, but to public policy. It urges us to pursue peace, and I believe that we should do that in every way we can—not passively, but intentionally, as far as it depends on us.
My request today is to free Jimmy Lai. I hope the Chinese Government are listening—they are probably not listening to Jim Shannon, the MP for Strangford. Perhaps they are not listening to any of us. I am one of those people who could not go to China even if I wanted to. I have no wish to go to China, by the way, Mr Western. You will never see me on a plane going that way, and never see me on the beaches, wherever they have beaches in China. I am interested in human rights and freedom of religious belief. Jimmy Lai should be freed.
Several hon. Members rose—
Matt Western (in the Chair)
Order. We will now formally make speeches four minutes long.
Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)
It is a privilege to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) for securing this vital debate. I commend her for her work fiercely fighting for her constituents. I declare an interest in this debate as the chair of the all-party parliamentary China group.
Jimmy Lai’s situation is desperate and his treatment wholly unacceptable. I am deeply concerned by the treatment that Mr Lai, a 77-year-old British citizen, has received at the hands of the Hong Kong authorities. He has been a tireless campaigner for democracy and human rights in Hong Kong. He has already been sentenced to five years and nine months in prison for a separate case relating to his now closed newspaper, Apple Daily. His lawyers have confirmed that he has been denied independent medical care and is allowed out of his cell for a mere 50 minutes a day. That is inhuman treatment. He is a frail, elderly man who is 77, has diabetes and has lost considerable weight, yet he remains a man of immense courage and unyielding spirit—qualities to which I want to pay tribute today. If he is found guilty he faces the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.
As chair of the APPG, I have raised Jimmy Lai’s case in person several times with Chinese officials, including in January when I visited Beijing as part of a visit by a cross-party group of parliamentarians. The Chinese believe it is an internal matter for them, but raising his case firmly has been my duty. It is important that a message is sent by this House and by UK parliamentarians that his treatment is not acceptable.
Blair McDougall (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes an important point about making the case to China. Does he agree with me that this is about more than just Jimmy Lai, because the rights that Jimmy Lai was exercising when he was arrested were guaranteed under the joint declaration, and that brings into question whether China is a reliable partner on all sorts of other international agreements, too?
Tony Vaughan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We must not forget that Hong Kong still, it is said, has a common law system, so Hong Kong must observe the common law and the basic principles attached to a fair trial. That is the bedrock of what the common law is about. It has been a privilege and inspiring for me to meet Sebastien Lai and his father’s lawyers. I pay tribute to them and their work.
Because of our fundamentally different political and economic systems, conceptions of democracy and human rights in China and in Britain will inevitably be different. But we must not relent from pushing and raising the case, given that Hong Kong has a common law system, and the international obligations that apply to China and Hong Kong must be upheld. I was encouraged to see that the Prime Minister raised Jimmy Lai’s case when he met President Xi at the G20 in Brazil. I urge the Prime Minister to meet Mr Lai’s son and his lawyers. The UK must of course work closely with our allies to continue to raise his case with officials at every level of the Chinese Communist party. China and Hong Kong should understand that Mr Lai’s case and the treatment that he has received is damaging the standing of China and Hong Kong in the world.
But beyond questions of legality, reputation and soft power lies the case of a frail, elderly man who deserves better, more humane treatment. I call on the Hong Kong authorities to release Jimmy Lai.
Several hon. Members rose—
Matt Western (in the Chair)
Order. I am afraid I am going to have to reduce speeches to three minutes.
Mr Connor Rand (Altrincham and Sale West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I join other Members in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) on securing this debate and on her powerful advocacy.
I want to focus specifically on the Jimmy Lai case and what it means to the sizeable Hong Kong diaspora that I am fortunate enough and proud to represent in Altrincham and Sale West. First, I briefly pay tribute to Jimmy Lai and the Lai family. I have been fortunate enough to meet Sebastien Lai, and I was struck by his dignity and resolve in the face of unimaginable difficulty. He told me in stark terms of his fear for his father’s health, and he was honest in saying that we are in a race against time to secure Jimmy’s release. I told Sebastien that I would do whatever I could to push and press our Government for his father’s release.
I have made the same promise to my Hongkonger constituents because for them the case feels deeply personal. It is a poignant illustration of why they were forced out of their homeland and a chilling reminder of what could happen to the loved ones they left behind. It is a reminder that, as one of them said to me, “If it can happen to Jimmy, it can happen to anyone.”
Every day that Jimmy Lai spends in jail, every bounty placed on pro-democracy activists and parliamentarians, and every act of Chinese aggression here and abroad strikes yet more fear into the hearts of Hongkongers in my community and around the world. That is one of the reasons why the case matters so much: not just because Jimmy’s release is morally right and not just because it would reunite an innocent man with his loving family, but because his ongoing imprisonment sends a message that China can disregard freedom with impunity. We must change that.
I know that the Government have raised the case repeatedly, but the situation has not changed—things are clearly not working, and historically the UK has a poor record of securing the release of UK citizens detained abroad. I ask the Minister: what new strategies can we adopt? Other Members have referred to trade talks, but surely, alongside important security considerations, the case must be an influencing factor in the decision on whether to approve a Chinese mega-embassy here in London.
I know that the Government will consider those questions and what more they can do to secure Jimmy’s release, in keeping with our party’s proud history of standing up for human rights wherever we can.
Warinder Juss (Wolverhampton West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) for securing this important debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister), sitting on my right, who is Jagtar Singh Johal’s MP. It is about Jagtar that I will speak this afternoon.
Jagtar Singh Johal is a Sikh, as my hon. Friend mentioned. Although Jagtar is not one of my constituents, I represent the Wolverhampton West constituency, which has a large and engaged Sikh population. Not only the Sikh population but non-Sikh constituents have expressed deep concern about Jagtar’s treatment and have consistently urged me to encourage the UK Government to take meaningful action. The allegations of torture, the length of detention without trial and the lack of due process in Jagtar’s case amount to a serious and unacceptable breach of international human rights. The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has concluded that his detention is arbitrary and in violation of international law.
On 6 November 2024, during Prime Minister’s questions, my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire mentioned that Jagtar’s imprisonment had reached its seventh year. The Prime Minister replied:
“We are committed to pushing the Government of India on this important case. The Foreign Secretary has raised it and will continue to do so”.—[Official Report, 6 November 2024; Vol. 756, c. 302.]
I would like to know what developments have taken place since then.
In March this year, the Punjab district court found that there was no credible evidence for the terrorism and conspiracy charge brought against Mr Johal, and that he was not a member of a terrorist gang. However, he still faces eight charges, which are based on the same alleged confession and evidence on which his acquittal took place. He faces the death penalty. Jagtar has never been convicted of a crime, yet is in solitary confinement 24/7 and subject to surveillance.
Following the acquittal on the charges mentioned earlier, we now have a window of opportunity to secure Jagtar’s release and bring him home to his country and family. We must use all the diplomatic channels available to us to press for Jagtar’s release; the situation cannot be allowed to continue. As we often say, justice delayed is justice denied. Like others mentioned this afternoon, Jagtar Singh Johal has waited for far too long.
Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) on securing this important debate. I put on the record my interest as the vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on arbitrary detention and hostage affairs.
I am going to speak in general terms about the issue of state hostage taking and arbitrary detention. Hon. Members have spoken eloquently about some of the cases and the constituents for whom they are fighting for so powerfully. The right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) talked about Ryan Cornelius, who has now been in prison for 17 years and in May 2018 was sentenced to a further 20 years, meaning that he will not leave prison in the Emirates until he is 84. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister), who spoke strongly about his constituent, Jagtar Singh Johal. Many of us will know of the case of Alaa Abd El-Fattah as well. The individuals in those cases, along with Jimmy Lai, have something in common: they are considered by the UN working group on arbitrary detention to be arbitrarily detained. Their rights have been trampled on and they are being incarcerated effectively unlawfully, without any due process or regard.
When we talk about victims of arbitrary detention, we need to remember the impact on their families as well as on them. Ryan Cornelius’s son was six years old when his father was imprisoned; he is now 23. Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s mother, Laila, has been on hunger strike for some time now. The impact still scars those lucky enough to have been released. I saw Matthew Hedges last week and hon. Members will have met Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and her husband Richard, who fought so powerfully for her release.
We need to have a conversation about why the UK struggles, in some cases, to free its citizens from arbitrary detention abroad. I have the highest regard for the Minister and our excellent diplomats, but the Foreign Affairs Committee report “Stolen years”, from the previous Parliament, highlighted some clear failings in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office approach to those who are arbitrarily detained. It talked about the need for urgency and to be clear about when our citizens are facing torture, interrogation and having their rights trampled on. Indeed, the case of Ahmed al-Doush is being considered at the moment by the UN working group on arbitrary detention because the UK has not explicitly said that it believes his rights are being trampled on. Saudi Arabia has said, “Well, the United Kingdom has not raised any issue about his rights being trampled on” and uses that as an argument in the working group itself. We have to be extremely clear when we see our citizens’ rights being traduced.
James Naish
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. The number of organisations involved was referenced earlier; in the case of Jimmy Lai, different countries and Congress have also lined up in support. What are my hon Friend’s reflections on the fact that even the support of all those organisations is still not making a difference?
Tim Roca
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It sometimes seems that the full glare of publicity is needed to make any progress with a case; I am thinking particularly of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. As hon. Members have said, perhaps there is an argument for our being much more assertive in dealing with such cases—not to look solely through the lens of geopolitics, but to consider clearly and squarely the first priority of all Governments: defending their citizens. Other countries seem to have a better record on that.
Clearly, there are things that we can be doing. I am looking forward, hopefully, to a Government announcement about a special envoy of some sort whose sole role would be to focus on getting British citizens out of these horrible situations. I believe that a cultural change probably needs to happen in the FCDO as well. We need to change what Chris Patten calls “by the way” diplomacy; he mentioned it when he was with Sebastien Lai at one of our hearings. At the end of a high-level conversation between a Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister it is, “By the way, this person is arbitrarily detained by you.” That does not give the sense of urgency and importance that the case deserves.
We can do much more. I am sure that the Government will be enacting the recommendations. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says because the issue is about serving British citizens and getting them out of horrible situations.
Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) on bringing forward this debate on behalf of not only her constituent, but everybody who cares about freedom and democracy across the world.
The Liberal Democrats are concerned about British nationals being detained abroad without due process or fair legal justification. That is not just a matter of foreign policy, but one of principle, human rights and our duty to protect British citizens wherever they may be. Jimmy Lai is a British citizen. He is a courageous journalist, a businessman and a tireless advocate for democracy in Hong Kong. Since 2020, he has been unjustly imprisoned by the Chinese authorities.
Jimmy Lai is also a father, and his son has continued his good work with the same courage. I had the privilege of meeting Jimmy’s son Sebastien and hearing at first hand the story of his father’s resistance to being silenced. Sebastien spoke movingly about the family’s ordeal following his father’s imprisonment, and of his father’s unwavering commitment to the values of freedom and democracy. It was a powerful reminder that behind every political prisoner is a resilient family enduring unimaginable emotional pain.
For nearly two years, Mr Lai has endured solitary confinement, but his crime is nothing more than speaking up for the freedom and democracy we all believe in. This man has risked everything for the values we hold dear, yet the UK Government have failed to secure his release for the last five years. Can the Minister update the House on the detail and nature of the conversations he has had with his Chinese counterparts? On the point made by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca), we are worried that they may have part of “by the way” diplomacy and that the issue has not been raised in enough serious detail. The read-outs from the high-profile visits have not really told us anything, so I would appreciate it if the Minister told us more.
I also question the merits of high-profile visits when so little progress has been made on key diplomatic issues such as this one and on the transnational repression happening on our shores. Can the Minister tell us when the long-promised China audit be published, and will he intervene on the plans for a Chinese super-embassy in our capital?
Jimmy Lai deserves to be at the top of our diplomatic engagement with China, but he is not alone. We are also deeply concerned about the continued detention of Jagtar Singh Johal in India. Arrested in 2017, Mr Johal has reportedly been tortured and held without due process. A UN working group has declared his detention arbitrary and called for his immediate release, yet the UK Government have still refused to take a clear position. That must change.
In Egypt, British citizen Alaa Abd el-Fattah remains in prison for the simple act of sharing a Facebook post. He has endured hunger strikes, inhumane conditions and the heartbreak of a family fighting for justice. His mother Laila has been hospitalised in protest, and we must do more.
These are not isolated incidents, but part of a disturbing pattern in which British nationals are detained abroad without fair trial, without consular access and with the Government’s diplomatic efforts falling on deaf ears. I believe that says something about Britain’s new standing in the world. After pulling back on multiple fronts, the Government must act now to restore our global role.
The Foreign Office claims to support 20,000 to 25,000 British nationals abroad each year, including thousands who are detained, but too often that support is discretionary, inconsistent and opaque. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a legal right to consular assistance for all British nationals, including dual nationals, who are politically detained or face human rights violations abroad. We also support the appointment of a dedicated envoy for hostages and detainees, although that must not come at the expense of ministerial accountability.
Britain should never abandon its own people for the sake of tiny diplomatic gains. Nations such as China and others are not weighing up whether we have been polite about them when drawing conclusions on large economic trade deals; they are calculating the cold hard facts. It is our duty not to be silent in the face of injustice, and I believe that doing so also signals our strength. We should not rest until Jimmy Lai and all others unjustly detained are free.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western. I commend the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake) for securing the debate and for defending so courageously Jimmy Lai. He is not merely her constituent; he is one of us. He is a British citizen, and as such he deserves the full protection, advocacy and diplomatic support that the United Kingdom extends to all its nationals under threat abroad.
I thank all the hon. Members who have spoken up today for Jimmy and other political prisoners who are unlawfully detained. His Majesty’s Opposition will always support the Government in all their efforts to free British citizens who are locked up unlawfully in parts of the world where regimes carry out such atrocities.
Mr Lai, of course, is currently imprisoned in Hong Kong under Beijing’s draconian and unaccountable national security law, which has criminalised dissent and dismantled every safeguard that once distinguished Hong Kong from the Chinese mainland. Jimmy Lai is being persecuted for the crime of believing in democracy, for founding Apple Daily, one of Hong Kong’s most popular pro-democracy newspapers, and for calling out the encroachment of the Chinese Communist party into the life of the city that once, under the British Crown, enjoyed liberty, autonomy and the rule of law. He has done all that at the age of 77, despite his serious health conditions.
Beijing has trampled on the promises made in the Sino-British joint declaration, a treaty lodged at the United Nations and signed in good faith. That agreement guaranteed Hong Kong’s freedom, rule of law and way of life, but today those guarantees lie in tatters and people such as Jimmy are paying the price.
Despite the cruelty inflicted upon him, Jimmy Lai’s spirit remains unbroken. His quiet defiance calls to mind the courage of dissidents during the final years of the cold war—acts of resistance that were welcomed and celebrated by leaders across the democratic world, not least by our own former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. The same unwavering belief in liberty should, I believe, stir the conscience of every free nation today, just as it did then, and shame us into action.
The British Government have said that Jimmy Lai’s case is a “priority”. I welcome that, but I must ask the Minister what the Government mean by that in practice. What do they consider success in Jimmy Lai’s case—his release, or simply raising the issue diplomatically? Surely, rather being seen as simply a complex consular case, it needs to be seen as one with serious geopolitical ramifications. From where I stand, the message coming from Downing Street is worryingly vague. It appears—I say this with regret—that the defence of human rights is being quietly traded for economic expediency.
What is worse is that what is happening to Jimmy Lai is not an isolated injustice; it is part of a wider campaign by Beijing to silence criticism, intimidate the diaspora and exert extraterritorial pressure on sovereign nations, including our own. Will the Minister call on the Prime Minister to meet the Lai family, listen to their story and understand what is at stake? We are concerned that Jimmy’s health is deteriorating and, as every day passes, we lose time.
If the Government are not prepared to stand by Jimmy Lai—I hope that the Minister will confirm today that they are—then the United Kingdom simply looks weak. We must be prepared to defend our British citizens, our values and our international obligations—or we look away and, by our silence, give permission to authoritarian regimes to target our people, suppress the truth and redefine the rules of the international order. The world is watching, and so is Jimmy Lai in his cell in Hong Kong—imprisoned not because he committed a crime, but because he dared to be free.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Mr Hamish Falconer)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Western. I will try to keep my remarks brief in order to be able to hand back to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Rachel Blake). I will make some progress through the cases that have been raised, as well as the general policy, and then I will be happy to take interventions.
The Government remain gravely concerned by the politically motivated prosecution of Jimmy Lai, who is a British citizen, as so many Members have pointed out. His case remains a top priority. We continue to call on Beijing to repeal Hong Kong’s national security law, and we call on the Hong Kong authorities to end the prosecution of all individuals charged under it and immediately release Mr Lai.
As many Members know well from their constituencies —just as I know from Lincoln—the UK has deep and long-standing ties with Hong Kong, but the continued erosion of rights and freedoms threatens Hong Kong’s way of life. China’s imposition of the national security law has seen opposition voices stifled and dissent criminalised. Mr Lai is just one of those voices; prominent and outspoken, he has been silenced through a politically motivated prosecution.
The Foreign Secretary has committed to raising Mr Lai’s case with China at every opportunity. We have stood firm on that promise, and it is of the utmost importance to this Government. Ministers have regularly and repeatedly made clear the damage that Mr Lai’s ongoing imprisonment has done to Hong Kong’s reputation and the challenge that it presents to UK-China relationships more broadly.
Hon. Members asked me a number of questions about which Ministers have raised Mr Lai’s case and how. The Prime Minister has done so with President Xi, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) highlighted, and the Foreign Secretary, the Chancellor, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Foreign Office Ministers—in particular, the Minister with responsibility for China, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (Catherine West)—Trade Ministers and Science Ministers have all raised Jimmy Lai’s detention with their Chinese counterparts. We will continue to do so.
Our diplomats have attended Mr Lai’s trial throughout, alongside our partners, to make it known that the world is watching. I was asked about the role of other countries. We welcome the support from many of our partners in raising Mr Lai’s case. Just yesterday, the Foreign Secretary again met Mr Lai’s son, Sebastien, who has indeed campaigned tirelessly for his father’s release. The Foreign Secretary updated him on his recent engagements with China and offered his full support, including on behalf of the Prime Minister, who is closely following Mr Lai’s trial.
The Government are taking a consistent, long-term and strategic approach to managing the UK’s relations with China, rooted in the national interest, precisely so that we can have direct and often difficult conversations in the interests of the British people, including Jimmy Lai. I say in response to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean), that the China audit should be published soon.
I turn now to the important points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) on consular prisoner policy. As a former official as well as a Minister, I know well the terrible impact that being incarcerated has on not just the individual in question but their family. I know from my own personal experience how different every case is and how difficult it can be to secure progress. I know the importance of commitment, of determination and of finding every possible route to secure release. I can assure hon. Members that the health and welfare of detainees is at the heart of our consular work. We will support families wherever we can.
I recognise the complexity of Mr Lai’s case and some of the others that have been referenced. In such cases, we use a taskforce approach, drawing in expertise from specialist teams, geographic experts and our embassies around the world to determine our strategy. Teams examine the circumstances of each case individually and develop tailored approaches based on careful judgments of what is likely to be most effective. We are examining options to strengthen our approach, with the appointment of a special envoy to work with families on the most complex detention cases, and we will announce further details in due course. We are also committed to introducing a new right to consular assistance in cases of human rights violations, and consultations are ongoing.
The Liberal Democrat spokesperson made an important point about the accountability of Ministers. I am the Minister with responsibility for consular affairs. The appointment of an envoy will complement our efforts; it will in no way displace my responsibility to hon. Members and to this House, or, indeed, the responsibility of the Foreign Secretary and others to account for their actions on all these cases.
I will turn to some of the other cases that have been raised, including tirelessly by my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister). We continue to express concerns about Mr Johal’s prolonged detention to the Government of India at every appropriate opportunity, emphasising the need for a prompt, full and just resolution of his case in India’s independent legal system. We continue to provide consular support to Mr Johal and his family. The Foreign Secretary met Mr Johal’s brother on 8 May and raised Mr Johal’s case with his Indian counterpart on several occasions, including most recently on 7 June. The Prime Minister raised Mr Johal’s case with Prime Minister Modi on 18 November and with the Indian Minister of External Affairs on 4 March.
As several hon. Members mentioned, many Members are focused on Alaa Abd el-Fattah in Egypt and on his mother, Laila. The Government are committed to securing Alaa’s urgent release and we continue to engage at the highest levels of the Egyptian Government. The Prime Minister raised the case with President Sisi on 22 May and the Foreign Secretary with Foreign Minister Abdelatty on 1 June. I am, of course, concerned by the hospitalisation of Laila, Alaa’s mother. I have met her and the family on a number of occasions, and I met her with Prime Minister on 14 February. I share her desire for an urgent resolution. I have impressed the urgency of the situation on the Egyptian Government and the Egyptian ambassador on repeated occasions. I assure the House that the case remains a top priority for me personally.
I reassure my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster of the priority that the Government place on the fate of her constituent, Mr Lai.
Jim Shannon
With the utmost respect to the Minister, I made the case for Jimmy Lai being denied his right to religious worship. He is a practising Roman Catholic, but cannot have his mass or worship his God in the way he wants to. With that in mind, and as chair of the APPG for international freedom of religion or belief, I ask the Minister what has been done to ensure that Jimmy Lai has the freedom of religious belief that he should expect.
Mr Falconer
I welcome and commend the hon. Member’s efforts on freedom of religious belief, not just in Hong Kong but across the world. We have raised the circumstances of Mr Lai’s detention and will continue to do so. The UK will not stop pressing for consular access in that case, and indeed in all other cases where consular access is denied, and we will not stop calling for Mr Lai’s immediate release.
James Naish
I thank the Minister for that. I referred to Canada and the gestures that it has made. What more can we do, in gestures or actions, specifically in the case of Jimmy Lai? What more could be done practically? I appreciate all the warm words and the efforts that have been put in, but are there not more physical things that we can be doing?
Mr Falconer
In each case, different things are likely to make progress. I am very conscious of my own experience—I negotiated the release of British nationals with the Taliban over a long period. I am sure that in that case publicity would have made the release more complex. It will vary case by case, and I am sure the Minister responsible for China will be happy to discuss these matters further.
I will end my remarks there in order to give my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster the chance to respond.
Rachel Blake
I thank all the participants in the debate: the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) for raising the case that he did; the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman) for highlighting the injustice; my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Douglas McAllister) for raising the case of Jagtar Singh Johal; the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for talking about religious freedom; my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for talking about his great work on the APPG; my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Rand) for talking about the diaspora; my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton West (Warinder Juss) for highlighting, too, the cause of Jagtar Singh Johal; my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Tim Roca) for setting out the impact of detention on families; the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean) for talking about detained people and Alaa Abd el-Fattah; and the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) for setting out the Opposition’s determination on the release of Jimmy Lai.
Jimmy Lai, Jagtar Singh Johal and others have all suffered grievous injustice against their human rights. That matters because it could be any one of us; it could be our mums, our dads, our sons or our daughters. It matters for democracy and for freedom of the press. I am really heartened by the Minister’s remarks. I am also heartened that, when I raised Jimmy Lai’s case with the Foreign Secretary, he referred to a “massive” international coalition to tackle it, and that the Chancellor raised it when she visited China. I will continue to fight for the freedom of my constituent, Jimmy Lai, in order to honour his family’s campaigning work and his own human rights.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the detention of Jimmy Lai and other political prisoners internationally.
UK-US Economic Prosperity Deal
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Written StatementsRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Business and Trade (Jonathan Reynolds)
On 8 May 2025, the Prime Minister and the President concluded a landmark economic deal between the United Kingdom and the United States. The deal was defined in the general terms for the economic prosperity deal. Both countries agreed to begin negotiations on the EPD immediately, to develop and formalise the proposals in the general terms. The Government remain relentlessly focused on securing the best outcomes for UK industry, and ensuring that businesses up and down the country can feel the benefits of the deal as soon as possible.
On 16 June, the Prime Minister and the President agreed further progress towards that goal.
As outlined in paragraph 1(c)(i) of the general terms, the US will create a 100,000-unit quota for all UK car exports to the US, reducing US tariffs from 27.5% to 10%. This will be administered on a quarterly basis. This has been signed by the President through Executive order, and we expect that these arrangements will come into force by the end of the month. This 10% tariff will also apply to UK part exports attendant to finished passenger cars that UK manufacturers export to the US.
The UK will implement its commitments in paragraph 1(b) of the general terms relating to beef. We will execute the legislative process to create a preferential duty-free quota for US beef of 13,000 metric tonnes (mt) per calendar year. Alongside this, the UK will remove the 20% tariff on US beef imports under the existing World Trade Organisation quota shared between the US and Canada of 1,000 mt per year. The UK will lay legislation in Parliament to bring the quota into effect. Under paragraph 1(b) of the general terms, the United States confirmed its commitment to reallocate to the United Kingdom 13,000 mt of its existing “other countries” tariff rate quota for beef at most favoured nation rates. That re-allocation will take place as quickly as possible and at the latest by 1 January 2026. As confirmed in the general terms, the United Kingdom and the United States affirm that imported food and agricultural goods must comply with the importing country’s sanitary and phytosanitary standards and other mutually agreed standards. Paragraph 2(a) of the general terms outlines how the UK and the US will seek to strengthen bilateral agricultural trade.
The UK will also execute the legislative process to create a preferential duty-free quota for US ethanol of 1.4 billion litres per year. The UK will lay legislation in Parliament to bring the quota into effect.
The US and UK will continue to work together at pace to implement paragraph 1(a) of the general terms, covering other tariffs. The US and the UK will continue to work together to conclude this negotiation and implement reductions as soon as possible. Each country intends to continue to improve market access under the EPD.
The US and the UK will take forward the remaining provisions contained in paragraph 1(c) of the general terms. The UK and US are conducting rapid discussions to create a quota at most favoured nation rates for the export of steel, aluminium and certain derivative products from the UK to the US, and intend to finalise implementation as soon as possible.
The US commits to reducing tariffs on imports of aerospace goods from the UK from current levels back to MFN rates. This has been signed by the President through Executive order, and we expect these arrangements to come into force by the end of the month.
Both countries remain focused on securing significantly preferential outcomes for the export of pharmaceutical products from the UK to the US and other sectors that may be subject to section 232 investigations or other tariff measures.
[HCWS709]
Radio Teleswitch Service Switch-off
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Written StatementsRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Miatta Fahnbulleh)
Today I can confirm that my Department has stepped in to ensure that there will be a managed and more controlled start of the radio teleswitch service phase-out from 30 June. People with an RTS meter will not face any unexpected disruption to their heating or hot water at the end of the month.
The radio teleswitch service uses radio signals to switch older electricity meters between different tariffs such as peak and off-peak, and can also be used to turn heating and hot water systems on and off at specific times of the day.
The technology behind RTS is reliant on infrastructure that was introduced in the 1980s that is due to be switched off as it is reaching the end of its operational life. The phased approach to switch-off was agreed with relevant industry parties on behalf of energy suppliers.
For years the pace of RTS replacements by industry has been too slow—leaving 314,935 RTS meters still in premises as of 30 May 2025.
My Department has worked to ensure that industry will pursue a more controlled approach to the phase-out, beginning with a very small number of homes and businesses in carefully targeted local areas. During this process, the Government and Ofgem will closely monitor supplier that readiness to ensure the process is smooth and vulnerable consumers are identified and protected.
These steps will help to ensure that suppliers are ready to respond quickly in case of any issues and that working families and the elderly are protected throughout the phase-out process.
The Government are working closely with the industry and Ofgem to ensure this next period is planned effectively and that consumers, particularly those who are vulnerable, are protected. The Government are clear that suppliers must fulfil all their legal obligations to their customers, and will work with Ofgem to hold suppliers to account.
I will continue to meet Ofgem and Energy UK on a fortnightly basis to review how the gradual and targeted phase-out is progressing, with a particular focus on Scotland—where over 100,000 RTS meters are installed—as well as remote and rural areas, to ensure that all efforts are made to reach these households.
To provide additional protection to consumers, Ofgem has recently consulted on plans to introduce new RTS-specific licence conditions for energy suppliers. These will include a provision that suppliers must take all reasonable steps to provide a tariff that leaves their consumers “no worse off” than under their existing arrangement as a result of an RTS meter replacement. Ofgem will publish its response to the consultation shortly.
Suppliers will continue contacting consumers to book replacement appointments and consumers are urged to respond as soon as possible. In most cases, this will involve replacing the RTS meter with a smart meter—which can work in the same way as RTS meters, with automatic peak and off-peak rates, and the ability to turn heating and hot water systems on and off—ensuring minimal disruption to households.
In advance of any phase-out activity in their area, households and businesses will be contacted by their energy supplier to inform them well ahead of time if their meters will be affected.
The Government have also made it clear to industry that suppliers must fulfil all their obligations to consumers and drive up the rate of RTS meter replacements. In recent months, suppliers have taken various steps to speed up their replacement rates, and this must continue. The Department continues to impress upon suppliers the importance of resourcing themselves effectively to ensure that they can reach all their RTS consumers in good time, including those in rural areas.
Although the RTS and the work to replace it is industry-owned and led, this Government are doing everything we can to ensure that all consumers, particularly those who are vulnerable, are protected from any negative impacts.
[HCWS711]
Windrush Commissioner
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Written StatementsRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Seema Malhotra)
I am delighted to announce that the Rev. Clive Foster MBE is to be our new and first Windrush commissioner.
This appointment delivers on a manifesto commitment and follows on from the Home Secretary’s statement to the House in October last year. It is a pivotal step in resetting the Government’s response to the Home Office Windrush scandal and delivering the change that the victims of this scandal want and deserve to see.
As Windrush commissioner, he will play a crucial role, providing independent oversight of the Government’s ongoing commitment to address the impact of the Home Office Windrush scandal and ensure that the voices of those affected remain at the heart of efforts to deliver justice. The commissioner will engage with victims, communities and stakeholder organisations, and provide advice directly to Ministers, to help ensure that lasting, tangible change is delivered and that the lessons of the past are truly learned. He will also work alongside the Windrush unit, which was re-established last year, to oversee the Department’s response to the scandal and embed permanent cultural change.
The Rev. Clive Foster is a hugely experienced and capable individual, and well placed to represent the interests of the Windrush communities. With personal connections to the Windrush generation through his parents, who migrated from Jamaica, he brings both lived experience and professional expertise to the role. He is the founder of Nottingham Windrush Support Forum, vice-chair of the Windrush National Organisation and a senior pastor at the Pilgrim Church in Nottingham—demonstrating valuable experience in community leadership and social justice.
We look forward to working closely with the Rev. Clive Foster as we continue our vital work to re-build trust and ensure that dignity is restored and justice delivered to Windrush generations, as is rightfully deserved; that those who have suffered receive the status and compensation they deserve; and that an injustice such as this can never happen again.
[HCWS710]
National Housing Bank and National Housing Delivery Fund
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I am today updating the House on further steps the Government are taking to deliver our ambitious plan for change milestone of building 1.5 million safe and decent homes in this Parliament.
National Housing Bank
To accelerate house building across England, we intend to establish a new, permanent national housing bank to act as the Government’s investment arm.
Established as a public financial institution, and operating as a subsidiary of Homes England, the new bank will deliver a long-term financial return for the Government, drawing on the approach taken to the national wealth fund. The bank will deploy finance in line with the Treasury’s financial transaction control framework, which will ensure long-term value for money.
By giving Homes England greater autonomy and freedom to flexibly deploy loans, equity and guarantees, the new bank will support additional housing development and reinforce our ongoing efforts to reform the housing market.
Today’s announcement sets out an initial allocation of £16 billion of new financial capacity for the bank—comprising £10.5 billion of investment capital and £5.5 billion of contingent liability capacity that can be used to deploy housing guarantees. The £10.5 billion investment capital package includes £2.5 billion of low-interest loans for social and affordable housing providers to further boost their capacity to invest in new developments.
The bank will offer a broad range of products, including direct lending to SMEs to help them to grow, equity investments to support new platforms that can bring new capital into housing, and guarantees to leverage private investment into complex development projects.
The bank will build on Homes England’s impressive track record of investment. Since October 2016, the agency has deployed over £9.6 billion of capital through existing investment programmes, working alongside delivery partners to attract an estimated £48 billion of private sector investment into the vehicles it supports. This investment will deliver or unlock over 600,000 homes.
The detailed investment strategy for the bank—which will form a key part of Homes England’s overall strategy – will be developed in the coming months and agreed by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and HM Treasury. Subject to the development of that investment strategy, our current estimates are that, over the lifetime of the initial £16 billion investment allocation, the bank will support the delivery of over 500,000 homes in all parts of the country and of all different tenures, create hundreds of thousands of job opportunities in the construction sector, and leverage in an additional £53 billion of additional private investment.
The national housing bank will work closely with mayors and local leaders to develop integrated packages of financial support to deliver on the housing and regeneration priorities of local areas, alongside wider land and grant funding. Following this announcement, MHCLG and Homes England will engage mayoral strategic authorities to agree an approach that works best for the needs of each place.
MHCLG will work with the Mayor of London to establish a City Hall developer investment fund—supporting London’s ambition to build over 80,000 homes per year, and support housing regeneration around London Euston. We will also extend the successful Greater Manchester housing investment fund, which has supported over 10,000 homes since 2015.
The creation of the national housing bank will not change the delivery of Homes England’s existing investment programmes or impact arrangements for customers with help to buy loans provided by Homes England.
I must make clear that Homes England is not currently designated as a public financial institution. However, the Government will designate a subsidiary of Homes England as a public financial institution once established in line with the Government’s financial transaction control framework. MHCLG, HM Treasury and Homes England will work together to agree the changes to Homes England that are needed prior to establishing the bank.
The name “national housing bank” is provisional and will undergo all normal regulatory approvals before the bank is established.
New capital grant funding for investment in infrastructure and land
In many cases, Government grant funding is critical to making large-scale, complex and transformational housing regeneration and infrastructure projects viable. That is why, alongside the intention to establish the national housing bank, we are announcing £5 billion of new capital grant funding for infrastructure and land.
This additional grant funding will be administered by a new, single national housing delivery fund that will complement investment from the national housing bank. This fund will be fully operational from 1 April 2026.
MHCLG and Homes England will work with mayors and local partners to understand priorities for this investment and will set out further detail on funding later this year.
[HCWS712]
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Stansgate) (Lab)
If there is a Division in the Chamber, we will adjourn for 10 minutes, but noble Lords have only to look at the screen to see that no Divisions are scheduled for today, thank heavens.
Because of the weather, we will have the doors open. I urge everyone to please drink plenty of water. I can tell those in the Room who are able to take their jackets off that I shall be gazing with envy at them while we proceed with the business.
Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Vaux of Harrowden
“(2A) The functions are exercisable only when accompanied by an authorised person from the police force.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to restrict investigators’ powers of entry, search and seizure to situations when they are accompanied by an authorised person from the police force.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)
My Lords, I shall be brief. When we discussed a previous group on Part 1 that was similar to this, I believe the Minister stated that those using search or other powers would always be accompanied by a police constable, so I suppose I am looking for confirmation that that is the same in this case. If it is, I am curious to know why we really need the powers and why it cannot be left to the police to exercise them.
I have one other, more important question. On the powers in Clause 76, under the DWP powers, new subsection (4)(i) refers to
“section 117 (reasonable use of force)”.
Slightly oddly, I have just discovered that that was not included in the powers for the PFSA, so can the Minister explain why the DWP thinks it needs to be able to use reasonable force when the PFSA did not? I beg to move.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, as we consider Amendments 92 and 93 from the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, on his behalf, it is important to reflect on the balance between effective fraud prevention and the safeguarding of individual rights. Amendment 92 proposes that investigators’ powers of entry, search and seizure should be exercised only when accompanied by an authorised member of the police force. This approach could provide an additional layer of oversight and reassurance to the public, but it may also introduce operational complexities that could affect the speed and efficiency of investigations into public sector fraud.
Similarly, Amendment 93 seeks to require court authorisation before the Secretary of State can appoint authorised investigators. This would introduce judicial oversight, which is a well-established safeguard in many areas of law enforcement, and it could help to prevent the potential misuse of investigatory powers. But it may also add—as I said before—procedural steps that could delay urgent investigations, possibly hindering the recovery of stolen public funds, which is what this debate is all about.
Both amendments raise important questions about proportionality and accountability. I look forward to hearing the views of colleagues and the Minister on how best to achieve the right balance in this legislation, and I await their contributions.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I also wish to be brief and will cut down my notes, but this is a good opportunity to raise a number of points. I am very pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, has spoken to Amendments 92 and 93, as supported, or added to, by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer.
I share the principle that underpins Amendment 92 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka—that the powers of entry, search and seizure provided for in Clause 76 must be exercised responsibly and proportionately, with proper regard for the rights of individuals. However, my main point here is that, while the amendment aims to provide a safeguard by requiring investigators to be accompanied by a police officer when exercising these powers, I suggest that we need to balance that safeguard with a degree of practicality. If the use of these powers is deemed serious enough to require a police presence, one might reasonably ask an obvious question: why would the police not simply carry out the action themselves, under existing powers—I think that was the point that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, made—rather than acting in an accompanying or supporting role? If these powers are to be used more routinely—for example, to support the investigation of lower-level but still costly fraud—do we risk placing a significant administrative and resource burden on our already overstretched police forces? I could say more on this, but I will not.
Amendment 93, also in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, seeks to insert an additional layer of judicial oversight into the appointment of authorised investigators by requiring that their authorisation is subject to court approval, rather than left solely to the discretion of the Secretary of State. Without going into the detail, I support the principle behind this amendment.
I will conclude by asking some questions of the Minister on process, which has been a consistent theme on this side in our previous four days in Committee. I am not expecting answers now; it is really to put down the questions along the themes that I have just spoken to. We have had some verbal reassurance from the Government that these powers will be used against property and not people. I am not quite sure how reasonable force can be applied against property but, more than this, it is clear from the text of the Bill that this is not legally guaranteed. Reasonable force could be wielded against people by DWP officers; I hope that the Government can provide more clarity on the balance of that. Can the Minister confirm that these powers could in fact be used against people, as well as property? That is quite an important point. Again, the argument is about whether the police or the DWP may be required. In addition, can she give us some more information as to why she believes these powers need to be granted to civil servants in the DWP?
I say again that the police are the recognised authority, who have legitimacy, in the eyes of the public, to exercise and apply PACE powers. I feel that the Government have a duty to defend, quite strongly, why they want to grant these sweeping powers to members of a government department such as the DWP. We have a police service for a reason: officers are trained, regulated and experienced in using these powers appropriately. If fraud is suspected, particularly at a serious level, is it not right that it should be investigated by the police and not delegated to civil servants?
My concluding comment is that we should be cautious about expanding investigatory powers without a clear and compelling case. My final question to the Minister is: what justification is there for bypassing the police? That plays into my main question, which is: whither the police and whither the DWP?
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their comments and questions. I will speak first to Amendment 92. The amendment would undermine the policy intent of this part of the Bill, so we cannot accept it. The DWP leads investigations into social security matters and, as a result, our staff are better positioned to search for items relevant to these investigations—the things that they deal with, such as benefit claim packs or documents related to fraudulent identities. Requiring the police to be present for all DWP search and seizure activity, including investigative tasks related to securing criminal evidence, would erode the anticipated obvious benefits of the measure to both the DWP and the police. Crucially, it would divert the police away from focusing on the crime within our communities that only they can deal with and dealing with the human victims of those crimes.
These powers allow the DWP to apply to a court for warrants to enter a premises, conduct search and seizure and apply for and exercise production orders, with or without the police present. That clarifies the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux. They provide the DWP with greater control over its own operations and ensure that police time is not spent undertaking administrative tasks on the DWP’s behalf.
However, I reassure the Committee that safeguards are in place to govern the use of these powers. First and foremost, court approval must be granted for all warrants. The requirements for a DWP warrant application will be as strict as those for a police warrant application. Furthermore, the DWP intends to exercise these powers exclusively in cases involving serious and organised crime. This is not novel. Similar powers are already being used by HMRC, the Food Standards Agency and the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, which can undertake search and seizure activity without needing to be accompanied by the police.
Amendment 93 would impose unique obligations on the courts that they do not face in respect of other government departments with similar powers. PACE powers do not require the individual exercising them to be appointed by the court and there is no clear reason for the DWP to be any different. DWP-authorised investigators, like others who exercise PACE powers, will be subject to the PACE code of practice relating to search and seizure activity and will be required to follow the same procedures and processes as the police when submitting a warrant application to the court. These are not standards set by the DWP; they are set out in PACE, which all bodies exercising these kinds of law enforcement powers must adhere to. Specialist training must be successfully completed before authorisation is given and only then can an authorised investigator exercise these powers on behalf of the Secretary of State. That approach ensures that the correct responsibilities are attributed to the Secretary of State and the courts.
On the question relating to the PSFA, I am advised that it is not that a constable necessarily has to be present, but somebody with those powers, who may not be a police officer but could be from the National Crime Agency, the Serious Fraud Office, et cetera. As I said, the police do not always have to be there, if it is not necessary. There will be occasions when it will be necessary. For example, the previous Government published a fraud plan in which they recommended that powers of not only search and seizure but arrest be taken. We have decided not to take those powers, so if there needed to be an arrest, we would need to have police officers with us. If there were a risk of serious violence, again, the police would need to be present, but not otherwise.
On the question of force, the provisions set out in Clause 76 provide powers under PACE to enable DWP serious and organised crime investigators to apply for a search warrant to enter a premises, search it and seize items, with or without police involvement in England and Wales. The clause also enables authorised investigators to apply to a judge for an order requiring an individual suspected of social security fraud to provide certain types of sensitive information when relevant to the criminal investigation. It also provides for the use of reasonable force to conduct a search, such as breaking open a locked filing cabinet to search for materials. The clause provides that these powers can be used by an authorised investigator who is authorised by the Secretary of State.
To be clear, a warrant provides for the powers that can be deployed when that warrant is exercised. Our authorised investigators in DWP will not use reasonable force against people, although they may use it against property, such as breaking open a locked filing cabinet to retrieve a laptop or other evidence. However, the reason it has to be here is that, when the DWP applies for a warrant, that warrant must cover any activities that may need to be undertaken by either the DWP or the police, so although our investigators will not use reasonable force against people, it may be necessary for the police to do so when they are accompanying the DWP. That is why the legislation is drafted that way. If it were not, police out there on our warrant would not be able to use reasonable force and there may be occasions on which they need to do so. I hope that that clarifies matters for the noble Lord.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)
Can the Minister explain why the DWP needs that power but the PSFA does not? The two clauses in the Bill are otherwise identical and differ only in respect of the reasonable force element. If the PSFA does not need it, I do not understand why the DWP does.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
The expectation is that we will be dealing with different kinds of crime. We are talking about serious and organised crime, where we will go out looking for evidence. We believe we do need these powers. If there is another argument behind that I am happy to write to the noble Lord. I have explained why the DWP needs them, and we clearly do need them in these circumstances because without them we could not conduct this work. The DWP has lots of experience because we already do this work; the police just have to go out with us, to be there and to do the searching. So we know what we need and therefore we know that we need these powers. If there is anything else I can add on the PSFA, I will write to the noble Lord.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
The Minister may have just answered my question, which is a slightly opaque one, perhaps. Is it a good assumption that in any search of a property by the DWP when it suspects fraud, members of the DWP will always go prepared with the necessary back-up, including the police or members of the NCA, if they suspect it is going to be a challenging search—or is that wrong?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
As I said, the police might need to be present if we felt there was a risk of any serious violence. If it was felt there might be a need for arrests or, as the noble Viscount has suggested, there was a possible risk of violence, the police would be asked to accompany DWP officers. I have given those assurances, so I hope the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)
My Lords, I thank everyone who has taken part in this short but, I hope, illuminating debate. I have concerns about these police powers being given to civil servants and I do not think I am alone in that respect. I am comforted, to some extent, by the fact that these will be used only in the cases of serious and organised crime. I wonder whether the solution, therefore, is to put that in the Bill and put that safeguard in place, because I think that would comfort most people who have the concerns that we have. Perhaps that is something that the Minister might be willing to discuss between now and Report. That said, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Sherlock
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for my amendment to Schedule 4, page 101, line 15.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, government Amendments 94 to 97 are minor and technical in nature. In England and Wales, the common law does not permit access to material protected by legal professional privilege under any circumstances. However, relying on this common-law exclusion would not extend to Scotland. In addition, a different definition of legal privilege applies in Scotland. To ensure that the original intent is maintained, this position is now set out in a single provision within new Schedule 3ZD.
These amendments make it explicit that if the information being sought relates to personal records which involve confidentiality of communications that could be maintained in legal proceedings in Scotland, it cannot be seized, copied or obtained, et cetera. This ensures that the same protections for information of this type apply in Scotland as they would in England and Wales. I hope that these amendments are clear and I beg to move.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, as we turn to government Amendments 94 to 97, I wonder, as I always do when there are lots of government amendments to their own Bill, whether enough thought has gone into it in the other place.
I know that these proposals are primarily technical, with the key aim of simplifying the drafting of new Schedule 3ZD to the Social Security Administration Act 1992. Government Amendment 96 introduces a single clear prohibition on the seizure or examination of information of legal privilege. This streamlining could help to clarify the legal position for both investigators and those subject to investigation, ensuring that the Bill’s provisions are easier to interpret and apply in practice.
Clarity in legislation is always desirable, especially in complex areas such as fraud investigation, where the rights of individuals and the needs of public authorities must be carefully balanced. At the same time, it is important to consider how these amendments interact with the Bill’s wider objectives of safeguarding public money and equipping authorities with the tools needed to tackle fraud and error effectively. Ensuring that information which is subject to legal privilege is properly protected is a long-standing principle within our legal system. These amendments appear to reaffirm that commitment without substantially altering the Bill’s intent. I have no problem in agreeing with what should have been in the Bill at the beginning.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, my remarks largely chime with those made by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer. The Committee will be relieved to know that this is my shortest speech. I offer some measured support for these amendments. They address the important principle of the protection of legally privileged material, and in a way that simplifies and clarifies the drafting of this part of the Bill.
The right to legal professional privilege is, of course, a cornerstone of our justice system. That principle should be unambiguous in legislation of this kind. These amendments seek to express that safeguard more clearly through a single consolidated position. There is certainly merit in that. A simplified and consolidated statement of the limitation on investigatory powers in respect of privileged material is likely to be easier to apply in practice and could reduce the risk of inadvertent overreach.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the support and take the chiding in the spirit in which noble Lords intended it.
Government amendments are a key part of the legislative process. Noble Lords will have seen them from time to time, allowing for the refinement and improvement of Bills as they move through Parliament. It is critical that the Bill’s provisions comply with the distinct legal jurisdiction of Scotland. Every effort has been made to ensure that this is the case. We have worked closely with the Office of the Advocate-General for Scotland and with officials in the Scottish Government.
Following an additional review of the Bill prior to Committee, the Office of the Advocate-General for Scotland identified the need for a minor amendment to ensure that the powers would operate in Scotland as intended. We felt it was important to make the law clear in the Bill. I am grateful for noble Lords’ grace on this.
Baroness Sherlock
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for my amendment to Schedule 4, page 101, line 15.
“Material subject to legal privilege
10 Nothing in this Schedule confers power to— (a) require any person to provide information, or(b) seize, remove, take a copy of or otherwise record anything,in respect of which a claim to confidentiality of communications could be maintained in legal proceedings.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, together with my other amendments to Schedule 4, simplifies the drafting of new Schedule 3ZD to the Social Security Administration Act 1992 by creating a single prohibition on the seizure etc of information subject to legal privilege.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for my amendment to Schedule 4, page 101, line 15.
Baroness Sherlock
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and my other amendment to clause 85 remove unnecessary references to a payment or credit, both of which are within the relevant definition of “benefit” already as a result of section 121DA(5) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for my other amendment to clause 85.
Baroness Finn
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that the Secretary of State did not have the power to direct the independent person to review only certain timeframes.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, Amendments 99A to 99C have been tabled, as ever, in the spirit of constructive scrutiny and with the aim of strengthening one of the more significant accountability provisions in the Bill: the independent review process set out in Clause 88.
These amendments are modest, reasonable and necessary. They are not designed to undermine the intention of Clause 88 but quite the opposite: to give that clause the clarity, independence and rigour that an effective review mechanism surely must demand. Fundamentally, they seek to correct the text in the Bill as drafted, as this would not provide for a proper independent review process of the exercise of powers under this part of the Bill. As we have been clear throughout these days in Committee, having a proper, full and independent review mechanism is an essential requirement to balance the powers granted.
Let me begin with Amendment 99A. As currently drafted, new Section 109J, to be inserted by Clause 88, allows the Secretary of State to direct the independent person to review only certain timeframes, saying in subsection (1):
“The Secretary of State may give the independent person appointed … directions as to the period to be covered by each review under section 109I”.
This, in our view, strikes at the heart of the independence that the clause is meant to enshrine.
If the Secretary of State can determine the scope of the review in such a narrow and discretionary fashion, deciding what is in and what is out, we risk reducing the entire review process to something partial and predetermined. An independent reviewer must have the freedom to examine the full timeline of events, decisions and outcomes as they see fit, not just the periods that a Minister deems relevant. This amendment would remove the power for the Secretary of State to constrain that scope. It would ensure that the independent person can review what needs reviewing, not merely what it is convenient to review.
Further to this, Amendment 99B addresses another area in which we believe the clause falls short of its intended purpose. As present, new Section 109J(3) states:
“The Secretary of State may disclose information to the independent person”.
We do not think this is adequate. For a review to be meaningful, the reviewer must be empowered to access all relevant material. It cannot be left to the Minister to determine what relevant information may or may not be disclosed to the independent person for review. By replacing “may” with “must”, this amendment would impose a basic but essential duty for the Government to co-operate with their own independent review mechanism. This should not be controversial. If the review is to be credible both in substance and perception, the provision of relevant documents, data and records must be a legal obligation, not a voluntary gesture. Our amendment would ensure that the independent reviewer could operate with true independence and without the bias that the discretionary drafting currently in the Bill implies.
We must appreciate that if the Secretary of State can direct the scope and scale of these independent reviews, they cannot truly be called independent. As noble Lords across the Committee will know, the outcome of such a process is only as good as the information that is put into it. I am sure that this Minister would not allow biased information or timeframes or seek to direct the independent reviewer. But, as noble Lords have previously made clear in Committee, we must legislate for the future and future Ministers. This cannot be done on the basis of guarantees alone. I trust the Minister implicitly, but I do not know—indeed, none of us in this Committee knows—that we could always say the same about her successors. It is important that we ensure that this independent review process is independent from day one and there is no risk of it becoming a rubber-stamping body used to sign off favourable reviews on the back of limited information and narrow timeframes.
Finally, Amendment 99C would compel the appointment of independent persons to carry out reviews in England, Wales and Scotland. The Bill in its current form allows the Secretary of State to do so but does not require it. We think that is a mistake. Public sector fraud is not a phenomenon confined to one part of the United Kingdom. If we are serious about building a coherent and credible national response, it follows that there must be consistent independent scrutiny across all three nations. Leaving this to ministerial discretion opens the door to uneven practice and potential political selectivity. By making the appointment of independent reviewers mandatory across the nations, we would create a consistent framework for accountability —one that reflects the devolved landscape while still holding the centre to account.
Taken together, these three amendments seek to reinforce what I believe the Government want to achieve: an independent, well-informed and effective review mechanism. They would ensure that reviews are not unduly limited, that reviewers are not kept in the dark and that all parts of the UK are covered by the same standards of transparency. In short, these amendments would close the gaps that could otherwise turn an accountability provision into an optional exercise. I hope the Minister will reflect carefully on their intent and consider how they might help deliver a stronger, fairer and more credible oversight process. I beg to move.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)
My Lords, I rise briefly to add my support to the first two amendments in this group. While I agree with removing the discretion of the Secretary of State, Amendment 99A does not say what the period of the review should be. I suggest that it should be the same as the period of the review for the eligibility verification notices, which is annual, and that that is what should be in the Bill. It would be useful to hear from the Minister what the Government are proposing in that respect.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, as we consider Amendments 99A, 99B and 99C, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, it is clear that these proposals are focused on the mechanisms of independent review and oversight within the Bill. Amendment 99A would ensure that the Secretary of State cannot limit the independent person’s review to only certain timeframes, thereby supporting the principle of comprehensive and impartial scrutiny. Amendment 99B would require the Secretary of State to provide information to the independent person for the purposes of a review, which could strengthen the independence and effectiveness of the review process. Amendment 99C would compel the Secretary of State to appoint independent reviewers not just in England but also in Wales and Scotland, ensuring a degree of consistency and regional representation in oversight arrangements.
These amendments appear to reinforce the Bill’s commitment to robust oversight and transparency, aligning with the existing provisions for independent inspection and review already outlined in the legislation. At the same time, it will be important to consider whether these changes might introduce additional administrative complexity or affect the flexibility of the Secretary of State to respond to evolving circumstances. As ever, the challenge is to strike the right balance between effective oversight and operational efficiency. I look forward to hearing the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on whether these proposals best serve the aims of accountability and good governance within the framework of this Bill. It is amazing what changing the word from “may” to “must” can do, but it can make a big difference and I wait to hear the Minister’s reply.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for the contributions to this short debate. I hope that I can answer the questions that have been raised.
The first and most important piece of information is to remind the Committee that in the Commons my honourable friend the Minister for Transformation made it clear that His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services will be commissioned to inspect the DWP’s criminal investigation powers for England and Wales and HMICS for Scotland. I hope that that is helpful. I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, that the reason why we chose HMIC is that for more than 160 years it has been carrying out independent scrutiny of law enforcement in England and Wales, including the police. There is no danger whatever that it will be any kind of box-ticking exercise, if HMIC is doing it. I am sure that she can be reassured on that front.
I hope that that shows the level of commitment that we have to the level of scrutiny. If we want to do it properly, HMIC is the body to scrutinise powers of this seriousness. But we have worked closely with HMICFRS and HMICS. We intend to operate in the same way as other law enforcement agencies that are subject to inspections by those bodies. What will happen is that, prior to each inspection, the DWP and the inspectorate body will mutually agree the period that the inspection will cover. That is to make sure that the inspection can cover all necessary activity that has been undertaken, which is a common way of operating. We have no reason to believe that it will not operate well in this case.
We understand that sharing information is essential and will obviously not seek to misrepresent or hold back any relevant information. The legislation as drafted allows us to share all relevant information. But it is essential that the Secretary of State retains discretion—for example, being able to choose not to provide information that may be particularly sensitive and where sharing it could have a detrimental impact, such as on the outcome of an active case. The DWP will fully support and co-operate with the inspection bodies and its reports will make clear if we did not do that. But we want to do so, to make sure that we can deliver on these powers to the right standard.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, for answering one question for me. There will indeed be inspectorates. HMICFRS will cover England and Wales and HMIC will cover Scotland to enable us to have a different reviewer in the two places. I hope that, given those reassurances, the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, will not press her amendments.
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. As we draw this debate to a close, I return to the fact that these amendments are rooted in the core values of fairness, transparency, independence and accountability. I thank the noble Lords, Lord Vaux and Lord Palmer, for their support, although I know that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, has not supported Amendment 99C.
The independent review mechanism outlined in Clause 88 should be one of the central safeguards of the Bill. It should ensure that the powers conferred are used proportionately, effectively and in the public interest. As it currently stands, that mechanism risks being weakened by loopholes and discretionary clauses that leave too much power in ministerial hands. I note the response about HMIC, but it still goes to the core that we want this Bill as a standalone and that those loopholes are necessarily closed.
Amendment 99A speaks to a fundamental concern: the right of the Government to define the terms of their own scrutiny. That is not a mark of confident democracy. A review that can only examine certain timeframes selected by the very people being reviewed is not a genuine safeguard; it is a managed narrative. True independence means giving the reviewer the authority to follow the evidence wherever it leads, not wherever the Secretary of State allows.
Amendment 99B is in many ways even more foundational. What is the value of appointing an independent person if that individual can be denied access to the very information that they need to do their job? We cannot have effective oversight if it depends on the good will of the department being examined. I take note of what the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, said. There is a huge difference, as I know well from my own time in government, between the words “may” and “must”. “Must” is a minimal expectation if we are to uphold the principles of openness and integrity. Anything less risks turning independence into theatre and accountability into a form without substance.
Amendment 99C is about consistency. I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, considers it unnecessary. However, if fraud knows no borders between England, Wales and Scotland, neither should scrutiny. We cannot rely only on the Secretary of State’s discretion to decide whether an independent review happens in one nation but not another, because that creates potential confusion and disparity and the appearance, if not the reality, of selective transparency. This is a probing amendment and I appreciate what has been said, which I will pick up on later. What we are aiming for is a duty to appoint independent reviewers across the devolved nations so that trust is not patchy but uniform across the United Kingdom.
When taken together, these amendments must represent a clear and coherent vision that government power must be matched by government accountability. That review must be more than just process. It must be meaningful, showing that we do not fear scrutiny but welcome it, because it is through scrutiny that public trust is earned and retained. The Government have rightly set out to tackle fraud and protect public money, but if the public are to believe that this effort is both rigorous and fair, the checks that we place on those powers must be equally robust. These amendments deliver that balance, not to obstruct but to uphold the values that any confident, responsible Government should share. I urge the Minister to consider the purpose and principle that these amendments seek to preserve. Let us not pass up the opportunity to make this legislation stronger, fairer and more trustworthy. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Consideration of vulnerabilities(1) The Secretary of State must have due regard for the external circumstances pertaining to a person under investigation in respect of the mental capacity, economic circumstances, and physical and mental health of the claimant, particularly where the claimant is or may reasonably be considered a vulnerable person.(2) For the purposes of this section, a "vulnerable person" includes, but is not limited to, individuals who—(a) lacks mental capacity within the meaning of the Mental Capacity Act 2005;(b) are in receipt of, or have been assessed as eligible for, support relating to mental or physical health conditions;(c) could be reasonably regarded as vulnerable to domestic abuse or coercion.(3) The Secretary of State shall ensure that a fair and reasonable assessment of the claimant's circumstances is conducted before any deduction is applied.(4) The assessment under subsection (3) may consider evidence provided on behalf of the claimant, including medical reports, financial information, and input from authorised support workers or representatives.(5) All decisions to deduct welfare payments shall be documented, with explicit reference to how the claimant’s vulnerability was considered. (6) The records under subsection (5) shall be made available to the claimant upon request and subject to audit by an independent body.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would ensure that, before a deduction was applied, due regard was given to the wider circumstances and vulnerabilities of the liable person, which they would have to document, to be made available upon request by the claimant.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, Amendments 99D and 109ZA are in my name. Amendment 99D seeks to ensure that, before a deduction order is applied, proper and fair consideration is given to the wider circumstances of the person under investigation, especially where there may be indicators of vulnerability. It is an amendment rooted not in obstruction but in principle and in pragmatism. It recognises that, if we are to give public authorities powerful tools to detect and recover fraud, we must also ensure that those powers are exercised with fairness and, crucially, the full understanding of the person’s situation.
Many individuals who fall under investigation may be living with complex challenges. I know that we touched on these matters earlier in Committee, but some of these issues are worth repeating. Some individuals may lack the mental capacity to understand what is being asked of them; others may be suffering from physical or mental health conditions that impair their ability to manage forms, deadlines or correspondence; and still others may be experiencing domestic abuse, coercion or forms of control that make it difficult or even impossible for them to make independent financial decisions. These people do not, certainly as yet, have a deputy, proxy or power of attorney in support. They remain in sole charge of their accounts.
I am sure that noble Lords across the Committee would welcome reassurance from the Government, first, on how these people will be identified and, secondly, how the system and process will cope and adapt to reflect their needs and, where needed, to protect them. These are not on-the-edge cases; they are realities that front-line officials in the department and around the country encounter every day. If we are not careful, precisely these individuals may end up most at risk of enforcement action—not because they are wilfully defrauding the system but because they simply did not or could not understand what was expected of them.
We must therefore be careful to differentiate error from intent to defraud. There will be cases where a person under investigation may not have understood what he or she was supposed to be doing but is technically fraudulent. This is exactly what this amendment seeks: it would require that the Secretary of State has due regard to the mental capacity, economic circumstances and health of the claimant, especially where there are indicators of vulnerability. It would also ensure that a fair and reasonable assessment of the person’s circumstances is conducted before any deduction is applied. I should say that this is not about softening our stance on fraud; it is simply about targeting it accurately and responsibly.
The amendment also places emphasis on the evidentiary basis of decisions. It allows for medical reports, financial statements and input from support workers or advocates to be taken into account. Importantly, it also creates a clear paper trail by requiring that decisions to deduct are documented with reference to how the claimant’s vulnerabilities were considered. That documentation must be made available upon request and be subject to independent audit. I argue that this is important and not a form of bureaucracy—before noble Lords get up.
So we come back to understanding how the test-and-learn operation and exercises will take account of this. Could the Minister give us some detail on how such cases will be identified and on the other questions that I asked earlier? I also ask her to help the Committee to understand what the Government will access in terms of information relating to these wider circumstances. We see it as vital that this information is taken into consideration.
At this stage of the Bill, it is also right that we ask what kinds of protections the Government intend to put in place for vulnerable people generally. This extends to the Cabinet Office aspects of the Bill. I realise that my noble friend Lady Finn may have raised these questions earlier, but what process will be followed to ensure that mental capacity is assessed? What training will investigators have to recognise signs of coercion or distress, and what mechanisms will be available to review decisions, particularly where someone’s vulnerability has been overlooked? These are not academic questions; they go to the heart of what kind of enforcement regime we are creating and how confident the public can be that it will act justly, especially where people are least able to defend themselves.
I turn to Amendment 109ZA. It is well established that the Government themselves recognise that disabled people face higher living costs than their non-disabled counterparts. We have had many debates in the Chamber that have highlighted these issues. We know that these costs are not optional; they are the result of essential needs—specialised equipment, personal care and accessible transport—and higher utility bills, among other things.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I warmly welcome these amendments in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Younger. I appreciated the detail that he went into because it is important that we remember that these direct deduction orders are real instruments of power. I am interested in how they will be used differentially, because I do not want them to be a blunt instrument. Therefore, it is worth remembering and considering those who might be on the receiving end of them.
In an earlier group discussing search and seizure, I had been considering speaking but was in some ways put off, because I thought that the search and seizure measures were only meant for organised criminal gangs. As was pointed out, if that was in the Bill maybe it would be more reassuring. It is difficult to know how many people will be affected by the same powers. We want to differentiate, surely, between the vulnerable and an organised criminal gang. There are those who are technically fraudulent, but it is because they have made a mistake, and so on.
I particularly thought of that because I listened to a vivid documentary recently about bailiffs and people who had got themselves into all sorts of distress and debt, with bailiffs kicking down their doors. I had that caricature in my head, and I do not want that to happen to those people. I am not suggesting the search and seizure measures will lead in that direction, but we should always think: who is on the receiving end of these powers? How did they get into that situation? How does the Bill make a distinction so that we do not, on the one hand, have a one-size-fits-all approach? On the other hand—this is a slight anxiety I have— I do not want us to simply get into a situation where we are saying that, because people are on welfare, they are vulnerable. That is equally a caricature, and I do not think it is helpful for us to see people always in a victim role.
I would be interested—that is why I welcome this group—in making the distinctions and learning how the Minister envisages us making the distinctions between the multitude of people on welfare when these powers, which are quite severe in many instances, are going to be applied. How will that happen? Who makes the decision? I think that is why these amendments are very useful.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I am pleased in this instance to express my strong support for Amendments 99D and Amendment 109ZA, tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, and the noble Baroness, Lady Finn. I have not been quite so firm in my support for others, but Amendment 99D would ensure that, before any deduction is applied to recover debt overpayment, due regard is given to the wider circumstances and vulnerabilities of the liable person. There would be a requirement for this assessment to be documented and available to the claimant on request.
This is a vital safeguard that would place fairness and compassion at the heart of the debt recovery process, ensuring that individuals are not pushed into hardship without a proper understanding of their personal situation. It aligns with my and my party’s commitment to a welfare system that is both effective and humane, recognising that people’s circumstances can be complex—gosh, they certainly can be—and that a one-size-fits-all approach to debt recovery is neither just nor practical.
Amendment 109ZA—we have a wonderful numbering system—would further strengthen these protections by requiring the Minister to consider the additional costs of living with a disability before making a direct deduction order. This would be an essential step in ensuring that disabled people, who often face higher living expenses, are not disproportionately affected by debt recovery measures. Both amendments reflect the principles of proportionality and sensitivity that should underpin all government action in this area. They represent a significant improvement to the Bill’s framework for tackling fraud and error while safeguarding the dignity and well-being of the most vulnerable.
Unlike the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, who said she was a bit hesitant on this, I urge the Committee and the Minister to support these amendments, which would ensure that the pursuit of public funds is always balanced with compassion and respect for individual circumstances. At this stage of the Bill, as mentioned by the noble Viscount, these measures need to be introduced so that we can perhaps on Report include them in the Bill.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his amendments and to all noble Lords who have spoken. We all want to ensure that, when someone who is subject to these debt recovery powers is vulnerable, we are aware of that and take appropriate steps to treat them as we should. Before I turn to the individual amendments, I shall recap on how direct deduction orders will operate and what safeguards are there, as this is relevant to the debate.
These powers are vital to recovering funds that are owed by debtors who are—just to remind the Committee—by definition not on benefits or PAYE. If they were, we would have other ways to deal with them. These are people who have some other source of income, owe the DWP money and have simply refused to engage with us at all, at any stage. That does not mean that none of them is vulnerable—of course, they may be—but this is the category of people that we are talking about. The department has long-standing powers to recover public money that has been wrongly paid in excess of entitlement, through deductions from benefits or earnings, but not for those in that category.
There are important new safeguards for these powers. They are there only as a last resort. First, before they can be used, multiple attempts at contact must be made, of different types. We must make at least four attempts to contact someone, at least twice by letter. We not simply trying once and giving up. We must have really tried to engage with people who simply do not engage with us all.
Secondly, when a direct deduction order is necessary, the DWP must be satisfied that any deduction, whether a lump sum or a regular deduction, will not cause the debtor, other account holder or their dependants hardship in meeting ordinary living expenses. That means that, legally, the DWP must ensure that there is enough money remaining in an account after a lump sum deduction to allow the debtor to meet their essential living needs.
In response to the noble Viscount, deductions must be fair in all the circumstances. This would include consideration of any vulnerabilities or additional costs related to living with a disability. The noble Viscount helpfully outlined what some of those will be. The point is that they must be particular to the individual. Each individual’s circumstances will be different. As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, pointed out, not everybody who is poor is vulnerable, not everybody who is on benefits is vulnerable and not everybody who is disabled is vulnerable, necessarily. We need to understand their circumstances to know what is fair and ensure that they will not be pushed into hardship by a deduction.
Thirdly, to ensure that the deduction is made in that way, the amounts will be decided following an affordability assessment based on information shared by the debtor’s bank and any subsequent representations made by the individual or their representative if they need someone to speak for them. Legislation sets out the maximum amounts that can be deducted for regular deduction orders.
Fourthly, the Secretary of State can vary or revoke direct deduction orders in the light of a change of circumstances—for example, if the debtor had a change of income, made a new claim to benefit or something else of significance happened. Fifthly, when a direct deduction order is made, notice must be given to the bank and all holders of the account in question. If an order is still upheld after a review, or after considering information that has been presented, an individual who is not happy with that has a right of appeal to the First-tier Tribunal.
Finally, I remind the Committee that a code of practice for the new powers has been made available for noble Lords to review. This sets out revised guidance on ways to identify and support those who are vulnerable. Ahead of public consultation, our team continues to work on the code collaboratively with key stakeholders, including charities such as Surviving Economic Abuse and the Money and Pensions Service. These are important safeguards which I hope will alleviate noble Lords’ concerns.
On Amendments 99D and 109ZA, it is worth looking at what these amendments would do in practice. While we all share the desire to protect vulnerable groups, these amendments would place additional legal duties on the DWP to consider the impact of any vulnerabilities that a debtor may have, even when it could not be reasonably possible for the DWP to know. These requirements would be imposed without providing any new ways for the DWP to obtain that information.
As I have said, the direct deduction order power is one of last resort, aimed at those who are not on benefits or in PAYE employment, where all reasonable attempts to engage with the individual have failed. These are individuals who have not responded to repeated contact from the DWP’s debt management officials about their debt. In the absence of meaningful engagement from the debtor or their representative, the DWP will not be aware of their current personal circumstances. This puts the DWP in a difficult, if not impossible position, regarding the obligations that the proposed amendments would impose.
However, we need safeguards. The new safeguards that are introduced in this Bill, which I outlined at the start of my speech, alongside the existing safeguards and departmental processes for supporting those who are vulnerable, reflect a better approach to protecting vulnerable people. I shall now set out some of those existing safeguards and processes that are outside of this Bill, for the record.
Layers of support already exist within the DWP to support those who are vulnerable or have complex needs. They include proactive vulnerability checks at different points in the customer journey, and where vulnerable individuals are identified, to ensure that the necessary support and adjustments are put in place. Where any additional support or adjustments are identified by a DWP official or are disclosed by the individual, they are recorded on DWP systems to ensure that all officials know how best to support them.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful for the thoughtful and supportive contributions from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, which we have heard throughout this debate. As it draws to a close, I want to return to the fundamental values that underpin Amendments 99D and 109ZA.
I will not repeat everything I said before but, briefly, these amendments are not about hampering fraud enforcement but about ensuring that where serious powers are granted—powers that allow the state to intervene directly in someone’s financial life—they are exercised with the kind of care, discretion and humanity that should be the hallmark of any public authority in a just society.
Amendment 99D asks a simple but fundamental question: how do we treat those whose circumstances may mean that they did not or could not understand or apply the rules? As the Minister herself said, rightly, we all want the same thing. Fraud must be pursued, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, alluded to, we must not collapse the distinction between error and intent, between misunderstanding and malice. The law and those who enforce it must have the tools to see the difference.
Amendment 109ZA builds on this principle of proportionality; it addresses a reality that we all know—that disabled people may face higher costs of living by virtue of their condition. As I said earlier, the direct deduction order, if applied too bluntly, can turn an already stretched household into one facing crisis, and we must ensure that these powers are used with sensitivity. This is exactly what my Amendment 109ZA provides: a measured and sensible requirement.
I appreciate the very sensible explanations that the Minister produced. I appreciate what she said and the fullness of her remarks. I shall make sure that I read all her remarks in Hansard to see whether they satisfy the concerns expressed in the amendments that I have tabled. I appreciate the fullness of what she has produced. Both these amendments provide something important. They place a protective guardrail on otherwise broad and serious enforcement powers. They ask us to apply judgment, not just rules, and to recognise vulnerability and not just liability. Separately, I also appreciate the safeguards that the Minister spelled out towards the end of her remarks.
Broadly, people will support fraud enforcement when they believe it is fair, and they will support recovery powers when they trust that those powers will not be used to punish the vulnerable alongside the guilty. This is where the balance needs to be struck.
I shall also look at Hansard because the Minister gave us a helpful explanation in terms of the balance required in the obligations placed on the DWP, and at whether in fact my amendments are too onerous or a bit overreaching. I would like to reflect on those questions. We may come back on Report with something, or we may not. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Sherlock
“(i) the period mentioned in section 71ZK(6)(a) for P to appeal against the outcome of the review has passed without P bringing an appeal, or”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendment to clause 89, page 56, line 31.
(a) the period of one month beginning with the day after the day on which P is notified of the outcome of the review, or(b) such longer period (if any) as the Tribunal considers reasonable in all the circumstances.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment means that the tribunal can extend the time limit for bringing an appeal in relation to an overpayment notice.
Baroness Fox of Buckley
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment removes the power of the Secretary of State to make direct deduction orders and instead provides for direct deduction orders to be made only by a court following an application by the Secretary of State to the court.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 102, I shall speak also to Amendment 122. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, for putting his name to these amendments.
These amendments are similar to those that I tabled in an earlier group in relation to Part 1. In this instance, they focus on removing the power of the Secretary of State to make direct deduction orders and instead suggests that DDOs be made only by the relevant court following an application from the Secretary of State.
Throughout Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, has helpfully stressed that, when we are having this discussion, particularly in this environment, it is very difficult to imagine a Minister other than the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, who I do not think of as a malign person. In this instance, this is not helpful, because as a Committee we must always take a decision based on what we think could happen in future—what powers are being created—and therefore we bring to bear as much as we can the safeguards as a Committee.
I think that we can all agree, and we keep saying this, that it is important to note that the powers are in pursuit of a legitimate aim: here, to reclaim overpayment of money paid to welfare claimants. Following the previous group, we should not say that a welfare claimant, if they have defrauded the state, should be treated with kid gloves—I am not suggesting that. But whenever new state powers over the individual are created, a legitimate aim is not enough to mean that we should not have a more granular probing of the powers that have been created, which is why we as a Committee need to insist that powers are tightly drawn to guard against arbitrariness and limited to what is necessary and proportionate. When the Government award themselves powers, as they do in this part of the Bill, to intrude on the privacy of anyone’s bank account, check on its contents and remove money, there needs to be a strong legal justification. As yet, I am not convinced that we should not make it the job of the courts to best determine and assess when this is appropriate.
In an earlier group, on search and seizure powers, the Minister reassured the Committee that we do not need to worry because this would happen only with court approval. I am suggesting that we might need court approval here. The DWP characterises DDOs as a power of last resort, which can be exercised only when the Secretary of State has given the debtor a reasonable opportunity to settle the debt and notified them of the possible use of the powers. I felt that the Minister’s helpful explanation earlier really brought this to life.
On the other hand, there is no definition in the Bill of what, for example, a reasonable opportunity threshold might be. Ironically, one of the safeguards presented by the DWP is a check on affordability, in terms of fairness. This takes the form of account information notices. I know that we will have a number of amendments on that issue, but I want to dwell on this now, because these safeguards are one of the most egregious aspects of the Bill. To consider whether the debtor can afford to have funds deducted before the Secretary of State makes a DDO, page 105 of the Bill tells us that
“the Secretary of State must obtain and consider bank statements for the account covering a period of at least three months”.
One requirement of the account information notices is that the bank must not notify the account holder—or anyone associated with them, for that matter. Surely this, as I have mentioned in previous contexts, puts the bank in an invidious position of being compelled to breach any professional confidentiality that it owes its customer, even if its customer is a debtor, based on the word of the Government telling it that the account holder owes the DWP money. Compelling banks to hand over bank statements secretly, however benign the motives in relation to affordability checks—all without any external oversight, such as judicial authority —needs to be probed in terms of its efficacy and ethics, which is what these amendments try to do.
Before issuing a DDO, the Secretary of State must give the debtor and any joint account holder notice of the proposed order and invite them to make representations, as the Minister explained earlier. On the basis of these representations, the Secretary of State will decide whether and on what terms to make the DDO, and may do so only if satisfied from bank statements and representations that the order is fair and that the liable person, the account holder and their dependants will not
“suffer hardship in meeting essential living expenses”.
That sounds so reasonable but, in reality, it hands extraordinary discretion to the Secretary of State, as there is no threshold to determine what constitutes hardship or essential living expenses. I am sure that, if we went around the Room, we would have various versions of what we need to live on and would argue over it. Who decides what is fair in this instance? I suggest that at least having an external court look at this would be more appropriate.
Perhaps we would put such qualms aside, if these powers applied only to overpayments caused by deliberately fraudulent behaviour. I can see why going hard on fraudsters might be popular, but these powers to seize funds directly from bank accounts without judicial scrutiny will also apply to individuals who have been overpaid as a result of making a mistake when filling out one of those notoriously complex claim forms, who have failed to update a change in their circumstances, or who may just be struggling to navigate the system in general. Such errors—that is what they are—account for almost a quarter of overpayments. They include errors caused by the DWP’s own actions, as the carer’s allowance scandal revealed, but it is the likes of unwitting carers who will be on the receiving end of these powers, yet the negligent DWP staff who made the mistakes are nowhere caught by the powers that we are discussing.
I say this not to have a go at the staff, in that instance, but to note, as we have talked about previously, that we do not need a one-size-fits-all situation. That was the point that the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, made and it is very important. All sorts of people will be caught up—people making mistakes, vulnerable people and some fraudsters—but they will all be treated the same.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendments so powerfully, and with considerable detail, explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. I want to cross-reference a couple of things. I was unable to be here for the whole discussion on the last group in this Committee but I came in and heard the Minister reassuring us that there are layers of support in the DWP for identifying the vulnerable and that there is regular vulnerability training.
I have to contrast that with one of my last contributions in this Committee and this Room, talking about the horrendous case of Nicola Green. I try to share as much as I can of what I am doing in the Chamber so that it is available to the world. I have to say that the little parliamentary video of that exchange, with its less-than-ideal lighting—no offence to anyone who is doing their best they can with the television—has, you could reasonably say, gone viral, because there is a flood of comments of people saying what the DWP has done to them. I cannot attest, of course, to the truth of every one of those comments, but there is a profound problem of trust with the DWP.
I fully acknowledge that the Minister, when she was on the Opposition benches, and I have often spoken out strongly on this matter. The Government actually called an inquiry into the DWP’s treatment of disabled people after the EHRC expressed concern that equality had been breached. That is the context in which we are looking at these amendments.
The noble Baroness is calling for people to have a day in court—to be able to have a genuinely independent voice in our greatly respected courts and put the case. If they indeed have committed fraud and can afford the repayments, or it is not a complete error by the DWP, or the DWP is at fault or is not being realistic about how much people need to eat and live, the court will make a ruling. That, surely, is regarded as a basic principle and right in our law.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)
My Lords, I will speak briefly to Amendments 102 and 122, which would require the Secretary of State to apply to the court for a direct deduction order—a DDO. I confess that I am struggling a bit to understand the circumstances in which the Secretary of State would be able to make a direct deduction order, as the Bill is drafted. I hope the Minister will be able to help me.
When we discussed the DDOs in relation to Part 1 of the Bill, the noble Baroness, Lady Anderson, correctly pointed out that a direct deduction order could be made only in circumstances where either there had been a final determination of the amount of the liability by a court or the person concerned had agreed that the amount was payable. I agreed then that that was an important safeguard, as it is a significant restriction on when the DDO process could be used under Part 1. I asked why, if the court was making the determination of liability, we did not just leave the court to determine the way in which it should be repaid, rather than requiring new powers for the Minister to make that decision. The noble Baroness was kind enough to offer to write to me on that, and I very much look forward to receiving her letter.
However, I think the same issue may arise here, except that I am struggling to find the definition of the amount recoverable described in paragraph 1(1) of new Schedule 3ZA, inserted by Schedule 5 to the Bill. Can the Minister please explain how the amount recoverable is determined, and by whom? Does this part have the same safeguard as Part 1, which is either final court determination or agreement by the person concerned, or is it at the discretion of the Secretary of State? I can see, in Clause 89, that the person must have been convicted of an offence or agreed to pay a penalty. That raises the question: does this DDO regime apply in cases or error, or not? Presumably, in cases of error there will not be a conviction or a penalty, so it does not apply in the case of error, but I am confused.
I cannot find anywhere the amount being determined by a court; that is where I am struggling a bit. If the recoverable amount has not been decided by the court, then the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, is likely to be necessary. That is particularly important because, just as it does in Part 1, for understandable reasons, the appeal process to the First-tier Tribunal against a DDO prevents a person appealing with respect to the amount that is recoverable. If that is the case, and the amount recoverable has not been determined by a court, I think there is an issue here.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I am proud to support Amendments 102 and 122, which I tabled alongside the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. Amendment 102 proposes that the power to make direct deduction orders should rest with the courts following an application from the Secretary of State, rather than allowing the Secretary of State to impose such orders directly. This change would introduce an important layer of judicial oversight, ensuring that deductions from individuals’ bank accounts are made only after careful, independent consideration of the evidence and the circumstances.
Although the Bill includes safeguards such as affordability and vulnerability checks, as enumerated by the Minister, and rights to representation and appeal, placing the final decision in the hands of the court would further strengthen public confidence in the fairness and proportionality of the debt recovery process. Amendment 122 is consequential on this approach, ensuring consistency throughout the Bill. By requiring court approval for direct deduction orders, we uphold the principle that significant intrusions into personal finances should be subject to the highest standards of scrutiny and due process. This is particularly important given the potential for hardship and complexities that can arise in cases involving joint accounts or vulnerable individuals. I hope the Minister can address that when she replies.
These amendments do not seek to undermine the Government’s legitimate efforts to recover public funds lost to fraud or error but rather to ensure that such efforts are always balanced with robust protections for individual rights. I urge fellow noble Lords to support these amendments as a constructive step towards a more transparent and accountable system, and I am very pleased to have signed this amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I have a degree of sympathy for the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill. It touches on a value that I know many of us across this House instinctively support: namely, that powers which interfere with the person’s finances should be subject to proper oversight and scrutiny—in other words, by a court and not by a politician. Let us start with that.
The principle underpinning the amendment is sound. When the state seeks to impose a direct deduction from an individual’s account, that is no small matter. It affects not just policy outcomes but people’s daily lives, and we should never lose sight of that. Much was spoken about that in earlier groups. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, have suggested introducing a requirement for the court to authorise such a deduction because it reflects the gravity of that particular action.
However—there is a however—although I support the sentiment, I have reservations about the practicality, and I am afraid that the remarks from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, have increased my concerns. Requiring every direct deduction order to go through the courts will prove burdensome to the judicial system and may risk making this part of the regime so slow and administratively heavy that it becomes inoperable in practice. That would not only undermine the Government’s legitimate aim of tackling fraud effectively and speedily, but could also result in delays and uncertainty for claimants and public authorities alike. Just to be helpful to the Minister, can she enlighten us on the current state of the backlog in the courts—which is a message she might expect me to give—and how, therefore, Amendment 102, for example, might not be helpful to the process?
I have another question about an appeals process. Everyone, I believe, has the right to an appeal, but how would this work, given the status of the courts? That is a question for the Minister to ponder over. We are, after all, talking about a mechanism intended to recover public money in a targeted and efficient way. If every deduction, regardless of scale or complexity, must first pass through court proceedings, we risk erecting a barrier that stifles the entire process. There must surely be a way of reconciling the desire for oversight with the need for operational efficiency—a challenge that I lay down to the noble Baroness, the Minister.
So, while I cannot support the amendment as currently drafted, I agree that the principle of independent oversight should not be overlooked. There may be better ways of embedding that principle in the system through enhanced safeguards; clearer audit mechanisms; greater efficiency and speed—that is, in expediting the DDOs; and improving transparency around how deduction decisions are made and reviewed.
I recognise this from all who have spoken, and I have listened carefully to all the speeches. I believe that these amendments, and particularly Amendment 102, starts a valuable conversation; even if its solution is not quite the right one, its motivation certainly is. I hope that the Minister can reassure the Committee that the Government recognise the need for these powers to be exercised responsibly but also sensibly so that they can operate effectively, and that they are open to exploring proportionate mechanisms of accountability that simply do not grind the system to a halt, and if so—a very simple question to end on: what could this system be?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful for some really good questions. These are exactly the kind of questions the Lords Committee should be asking on these sorts of issues, and I hope to give decent answers.
Should I ever get round to writing a book, somewhere in the credits it will say “Definitely not a malign person”. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for that. It is the best compliment I am going to have today —you have to take them where you can find them in this business—so I thank her very much.
Amendments 102 and 122, as we have heard, want to restrict the use of the direct deduction power to circumstances where a court has determined it necessary and appropriate. I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, made her argument very clearly; I hope to try and persuade her that she does not need to press these amendments because I think we have a good case on this.
Lord Vaux of Harrowden (CB)
The noble Baroness has not answered one question that I had. My understanding from Clause 89 is that these DDO rights—or however one describes them—can be used only where a person is convicted of an offence under this Act or any other enactment, or agrees to pay a penalty under Section 115A of the 1992 Act. Does that mean, therefore, that this does not apply to situations of error and that it is only fraud?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I apologise; I forgot to answer that. No, it does not. These measures apply to any kind of overpayment but, as I described, they are only matters of last resort. We have to have gone through all the other possibilities and people must simply have failed to engage. So this really will happen only if somebody is absolutely not engaged with us at all. As is the case with deductions from benefits or deductions from earnings, they are available as a tool for overpayments, whether or not they will be used.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
I thank the noble Lords who spoke on these amendments for appreciating—even if they did not support—the spirit of what they are trying to do. Despite that, I do actually want to do this rather than just wanting the spirit. But I know that the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, feels that it will not work practically. But we have had a slightly contradictory answer there, because they are either absolutely the last resort and will hardly ever be used—in which case they will not clog up the court system, to be fair—or they will be used a lot more, which means that there is all the more reason for them to go through the courts, if they will be used liberally from the point of view of a safeguard. So I did get confused about that.
Some thoughtful points were made. The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, usefully probed the Minister—in a way that I was not able to—on exactly when and in what circumstances. These questions about the distinction between error and where the overpayment came from matter in relation to the powers that have been created.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I am sorry to interrupt—I never get to say that anymore. I thought it might be helpful for the Committee if I clarified. The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, referred to Clause 89; that actually refers to administrative penalties and recovery for non-benefit payments, not for benefit payments. I should have made that clear. I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, in full flow—please carry on.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
It is very helpful for these things to be clarified. As noble Lords can see every time we are in Committee, I have so many pieces of paper, so I appreciate that and am not saying that I am on top of all the detail.
However, I think it is important, in the spirit of the way that the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, was motivated to support these amendments, that this is not just about the detail; there is an important principle here. I really liked the viral film mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, because people do care about this Bill and what its impact will be, and we have to be able to answer all the questions as the legislators who are debating it. People know that we are involved in this, and I sometimes feel that it is unclear exactly what will be acquired by all these powers.
The problem with saying that these powers will hardly ever be used is that these powers are going in the statute book, so they can be used. I am not going to talk about bank statements again, but the reason I raised them on this group is because, before a DDO can be introduced, you have to check bank statements through the mechanism of the affordability checks that we will go on to discuss, and that is a breach of privacy. If we are giving the DWP the power to do this, we need to have a check. The way we have done that historically is to rely on the courts to take money. As this is related, I am trying to see whether this could be a useful check to make sure that these powers are not exploited.
We have plenty of time to go, so I think some of us may come back with a version of this amendment—potentially better worded—when we get to Report. It is not just to fly the flag for civil liberties but, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, said, a need to have trust in the system. If the Bill is to be taken seriously by people who do not just think that it is draconian and who do not do the caricatures that the Minister wants, it must be watertight in its safeguards and protections, as well as in the powers that it creates. Those two things have to live together; otherwise, it will be discredited before it even hits the statute book.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I just want to pick up on something quite interesting that the noble Baroness said, which leads me to ask a question of the Minister. I am not expecting an answer now. It is to do with the capacity or number of cases. I have no idea how many DDO cases could end up going to the courts, but it may be more than the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, thinks. I am just reminded of my experience of the Child Maintenance Service: it looks at those people who we know can pay and who are not paying, and they go all the way to the courts. There are many thousands. I rest my case by saying that there is a danger that the courts could be clogged up, but it would help the Committee to have some idea, perhaps in writing, of the number of cases that would or could go to court as a consequence of these amendments.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I will write to the noble Viscount. As he knows from his experience with the Child Maintenance Service, as each form of enforcement comes into view, more and more people simply pay without it being necessary, so a sort of funnel comes down. If we have any information about scale, I would be happy to write.
Member’s explanatory statement
This will prevent the DWP from being able to compel banks to disclose the bank statements of benefits recipients to decide whether to issue direct deduction powers.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I move Amendment 103 on behalf of my noble friend Lady Kramer, who is in the Chamber. We are all playing ducks and drakes with where we are. The amendment was tabled by my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle. It would prevent the Department for Work and Pensions from compelling banks to disclose the bank statements of benefit recipients in deciding whether to issue direct deduction orders.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, who has clearly and eloquently outlined the reasons for this amendment, which the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, tabled, and to which I attached my name. The noble Lord talked about the risk of loss of trust in public authorities. We should also look at the other side of this: the loss of trust in banks. People may have heard the acronym GDPR. People might not know all the ins and outs but they think that anything to do with bank accounts is private stuff. They want to trust that if their information is with the bank, it is not going to be handed out to anyone else. We have a situation whereby, although the situation has improved in recent years, still 2.1% of Britons are unbanked. That figure is significantly higher for the under-25s. It is also higher in some regions and nations; for example, Scotland.
We have to think not just about the impact on attitudes towards the DWP. I thank the Minister for acknowledging in her response to my previous contribution that the department has a long way to go. However, bank statements contain all sorts of information beyond what is relevant to anything the DWP knows about. For example, people may find themselves in a difficult situation after a relationship has broken down, and their bank statement may reveal all kinds of things about their personal life that they really do not want anyone else to see. There may be purchases they consider embarrassing. They do not want anyone else to see them. Getting the whole copy of the bank statement is not going to provide just information relevant to what the DWP is doing or not, or any other income and so on. There is going to be a lot of other material as well. As the Bill is currently written, it is disproportionate, as the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, said.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
Very briefly, I absolutely support the amendment. I raised some of my concerns when moving my amendment in the previous group. When I heard that bank statements could be requested, I thought it was not true and I kept having to check it. I thought, “This cannot be right”, because throughout the passage of the Bill we have been assured by the Minister, “Oh, no. We do not want any details. We are only going to have the name. There is no surveillance”. I then thought, “Oh my God, they can get the bank accounts of individuals, allegedly to check whether they have enough money in their bank account, saying that they are doing it only because they are being nice to them”.
I am of the generation who think that if you lose your bank account, there is serious jeopardy. In other words, I would never show my bank accounts around. I am paranoid about anyone seeing my bank accounts. I worry about that sort of thing, although it is not that I have anything to hide—just to note. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, indicated, you can find out from people’s bank accounts what their politics are, their trade union affiliations and their sexual preferences —all sorts of things. On the idea that the DWP will not be looking at that but will just be checking how much money you have, it cannot do that. It is essential that we think twice about this.
These account information notices also apply to joint bank accounts. I know that we are going on to discuss joint accounts in a minute, but that means that those pots of intimate, private, sensitive and granular information held within a bank statement can be revealed about individuals who are not on benefits, who are not debtors, who are not involved at all—they simply share a joint account. I would like this removed from the Bill. It is too scary.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Kramer and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for tabling this amendment. I recognise the spirit in which this proposal is made—a desire to ensure that the use of direct deduction powers is subject to proper scrutiny and does not override individual rights without appropriate justification.
However, I must express some serious reservations about the effect that this amendment would have. By removing the ability of the DWP to request relevant bank statement information from financial institutions before issuing a DDO, we risk undermining the very evidential foundation that should underpin the use of this power in the first place. If we are to give Ministers and their departments powers to recover money owed to the public purse—a legitimate policy objective that is supported on all sides of this Committee—we must also ensure that those powers are exercised responsibly and on the basis of proper evidence. Access to account information, under strictly controlled conditions, is part of what makes that possible. Without it, the risk is not simply inefficiency or delay. The greater danger is that deduction decisions could be made with incomplete or inaccurate information, leading to inappropriate enforcement action or simply to missed opportunities to recover legitimately owed funds. Neither outcome would serve the interests of fairness, nor would they deliver good value for public money.
We have heard throughout Committee about the importance of a system that is not only robust but proportionate and just. I entirely agree—as our amendments and interventions thus far have made clear. However, for a system to be proportionate, it must be informed, which requires access to evidence. I reiterate the concerns that we raised on these Benches at Second Reading. Schedule 3B (1)(2) (b)(i) makes it clear that an eligibility verification notice, which would serve to identify or help to identify fraud, can be applied only to the bank account
“into which a specified relevant benefit has been paid”.
As my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott set out at Second Reading, we are concerned that this creates a substantial loophole which could be exploited by fraudsters who are, as the government amendments have suggested, able to find out whether they are being pursued by the DWP through an information request. This is a real issue. It seems a likely and obvious outcome that such a person could move money between the relevant account and another, held with different bank, to avoid scrutiny.
We submit that for this to be an enforcement regime, there cannot be any loopholes or workarounds which may permit a fraudster to hang on to the money that they have stolen from the taxpayer. As we stated at Second Reading, the Bill as set out suggests that the Government will be tied up in a legal bind, ensuring in statute that they cannot verify or ultimately pursue the recovery of funds that are not held within the account specified. However, with the right safeguards and with responsible communication of information, there is surely a way in which this regime can be constructed that is responsible and fit for purpose.
We believe that the Government must expand their capacity and ability to access further bank accounts held in the name of the relevant person to prevent them simply opening another account and moving money around, which, as the Bill is currently drafted, seems to be a clear and easy way for them to avoid both proper scrutiny and will prevent the money being recovered. Perhaps the Minister will say whether parallels can be drawn with the current system set out between HMRC and the banks for the recovery of tax resulting either from overpayments or tax fraud, which I am sure she will say works. That may be helpful.
Finally, I want to respond briefly to the concerns raised about whether these provisions amount to a snoopers’ charter—a charge that has been raised throughout the passage of the Bill. It is right that we scrutinise the scope of these powers carefully, but it is also important to be clear about what the Bill does and does not do. In our view, the Bill sets out defined and limited circumstances under which verification measures may be used. It cannot be doubted that an informed and fair decision on deduction orders can be reached only if it is grounded in accurate and up-to-date information. I believe that it is for the Government to make it absolutely clear in Committee how these safeguards on process will function in practice and how transparency and accountability will be maintained. I understand the sensitivities involved in accessing bank data. That is why these safeguards and oversight mechanisms are important.
With that, I hope that noble Lords will reflect on whether the amendment achieves that balance, and I look forward to the Minister’s response on how the very valid concerns that it speaks to can be addressed.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions. As we have heard, this amendment would remove the requirement for banks to provide information to the department in response to notices, including bank statements, for the purposes of making a direct deduction order. However, getting this information from banks, including relevant bank statements, is not only instrumental to the effectiveness of the direct deduction power—it is crucial as a necessary and important safeguard to ensure the affordability of deductions, which is why we cannot accept this amendment.
I remind the Committee that the recovery powers proposed under the Bill are ones of last resort. They are for those not in receipt of benefit or in PAYE employment who have other income streams or capital and who repeatedly refuse to engage with the DWP to agree an affordable repayment plan. Without the information shared by the bank, the DWP would have no means to consider the debtor’s financial circumstances and would therefore be prevented from meeting other obligations and vital safeguards in the Bill, such as establishing an affordable deduction rate and avoiding causing hardship.
Put simply, if we do not know how much money someone has, we risk taking more than they can afford to repay at that time. The DWP is working collaboratively with the Money and Pensions Service on “ability to pay” checks, using bank statements and, where possible, the standard financial statement principles, to prevent financial hardship. These checks will consider the debtor’s essential living expenses, such as housing and utilities, and the Bill provides that direct deduction orders must not cause the debtor hardship in meeting these expenses.
Using bank statements in this way allows the deduction to be affordable and fair based on the individual circumstances, rather than a blanket approach of leaving a set amount in the account which, if not set high enough, could prevent the debtor from meeting those essential costs. The information gathered through these notices is proportionate and other provisions in the Bill restrict the use of bank statements obtained under this power. They are solely for the purposes of recovering the money that is owed. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that it is a legal requirement not to use the information for any purpose other than debt recovery. That is spelled out in paragraph 3(10) of new Schedule 3ZA, inserted by Schedule 5 of the Bill.
I also remind the noble Baroness that all this can be avoided, including obtaining information from a debtor’s bank, if the individual agrees to get in touch to discuss and agree an appropriate repayment plan. In that case, we will not need bank statements because we can talk to them and ask for appropriate evidence, and they can provide evidence of other kinds, if that is sensible.
I will just pick up on a number of things. We are not interested in looking at what people spend their money on. It is worth reminding the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the Committee that we have said different things at different times because there are different measures in the Bill. For the EVM over here, there is no transaction data—absolutely not, under any circumstances—and I say to the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, that we are looking only at the bank account into which we pay benefits. Fresh sentence: over here, the DWP’s debt recovery powers are aimed at different people, who are not on benefits as, by definition, the EVM is only for those on benefits. It is aimed at people who are not in PAYE employment, who owe the department money and who will not engage. If at least four attempts have been made to contact them but they simply have not got in touch, we can start to use the powers. In that case, we do have the power under our debt recovery powers to go to any bank account that they have; we are not limited to the bank account into which we pay benefits. As I have just said, we are not interested in looking at what people spend their money on. The power can be used to recover debt only in cases where somebody is not in receipt of benefits, as I have described.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
I thank the Minister very much for responding in that manner, but it is rather like a court case where they say that the jury should disregard what happened. Once the information is out there, human nature makes it very hard to avoid it. If you are the DWP and you look at a bank account and see something that you should not, it is hard then to ignore it. The nature of man and woman is not to ignore things that they see. I am afraid that that just came to my mind: it is like these television dramas where the barrister or lawyer raises points, and the judge says, “The jury should disregard that”. You cannot disregard what you see in a bank statement even if you decide that you should not really have seen it. This is a very dangerous precedent, and I do not think the Minister is living in the real world.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I just remind the noble Lord that these DWP staff are authorised fraud investigators and they work on our fraud teams. In the nature of their work, as it is for anybody who works in fraud or law enforcement, they will end up seeing information, in the course of an investigation, that is not relevant. If he thinks that that means that that information will necessarily get into the outside world, then I ask him to rethink that. Our staff are professionally trained. They are professionals who operate under professional standards, authorisations and accreditation. They know what their job is. If staff come across information and the law quite clearly says that it may be used for only one purpose, it will be used for only that purpose.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
I am sorry, but this does not take account of rogue members of the DWP. I am sure that 99.99% are exactly as the Minister says, but the idea that everyone will observe those rules is—I say again—not the real world. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Kramer.
Baroness Sherlock
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, together with my amendments to Schedule 5, page 108, line 1 and Schedule 5, page 108, line 5, requires a notice under paragraph 5(1) of new Schedule 3ZA to be given to the bank in question.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for my amendment to Schedule 5, page 107, line 12.
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for my amendment to Schedule 5, page 107, line 12.
5A “(1) Before any direct deduction order under this Schedule is made, the Secretary of State has a duty to consider its effect on any person who—(a) is a victim of domestic abuse, or(b) the Secretary of State reasonably believes to be at risk of domestic abuse.(2) For the purposes of this paragraph, “domestic abuse” has the meaning given by section 1 of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021.”
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, the amendment seeks to ensure that, before any direct deduction order is made under this schedule, the Secretary of State must consider the effect of such an order on any person who is a victim of domestic abuse, or whom the Secretary of State reasonably believes to be at risk of domestic abuse.
While the Bill rightly includes very important safeguards, such as affordability and vulnerability checks, and limits on the amounts that can be deducted to protect debtors from undue hardship, these general measures may not provide sufficient protection for those experiencing or at risk of domestic abuse, whose circumstances are often uniquely precarious and complex. Victims of domestic abuse frequently face financial control and instability, and the imposition of a direct deduction order could inadvertently place them at greater risk, either by exacerbating economic hardship or alerting an abuser to their financial situation. It is therefore essential that the Secretary of State has a specific statutory duty to assess the impact on this particularly vulnerable group before any order is made. By adopting this modest amendment, we would strengthen the Bill’s existing safeguards and ensure that the most vulnerable are not further disadvantaged by well-intentioned recovery mechanisms. I urge noble Lords to support the amendment in the interests of justice, compassion and the protection of those at risk. I beg to move.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I offer my strong support for Amendment 109, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer. It proposes a vital and compassionate safeguard that ensures that, before any direct deduction order is made, proper consideration is given to whether the individual involved is a victim of domestic abuse—or certainly at risk of it.
We know that domestic abuse too often includes economic and financial control. Perpetrators may take over access to bank accounts, manage benefit claims in their partner’s name or use coercion to extract money. For victims in these circumstances, a deduction order made against a joint or controlled account is not just a technical enforcement step but can be catastrophic and expose them to further harm, deepen their financial insecurity and reinforce the very cycle of abuse that they are trying to escape. The amendment puts in place an essential duty that, before such a deduction is imposed, the Secretary of State must ask a basic question: is this person safe? Are they vulnerable specifically to domestic abuse? Could such action cause caused further harm? I am sure the Committee will realise that these comments are not new. This is not about creating loopholes but about making sure that we do not inadvertently punish the very people who most need our protection. If our system is to be just, it must distinguish between those who are deliberately defrauding the system and those who are themselves being defrauded, manipulated or coerced in private and invisible ways.
I fully recognise—others may raise this point—that this kind of information is not always easy to obtain. As we know, domestic abuse is often hidden, and victims may be reluctant or unable to disclose it. But that is not a reason to avoid the responsibility. On the contrary, it is precisely why we must build protective considerations into the decision-making process. So, if a red flag is raised—whether through third-party evidence, existing support services or patterns in the account—the system must be capable of pausing, asking the right and necessary questions and adjusting course. That is surely not an undue burden; it is what we should expect of a responsible, modern enforcement regime.
Of course, I also note that the Government already have duties under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021—I expect we will hear this from the Minister—and under the wider Equality Act to consider how their decisions impact vulnerable groups. But this amendment gives practical effect to those duties in the specific context of direct deduction orders. It does not create new rights out of thin air; it reinforces and operationalises obligations that the state already carries.
So I ask the noble Baroness two questions. In the system and process designed, and having reached proof of concept with the banks—at least on two occasions; I refer back to previous comments—who is responsible for recognising these issues in respect of account holders? Is it the banks? To what extent do they know such detail about their account holders? Or is it the DWP? Is it more likely to know of such matters? Obviously, in the discussions leading up to and beyond the decision to give out benefits, such issues surely would have emerged. Perhaps the Minister can enlighten us on the precise responsibilities here.
Perhaps the Minister can also confirm that the banks would not see the analysis of vulnerability as a key part of their responsibility—that is linked to my previous point—but that their role is simply to raise a red flag with deliberately limited data, as has been outlined, where there is that match of an account holder in receipt of benefits who also has £16,000 or more in an account.
The final question, which chimes with questions asked on perhaps day 4 of Committee, is: how often are such checks carried out by banks, as requested by the DWP? Or—I need to be put right again; forgive me—is the algorithm such that a flag is raised on a 24/7 basis by an algorithm that does a match? Then a report is given to the bank’s responsible person—let us call him the banking manager.
There is a thread running through this debate about how to balance power and protection. Indeed, it is an issue on which noble Lords across the Committee agree; therefore I warmly welcome this amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, as it provides us with another opportunity to test out the Government and raise our concerns. This amendment is principled, proportionate and practical. I hope the Government will take it seriously, in the spirit it is meant, and reflect carefully on the values it enshrines. I believe it gets to the very essence of what the Bill is about. With that, I look forward to the answers from the Minister.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful, as ever. The subject of Amendment 109, put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, is very much as it was in the fourth group, with the earlier amendments in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Younger. The Committee agrees on the objective in that area and we are simply going to talk about the best way to achieve that.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, for raising this issue but again, for reasons not dissimilar to those articulated earlier, his amendment is not the best way to achieve this. However, I hope I can give him the assurance that he is looking for.
The DWP very much understands the importance of this issue. The noble Viscount is right that we have statutory obligations, but it is also embedded in the department. All our front-line staff are trained in addressing the issue of domestic violence, the training is regularly refreshed and we engage with stakeholders: the department take it very seriously.
We are committed to continuing to support victims and survivors of domestic abuse whenever they interact with the department. We have experience in this area, as well as existing guidance and processes for supporting victims of domestic abuse. As I say, the training our front-line management staff receive includes assessing affordability and identifying and dealing with vulnerable customers.
My officials have been looking in detail, specifically at how victim survivors could be impacted by the measures in the Bill, and working closely with key stakeholders, including the charity Surviving Economic Abuse, to ensure that the code of practice sets out the right approach to mitigating risks for victim survivors of domestic abuse. The current draft of the code of practice includes steps officials will take to identify signs of domestic abuse, where possible, to identify risks and to support the individual.
However, although I recognise the important intent behind this amendment, the fact is that it would apply to anyone affected by a direct deduction order, including debtors and non-debtors. Similarly to the earlier Amendments 99D and 109ZA from the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, it does not require or enable the DWP to take any action to identify possible impacted individuals or provide any new means by which the DWP could do so.
Lord Davies of Brixton
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to undertake an affordability assessment before making a direct deduction order.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
My Amendments 109A and 109B address the twin issues of affordability and minimising social harm. Amendment 109A deals with the Government’s proposed “affordability assessment”, which is my term, not the Government’s. Amendment 109B requires a de minimis amount to be left in an individual’s bank account following the application of a deduction order. Neither amendment breaks new ground and both are within the terms of government policy. If we are going to pursue this policy, it has to be transparently fair and minimise social harm, which is the purpose of my amendments.
It needs to be stressed that both amendments are strongly supported by UK Finance, which is the collective voice for the banking and finance industry. These are the people who will have to undertake the hard work of implementing this policy, so their views should be taken seriously. I am not a natural proponent of UK Finance—I have spent much of my working life criticising insurance companies and banks for how they treat people—but it is a relevant participant in this process and its views should be taken most seriously.
On Amendment 109A, as I mentioned, there will be an affordability assessment. It is pretty well hidden—there is no reference to it in the Bill—but paragraph 52 of the Explanatory Notes states that direct recoveries
“will only happen once affordability and vulnerability checks have been carried out”,
so there will be checks. There is a more explicit reference in paragraph 723, which states specifically that
“prior to pursuing a direct deduction order”,
the Secretary of State will consider
“the affordability of recovery”.
That affordability assessment is an inherent part of the legislation, even though it is only implied in the Bill rather than required explicitly. My amendment is a probing amendment to press the Government on whether it would be better to have this in the Bill.
To paraphrase the Government’s position as I understand it, recovering benefit overpayments through the debt recovery measure will be a last resort and the Minister may make a direct deduction order only if satisfied that it will not cause a liable person to suffer hardship. Maybe the Minister could put the intention of the legislation into the Government’s words. UK Finance has said that it welcomes this intent but is concerned that the existing safeguards may not provide the level of protection that vulnerable consumers need in practice. Perhaps it knows its customers better than we do.
For this measure to be effective, an affordability assessment is essential: one that is carried out by the DWP and is accurate and realistic. I understand that the DWP is working with the Money and Pensions Service to flesh out the detail of the process. It is obviously essential that the DWP can understand the circumstances of vulnerable customers to ensure that the affordability assessment is fair and will not lead to social harm.
We know that organisations such as the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute—I declare an interest as a member of its advisory panel—the Money Advice Trust and Citizens Advice have been campaigning for some years for improvements in government debt practices. This is not a new problem. I mentioned in the previous sitting the comments made by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, but it is relevant to repeat them. It said that the DWP
“does not understand well enough the experience of vulnerable customers and customers with additional or complex needs … We remain concerned about the potential negative impact on protected groups and vulnerable customers of DWP’s use of machine learning to identify potential fraud”.
This goes back to an earlier debate but it highlights that the evidence to hand is that the DWP is not very good at assessing affordability. It is reasonable, by means of proposing this amendment, for the Government to explain how the affordability will be assessed. If the proposals do not appear to be adequate, I will want to return to this issue on Report.
Similarly, Amendment 109B is a probing amendment. It lacks much of the detail that a specific proposal would need but proposes that there should be a de minimis amount left in an individual’s account following the application of a deduction order. The intention is that individuals should not be left without access to essential funds and should not suffer undue hardship.
This is not a new proposal because there are other circumstances in which debts owed to the Government, where the Government have powers to extract money from people’s bank accounts, permit a de minimis amount. There are the comparable HMRC direct recovery of debt measures where there is a de minimis balance of £5,000. There is a similar arrangement in Scotland. Scottish law is a mystery to me, but there is a parallel arrangement under Scottish law that, in circumstances where debts can be taken, they have to leave at least £1,000.
The problem arises—talking about both sorts of deduction orders—that there is a possibility of extracting money and leaving the individual with no income whatever to meet routine payments such as rent. Because the bank account is frozen, they may also have made prior commitments and, when those arise and these private arrangements seek money from the bank account which has been driven down to zero by the deduction order, the individual is left in an extremely difficult situation as debts that they have incurred are not able to be met. There is also the issue of money for routine costs. If someone depends on their bank account to feed their family and the account is driven down to zero, that will also incur considerable and unwarranted hardship.
It is quite clear that, following existing practice, this legislation should permit a de minimis amount to allow routine financial transactions to continue where barring them would cause social harm. There is a particular problem that, once the 28-day period has been triggered during which people can object to the proposed deduction order, the account is effectively frozen. In fact, it is frozen until the end of the unlimited period the DWP has in order to reply to the appeal against the deduction order. There is potential for considerable social harm and that is why it is important that at least some agreed sum of money is left. I suggest £1,000 in my amendment but I am really raising the issue in principle.
If the Government can come back on Report with a proposal along the lines I suggest, that would be good. If they do not, I will seek to raise this issue. Both these amendments seek to avoid social harm, and I hope the Government will take the points on board and come back on Report with suitable amendments to avoid the problems identified, not just by me but by bodies in membership of UK Finance which deal with the customers who will be caught by these provisions.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My remarks will be brief. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, for tabling Amendments 109A and 109B, which seek to introduce further safeguards into the process by which direct deduction orders are applied. These amendments are clearly driven by a legitimate concern. I am sure it is one that we all share; no one should be pushed into destitution—note that word—because of enforcement action taken by the state. We on these Benches broadly support the intention behind these amendments. As we expand the state’s ability to recover funds lost through fraud, we must do so in a way that is measured, proportionate and fair. We agree that the person on the receiving end of a direct deduction order must be treated with dignity and that the enforcement should never push a person below the threshold of subsistence.
However, while we agree on the principle, the Bill as currently drafted already contains sufficient protections to give effect to that principle. These amendments propose going further. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, set out, they would hard-wire specific mechanisms into the legislation itself with a mandatory affordability assessment and a fixed, safeguarded amount of £1,000 to be left in a person’s account. While we understand the motivation behind these proposals, we are not persuaded that they strike the right balance.
First, on the affordability assessment, the key question is not whether such considerations should be made—they absolutely should be—but whether placing a rigid requirement in the Bill is the best way to achieve it. Secondly, regarding the safeguarded sum, the proposal to set a fixed floor of £1,000 may be well intentioned but risks creating unintended consequences. For some individuals, that figure may be appropriate, but for others with significantly higher levels of debt or multiple fraudulent claims—of which there are a few, I am afraid—it may act as an unjustified barrier to recovery. A blanket threshold does not easily accommodate the complexity of individual circumstances.
We must not forget what this system is designed to do. We are talking about the recovery of public funds that were obtained unlawfully. These are not arbitrary deductions, but actions taken in response to fraud—in some cases, large-scale fraud—committed against the public purse. These funds belong not to the state in the abstract but to the taxpayers, the public and the people who rely on our public services. I remind the Committee of our duty to recover them on their behalf. We must exercise this power responsibly and we believe the Bill enables that. We must also ensure that we do not design a system that is so laden with friction that it fails to deliver on its core purpose of upholding the rule of law and restoring funds to the public where fraud has occurred.
These amendments raise important points, and we welcome the values that underpin them. We are committed to ensuring that the system is fair, proportionate and humane. We are confident that the existing provisions in the Bill, supported by robust guidance and operational safeguards, provide a sufficient framework to achieve those goals without introducing additional complexity that may compromise the system’s effectiveness.
Before the Minister thinks that I am writing yet another speech for her, I have some questions for her, which may also be helpful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies. Take the case of someone who has taken money fraudulently but finds himself destitute through his own actions and might otherwise be on the streets, homeless —or worse, hungry. What help can the state give to him? What options are there? As a basic, I presume that he will still be eligible for universal credit, albeit, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said, it would be subject to an agreed deduction for his misdemeanours. He would therefore still get support, assuming that he is not allowed to keep the £1,000 in his account. As the noble Lord said, the money and advisory services are there, and Citizens Advice is there. They are there to offer advice, but what support is there for such people in extremis? The Minister may say that the household support fund is also there and could be called upon, but that fund is subject to local help and is in the gift of local authorities to give out. Would destitute people come into that?
In conclusion, we do not support these amendments, but I thank the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for prompting this important and short debate. We look forward to working together to ensure that the final system strikes the right balance between fairness and firm recovery of debt.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Davies for raising this, and to the noble Viscount for his observations. I agree with my noble friend that affordability assessments should be conducted—he has made that clear, and we certainly want to do that as we think it is important—before a direct deduction order is issued, but we regard this amendment as unnecessary and duplicating existing provisions.
Paragraph 6 of new Schedule 3ZA, inserted by Schedule 5 of the Bill, provides that recovery must not cause hardship to the debtor, any joint account holder or dependant, and must be fair. Paragraph 3 requires the DWP to obtain, via an account information notice, bank statements covering at least the most recent three months in order to help make that assessment.
Further detail on how affordability will be assessed will be set out in the code of practice, a draft of which is available to Members; I am sure that my noble friend has had the opportunity to see it. It sets out the principles that will apply when affordability is assessed. They include ensuring that essential living expenses and other reasonable financial commitments are identified and protected. Officials are working closely with organisations such as the Money and Pensions Service to develop the code and, as required by Clause 93, a formal public consultation will be conducted on the draft before it is first issued.
As I have already outlined, affordability assessments must and will take place prior to enforcing a deduction order. These checks use banks statements, allowing DWP officials to consider expenses such as housing and utilities, enabling the deduction to be affordable, fair and based on individual circumstances, rather than a blanket approach of leaving a set amount in the account which could, if not set high enough, prevent the debtor from meeting those essential costs, as the amounts will vary from person to person.
For regular direct deduction orders, paragraph 6(3) of new Schedule 3ZA requires that any regular deductions made by the DWP each month must not exceed 40% of the monthly average amount credited to the account during the last period in which statements were assessed. Regulations will be made under paragraph 24(2)(d) to further set a maximum rate of 20% for all cases that have not arisen due to fraud.
These figures are maximums, rather than fixed deduction rates. Deduction rates will vary as officials take any affordability, hardship factors or other relevant circumstances into consideration. This approach mirrors that already used effectively in the DWP’s existing powers of deduction from earnings or benefits, and it is not obvious why it should be different in these circumstances. Given the safeguards outlined, requiring that £1,000 be left in one or more of the liable person’s bank accounts in every case where a DDO was sought is unnecessary, as the safeguards will already achieve the outcome intended by this amendment.
Regarding the specific questions, I reassure my noble friend that we are alive to the concerns of UK Finance, which we meet regularly. We are working with MaPS and relevant debt sector organisations on this. He mentioned a comparison with HMRC. HMRC has confirmed that its power is a one-off deduction of a tax debt, not a regular deduction. As a result, it does not assess customers’ affordability as part of the process. Its safeguard instead requires it to leave a minimum of £5,000 across the customer’s accounts to stop taxpayers being left with insufficient funds to cover basic needs. We are taking a different approach: we are assessing affordability, and we will have clear sight via bank statements of the debtor’s ability to repay.
In addition to the work we are doing with MaPS, we are working with relevant stakeholder organisations to make sure that our communications with debtors are clear, to help them understand what we are doing and to engage in the best possible way.
I remind the Committee that before any deductions are taken, account holders will be notified and given the chance to make representations. They can provide relevant information about their financial position and evidence relevant to affordability. Even at that stage, the department’s preference is to reach an agreed position with the debtor. If reasonable payment terms can be agreed and they are maintained by the debtor, the DWP will not make a deduction order.
My noble friend and I clearly want the same thing: to make sure that any recovery is affordable. We have taken different routes, but I hope that what I have said today will help him to accept that our route is doing the job and, in the light of that, he will withdraw his amendment.
I am sorry, I forgot to respond to the noble Viscount about destitution. I may have to come back to him on that, because it would depend very much on somebody’s circumstances. Although the household support fund is locally determined, some directions, steers and guidance are given by the centre by the DWP to local authorities. But the fund is significantly there to help with the cost of living. In relation to someone who is destitute and has committed fraud, people may still, if they have an ongoing entitlement to benefit, have been subject to a loss of benefit penalty as part of a process. So it would very much depend on the circumstances. But if I can find anything else useful, I should be happy to put that in writing to the noble Viscount.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
I thank the noble Viscount and my noble friend the Minister for comments on my amendments. It has been useful to receive a coherent assessment and description of how this process will work. I will read carefully what was said and consider whether it is an issue that needs to be pursued at a later stage. I thank those who have spoken. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Sherlock
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment means that a regular direct deduction order given by the Secretary of State must specify the amounts to be deducted.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendment to Schedule 5, page 108, line 39.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment means that a lump sum direct deduction order given by the Secretary of State must specify the amount to be deducted.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment, together with my amendments to Schedule 5, page 111, line 7, and Schedule 5, page 111, line 15, would replace the tag “first notice” with “pre-deduction notice”. This has no substantive effect but is intended to be easier to understand.
Member's explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for my amendment to Schedule 5, page 110, line 19.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendments to Schedule 5, page 108, line 39 and Schedule 5, page 109, line 8.
Member's explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement for my amendment to Schedule 5, page 110, line 19.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment removes a provision that is redundant (because paragraph 7(5) applies in relation to every direct deduction order).
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment ensures that a bank must comply with a further information notice.
(a) the period of one month beginning with the day after the day on which the appellant was—(i) given a copy of the direct deduction order, or the varied direct deduction order, in a case within sub-paragraph (1)(a) or (b), or(ii) notified under paragraph 12(3) or, where a review was sought, paragraph 18(6), in a case within sub-paragraph (1)(c), or(b) such longer period (if any) as the Tribunal considers reasonable in all the circumstances.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment means that the Tribunal can extend the time limit for bringing an appeal in relation to a direct deduction order of the Secretary of State.
(b) such longer period (if any) as the Tribunal considers reasonable in all the circumstances.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment means that the Tribunal can extend the time limit for appealing against a penalty under Part 2 of Schedule 5.
“Deputies
22A (1) This paragraph applies where a person (a “deputy”) acts on behalf of an account holder (including a liable person) in relation to their account by virtue of—(a) a power of attorney, or(b) an appointment by, or an order of, a court.(2) The following provisions apply in relation to the deputy of the account holder as they apply in relation to the account holder—(a) paragraph 1(7);(b) paragraph 3(5)(b) and (c);(c) paragraph 3(9);(d) paragraph 3(9A);(e) paragraph 5;(f) paragraph 11(1); (g) paragraph 12;(h) paragraph 13(3), (6) and (8)(b);(i) paragraph 14(3);(j) paragraph 15(3);(k) paragraph 16(2);(l) paragraph 18;(m) paragraph 19.(3) Paragraph 13(7)(a) and (b) applies in relation to the deputy of the account holder instead of the account holder.”Member's explanatory statement
This new paragraph ensures that new Schedule 3ZA to Social Security Administration Act 1992 operates effectively where a person acts on behalf of an account holder by virtue of a power of attorney or an appointment by, or an order of, a court.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
We have an issue on this proposal to remove driving licences from people who fail to pay their debts to the DWP. We effectively had a debate on the issue at Second Reading, and I am sure that there will be a debate on this at Report. The purpose of having another prolonged debate at this stage, when situations and positions are so clear, is limited. Although there are clear arguments about effectiveness, and it was advanced that the experience of the child maintenance system, where such a power exists already, indicates the success of the policy, the problem is that we do not have a clear counter to that. We know what we know: very few driving licences are deducted or abolished because of action by the Child Maintenance Service. Is that because it is an effective policy and everyone complies, or because it is rarely used because it is ineffective? We simply do not know. The proponents of the proposal here will say that that demonstrates the policy’s effectiveness, but I think it is reasonable to continue to express doubts about that. However, that is a separate issue.
My objection, fundamentally, is about the philosophy of what is being achieved here and about the nature of state power. I am sure we all agree that the state should have the power to decide who is safe to drive on the public roads. I have no problem with that; that is the responsibility that we as a community have entrusted to the state. The issue is whether that right should be used for other purposes. Is the fact that you can or cannot have a driving licence related to other factors? In my view, it should not be used for other factors; that is an overextension of state power, which is the fundamental reason why I oppose this part of the Bill and why I am suggesting that the clause, and consequently the schedule, should not be passed. This is an issue of principle, as I have explained, and I am sure that we will return to it on Report—so enough said.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, and speak to this stand part notice, also signed by the noble Lord, Lord Sikka. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, set out the question of principle about whether we allow access. I will make a couple of practical arguments and one point of comparison.
I start with the practical arguments. I was just thinking back to the second-ever vote that the Green Party won in either House of Parliament, which was an amendment in the name of my noble friend Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb calling for a review of rural bus services. Losing your driving licence might be an inconvenience, if you live in London—in most parts—but, if you live in the depths of the countryside, it effectively totally traps you in a situation where huge practical disadvantage will happen in your life.
It is worth noting that Clause 92 allows the disqualification of a licence for two years. I acknowledge that this is by a court—it is different to what we were talking about before—but I also acknowledge that the option of jail is available here. I am not quite sure how a court will make a judgment—if it is a really serious offence, where will you place those issues? My comparative point is to note that, back in 2023, the then national lead for the police for fatal crash investigations, Andy Cox, made some very strongly worded statements about people who get 12 points on their licence. He said that too many people were using exceptional circumstances to get out of losing their licence. In fact, one in five people who end up with more than 12 points on their licence in three years succeed in pleading exceptional hardship and therefore do not their licence and can continue to drive.
The really important point here is that, as the national lead for fatal crash investigations pointed out, some people in that situation go on to kill on the roads. We have a situation where people who are driving dangerously and illegally are able to keep their licences, which is quite a contrast to people who have not been accused of doing anything wrong on the roads but may potentially be suffering from that penalty.
Again, we are talking about something that is potentially hitting recipients of benefits, and I rather suspect that a lot of those people who manage to plead exceptional hardship in court, and keep driving with 12 points on their licence, have a fair amount of privilege in their life and can employ fairly expensive lawyers to keep driving. There is a real imbalance there, which should be cause for concern to the Committee.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I oppose the proposition that Clause 92 and Schedule 6 should not stand part of the Bill. Clause 92 provides for disqualification from driving to be a sanction that is available in the most serious and persistent cases of benefit fraud, where a recoverable amount remains unpaid despite all reasonable efforts at recovery.
I do not wish to step on the Minister’s toes by speaking in defence of this provision. Perhaps I should anticipate another speech that she will be making—we will probably be in broad agreement. However, we must be clear that this is not about punishing people arbitrarily but about ensuring that there is an effective deterrent against repeated and deliberate non-compliance with efforts to recover public money. We have a precedent for this, as we noted at Second Reading. The same mechanism exists in the child maintenance enforcement regime. We have learned from that experience that deterrents do work—or we think that they work. I will return to that in a moment. Fewer than five driving licences were seized under those powers, because the power to impose a disqualification was sufficient to prompt compliance. It was a last resort that rarely had to be used, precisely because it was effective in changing behaviour before reaching that point.
In the spirit of trying to be helpful to the Government here, what evidence can be produced that the threat of taking away a driving licence is indeed a deterrent? One statistic could be the number of cases of non-payment from those people whom we know have the ability to repay unlawfully gained moneys but who resolutely refuse to do so and are on the cusp of having their licences taken away. To ascertain the numbers that may have miraculously fallen at this point is one way of defining whether the deterrent has worked. One might assume that any numerical drop in non-paying numbers immediately before a licence withdrawal defines that deterrent. I listened carefully to the remarks from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. Perhaps the fall could be seen to be larger in rural areas, as the deterrent would be more significant there than in urban areas. The Minister may be able to enlighten us on this or add that to a letter that hopefully will be coming our way.
This is about proportionate enforcement. Clause 92 does not create a routine sanction. It does not apply automatically. It is not triggered for minor mistakes or for those who are acting in good faith. It exists as a targeted and time-limited measure, for use only when all other routes have been exhausted and when the liable person is wilfully refusing to repay money, which—let us not forget—has been obtained unlawfully.
Some may argue that disqualification from driving is a severe consequence—the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, has made that point. However, we must weigh that against the seriousness of fraud against the public purse. This money could have been used to fund front-line services, support the vulnerable or maintain trust in the welfare system. Those who persistently abuse the system must know that there are consequences for their actions, which will be followed through. This clause provides one such consequence that is proportionate but effective.
We have been consistent throughout Committee in saying that enforcement must be fair but credible. If the consequence of not repaying fraudulently obtained benefits is no more than a polite letter and no meaningful follow-up, then we send entirely the wrong message. Clause 92 helps to restore that balance. It does not criminalise poverty or target vulnerable people. It sets out a power that, in exceptional cases, can be used to bring about compliance when other tools have failed. I therefore oppose the removal of Clause 92 and Schedule 6 and urge colleagues to do the same. I am interested to hear the remarks of the Minister.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords and thank the noble Viscount for doing some of my job for me, for which I am always grateful.
I want to try to explain why the Government are doing this. Clause 92 inserts new Section 80C into the Social Security Administration Act 1992 to enact the “disqualification from driving” power. Schedule 6 inserts new Schedule 3ZB into the 1992 Act, containing the substantive provisions of the “disqualification from driving” power introduced in Clause 92. The introduction of this allows the DWP to apply to a court to disqualify a person temporarily from driving if they persistently and deliberately fail to repay their debt. It is therefore essential to boost the DWP’s ability to recover public money.
However, it is worth being clear that this is a power to deal with a small subset of debtors who are persistently frustrating the recovery practice—I will come back to that in a moment. Preventing an evasive debtor from driving unless they repay is within the Government’s control in a way that they cannot circumvent. While it will be used as a last resort, it is an additional and effective tool in cases where debtors simply refuse and evade repayment. As I think I said at Second Reading, the latest results from the UK transport survey showed that 74% of adults have a driving licence. Debtors are unlikely to want to be inconvenienced by being unable to drive. They can avoid disqualification and any other enforcement action by making voluntary repayments.
Schedule 6 sets out when the power may be used and how it will operate, including rules on the operation of suspended and immediate disqualification orders, variation and revocation of orders, as well as the grounds on which an order may be appealed. Appeals may be made to the appropriate court on points of law, including the terms of an order or the court’s decision to make, not make, vary or revoke an order. In accordance with Clause 90, this power will be used as a last resort and, as outlined in Schedule 6, only for the most serious cases for debts with at least £1,000 outstanding. The aim is to deter debtors from deliberately choosing to evade repayment, such as by moving their capital out of reach when they have the means to pay.
Only when all other attempts at recovery have failed, including the new direct deduction order, will DWP be able to apply to the court for a suspended disqualification order. If the court agrees that the debtor had the means to pay but did not repay without a reasonable excuse, it will order the debtor to make what it assesses to be affordable repayments. The debtor can avoid being disqualified by making these repayments set by the court. Only if the debtor does not comply with the court’s repayment terms can the DWP apply for an immediate DWP disqualification order. It is at that point—again, only if the court agrees—that the debtor can be disqualified from holding a licence for up to two years.
Before either a suspended or immediate order can be made, the debtor will have an opportunity to be heard by the court. It is important to note that the court cannot make either a suspended or an immediate order if it considers that the debtor has an essential need for their licence, such as that they need to drive as part of their job or to care for a dependant.
The role of the court throughout this process is an important safeguard, which we have included to ensure a balance between taking robust action against those who deliberately evade recovery and preventing undue hardship. We recognise that stopping someone from driving is a serious step, so my department has built in several other safeguards to give debtors every opportunity to avoid that. For example, missing a single instalment will not normally result in an immediate disqualification order and, even where someone becomes disqualified, they can get the right to drive back when they start making their repayments and the court considers that repayments are likely to continue. But persistent evaders who have the means to pay their debts will no longer be able to evade paying.
In response to my noble friend, I think he is challenging me as to why this is a good and effective means of doing it. I accept that it is unusual, but there is a small subset of the most evasive debtors: people who could pay and just will not. They might be, for example, debtors who transferred their money into cryptocurrency, or fraudsters who moved their capital to offshore accounts that the DWP cannot easily get at because they are outside our jurisdictions. It simply does not seem appropriate. If we cannot do anything else, there is one thing the state can do: suspend or remove their driving licence to pull them to the table. There may be some people for whom this is the only thing that works, so we want to keep it there in our armoury.
The power has been used effectively by the Child Maintenance Service. I do not know whether we can go into enough detail in the CMS debt management data to find out whether I can answer the questions that the noble Viscount is asking, but I will have a look at that. But certainly the Child Maintenance Service believes that this is an effective tool for bringing people to the table when nothing else works.
The Bill includes strong safeguards. The power will not and cannot be used where someone cannot afford to pay. The Bill is clear in paragraph 1(4) of new Schedule 3ZB, in Schedule 6, that the court must be satisfied that the person failed to pay “without reasonable excuse”. That clearly excludes cases where they do not have the means to pay the debt. Of course, the debt must also be of a certain value. Clause 90 says that it must not be “reasonably possible” to recover via other methods, including direct deduction orders, and that this can be used only after they have been given reasonable opportunities to pay.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
I appreciate the noble Baroness’s very full response. This is more of a probing question. We have obviously been debating and talking about driving licences. The ultimate punishment or sanction is prison, but we obviously do not want to exercise that if possible, both for the individual and because we do not want to clog up prisons. But what other sanctions could there be? We have been talking about driving licences, but I know that, in the Child Maintenance Service, taking away passports was raised as a possible sanction. What thoughts does the noble Baroness have on that front?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
We are not proposing removal of passports on this occasion.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
I thank noble Lords who took part in the debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for her support. I am disappointed that the Conservatives, the party of individual freedom, did not see fit to support my argument.
There are a couple of issues that could be helpful to the debate which is likely to take place on Report. If it is possible to get further statistics from the Child Maintenance Service about people who were threatened and then gave in—I cannot totally see how that is possible—that would be good.
There is also the issue of the discriminatory nature of the punishment between different groups of people. As I have made clear, that is a practical objection, which is not why I am against this measure at heart. It would be useful in debate to know more of that practical question. As I have read the paper so far, it is about people who require a driving licence to carry out the functions of their job. However, my noble friend the Minister said that it would cover people who need to drive to work. Perhaps she could interrupt me if she is able to clarify.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
It is up to the court to determine if someone has an essential need for a licence. We have deliberately drawn it broadly so that the court can make that determination. Examples were given of somebody who needed a car to go to work or maybe had essential caring responsibilities. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, I raised the possibility of somebody who lived somewhere so remote that there was no public transport. Again, that would be a case that they would make to the court. The position is deliberately drawn broadly to allow the court to make that determination.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
Thank you; that is helpful. I withdraw my objection to Clause 92 standing part of the Bill.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment and another to clause 105 in the name of Viscount Younger would compel final codes of practice to be laid before Parliament, before the provisions in the Act could come into force.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, we now turn to what I believe is the last group for today. I will speak to Amendments 122A, 122B and 122C, which largely concern the code of practice and matters relating to the codes of practice as set out in Clause 93.
These amendments are not only sensible but vital if we are to ensure that the framework for exercising these powers is both transparent and democratically accountable. Fundamentally, our amendments recognise that the code of practice is not a peripheral procedural matter; it is a foundational document. It will guide how sensitive and powerful enforcement powers are exercised. It will shape the expectations placed upon investigators, the protections afforded to individuals and the standards against which public officials will be held. In short, it will govern the operational culture of the entire system.
Amendment 122A would ensure that the final version of the code is laid before Parliament before these new provisions in the Bill can come into force. I feel it is important at this stage to reiterate that we are being asked to grant significant new powers, including powers of entry, search, seizure and direct deduction, and it is therefore wholly appropriate that Parliament sees, and has the opportunity to scrutinise, the final version of the rules that will help determine how those powers are used. We welcome that, and thank the Minister—I perhaps should have said this earlier—for making good on her promise to release draft versions of the code to noble Lords ahead of Committee, although we feel that it is even more important that we have a binding assurance from the Government that a final version of these documents will be made available to Members of both Houses ahead of the Act coming into force.
Amendment 122B would further strengthen this by requiring a public consultation on the draft code before it is issued. I have a feeling that the Minister may have confirmed this earlier; nevertheless, I raise it now and await her reply. Consultation is not just a box-ticking exercise, it is a vital part of democratic policy-making, especially in areas where the state will be interacting with vulnerable people, seizing property or accessing private data. Consultation allows front-line practitioners, civil society groups and those with lived experience to offer their perspective and to flag where guidance may be unclear, safeguards may be weak and unintended consequences might arise. We must not underestimate the value of that input.
We have said many times that our primary goal and function throughout Committee is ensuring that the Government come out with a Bill that is ready to go. We want a public authorities Act that combats fraud effectively and deters criminality in the future but also works for the people who will undertake and be subject to its provisions. It really is important that we get all these balances right and that we incorporate these review mechanisms now, so that the Bill is ready to go once it becomes law.
Finally, Amendment 122C would ensure that any subsequent change to the code is not only laid before Parliament but subject to parliamentary review. This is a particularly important point, because it speaks to the danger of incremental change, where guidance can be revised behind closed doors, without scrutiny or proper debate. These codes are not trivial; they are the operational blueprint of this entire regime. If we in this House and the other place are to fulfil our role as scrutineers and custodians of civil liberties, we must retain the ability to oversee how these powers evolve.
If the Government’s position is that these powers will be used proportionately, lawfully and with care, they should have no difficulty in agreeing that the rules that govern them should be open to parliamentary oversight, public consultation and full transparency. That is not a constraint; it is a safeguard for both the public and the state.
As I have said before, we are of course all agreed on the need to tackle fraud, but we must also agree on the need to exercise these new powers with clarity, accountability and respect for the values that underpin our legal and constitutional system. We believe that these amendments would help to ensure that. I urge the Minister to accept them, or, at the very least, to recognise their merit and return with similar provisions that enshrine the same principle.
Parliament broadly supports what the Government are doing, and if the Government intend to exercise these powers responsibly, with adequate safeguards, consideration and the principle of proportionality that I and my noble friend Lady Finn have returned to several times in Committee, I assume and hope that Parliament will have no problem supporting what the Government do in their code of practice. However, parliamentary oversight, to ensure that the Government are tied to these important principles not just now but in the future, is an important safeguard which we feel must be made explicit in the Bill.
In conclusion, these are reasonable, proportionate and constructive proposals. They would not hinder the Bill’s effectiveness; rather, they would make the Bill more effective once it comes into force. I see that, miraculously, there is no one else wishing to support—I am sure it is no reflection on my remarks—but I genuinely look forward to the Minister’s closing remarks. I beg to move.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, in the absence of a crowd of supporters, I thank the noble Viscount for setting out his amendment so clearly. I hope that my remarks will reassure him and give him the confidence that he does not need to press ahead with these amendments.
Amendments 122A, 122B, 122C and 129 seek to compel the Secretary of State to conduct a public consultation on the DWP’s code of practice for the debt recovery powers, to lay a final code before Parliament before the powers in this Bill come into force and to subject any changes to the code to parliamentary review. Amendment 128 would require the Minister for the Cabinet Office to lay a code of practice before Parliament on the administration of penalties before the PSFA’s powers under Part 1 can come into force.
The provision made for a code of practice in Clause 93 is important for the DWP’s debt recovery measures, providing transparency and reassurance on how the debt recovery powers will be operationalised. However, we think these amendments duplicate existing provisions in the Bill and therefore are not necessary.
The DWP’s code of practice on debt recovery powers will complement the provisions in the Bill, setting out guidance and key principles, including how and when the new recovery powers will be used. Extensive collaboration continues to take place with a wide range of stakeholders, including the Money and Pension Service, the charity Surviving Economic Abuse and the finance sector, to develop this code of practice. The purpose of this engagement is to ensure the code provides relevant operational guidance on matters such as vulnerability and to give clarity for debtors subject to the powers and their representatives. We are grateful to all organisations for their helpful collaboration and guidance.
Drafts of all the DWP codes of practice have been made available for review by noble Lords upon request. While there is no requirement on us to provide drafts of these codes alongside the legislation or even to legislate to produce one, we understand their importance and want to be transparent with Parliament. This is also why new Section 80D(6), as inserted by Clause 93, already requires us to carry out a formal public consultation before the first code is published and to lay each issued version before Parliament. In response to the noble Viscount’s questions, the Government are consulting on all codes. Both the DWP and the PSFA will publish them before first use.
We have already said in terms of the debt, this will be done before the new debt powers in Part 2 of this Bill are used. However, I should note that Amendment 129 as drafted would prevent all the other provisions in the Bill that are not subject to the debt code of practice coming into force until the debt code was issued. I am not sure if that was the intention of the noble Viscount, but it would obviously be disproportionate and unnecessary.
It is also not clear from the amendment what parliamentary review of future changes to the code would entail but I am going to assume the noble Viscount would like Parliament to have the opportunity to challenge or scrutinise the code each time it is updated. If so, that would not be necessary or proportionate. The code will be revised periodically to keep it up to date with operational considerations and processes, and the Bill makes provision for each issued revision to be laid before Parliament.
The noble Viscount mentioned the importance of Parliament seeing the rules. It is worth understanding that the debt code of practice does not contain statutory provisions, nor does it place obligations on others. Rather, it sets out how the department will operationalise the new recovery powers. The Bill clearly sets out in considerable detail the legal obligations introduced. Other substantive provisions set out in regulations will, of course, be subject to normal opportunities for parliamentary scrutiny. I am also unaware of any precedent for revisions to a code of this nature to be considered by Parliament or subject to its approval.
Amendment 128 takes us back to the PSFA in Part 1 of the Bill. Noble Lords will recall that we have already discussed Clause 62, which makes provision for the PSFA to produce a code of practice that will explain how and why civil penalties will be calculated and imposed to ensure the powers are used transparently and reasonably. This clause stands part of the Bill.
A draft of the PSFA code of practice has also been provided to noble Lords, as was promised in Committee in the other place. As I mentioned, the PSFA intends to consult widely on the code of practice prior to the publication of the finalised draft, which will be before the first use of the penalty powers. Indeed, Clause 62(4) states:
“The Minister must lay the code of practice, or any reissued code of practice, before Parliament”.
I have outlined that the provisions already in the Bill go above and beyond what is required for legislation of this kind because we recognise the importance of the code of practice and have done so in the spirit of transparency. With those assurances, I urge the noble Viscount to withdraw his amendment.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, the codes of practice are documents which we feel, from how the Bill is drafted, are being treated as ancillary—I set out my stall on that earlier—when, in truth, they are central. These codes will be the compass by which investigators navigate the use of intrusive and sensitive powers, they will be the primary reference point for those administering the system and those subject to it, and they will set the standards by which the system is judged.
Having said that, I have noted the Minister’s responses and reassurances, particularly on the publication of the codes, if I heard her correctly, so I appreciate all that. I will look further at the purpose behind our Amendment 129, and I take her point on that. I am not in the business of wrecking the Bill—I know she did not say that—and will reflect before Report on that amendment and the responses the Minister has given to the other amendments. I appreciate all her responses. With that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Abducted Ukrainian Children
Baroness Tyler of Enfield
To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support the safe return of abducted Ukrainian children forcibly removed to Russia and Belarus.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
My Lords, the UK continually raises the issue in multilateral fora, alongside our allies, and is an active member of the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children. We contribute to the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine, a multi-donor initiative through which we support the Government of Ukraine to facilitate the return and reintegration of children. Through PFRU, we have supported the NGO Save Ukraine and the Ukrainian Government’s Bring Kids Back initiative.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister. While figures vary, Save the Children has estimated that over 20,000 Ukrainian children have been forcibly transferred to Russia or Russian occupied territories, separated from their families and subjected to systematic efforts to erase their identity, including re-education camps, forced adoptions and conscription. The sheer number and ferocity of other international conflicts has resulted in relatively little attention being given to these abhorrent violations of international law, so what urgent steps are the Government considering to ramp up their economic sanctions and travel bans on those involved—to date, they have applied sanctions to 19 individuals and three entities—and to ensure that those responsible for these war crimes are brought to justice?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I am very pleased that this Question was selected, because the noble Baroness is right to remind the House what has been happening. It is a dreadful thing for any family to find that their child has been removed from their country, and to not know where they are, how they are and how they can be returned. As she said, we have been using our sanctions regime to hold those responsible to account and to try to encourage the return of the children. As she also said, we are talking about estimated numbers, but only around 900 have been returned so far out of 20,000. We do not have a huge amount of confidence even in those numbers, which are the Ukrainian Government’s, so there is clearly a lot more that needs to be done.
The noble Baroness knows that we do not comment on future sanctions designations, but we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to locate these children and to support those who are negotiating their return.
Lord Touhig (Lab)
My Lords, now that there have been calls for the release of Ukrainian prisoners of war held by the Russians, those prisoners of war have hope of freedom and returning home. Not so the 1.5 million children living in Russian-occupied Ukraine. Already, thousands have been taken to Russia, deliberately re-educated, handed over to Russian families and forced to become Russians. For these children, there will be no freedom unless we help. Will the Government support the Council of Europe’s demand that any peace agreement ending this war must guarantee the return of these kidnapped children?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
My noble friend does a wonderful job with the Council of Europe, and we have supported the things that he describes. We also raise this at the OSCE and in every other fora in which we are able to do so. I agree with every word that he said, and I urge him to continue to make the case that he does.
Lord Pickles (Con)
My Lords, the numbers could be even higher, as President Putin is giving Russian administrators in occupied Ukraine a quota of children to be delivered. In this terrible situation, one of the worst things is that the most vulnerable children are being targeted, particularly the children of people serving in Ukraine’s armed forces. When the time comes for a peace negotiation, will the Minister do her best to ensure that the return of these children is non- negotiable?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
Absolutely. This is a crime. Children should never be pawns of war, but this is happening. Many of the children, as the noble Lord says, are the most vulnerable children; some were taken from institutions, and some at check- points. They are now in Russian institutions, some in Belarusian so-called recreation camps, some with families. It is the not knowing, I think, that adds to the pain and torture of the families. Some of these children are now becoming adults and are being required to serve in the armed forces. This is abhorrent, and we will continue to raise this. I am glad that we have the noble Lord’s support.
Lord Cromwell (CB)
My Lords, we normally think of war as being about lost and gained territory, but this is a surreal nightmare for any parent that is almost impossible to imagine. Thousands of children are being taken from Ukraine and Russified. I agree with all the previous questions, so will the Minister make her best efforts to raise public awareness of this issue— I just do not think there is enough yet—and, as others have said, make it central to the negotiations?
Finally, what brought the Nazis to account was their obsession with keeping detailed records. I do hope that we will extract enough information from the Russian side as soon as possible as to how many children are affected and where they are.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
In the noble Lord’s question is the point about Russification, which tells us a lot about some of the motivation for the kidnapping of these children and for the war more generally. On the issue of records, it is difficult at the moment. We are working with the Government of Ukraine to try to get accurate data and information, using whatever means are necessary. I pay tribute to the Qataris for the role they have played in managing to negotiate the return of some children. We all have to do everything we can to make sure that public awareness, as he said, is raised of this issue. I think that when people find out that this is happening at this scale and in such an organised way, they will be horrified. So I agree with the noble Lord, and we should make sure that the public are made more keenly aware of this.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, it is great to see virtual unanimity across the House on these issues; I have agreed with every comment made so far. Of all the many outrageous acts committed by Russia after its invasion, this systematic campaign of forcibly abducting children from Ukraine is perhaps one of the worst. It fractures their connection to Ukrainian language and heritage through, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, says, their so-called re-education, disconnecting them from their Ukrainian identities. I wonder whether the Minister could update the House on what the Government are doing to support Ukraine’s domestic investigations into deaths, and link this to the International Criminal Court investigation into what are war crimes.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
We are supporting the ICC with funding and other measures and will continue to do so. It does matter that accurate records are kept and that, when the time comes, we are able to hold to account those responsible for this dreadful crime. In working with the Ukrainians, we are also looking at how children are supported after they are returned, and at their psychosocial needs. Having been abducted to another country and subjected to what is euphemistically called “re-education”—we know what that means—there is an impact on them. It is important that we think long term about what these children need.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, what is puzzling is how does Russia try to justify this awful abduction? Is there no shame? Is there no international body which can intercede on behalf of those children?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
It is good see my noble friend and to hear his question. We all wish there was a lever that we could pull. At the moment, the first challenge is to locate the children. The circumstances are all quite different; some are in institutions in Russia, some have been placed with families and others are in another country altogether, and the Belarusians have been facilitating these crimes. The truth is there is no agency that can intercede and do what we would all love to do, which is to travel to Russia, pick up the children and bring them home. That has happened in some instances—some families have been able to bring home their children themselves— but this is far from standard. To have only 900 returned at this stage, when this has been going on since 2014, concerns us all hugely.
Care Workers: Foreign Worker Visas
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Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase the number of care workers across the United Kingdom once care worker visas for foreign workers are discontinued.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare my interest as chief executive of Cerebral Palsy Scotland.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
My Lords, the Government are reducing reliance on international recruitment in adult social care and working to improve domestic recruitment and retention. In England, we are introducing the first fair pay agreement for adult social care, implementing the first universal career structure and providing £12 million this year for staff to complete training and qualifications. These changes will help attract staff to the sector, and provide proper recognition and opportunities for them to build their careers.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
I thank the Minister for her Answer and apologise if it feels like Groundhog Day, because I know she answered a very similar Question from the noble Lord, Lord Wood, on Monday. As the Minister well knows, solving the recruitment and retention crisis in this sector is long term, will take cross-party work and has many regional variables. In her Answer, she referred to what the Government are able to do in England, but in Scotland, where at the moment a quarter of rural and island carers come from outside the UK, we have a real issue. One provider said to me, “It’s not just about money. Despite paying above-average wages, we haven’t interviewed a British person for over three and half years”. In many rural and remote areas, agency staff are both unaffordable and unavailable. Will the Minister feed back to her colleagues in the Home Office that any cliff edge or one-size-fits-all approach that fails to take into consideration regional challenges threatens to devastate an already fragile service?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
First, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for her leadership of Cerebral Palsy Scotland. As I know she is aware, adult social care is devolved, which is why I made reference to England only. I am very happy to raise the points the noble Baroness made with the Foreign Office—sorry, with the Home Office.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
Well, I will raise them with whoever the noble Baroness likes.
The other point that comes to mind is that we will also be discussing with our colleagues over the border how they can boost the domestic workforce, because it is so important that we do, and that we reduce reliance on international recruitment.
Lord Turnberg (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend may have hinted at this already, but one of the ways in which we might encourage retention and attraction to the job of being a care worker is to ensure that they have a nationally registered professional qualification. Is that going to be the case?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
There are a number of ways that we are promoting opportunities to develop skills and knowledge, which will improve morale but also the attractiveness of working in adult social care. To that point, I am particularly pleased that apprenticeships are available for young people, so that they may see the benefits of working in the social care service.
The three main areas are an expanded care workforce pathway; the launch of the adult social care learning and development support scheme in September, which will allow funding for eligible care staff to complete courses and qualifications; and the new level 2 adult social care certificate scheme, which has been backed up by some £12 million this financial year. In all of this, we are seeking to professionalise and recruit—as well as retain—valued social care staff.
Baroness Barker (LD)
My Lords, the spending review promised £4 billion for social care, but not until 2028-29, and it is being carved out of the NHS. Until then, there is nothing in the spending review, so all that is going to happen is that social care employers will have bits and bobs of sporadic announcements of limited pots of funding. How on earth can they build a skilled workforce which is adequate and up to the demands that are going to be placed on it?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
Perhaps I could assist by clarifying that the spending review, which allows for an increase of over £4 billion of funding available for social care, is by 2028-29; it is not a matter of waiting for that long. That is in comparison with 2025-26. I hope I was helpful to your Lordships’ House in identifying a number of actions we have already taken to professionalise, upskill and allow people to build careers in the social care workforce. That is absolutely crucial. That, aligned with stopping international recruitment in this area—with a period of time for transition of some years—will shift to improve and increase the adult social care workforce in this country.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, while there are legitimate concerns over the levels of immigration, it is important to recognise the contribution that immigrants have made to our great country, not least to recall that after the war, our public services were saved by immigrants, especially from Commonwealth countries. We should not forget that.
My question is about the NHS and Care Volunteer Responders programme, which was set up during the pandemic and extended to adult social care in 2023. Unfortunately, the Government recently closed the volunteering service without an obvious alternative. While I recognise that volunteering will not make up for workforce shortages, what action are the Government taking to ensure that those who wish to volunteer in the social care sector can make a worthwhile contribution?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
While I absolutely agree about the value of volunteering, as we have discussed before, I should make clear that volunteering is not a substitute for employment on the right pay, the right terms and conditions and with the right status. I also absolutely agree with the noble Lord about the contribution that has been made by those from overseas to supporting our care services, and indeed by all care workers.
As we have discussed in this Chamber, the scheme was not simply closed. It was something that was appropriate for when we were in a pandemic but not for now. In fact, we have introduced a whole range of measures which I will be very pleased to remind the noble Lord of, to ensure that we can have more volunteers who are better used and more highly regarded. They are a complement to our workforce, and very valuable they are too.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
We will hear from the Bishop next and then the Cross Benches.
The Lord Bishop of London
My Lords, as we have heard, concerns around low pay and insecure contracts are long-standing in the social care sector. The Minister made mention of the fair pay agreement; can she explain how this will ensure that a living wage, living hours and living pensions will be paid to staff among the private social care providers?
Baroness Merron (Lab)
As noble Lords will be aware, the Employment Rights Bill establishes a framework for fair pay agreements. That will mean an agreement through which adult social care sector pay, as well as other terms and conditions, will be established through negotiating bodies. The negotiations will be reached by employers, workers’ representatives and others, in partnership. That will provide the opportunity to negotiate this in a responsible manner and help address the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector and support the delivery of high-quality care.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, I am sure the Minister will agree that we have an enormous challenge to overcome the belief that all you need to do this work is a kind heart. A kind heart is important, but there is a huge range of skills that are necessary over and above that. It is important therefore that we do all that we can to provide the opportunities to develop these skills and work incredibly hard to improve the status of these workers.
Baroness Merron (Lab)
I wholeheartedly agree with what the noble Lord said. I find that a kind heart is a good thing in most professions, but we also require more skills in many professions. That is why we have set out and launched a whole range of new measures in skills, training and development—and paying and treating people properly will also hugely raise their status.
Wild Camping
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Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer
To ask His Majesty’s Government what consideration they are giving to extending the right to wild camping beyond Dartmoor to other National Parks.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted that last month’s Supreme Court judgment upheld the public’s right to continue to wild camp on Dartmoor—one of our country’s most beloved landscapes, with its iconic moorlands. The Government continue to recognise the importance of providing access to the outdoors. We will increase access to nature for all, including in our national parks, and work to ensure that this is safe and appropriate, leaving a legacy for generations to come.
Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer. I am glad she recognises how courageous the Dartmoor National Park Authority was in defending the public’s right to wild camp or backpack camp on Dartmoor. She will know that it took years of good practice, developing a camping code and maps of where camping took place, and working with landowners and stakeholders to arrive at a very happy solution for both the public and just about all the landowners. Will the Government build on this good practice to make good on their promise to extend countryside access? Will they use Dartmoor’s experience to enable other national park authorities and national landscapes to offer what is a truly magical experience of camping out under the stars and being awakened by larks?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I wonder what kind of larks the noble Baroness envisions; she makes wild camping sound very exciting. She asks a very important question. The Government currently have no plans to extend wild camping as a guarantee in other national parks. Every national park is different, so it is important that each one can decide for itself what is appropriate in its area. Wild camping may be illegal, but in some national parks it is allowed where appropriate. For example, in the Lake District, which I know best, people are allowed to camp above the highest wall and stay for one night; they have to make sure that they leave no mess. That works very well. In addition, as we discuss this, we need to be very clear about what we mean when we discuss “wild camping” and “illegal camping”.
Lord Jopling (Con)
My Lords, in considering this matter, would the Government kindly remember that the lack of understanding of the meaning of, and rights under, wild camping is likely to be comparable to the lack of understanding of the meaning of national park? When I represented the southern part of the Lake District in another place for 33 years I lost count of the number of complaints I got about visitors who thought that national parks meant that they could set up their tent and cook their breakfast in anybody’s garden that they happened to pass.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
This is exactly the point I was making about the difference between wild camping and illegal camping. I walked my dog at Ennerdale Water this weekend, and there were clear signs saying, “No camping, no fires”. Yet, as I walked along the lake, there were two tents. This is a real problem because these people often do not respect the environment that they are in. It is important that, while we encourage camping in the right areas and wild camping where it is appropriate, we also ensure that does not cause any damage to the environment or problems for landowners.
Lord Swire (Con)
My Lords, as someone who enjoys larking around Dartmoor as much as possible, I can attest to the fact that it is a very finely balanced ecosystem. We will all be aware of the excellent work being done by the Prince of Wales and the Duchy of Cornwall in trying to regenerate some of the upland areas of the moor. Although I fully support responsible wild camping, unfortunately the same cannot be said for irresponsible wild camping. That was a particular problem in many national parks and lochsides across the country during Covid. Does the Minister agree that the Government must do everything they can to ensure that legislation and advice, such as that given by the Dartmoor National Park Authority on how to behave on the moor, is rigorously adhered to?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
As I said, it is a real problem. The noble Lord mentioned Covid, and the amount of rubbish left behind by illegal campers then was shocking. People abandoned their tents and all their rubbish. Who does the clean up? It is the National Trust, the national parks and the general public. He is absolutely right that this is not acceptable. However, at the same time, we have to recognise that some people camp very responsibly, in the right places and in the right way—and Dartmouth is an excellent example of that. As we develop our access strategy and promote the Countryside Code, which is also important, we will take all this into account.
Lord Blencathra (Con)
My Lords, I do not have strong views on wild camping; like the Minister, I am content with it as long as it does not damage the environment, the landscape, private property or farmers’ fields, and every national park has the right to decide about it locally. However, I have very strong views on people lighting fires in the countryside, whether they are camping, picnicking or just visiting. Fires in national nature reserves and moorland do enormous damage, such as destroying one-third of the magnificent Thursley Common nature reserve in 2020. They do not happen spontaneously because of global warming; in every case, people have caused the fires by discarding cigarettes or disposable barbecues. Accessing the countryside is one thing but no one has a God-given right to set fire to it with barbecues. Will the Minister give full support to all national parks, national nature reserves and Natural England by encouraging organisations and landowners to ban the use of disposable barbecues in the countryside?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Lord makes a very good point. I mentioned walking my dog at Ennerdale Water, where there are signs saying, “No fires”. Yet, I regularly walk along the lake and see clear evidence of people lighting fires and even chopping down saplings to try to light those fires. We need better understanding around responsibility in the countryside.
Local authorities currently have powers to ban the use of sky lanterns or disposable barbecues if they so wish. Existing powers in legislation can be used to regulate the lighting of fires in national parks and protected national landscapes. We also have the “respect, protect and enjoy” code around wild camping, which would include fires. With the dry summers we are seeing, it is becoming much more of an issue. The irresponsible use of disposable barbecues is particularly worrying; we know that we have had fires in the countryside because of them.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
We will hear from the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, first, and then from the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, given Labour’s manifesto commitments to improve responsible access to nature and enhance community rights to green space, can the Minister clarify what specific changes we can expect in the law and whether the rumours of a Green Paper are true? If they are not, can the Minister tell us why the opportunity of the Planning and Infra- structure Bill has not been used to deliver on those promises in order to overcome some of the persistent barriers for people in accessing the outdoors?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
We are extremely keen to increase access to nature; I am particularly keen to improve access for those who are the most disadvantaged in their ability to access it, whether that is through distance, culture or whatever. We are doing a lot of work. I have an excellent team working on the access policy at the moment. We are working extremely hard to come up with good access policies, including the national river walks, the new national forests and the other work that we are doing, in order to deliver on that promise.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
My Lords, would it be important in these circumstances to arrest people for loitering with intent?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I think that that would be a matter for the police and the Home Office.
Lord Harlech (Con)
My Lords, I declare my farming and land management interests in Wales. Last year, mountain rescue services in England and Wales were called out to an incident every single day; in Scotland, they were called out more than 1,000 times during the year. Can we—pardon the pun—proceed with caution on any scope to widen public access in our national parks?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I hear what the noble Lord says. I have friends in mountain rescue. I bumped into one of them at the weekend; they had been particularly busy. The important thing is that the people who call out mountain rescue are often completely and utterly ill equipped for what they are doing. That seems the biggest problem. Mountain rescue is there to help people who get into trouble. If you have fallen and broken your ankle or there is a particular problem, that is absolutely what it is there for, in the same way as any other emergency service. To be blunt, the people who try to climb mountains in flip-flops and without proper maps—we have had this in Cumbria, believe it or not—are the ones who really need our attention, shall we say.
Child Sexual Abuse and Rape Gangs Inquiry
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Hazarika
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure the statutory inquiry into child sexual abuse and rape gangs is conducted swiftly and does not delay justice for victims.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
The Government are determined to root out the horrific crimes of grooming gangs and to secure justice for victims. We have accepted the 12 recommendations made by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, including the recommendation to establish a national inquiry under the Inquiries Act. The inquiry will be time-limited and will have statutory powers to direct targeted investigations into local areas, with the aim of holding institutions to account for current and historical failures in their response to group-based child sexual exploitation.
Baroness Hazarika (Lab)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for his Answer. I welcome this inquiry. I just want to say that, as a Muslim woman, I apologise profoundly for what these wicked men have done to white, working-class girls. Many of us feel deeply ashamed. Let us not call them “grooming gangs”; these are rape gangs that operated on an industrial level. I hope that the inquiry will hear the voices of Muslim girls who were also abused by these animals.
The Minister talked about a time limit. Could the inquiry be capped at two years, because justice delayed is justice denied? Given the public interest, will this inquiry be televised? Finally, given the incredible work that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, has done, can she be appointed as the chair of it because, in a world of appalling systemic failure, she is the only public figure whom many victims trust?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend, and I place on record from this Dispatch Box my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, for the 197-page report that she presented, on the Government’s request, in the five months since January of this year. My noble friend asked about the timescale for the inquiry. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, indicated that it would be around three years. I would like to see it speeded up, but we have to discuss that matter with the potential chair of the inquiry. The Government intend to try to recruit the chair of the inquiry as a matter of some speed, and we are in the process of doing that now. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, herself, is now going to be engaged in a further report, but we will appoint a chair as soon as possible.
As to the matter of televising the proceedings, again, if my noble friend will bear with me, that will be a matter for discussion with the chair to determine. We want to ensure that we take action speedily on this issue, which is why we have accepted all 12 recommendations, and why the 11 that are not related to the national inquiry will be implemented in very short order by this Government.
Lord Jack of Courance (Con)
Will the grooming gangs inquiry include Scotland, and, if not, why not?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The grooming gangs inquiry is looking at all areas of the United Kingdom. We have a responsibility in the Home Office for England and Wales, but it is important that we consult and discuss with devolved Administrations, because there are 500,000 victims of child abuse across the United Kingdom; 100,000 of those are related to child exploitation; and our job is to reduce the number of victims and hold those perpetrators to account.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, shows years of inaction by Governments and many different authorities in the past, despite victims’ brave whistleblowing. Now is the time to right the wrongs. How do the Government plan to put victims at the heart of the national inquiry, in particular so that they do not have to repeat their existing testimony again and again? Much of it has already been covered in inquiry reports and court cases.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness. She will know that the IICSA report under Alexis Jay was involved for seven years in looking at this very issue and made 20 recommendations to the Government three years ago. The then Government did not act on any of those recommendations. We have picked up the recommendations since July last year and are now implementing those recommendations. The further recommendations that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, has brought before the House and the Government are now on a programme for implementation, including the national inquiry. I think it is important that the incoming chair, whoever he or she may be, has an opportunity to reflect on the previous product of victim testimony and determine what to do with that product and how best to involve victims in future. It is important that victims have their say and that the outcome of this is action to prevent future victims.
Lord Singh of Wimbledon (CB)
My Lords, if a medical threat occurs, we tend to find and pinpoint the cause. If there is a threat to social health, we tend to camouflage the cause of the concern. An example is the use of the term “Asian grooming gangs”, which was prevalent at one time. I pointed out that it was about as helpful as saying that “Europeans” were responsible for the Holocaust. We need to pinpoint the actual cause. Ethnicity, now talked about, has a subset, religion, and there are dated texts embedded in religious texts that have very negative attitudes to women. It is time that those were exposed and brought up to today’s more enlightened times.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
One of the key recommendations from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, is to ensure that we have some ethnic minority data monitoring on offenders who have committed those offences. Some police forces have collected that, and some have not. We are accepting the recommendation, and we will be issuing guidance to police forces on collecting ethnic data. There are a range of people who abuse; there is a focus on grooming gangs from particular communities, but I say to the House that, in every particular community—white, Asian, Muslim and others—members of the community commit offences. We should not ignore the fact that people from a range of ethnic backgrounds commit offences; what we should be doing is monitoring it.
Baroness Sanderson of Welton (Con)
My Lords, I appreciate that the Minister says that they are already looking for a chair. It is an interesting new model from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. How long do the Government anticipate it will take to set up that new independent commission and set its terms of reference before its actual work starts?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness. We are trying to do that as quickly as possible. I cannot give a definitive date, but if I say to her that we want to get this started as quickly as possible, I hope she will understand that I am trying to do that. I will report back to this House in due course when that is possible to do.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, as has already been alluded to, our foremost priority must be to those who have suffered so badly, to ensure that their voices are not only heard but placed at the centre of our next steps. Justice must be delivered, and it must be delivered swiftly. Can the Minister therefore outline what specific steps the Government are taking to support victims at this stage? In particular, how do they intend to ensure that any investigation is thorough and timely, with particular reference to those in authority who have failed the victims so far, and that the investigation truly reflects the urgency and seriousness that the noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, has rightly emphasised?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
One of the key recommendations from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, was that we review convictions of victims and look at how victims have experienced the system. We have accepted that recommendation in full, and we will be bringing forward measures in the Crime and Policing Bill very shortly, which is finishing its progress in the other place this very day. It will be with this House, at least for Second Reading, before the Summer Recess, I hope. We will have amendments to that Bill in Committee stage that will deal with victim support.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the Casey review, but I urge the Government to take every opportunity possible to implement Alexis Jay’s recommendations—not only in the policing Bill but in the Bill already in this House, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. There are opportunities in there that we can implement in those Bills. The victims of those horrific crimes cannot wait any longer. This Government and this House should be leading that fight to get justice for those victims of rape gangs, which existed right across the country.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The noble Lord is absolutely right, which is why, when this Government came into office in July last year, we looked at the Alexis Jay recommendations, determined that no action had been taken for the previous 20 months on those and determined to take action on them. That is why, in the Crime and Policing Bill, the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill and other measures that we have brought forward, we have met every recommendation in that report, and we will make sure they are implemented in full.
Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top (Lab)
My Lords, following the grooming gang trial in the north-east, in Newcastle, the safeguarding committee said that one of the institutions that needed to be looked at was how the court undertook the trial, and that cross-examination had been used as another weapon against the young women. I met and talked with those who had supported the young women before and during the trial, because the charity I chaired had taken that job on, and they were horrified at how the young women had suffered yet again during the trial. Can we begin to think about how we look at these trials and the cross-examination that the young women are put through?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend. I think it is very important that we recognise that the experience of victims in giving evidence, particularly when faced with their perpetrators, is extremely traumatic. We should be ensuring that we make the court procedure as smooth as possible. There are no recommendations in the report from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, about that particular issue, but I will take back my noble friend’s comments and discuss them with the Ministry of Justice. If other Members wish to continue questions on this today, this is the hors d’oeuvre for a Statement at 7.30 this evening, when other contributions will be welcome.
Medical Devices and Blood Safety and Quality (Fees Amendment) Regulations 2025
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Baroness Merron
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 3 April and 29 April be approved.
Relevant documents: 23rd and 25th Reports from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 17 June.
Employment Rights Bill
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
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Lord Hunt of Wirral
“with the three-year period resetting three months after any general election.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that a new government would not be held to the labour market enforcement strategy of a predecessor government for up to three years.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 271ZZA, I will also speak to Amendments 274 and 278, standing in my name.
Clause 91 requires the Secretary of State to set out a plan for enforcing labour market legislation over a three-year period. However, as currently drafted, Clause 91 lacks the flexibility necessary to reflect changes in government and political leadership. As the Minister will be aware, Clause 91(1) places a statutory duty on the Secretary of State to publish a labour market enforcement strategy
“before the beginning of each relevant three-year period”.
Subsection (6) then defines those periods as
“beginning with the next 1 April after the day on which this section comes into force”
and every successive three years thereafter. At first glance, that may seem entirely sensible, but let me explain why it creates a democratic and practical problem that our amendment seeks to fix.
Suppose, for example, this Bill passes this year, in 2025. Under Clause 91(6)(a), the first strategy would need to be published before 1 April 2026 and it would then run until March 2029. Now, imagine a general election takes place in 2027—entirely plausible, perhaps even probable. That would mean that a new Government taking office in 2027 would be bound by a strategy formulated and published by a previous Administration, with potentially very different political priorities, until well into 2029. I suggest to the Government that this is neither democratic nor desirable.
Labour market enforcement is not a neutral administrative matter. It involves clear policy choices about which sectors to prioritise, what level of inspection and enforcement to undertake, what approach to take with non-compliant employers, and how to engage with trade unions, businesses, regulators and workers. These are not technocratic decisions. These are matters of political judgment. They ought to reflect the democratic mandate of the day.
Our amendment is, therefore, straightforward. It would insert into Clause 91(6) a provision that the relevant three-year period should reset three months after any general election. This would provide any new incoming Government with a short period—not an immediate obligation—in which to consult the advisory board and prepare a revised strategy, only if they wish to do so. It would not force a change of strategy; it would simply enable one at a more appropriate and timely moment.
Amendments 274 and 278 together seek to inject evidence, accountability and proportionality into the Government’s proposal to establish a single labour market enforcement body under this legislation. These are not abstract or procedural concerns; they speak directly to the credibility of this legislation and the consequences it will have for workers, businesses and the rule of law in the labour market. We are therefore being asked to approve a significant structural reform—the consolidation of multiple specialist enforcement agencies into a single, central body—without a clear estimate of how much it is all going to cost and without a rigorous analysis of whether it will improve enforcement outcomes.
The idea that such sweeping institutional change could proceed without a public, detailed cost-benefit analysis should give us all pause for thought. The creation of a new enforcement authority is not merely a matter of administrative reorganisation; it involves physical premises, staff transfers, IT infrastructure, the legal realignment of enforcement powers, data-sharing agreements, and the re-establishment of everything, from complaints mechanisms to enforcement protocols.
All of this will come at considerable financial and operational cost, yet no such cost has been published, nor can it be debated. It is absent. This is particularly concerning given that we have seen similar government reforms in other domains—such as the establishment and eventual dismantling of the UK Border Agency—go badly awry, not for lack of ambition but for lack of foresight and planning. An effective enforcement agency cannot simply be declared into being. It has to be built carefully, deliberately and on the basis of hard evidence.
That is why Amendment 274 requires the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a detailed cost assessment. We understand that the Government’s broader agenda includes a desire to reduce inefficiency and waste in the public sector. That is a principle all sides of this Committee would support. We would not, and I hope the Minister would not, wish to see the creation of another bloated agency duplicating functions and budgets and wasting taxpayers’ money under the guise of reform. Without clear planning, the risk is precisely that a new bureaucracy, with vague lines of accountability, an unclear mandate and spiralling costs fails to deliver better outcomes for workers and businesses.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
I support the lead amendment in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom to exempt a new Government, for up to three years, from the labour market enforcement strategy of their predecessor for the reasons set out so ably by my noble friend Lord Hunt. I also support Amendments 274 and 278 for a new clause after Clause 140 to review the effectiveness of enforcement and compliance with relevant labour market requirements as in Part 1 of Schedule 7 before the new agency is set up and for the costing of such a new body before it is set up.
The new fair work agency proposed by the Bill to bring together existing functions of enforcement is unknown territory. Today, to enforce a limited number of employment rights, official powers are used by four different agencies: the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate, HMRC and the Health and Safety Executive. The proposed new fair work agency bundles these—and new responsibilities under the Bill—into a single, untried and untested body. In general employers are quite familiar with HMRC and HSE, which provide advice as well as having enforcement functions. At the moment, we have the benefit of experienced bodies with whom employers are familiar and an ability by each body to be precise and knowledgeable about the subject on which it is an enforcement officer. We also have the advantage of different horses for different courses. Now, the plan is to move to an unknown, inexperienced entity with all the start-up costs that entails and without the precision focus which the present bodies have, because what is proposed is a one-size-fits-all model.
The enforcement of the laws will be differently framed with different aims by the current bodies. GLAA will have a different focus to that of HMRC, although some of the functions may overlap. I therefore suggest, in the interest of the taxpayer, that there is a need for a costing of the new body before it is set up and for a review of the effectiveness of the outcomes of present arrangements for enforcement and compliance to see how they stack up. This should be done before any steps are taken to put in place a new body. For these reasons, I heartily support Amendments 274 and 278.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I wish to speak on the issue of the labour market enforcement strategy in support of Amendment 274 to which I have appended my name and to build on the excellent remarks of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and the specific points raised by my noble friend Lady Lawlor. For transparency, I declare that I have been a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development for more than 20 years. The CIPD estimates that the People Skills HR support service which it has mooted, working with ACAS, would cost about £13 million under the new regime when this Bill becomes an Act. We already know, following on from my noble friend’s comments, that the cumulative cost of the existing bodies doing similar work, with analogous workstreams, is about £40 million.
Amendment 274 is important because in this country we have a strange anomaly. Unusually for an advanced country, we generally do not put the architecture of scrutiny and oversight in primary legislation. I want to know how this agency is going to be accountable in terms of the costs, who it employs, its policies et cetera. No doubt the Minister will say, “Well, once it becomes an Act, there will be what was the Business Select Committee, or there might be the National Audit Office, or there might be the Public Accounts Committee”. But we are being asked to sign a blank cheque for this without knowing how precisely this agency is going to operate and, most fundamentally, at what cost. We have not seen a detailed impact assessment focusing on the work of this body. On that basis, I ask the Minister specifically how he sees the process of accountability working and whether there will be any work by his department, and Ministers more generally, to work out what the costs are likely to be.
I accept at face value that this Government are committed to reducing the regulatory burden, particularly on small and medium-sized enterprises. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Leong, will bend the Minister’s ear on that, having come from the background that he came from as a champion of small businesses from the Labour side. It is therefore not unreasonable for us to ask what the cost will be and how we will be able to hold this agency to account once it is established.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, Amendments 277 and 328, which I expect the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, to speak to shortly, are an interesting element. Amendment 277 talks about the review of the fair work agency. Considering that a number of questions have come up about this, that is a fair assessment, given that there is still a considerable amount of consultation to be done. Amendment 328 would basically strip out the commencement of any part of the Act until that review has been done and
“a Minister of the Crown has tabled a motion in both Houses of Parliament for debate … and the review has been approved by a resolution”—
not just regulations.
The reason I say this is that I continue to assert that some of the powers here are going to be novel. Even if the Equality Act 2006 may give powers to the EHRC, it has never used them to institute legal proceedings, only as an intervener or for judicial review, rather than taking on individual cases; I am conscious that there is a consultation there. The amendment from the Liberal Democrats is an interesting way to think about how we are looking at the details of what the new agency is going to do.
Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)
My Lords, before I begin my comments about the various amendments, I have news from afar. Councillor Fox—sorry, not councillor; that is going back a bit. My noble friend Lord Fox wants to pass on his thanks to Members of the House from all sides who have sent best wishes for a speedy recovery. I signed his card today from the Lib Dem group with the sentiment, “Don’t hurry back. I fully enjoy sitting until midnight doing the employment Bill on your behalf”—which I think, with my noble friend’s irony, he will get. His amendments would require detailed review of the fair work agency’s remit, funding powers and accountability structures, and parliamentary overview before commencement.
We are fairly neutral on Amendments 271ZZA, 274 and 278 from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, which aim at transparency and reviews. They are broadly procedural, but I have some sympathy with the noble Lord’s three-year review, which could be quite sensible. He explains those two amendments with clarity and brings out the blindingly obvious—the lack of cost and the lack of understanding of how this thing will be set up and work in reality.
I intend to ask the Minister some direct questions as well as supporting my noble friend Lord Fox’s amendments regarding the implementation plan, the opportunity for scrutiny and further consultation. First, I turn to what the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, has been talking about, the fair work agency. We debated its creation and power across several earlier groups and I will not labour that point today, but I want to speak clearly in support of Amendments 277 and 328 tabled by my noble friend Lord Fox, and again place on record my regret that he is not able to be with us today. These amendments are central to establishing a credible and accountable agency. Amendment 277 would require a full review of the agency’s remit, powers, funding and relationship with other enforcement bodies, and would be subject to review, as the noble Lord has said. Amendment 328 would link the commencement of the Act to that process.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe of Epsom and—in absentia—Lord Fox, for tabling Amendments 271ZZA, 274, 277, 278 and 328. Before I go any further, I think we all join the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, certainly from our Benches, in wishing the noble Lord, Lord Fox, the very best and speediest of recoveries. We hope to see him back in his place at the earliest opportunity.
I will speak first to Amendment 271ZZA moved by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom. This amendment is unnecessary, as Clause 91(3) provides full discretion for the Secretary of State to revise the labour market enforcement strategy at any time, including following a general election. That means that a new Government are not locked in. They can act swiftly, decisively and in line with their mandate. Were the party opposite to win power again sometime in the distant future, however difficult that is to imagine, its hands would not be tied by these proposals.
Of course, businesses, workers and enforcement bodies all benefit from clarity, consistency and strategic continuity. Automatically scrapping an enforcement strategy, just as the Government are finding their feet, risks creating exactly the kind of disruption we should be avoiding. To reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral, the Bill is about strengthening our ability to tackle non-compliance and exploitation in the labour market, including, in the very worst cases, the scourge of modern slavery. The intention and mandate of the fair work agency are to catch the bad actors, not to trip up the good guys. This amendment risks instability rather than accountability.
Turning to Amendments 274, 277, 278 and 328 tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Fox, I want to be absolutely clear that the Government are committed to effective, transparent enforcement of workers’ rights. The creation of the fair work agency is a major step forward and we want to get it right, but these amendments are wholly unnecessary, duplicating myriad reports and recommendations over several years. By our count, there have been 33 government reports and strategies about the effectiveness of labour market enforcement over the past nine years. One could argue that this subject has been reported and scrutinised to death. The Director of Labour Market Enforcement produces an annual report and strategy that reviews the effectiveness of the labour market enforcement system. These documents are available in the Library of the House.
Additionally, our impact assessment for establishing the fair work agency sets out the current running costs of the enforcement bodies and initial estimates of set-up costs for the agency. I also refer noble Lords to reviews published by previous Administrations, including the Taylor review, which assessed the labour market enforcement system and found it wanting.
Ongoing oversight of employment rights enforcement is provided for in Clauses 91 and 92. They require the Secretary of State to publish a three-year labour market enforcement strategy and annual reports, which must be laid before Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly. To address the question of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, they will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny in the usual way, which could well involve scrutiny by a Select Committee in the other place.
While the Bill does not explicitly require that the enforcement strategy and annual report address the agency’s funding, I can confirm to the Committee—and to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, in particular—that the annual report will indeed include an assessment of the fair work agency’s budget and how this has been spent.
Turning to Amendment 328, establishing the fair work agency is not and should not be contingent on its reporting. I remind all noble Lords, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, that this was not only a Labour Party manifesto commitment; it was the policy of all the major parties at the general election to introduce a single enforcement body in some shape or form.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
Just because one side of the House or the other—or, indeed, both—brought it in does not necessarily mean it is the right policy. Does the Minister not agree that, if we have a chance to review some of the weaknesses in inherited policy, it is a very good time to do it? The 2017 Taylor review, on which some of the then Government’s policy was based, focused particularly on the most vulnerable workers and certain categories. It was not a very wide focus.
Lord Katz (Lab)
We have had a fair amount of scrutiny of the wider proposal, rather than the Bill’s specific fair work agency proposals. As I said, over the past nine years since 2016, there have been 33 different strategies and reports, including—but certainly not limited to—the Taylor report. This is not an area that has not been considered and scrutinised to some degree. I also say to the noble Baroness that the Single Enforcement Body—as it was called by the previous Administration—was the policy of successive Conservative- led and Conservative Administrations. I am not going to intrude on the great policy disagreements on that side of the House. We feel it important to establish the fair work agency and to ensure that we have strong enforcement of labour market regulations. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw Amendment 271ZZA.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, this has been a very significant debate, because I believe it is the first time I have heard from the Government Front Bench an acceptance that the Opposition will eventually take over government again. He and I may disagree on when this will happen—of course we disagree: I just happen to believe that it is going to happen at the next general election. That is why these amendments are so important.
I also want to say how much we miss the noble Lord, Lord Fox. I was very disturbed indeed to hear about his unfortunate accident, but I am very pleased to hear that he may shortly be with us. I hope that, by speeding up the process to Report in July, he will still be able to be with us, because he has always brought a note of common sense—despite coming from the Liberal Democrat Benches. Now I am upsetting everyone. All I want to say to the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, is that he has been a marvellous substitute, if one can say that. His pragmatic approach to the Bill has been enormously valuable, but we do miss the noble Lord, Lord Fox.
I thank my noble friend Lady Lawlor, who is quite right: we are moving into unknown territory. Although the Minister might remind us that the Conservative Government were committed to looking at stepping in this direction, we are still moving into unknown territory and, as my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough pointed out, the CIPD cost estimates are really worrying. I do not think the Minister properly addressed his key question on the whole issue of accountability.
However, here we are. I am surprised that the Government have rejected Amendment 271ZZA. It is a reasonable and pragmatic amendment that simply recognises the basic democratic principle that a new Administration should have the ability to review and, if necessary, revise a labour market enforcement strategy to reflect new economic realities and public priorities. Despite the amendment to which he referred—which is at the margin—the Government have always insisted that a labour market enforcement strategy must run its full term without reset, regardless of elections or changes in government. But why should a new Government be bound by a strategic direction set by their predecessor? That is not consistent with the democratic mandate bestowed on any incoming Government. Surely it is neither logical nor democratic to compel a newly elected Government to implement a strategy they did not design, especially in a labour market that is dynamic and constantly evolving.
Economic landscapes can shift dramatically within short periods, whether due to international events, technological change or domestic challenges. Flexibility to adjust enforcement priorities accordingly is essential. It is not only a question of governance, but of ensuring that enforcement remains effective and responsive to current labour market conditions. The Government have already recognised the importance of periodic review and the resetting of the labour market enforcement strategy every three years, as set out in Clause 91. If I am not mistaken, that periodicity is built into the framework precisely to ensure that the strategy remains relevant and responsive.
The main feature of this debate has been the cogent arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport. His insights, and those of my noble friend Lady Coffey, highlight the pressing need for a substantive independent review of the proposed fair work agency. While the promise of increased efficiency in enforcement is welcome, we must remember that there are intentions and then there are results. We must understand how such efficiency will be achieved and at what cost, what other alternatives were considered, and why they were rejected.
To date, the Government have not committed to publishing any specific details about the establishment of the fair work agency—details that are crucial for proper scrutiny. We lack clarity on the expected costs of this new body, the standards by which compliance will be measured and the criteria that will guide enforcement decisions. Without that transparency, it is difficult to assess whether the creation of this body will represent genuine progress or simply add another layer of bureaucracy, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport, stressed, will impinge on smaller businesses in particular.
There remains much to discuss and questions to be answered about the fair work agency. Unfortunately, I find myself unconvinced by the Government’s arguments against the amendments proposed by myself and the noble Lord, Lord Goddard of Stockport. Our proposals are not about obstruction but about ensuring proper oversight, accountability and flexibility in this important area of labour market governance. I am sure that we, and the Liberal Democrats, will return to these issues on Report, but for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to ensure that any ‘fishing expedition’ actions of enforcement officers enabled by subclause (a) are limited to the most serious breaches, thereby preventing a broad expansion of an enforcement officer’s ability to enter business premises to include entering at any point to check on minor matters.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 271ZB I will speak also to Amendments 271ZBA, 271ZD and 273LA in my name. Amendment 271ZB ensures that the powers being granted to enforcement officers under this part of the Bill are used proportionately and only in response to the most serious breaches of labour market law. Without this amendment or something very much like it, we risk handing enforcement officers sweeping powers to enter business premises with very little constraint.
As currently drafted, Clause 94(1)(a) grants enforcement officers the authority to “enter any premises” for “any enforcement purpose”. That is an extraordinarily broad power. This amendment would limit such warrantless powers of entry to those paragraphs of Schedule 7 that deal with the most serious forms of labour market abuse, namely child labour offences, the failure to pay the minimum wage, unlawful deductions from wages and exploitation through forced labour. These are the areas where strong enforcement action is absolutely justified.
However, is it appropriate that the same powers—entry without warrant or consent—could be used to check whether someone forgot to keep a copy of an employment agency contract on file or perhaps miscalculated a payslip by a few pounds? We must not lose sight of the bigger picture. The vast majority of employers want to comply with the law; they invest time and money in doing so. However, if we allow overly broad enforcement powers, we risk creating an atmosphere of distrust, regulatory overreach and disproportionate intrusion, particularly into smaller businesses which may not have the resources to constantly defend themselves against investigatory overkill. The Government say they want better enforcement, and so do we, but good enforcement is not the same as unchecked enforcement.
Turning to Amendment 271ZBA, as currently drafted, Clause 95 restricts the power to enter dwellings to those occasions where a warrant is issued by a justice. This is a well-established and necessary safeguard, reflecting the heightened privacy interests we attach to a person’s home, but there is a conspicuous gap in the safeguards applying to entry into non-dwelling premises, such as business premises, offices or other places of work.
Clause 94 grants enforcement officers wide powers to enter any premises for enforcement purposes, without the same explicit requirement for a warrant or judicial authorisation, unless it is a dwelling covered by Clause 95. This gap means that, unlike the protections for residential premises, business premises can be entered and searched by enforcement officers without prior judicial approval. This is a significant and unwarranted imbalance. The intrusion into a business, especially a small or medium enterprise, is a serious matter. Entry and seizure powers can disrupt operations, damage reputations and create an atmosphere of suspicion.
That is all quite apart from the rather sinister nature of this power. For many small businesses, their premises are their livelihoods. The difference between a home and a business may be one of degree, but the right to protection from arbitrary state intrusion should be similarly robust. Judicial oversight ensures that these powers are used only when there is a legitimate and evidenced basis for entry, and it prevents abuse or overreach.
The requirement for a magistrate to authorise a warrant is a safeguard that protects due process, proportionality and the rule of law, and is of course very well established. It requires that enforcement officers demonstrate reasonable grounds and the necessity for the warrant. That is not a bureaucratic hurdle; it is just a check that balances the state’s legitimate enforcement interests with individual and business rights.
On Amendment 271ZD, as it stands, the appeal process focuses primarily on the accuracy of the sums claimed or the penalties imposed. It is essential that underpayments and penalties are correctly calculated and justified, but this narrow scope overlooks a critical element: the manner in which enforcement powers are exercised.
Enforcement officers hold significant authority when issuing notices, including entry, inspection and seizure powers. However, these powers must be exercised lawfully, proportionately and with respect for those affected. This amendment allows tribunals to consider whether enforcement officers have acted beyond their legal authority or used their powers excessively or unfairly. It further empowers tribunals to cancel or vary notices where misconduct or disproportionate enforcement is found and to award compensation as appropriate. This is not only a matter of protecting businesses and individuals from overreach but is vital to maintain public confidence in the enforcement regime. When enforcement is perceived as fair, transparent and accountable, compliance will improve and the number of disputes will reduce.
On Amendment 273LA, at this stage, the Bill does not define who enforcement officers are in any detail—we started this discussion on Monday—nor does it set any clear limits on the powers they may exercise when carrying out their functions. This lack of clarity is deeply concerning, especially given the serious nature of the enforcement powers being proposed, which include entry, inspection and seizure of documents and property. It is vital to establish unequivocally that enforcement officers, who are not police offices and do not have the training or mandate of the police, must not be allowed to use physical force or authorise others to do so. The use of force is an extreme measure that can be justified only in very specific and regulated circumstances, and generally only by trained law enforcement personnel. The amendment simply ensures that enforcement officers cannot resort to physical coercion, which is not appropriate for officials tasked with regulatory enforcement in the labour market. That is a matter of basic human rights and dignity. It is also a safeguard for businesses and individuals who may otherwise be subject to intimidation or physical harm.
I have absolutely no doubt that Ministers on the Government Front Bench have no interest in physical coercion being a part of these powers. In that case, they should accept this amendment because, if they do not, the implication is clear: they accept that physical coercion is acceptable. I do not believe that is what they want and I beg to move.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Sharpe. I declare an interest as a director of a very small business—a think tank.
As an employer, the idea that we have no warrant or judicial oversight of an enforcement officer’s intrusive visit to a business to seize or take copies of documents and to check up is intrusive on the time and output of the business. It is also an infringement of a business freedom to conduct the business to the best ability of those in the office or the business.
Both clauses in fact contain very intrusive proposals. As my noble friend pointed out, one of the things that is deeply worrying about them is we do not know who the enforcement officers will be or exactly what their powers will be. We have seen, even with the best trained police force in the world, the Metropolitan Police and local police forces, a certain amount of over-zealousness in pursuing certain types of crime. Therefore, with an untrained and unknown quantity and with such powers, we need very clear limitations, and we need to focus on the most serious crimes and those outlined in these amendments. For those reasons, I support both the amendments in the name of my noble friend.
Lord Katz (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, for tabling amendments relating to the fair work agency’s powers. Clause 94 introduces a single power to enter business premises and inspect workplaces. The noble Lord’s Amendment 271ZB would limit this power to such an extent that effective enforcement of the legislation, including the national minimum wage, would be extremely difficult. We are not amalgamating labour market enforcement into one single agency to diminish its effectiveness. This amendment would, in effect, prohibit the site visits that most minimum wage investigations rely on and bring an end to a system of state enforcement that has worked well for 25 years. The result would likely be an increase in claims to the employment tribunal. Given the noble Lord’s concern about employment tribunal capacity, I urge him to withdraw his amendment.
I turn to Amendment 271ZBA. While powers of entry are generally exercised on a consensual basis, in some situations it is critical that officers are able to carry out their duties quickly, particularly if they suspect that giving advance notice could give rogue employers time to destroy or tamper with evidence. None the less, in response to the concerns raised by both the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lawlor, an officer will not enter a premises if a person is not present but will instead notify the person to rearrange a time to enter the premises. As the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, mentioned, a warrant could be issued by a justice only if they are satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for entry, and judicial oversight ensures that warrants are granted only when appropriate, protecting businesses from unwarranted inspections while enabling legitimate investigations.
Clause 128 and Schedule 8 were added to the Bill to put in place appropriate safeguards relating to the execution of warrants. As I said, this approach will continue under Part 5 of the Bill, but with additional safeguards, such as needing a warrant before exercising powers to enter a dwelling. Extending this warrant requirement further to include all business premises would be a disproportionate and retrograde step in enforcement terms. It would introduce additional powers and bureaucracy, and create an unnecessary burden on the warrant system.
Amendment 271ZD is unnecessary. There are already extensive safeguards in the Bill around the use of investigatory and enforcement powers. These safeguards are designed to ensure that the use of enforcement powers is lawful and proportionate. In addition, enforcement officers are highly trained and carry out investigations under a strict code of conduct.
Clause 107 largely carries over the existing appeal grounds from the notice of underpayment regime contained in the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, which, as I said, has been functioning successfully for over 25 years. In fact, I recall debates in previous days of Committee around the effectiveness of minimum wage enforcement and the fact that not enough rogue employers have been named and shamed. The process as it stands is well known and understood by businesses and individuals. Changes risk adding confusion and uncertainty, leading to additional complexity and litigation.
Amendment 273LA would constitute a drastic downgrade in labour exploitation enforcement. The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority can and must occasionally use force under PACE powers to rescue victims of modern slavery and tackle serious labour exploitation. Indeed, it is through the use of those powers that we saw two modern slavery convictions and 13 slavery and trafficking risk and prevention orders in the last reporting year of 2023-24. To reassure the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, as is currently the case, the use of PACE powers will be strictly limited to a small number of officers, as set out in their letters of appointment, and subject to stringent IOPC oversight functions and complaints and misconduct procedures.
I am sure the whole Committee will agree that we must tackle the scourge of modern slavery. The Bill is designed to strengthen employment rights in a clear, coherent and enforceable way. Unnecessary additions or alterations, however well-meaning, could compromise that aim. On that basis, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
My Lords, I think the Minister explained that the reasons against requiring a warrant to be issued by a magistrate included the fact that an employer might destroy documents that were the purpose of the need to enter the premises. In those circumstances, why could the clause not say that, if the enforcement officer can show the magistrate reasonable cause to have concerns about the destruction of a document, they could apply on an ex parte basis for the search warrant? That would mean there would not be that risk of the destruction of documents in advance.
Lord Katz (Lab)
The noble Lord raises an interesting point, though I fear straying into legal territory, which I am not adequately briefed to comment on. I will write to him with further detail on the specific example he set out.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, for his intervention, because I was about to raise a similar point. It has been a long time since, as a policeman, I applied for a warrant, but we did not routinely notify the intended recipient of our visit that we were about to do it. I do not buy the argument that that would see an awful lot of documents destroyed or anything that they might have been pre-warned being removed from the premises—they would not know. I do not see why it should be different for enforcement officers and the police, who obviously are, in some cases, investigating much more serious crimes.
On the use of force arguments that the noble Lord, Lord Katz, deployed, surely the point is that these powers are being extended and, yet again, we are relying on future guidelines, comments or statements that will be written into their terms of employment. I simply do not believe that that is enough. The public deserve the reassurance of having this in the Bill or, at the very least, clarified in a Dispatch Box Statement.
As we bring this debate to a close—my noble friend Lady Lawlor, I think, homed in on this point—the fundamental concern that underpins all these amendments is that the Government have not yet provided a clear definition of who the enforcement officers will be, what precise powers they will hold, and what training or accountability measures will govern their conduct. The absence of clarity is not a minor oversight; it is a significant gap that leaves businesses and individuals vulnerable to potential overreach and misuse of authority. Enforcement officers will be vested with extraordinary powers of entry, inspection and seizure, but we have no clear picture of the safeguards that will be put in place to prevent abuse.
These amendments are not about obstructing enforcement or denying the Government the tools that they need to tackle serious breaches of labour market law; on the contrary, we recognise the importance of robust enforcement. However, enforcement must be lawful, proportionate and accompanied by proper oversight and accountability, or it will risk losing public trust.
We have sought to introduce reasonable limits on when and how enforcement—
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that, in addition to the problems he has raised, there is a very great danger of vexatious claims being made without evidence, and of disproportionate actions and intrusions taking place as a result?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I absolutely agree with my noble friend; that is one of the reasons that we are seeking more clarity in the Bill. As I said, without transparency, accountability and a clear definition of what the powers will be—they are unarguably vague —all those concerns remain. It is disappointing that the Government have not fully recognised the risks inherent in the broad powers envisaged by the Bill. We argue that the Government should, at a very minimum, provide clear guidance on these roles and responsibilities and on the limits of enforcement officers. This subject is so important that I think we will have to return to it. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I will speak to the significant number of amendments in this group in my name. This is quite an interesting cornucopia of amendments, a number of which are, in essence, probing amendments. The very nature of the work we are undertaking is to look at the minutiae of the Bill and to see it through the prism of how it impacts on small businesses. It is very important, when we consider the fair work agency’s powers, that we look at the Bill’s real-world ramifications and consequences.
Although some of the amendments may seem somewhat obscure, I think they are nevertheless quite compelling and worthy of the Minister’s attention. In addition, the Clause 95 stand part notice is in my name; I will come to that shortly. I also have a more substantive amendment near the end of the group on a duty on the UK border agency and the new enforcement agency, the fair work agency, to collaborate or co-operate.
I begin by considering the clause stand part notice. I remind noble Lords that, ostensibly, Clause 95 circumscribes the powers available in respect of using a warrant to enter a dwelling. On the face of it, the clause looks pretty innocuous, but I do not think it should be in the Bill because its wording is quite loose and opaque. I have serious concerns about the use of permissive, wide-ranging powers, particularly in subsection (3)(b), which says
“that it is not practicable to communicate with any person entitled to grant access to the documents or equipment”.
Further, paragraph (d) says
“that the purpose of entry may be frustrated or seriously prejudiced unless an enforcement officer arriving at the dwelling can secure immediate entry to it”.
I would like to interrogate the Minister’s perception and interpretation of these powers. For the avoidance of doubt, I think that the question of whether this clause should stand part of the Bill is worthy of our consideration. Although, of course, it was not considered by the statutory instruments committee—the name of which escapes me—to be a particularly egregious example of permissive or Henry VIII powers, I nevertheless think that it could be misconstrued.
I will now consider the other amendments in my name. Amendment 273A would require the Secretary of State to have “an evidential basis” for believing that a labour market offence is being or has been committed in order to request an LME undertaking, as opposed to requiring merely that the Secretary of State “believes” this to be the case. This amendment is important because what I am attempting to define more clearly the limits of the powers being conferred—in other words, to make it explicit that there has to be a firm evidential basis for exercising those powers. We do not want a situation in which the Secretary of State may do as he wishes as long as he pleads that he believed an offence was being committed.
I am not a lawyer, but I make reference to powers being conferred on a Minister based on subjective jurisdictional criteria. Let us look at—I am sure that the Minister will be advised of this—Customs and Excise Commissioners v Cure & Deeley Ltd 1962, in which it was found that Parliament would never presume on courts adopting a particular approach to statutory construction, especially when it comes to the subtleties of administrative law. I think that this reasonable and rational amendment would tighten up the wording.
Moving on, Amendment 273B would mean that the Secretary of State could impose a prohibition, restriction or requirement as an LME undertaking only where they considered it “proportionate” as well as “just and reasonable”. The test of proportionality is, of course, at the heart of adjudication and the justice system; it is the bread and butter of administrative decision-making, especially in respect of our human rights regime. It is good practice to have statute clear in order to direct Ministers to undertake the kind of judgments which the legal framework will impose on them anyway, and which otherwise will have to be communicated by the production of additional guidance material. That is the basis for that amendment.
Amendment 273C would reduce the maximum period for which an LME measure can have effect from two years to one year. This is a practical amendment, because there is no obvious reason why any necessary measures cannot be imposed and changes expedited within 12 months. It is better, for one thing, that a business falling foul of standards should be made to get its house in order quickly and to be compliant with any LME measure within a reasonable space of time. We are talking not about a month but about 12 months; I think that is a reasonable reduction from two years. It is also better for the economy, public expenditure and Civil Service efficiency to have a shorter timescale.
Amendment 273 would require the Secretary of State to bring the end of the LME measures to the attention of “all” other persons likely to be interested in the matter, rather than “any” such persons, and the subject of the measures. This is clearly straightforward. If you are in a business, you will have multiple partners, directors or people with a significant interest in the business. Therefore, to avoid bureaucratic mistakes and errors, I think it is fair to involve as many people as practicable.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch)
My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt. I am trying to follow the noble Lord’s arguments, but I think Amendment 273 is in a different group.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving me the opportunity to clarify where I am: it is Amendment 273D. My apologies if I have not been clear enough.
This amendment would make a small clarifying adjustment: where the text currently says that the Secretary of State must take whatever steps she or he considers appropriate to bring the end of LME measures to the attention of
“any other persons likely to be interested in the matter”—
that is, other than the subject of the measures—it would use the words “all other persons”. It is important for business certainty, good faith and, indeed, fairness that all those who are affected or likely to be affected by a quite significant measure are kept properly informed about it. Otherwise, we may see messy episodes unfold where there is a misunderstanding or extra, hidden penalties imposed on businesses in the form of the costs of informing the other people affected by the LME measure that it has, for instance, come to an end.
Amendment 273E to Clause 119 would require notice of LMEs against a partnership to be given to “all partners”, rather than just “any partner”. This does not reflect what running a business with multiple partners is like, perhaps in multiple locations or running multiple business units as partners, whether it is an accountancy firm, solicitors or others—I know that there is a different regime for solicitors. It is not sensible to advise only one partner of a significant infraction or issue arising from an LME. If you want businesses to co-operate in ameliorating the issues identified in the LME, you would really need—I admit, at some modest cost—to advise all the partners. You need also to cultivate good faith in order to make the changes necessary arising from the LME.
Furthermore, it is possible that the courts will decide that notice has been given as a matter of law in circumstances where the one partner who was theoretically served it had not actually seen it and was not subjectively aware of it. Better, then, to require that all partners be given notice to ensure that businesses are genuinely aware of the ramifications and the LME decisions.
I am mindful of the time, so I will move with greater alacrity. Amendment 273F would increase the proposed burden of proof for court orders of LME measures from balance of probabilities to beyond reasonable doubt. There is reason to fear that a future Government will use the provision of Clause 117(3), which empowers the Secretary of State to create new kinds of LME measures by regulation, to create measures which go beyond regulation and become punitive, in which case the criminal proof standard will be appropriate. More generally, good faith between businesses and government, which aids compliance, will be better cultivated if they are required to comply with LME measures only in cases where there has been a clear violation.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I support several of the amendments tabled by my noble friend. The stand part notice in my name on Clause 134 is also in this group. We are getting into an interesting bit, in a legal sense, about what information is being gathered and how it can be used. I was somewhat struck by this. I found Clause 130 interesting in that, quite surprisingly, no evidence that has been provided relating to the information can be used in a criminal prosecution, apart from that which is directly related to perjury. That made me wonder how this works.
I want to probe why HMRC is—apart from the intelligence services, which I completely understand—singled out in Clause 134 as a body for which extra permission has to be given before its information can be disclosed to all these other different parties. That does not apply for information about the national minimum wage. I remind the Committee that HMRC is a non-ministerial department, so no Minister can be involved in directing HMRC in any way whatever. That is why it surprises me that it is felt that extra permission is needed. I would love to hear further from the Minister on that.
To turn to other amendments in this group, Amendment 273PB is an important one. I appreciate that there are further amendments later about the wider aspects of immigration, but in recognising that this new body will take over from the gangmaster authority on the extension of the Modern Slavery Act, it makes perfect sense that it should be proactively working—not just on cases that “may” be disclosed—with the Government’s agency that is responsible for tackling illegal immigration and all the impacts that come as a consequence of it. I support my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough in that regard.
I have a cheeky point to make about Amendment 273N. For reasons of procedural purposes, my noble friend does not believe that Schedule 9 should be allowed because it contains Henry VIII powers. However, the Minister has already amended, or at least debated, Schedule 9 during the passage of the Bill. I am quite struck that the Low Pay Commission is one of the bodies to which information may be disclosed in relation to Clauses 113 and 114. I am not aware that it is an enforcement body; I thought that it was, in effect, a research body that comes up with recommendations about the minimum wage and so on.
I also noticed that under “Other persons”, Scottish Ministers have for some reason been left out of the equation and may need to be added. Recognising that Part 5 applies to Scotland as well and that Welsh Ministers will receive information, I am surprised that Scottish Ministers are not there.
To make a broader point, we will of course start to see a lot more co-ordination, even with local government. It might be something for Ministers to share with their colleagues. We need to start thinking about combined authorities and also mayoralties—the Greater London Authority is accounted for, but others are not. The intention of this is, I think, to allow more co-ordinated efforts to try to stop abuse of employment law, including issues relating to modern slavery. I am afraid that, for once, I disagree with my noble friend on this occasion. The Government desperately need to be able to amend the bodies under Schedule 9. My main point was probing, particularly on HMRC.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 271ZC and 273BA but I first thank my noble friends Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Lady Coffey for their amendments. My noble friend Lord Jackson began by describing his amendments as a “cornucopia”. I was always told that a cornucopia was a goat’s horn overflowing with flowers, fruit and corn. A better definition than the one he used would be “an abundant supply of good things”, which opened the opportunity for the Minister to justify the unjustifiable. We all look forward to hearing from her.
Amendment 271ZC seeks to avoid governmental overreach by excluding holiday pay from notices of underpayment, given that the existing legal framework provides adequate remedy for individuals seeking to enforce their rights in this matter.
Amendment 273BA seeks to ensure that labour market enforcement undertakings are requested only when there is a public interest in doing so. This amendment provides an essential layer of protection against the risk of regulatory overreach and against the misuse of powers that could otherwise affect individuals and businesses unfairly. Clause 117 gives the Secretary of State considerable discretion to impose conditions on people or businesses suspected of labour market offences. That discretion already includes subjective tests of what is just and what is reasonable. Who defines what is reasonable? Who ensures that decisions are being made not just fairly but in service of the broader public good? By requiring measures to be in the public interest, as this amendment does, we would root enforcement action in its proper purpose: protecting workers, upholding lawful employment practices and maintaining public confidence in our regulatory system.
This amendment would strengthen the legitimacy of LME undertakings. It would ensure that measures are not only lawful and proportionate but meaningful, and that they serve society as a whole, whether it is tackling exploitation, improving transparency or deterring repeat offences. I believe the public interest must be front and centre. Without this safeguard, we risk opening the door to punitive, reputational or performative measures that may be justified in form but not in principle. This amendment would give Parliament, and more importantly the people affected, the confidence that LME undertakings will be guided by public value, not political expediency or administrative convenience. I urge the Government to support this amendment.
As I mentioned, I also support the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough. His proposed changes to the wording of the legislation, particularly in relation to enforcement powers, are both thoughtful and necessary. By raising the evidential threshold from a simple belief to one requiring an evidential basis, and by increasing the standard of proof for courts from “the balance of probabilities” to “beyond reasonable doubt”, these amendments would introduce essential safeguards. They do not undermine the policy intention of the Bill to tackle labour market offences effectively. Rather, they ensure that enforcement actions are firmly grounded in evidence, and that the rights of employers and individuals are protected from potential overreach or misuse of power. In short, my noble friend’s amendments help strike the critical balance between robust enforcement and fairness, which I believe is vital for maintaining public confidence in the system.
Amendment 273PB, tabled by my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough, is an incredibly important amendment. We live in a world where migration patterns are increasingly complex and the risks associated with illegal immigration, visa overstays and exploitation in our labour market are growing. At the same time, threats to our national security have become more sophisticated, requiring a co-ordinated and agile response across multiple agencies.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords I thank noble Lords who have spoken. I am responding to the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe, Lord Hunt and Lord Jackson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, who have tabled amendments on the powers of the fair work agency and oppose Clauses 95 and 134.
I accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, that some of his amendments are probing amendments. I will attempt to respond to each in turn. Forgive me if I repeat some points that my noble friend Lord Katz made in the previous debate, which covered similar ground. I think we covered some of this ground in debates on a previous day. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that I have no need to justify the unjustifiable in my response.
I will speak first to the fair work agency’s investigatory powers and address the opposition of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, to Clause 95. I listened to the noble Lord, but investigatory powers are common to all regulators. The fair work agency’s powers are based on those set out for existing enforcement bodies in the Employment Agencies Act 1973, the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 and the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004. Employment rights enforcement agencies have had power to enter premises used as dwellings since their inception. For example, HMRC’s minimum wage inspectors can and do regularly visit business premises used as dwellings to gather evidence. It is right that officers should be able to gather evidence from such premises. Businesses operating from premises used as dwellings is nothing new. Pubs, for example, often have flats above the public area where the business’s documentation is kept.
Today, more and more businesses operate from home. Current law makes no distinction for dwellings. This Government believe in stronger safeguards for such powers. That is why Clause 95 introduces a new requirement for a warrant to enter dwellings. Together with the additional safeguards in Clause 128 and Schedule 8, this clause strikes the right balance between protecting the privacy and rights of individuals and allowing the fair work agency to go about its job of enforcing labour market legislation. I hope that I have reassured noble Lords on this point, and that noble Lords can agree that Clause 95 should stand part of the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, also addressed his amendments to Clause 128. I recognise the intent behind these amendments, but there are already extensive safeguards around the use of investigatory powers in Part 5, including the new requirement for a warrant when entering a dwelling. Clause 128 is a sensible provision that sets out that any enforcement officer has the right to execute a warrant and, as long as the enforcement officer is present, they can be accompanied by an authorised person or persons if they deem it relevant to the investigation—for example, an IT specialist.
Turning to Amendment 271ZC from the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, enforcement of holiday pay is a key part of the fair work agency’s remit. Large numbers of workers are missing out on their statutory right to paid annual leave. The Trade Union Congress estimates that 2 million people lose around £3 billion per year by not receiving holiday pay to which they are entitled. We recognise that this disproportionately affects the lowest-paid workers. The fair work agency will not be able to meaningfully support workers to recover the holiday pay they are owed if it cannot issue notices of underpayment. This is a power that is already available in the national minimum wage enforcement regime, which has been successful in ensuring that workers receive the arrears that they are owed. Therefore, I must respectfully resist this amendment.
I turn now to the amendments to Clauses 116 to 121 inclusive, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Jackson, Lord Sharpe and Lord Hunt, together with the amendments to Clauses 126 and 136. These pertain to the labour market enforcement undertakings and orders regime. Although these amendments touch on important aspects of the Bill, they either duplicate existing provisions and introduce unnecessary complexity, or risk undermining the careful balance that has already been struck in the drafting. The labour market enforcement regime was introduced by the 2015 to 2017 Conservative Government. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, at that time in the other place, voted in favour of this regime consistently during the passage of the Immigration Act 2016.
It is a regime that works and works well. It promotes a compliance-first approach, as employers are first encouraged to enter into voluntary undertakings to correct their behaviour. Only persistent or egregious offenders are issued with a compulsory order to stop. As of March 2024, there have been 140 labour market enforcement undertakings and just 14 labour market enforcement orders. These amendments seek to water down the regime and increase legal tests and administrative burdens for its use. By making the labour market enforcement regime more cumbersome and less effective, the fair work agency would have to resort more often to prosecution, which could be disproportionate and time-consuming for all concerned. The effects of these amendments would be to make enforcement more heavy-handed, less efficient and less focused on helping businesses to comply. This is not what businesses or workers want or need, and it is not what the fair work agency is about.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I hear what the Minister says, but surely she would agree that, if one looks at Amendment 273F, which moves from having “a balance of probabilities” to “beyond reasonable doubt”, if you are taking forward an LME infraction case beyond reasonable doubt, you are more likely to succeed, and the corollary of that is that you are not taking forward cases on which you have a paucity of evidence. So, with all due respect to the noble Baroness, I disagree. If you are bringing in proportionality and “beyond reasonable doubt”, you are going to have sharper cases that tackle the most egregious examples of infractions of the legislation and do not waste a lot of time—and consequently save the taxpayer money.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
The evidence shows that the current wording is proportionate. There has not been a huge number of cases. Maybe we could argue about whether there should be more cases, but the fact that there has not been a huge number of cases is a reflection of that. What we do not want to do is set the barrier so high that we cannot take the cases that are necessary to deliver the changes and the better worker protection that we seek to achieve.
I turn to the noble Lord’s Amendment 273N. I agree that effective sharing of information and pooling of knowledge will be crucial to the success of the fair work agency. The list of bodies that the agency will be able to share information with is limited to those with a need for access, and safeguards are provided for. However, the power to update the list is necessary to ensure that the fair work agency can respond to future changes in the wider labour market and the regulatory landscape. It means that we can keep the list of bodies under review and remove bodies where the need to share information no longer applies. This is good data information governance.
The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, asked about the Low Pay Commission being listed. The fair work agency will be able to share information with the bodies in Schedule 9 if it is for the purposes of a function of the body. This does not need to be about the enforcement functions. I also say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee expressed no concern with this power in its report on the Bill.
On the opposition of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to Clause 134, HMRC data is critical for investigating and enforcing various employment rights, not just the national minimum wage. However, I say to the noble Baroness that much of HMRC’s data is confidential, and it is therefore prudent to require an extra level of approval before this information is shared further.
Clause 134 restricts the sharing of confidential HMRC data without authorisation from HMRC commissioners. This will ensure that the fair work agency operates in line with the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act. This is a standard safeguard which is necessary to ensure responsible data sharing between HMRC and the fair work agency.
In relation to Amendment 273PB from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, I reassure him that the Bill already gives the Secretary of State the power to share information with border authorities, such as the National Crime Agency and immigration officers. Rather than enhancing enforcement, the amendment risks introducing unnecessary complexity and diverting attention away from the fair work agency’s core task. The amendment’s intended effect can be achieved through the existing Bill drafting.
I turn to the noble Lord’s Amendment 273R to Clause 140. The ability to recover enforcement costs in relation to the time spent is a matter of fairness. Restricting the use of hourly rates would in practice force the fair work agency to adopt fixed fees. A fixed approach to cost recovery could mean that a small business ended up paying the same as a much larger organisation, regardless of the scale or complexity of the case, and that is not fair. This clause is an enabling power. Regulations made under it will be subject to the affirmative procedure. Parliament will be able to scrutinise and debate whether to adopt a fixed-fee or variable-fee regime at the point where the regime is proposed, and it is right that we afford that flexibility in design at this stage.
In conclusion, while I appreciate the intention behind the amendments, they either replicate what is already achieved by the Bill’s existing provisions or risk unsettling a framework that has already been carefully constructed. I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, not to press Amendment 271ZC.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I thank the Minister for that comprehensive canter through my amendments. I defer to the poetic licence of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and accept that it is not a cornucopia, but my cup overfloweth nevertheless.
I appreciate the spirit in which the amendments were received. I was attempting to improve the Bill. Not for the first time, my noble friend Lord Hunt put it much more succinctly than I did in that, certainly with regard to proportionality and “beyond reasonable doubt”, notwithstanding the excellent drafting by officials, the amendments would have improved the Bill.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would enable an application for an order enforcing a requirement in a notice of underpayment to pay a sum to an individual to be made in Scotland to a summary sheriff (as well as to a sheriff).
Lord Sharpe of Epsom
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment requires the worker’s informed consent before the Secretary of State can initiate legal action, preserving individual autonomy and control over personal legal matters.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 271D, I shall speak also to Amendments 272ZZA, 272ZZB, 272ZZC, 272ZZD, 272ZZE, 272ZB, 272ZC, 272AA, 272AB and 272AC.
There is a troubling message throughout this legislation of the fundamental belief that third parties, whether they be unions or the state in Part 5, will make decisions on behalf of individuals rather than individuals being able to make decisions for themselves. The challenge with third parties making decisions is that they pay no price when they are wrong, and that is evidenced in this clause. Clause 113(6) states:
“The Secretary of State is not liable to any worker for anything done (or omitted to be done) in, or in connection with, the discharge or purported discharge of the Secretary of State’s functions by virtue of this section”.
That is an unacceptable subsection in this clause, hence my Amendment 272ZZE.
The reality is that workers whose claims are taken up or not taken up by the Secretary of State risk having their rights mishandled or ignored, yet, under the clause as drafted, they would have no recourse, remedy or ability to challenge that failure. We think that that sets a dangerous precedent, because we are granting power without responsibility. We would be creating a regime in which decisions that affect individuals’ livelihoods and legal rights can be made from behind a veil of immunity. That is neither just nor consistent with the principles of good governance. We need to be clear that, if a private employer or a trade union behaved with this level of impunity, we would not accept it, so why are we accepting it from the state?
The fundamental principle underlying Amendments 271D, 272ZZA, 272ZZB, 272ZZD and 272ZC is consent. Clause 113 currently allows the Secretary of State to initiate legal action in a worker’s name without requiring that worker’s consent. That is deeply problematic. Legal proceedings, particularly employment proceedings, can be deeply personal, reputationally sensitive and complicated. To bring such proceedings without the individual’s explicit and informed consent is a serious encroachment on personal autonomy. My Amendment 271D would insert a requirement that the worker must provide written consent before the Secretary of State may act on their behalf. That is not a mere administrative formality; it is the cornerstone of the individual’s control over their own legal affairs.
What if consent was not initially required or given but circumstances change? That is addressed in my Amendment 272ZZA, which would establish a clear opt-out mechanism. It would ensure that the worker is given notice before proceedings begin and is afforded 28 days to object. If they do, the case does not proceed. Surely this strikes a balance between the state’s interest in pursuing enforcement and the worker’s right to decide how their own case is handled. Legal action is not always welcome, even when it is justified. The consequences of litigation, especially in employment, can be damaging professionally and personally. Workers may prefer alternative dispute resolution.
However, consent and opt-out are not enough on their own. Even with consent, the state must be bound by a duty to act in the worker’s best interests. That is why I have proposed an amendment requiring that the Secretary of State should have regard to the worker’s stated objectives, the potential impact on their current and future employment, and the proportionality of taking legal action in the specific context. That is a safeguard to prevent well-meaning intervention becoming harmful or heavy-handed.
Then there is the matter of control. A worker may initially consent to the Secretary of State taking the lead but later wish to take back control of the proceedings, perhaps because they have secured private representation or circumstances have changed. My Amendment 272ZZD addresses this. It would ensure that the worker retains the right to reclaim their case and that the Secretary of State must accommodate that request. It affirms that ultimate control remains with the individual and not with the state.
Finally, my Amendment 272ZC would introduce a fundamental principle, that of subsidiarity. The state should not intervene unless there is absolutely no other viable route to justice. If the worker has representation or access to advice or union support, that route should be exhausted first. Legal action by the Secretary of State should be a last resort, not a first impulse.
These amendments are not intended to frustrate enforcement—far from it. They are designed to ensure that enforcement is fair, consensual and genuinely in the interest of the person whose rights are at stake. Workers are not passive subjects of policy; they are individuals with agency, judgment and a right to decide how they wish to pursue justice. We must ensure that the Bill does not cross the line from protection into paternalism.
I turn to Amendments 272AA and 272AC. Amendment 272AA simply calls for an annual report—nothing excessive, just a basic record of how often these powers have been used, what types of claims have been pursued, the outcomes and any costs or awards recovered. This is a common-sense transparency measure. If the state is litigating on behalf of private individuals, we should, at the very least, be keeping track of how that power is being exercised and with what effect.
Amendment 272AB, however, is the more pressing amendment because it would place a sunset clause on the power, causing it to expire at the end of the next Parliament unless it is actively renewed. It would also require an independent review to assess whether this power has delivered real value for workers, for justice and for public money, because the truth is we simply do not know if this clause is necessary. We do not know if workers even want the state litigating on their behalf; we do not know if the outcomes justify the costs; and we certainly do not know if this is the most effective way to improve enforcement. If this power is to remain, Parliament should be given clear evidence that it works and works better than the alternatives.
Finally, Amendment 272ZB would introduce a simple but important safeguard: a public interest test before the Secretary of State can bring proceedings on a worker’s behalf. Without this, we risk allowing the state to pursue claims that may be frivolous, politically motivated or unnecessary, potentially at public expense and also to the detriment of both workers and employers. Litigation should not be used to make a point; it should be used to deliver justice where it truly matters. This amendment would ensure that such powers are exercised responsibly and proportionately, and only where there is a clear public benefit. I beg to move.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I oppose the Question that Clause 113 stand part of the Bill. I raised this in Second Reading, and I appreciate the discussions that have taken place with officials and the Minister since, but I genuinely believe these are novel powers.
I appreciate that we are perhaps just not going to agree today on how far the Equality Act 2006 goes, but when I tabled Questions to the Minister, they were passed to the EHRC. The commission said that, since it had received those powers—I think it was commenced in 2007—no powers had been used to initiate legal proceedings that were not judicial review or as an intervener. It gave me the distinct impression that it did not necessarily believe that it should be initiating legal proceedings in this regard. It has its own policy and that is under consultation. However, it does beg the question, given some of the other consultations that the Government have initiated, whether they will in future seek to take over any such duties or powers that the EHRC has in a variety of legal proceedings, because the EHRC is not using powers that the Government think it has. However, I think that is still really a matter of debate.
Building on the amendments that have been tabled by my noble friends on the Front Bench, I think this is an odd situation. I appreciate we have discussed elements of Clause 113 before; indeed, the other day we debated my noble friend Lady Noakes’s sensible amendment that this should be in the public interest. It would be helpful to understand from Ministers what they see will happen as a consequence of this. Where are we getting to? What is going on?
I have deliberately degrouped some parts of this discussion on Clause 114—about the money side—but it is useful to understand that, for the purposes of this clause, this is not just about people who are working; it is about people who do not have a job with the person they are seeking to take to court. We had a debate some time ago about why that could be, and we got into a debate about what sort of special privileges there might be. Nevertheless, this seems quite an extraordinary shift in the capability of the Government, first, to initiate these proceedings anyway and, secondly, to do so when the worker involved does not intend to do so. That is why, I appreciate, the legal wording really restricts any inclusion of the worker at a future date, which specifically seems to be ruled out in various provisions in the clause, except in Clause 113(5), which allows the worker to be brought in at an appeal stage. However, I am concerned more generally about this approach of a new agency.
Another element that really concerns me is subsection (6), which in essence provides:
“The Secretary of State is not liable to any worker for anything done (or omitted to be done)”.
I expect that is there to cover circumstances—we may have had a brief exchange on this already—in which the worker says, “You didn’t go after this bit or that bit”; it is kind of “Tough luck”. As it stands, it is not clear to me whether, if the worker is unhappy with the action taken, double jeopardy is allowed: will the worker be allowed to initiate separate claims against the employer, if they feel that the Secretary of State and the enforcement officers have admitted different things?
Overall, this clause is an unnecessary innovation. I am concerned about it, and I would be grateful for some broad examples of how it could be used in the future.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
My Lords, I support the amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom. Looking at Clause 113, I am put in mind of the pre-exploration exhortation of Colonel Kurtz: “The horror! The horror!”. As an employment lawyer looking at this clause, I can say that it is a complete Horlicks. It is truly bizarre. Can the Minister say why this power is required? Who should decide whether the Secretary of State should intervene in a person’s right to bring proceedings? Why should that choice be taken away from them? If the Secretary of State decides to bring proceedings, how would the Secretary of State compel the person who did not want to bring proceedings to give evidence in their own claim that they are not bringing? Why would the judge decide that the claim should be allowed to succeed, in the absence of evidence from the person whose claim it is?
Then there is the question as to why the taxpayers of this country should bring proceedings in the name of somebody who does not want to bring them, possibly against a public sector employer who then has to pay to defend those proceedings to make an award of damages to a person who does not want to claim damages. All this is absolutely beyond belief.
Furthermore, I noticed that it is a discretion:
“the Secretary of State may, in place of the worker, bring proceedings about the matter in an employment tribunal under the enactment”,
which appears to relate to any enactment in the entire employment canon. There is no explanation as to the test the Secretary of State is going to apply in making that discretion. That exercise of discretion will plainly be subject to judicial review. If the Secretary of State chooses not to exercise their power, no doubt there will be satellite litigation in the High Court—brought by the unions, I suspect—as to why the Secretary of State has not chosen to bring a claim on behalf of somebody who they think should have had their claim brought by the Secretary of State. Applying the usual tests, I suppose it will be said that it was irrational not to bring the claim or it was in breach of some legitimate expectation that their claim would be brought. It seems to me that that whole delight now lies before the Committee as to whether there should be litigation on behalf of somebody who does not want to litigate.
This is simply an absurd and inverse world of mirrors that, frankly, Lewis Carroll in Through the Looking-Glass would not have believed was possible. The lunacy of it is notable in Clause 113(5), whereby a worker can appeal against the outcome in a claim when he did not even want to bring a claim. This is so badly thought out that it should clearly be withdrawn.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, I follow my noble friends by supporting the amendments tabled by my noble friend Lord Sharpe and voicing very strong opposition to Clause 113. I could not believe it when I read this clause. I could not believe that a third party—the Secretary of State—could bring proceedings on my behalf to a tribunal if I did not want proceedings brought. Nor did I think that subsection (6) was worthy of any government Bill. One could go through the whole of this clause and find something very wrong with it on many grounds.
There are many reasons why a worker may not want to proceed with a claim. He or she may not wish to bring proceedings because of the hassle involved, the delay, the stress to themselves and their family in waiting for the tribunal—which can never hear a claim quickly—the potential impact on his or her reputation, or a perfectly natural desire by an employee to settle things amicably with their employer. There are many individual reasons: family reasons, personal reasons and professional reasons. What right have we to give the Secretary of State powers to override that basic individual liberty in order to bring a case which someone may not want to be brought?
One can only wonder why such a clause is there—that the Secretary of State can bring proceedings, presumably, against a worker’s will or inclination. We can only assume that this may be due to workplace political pressures exercised by others in the workplace, perhaps by union members who want these cases brought as test cases and for the taxpayers to pay, or by others who have the ear of government.
This is a very sectional Bill in the interest of one vested interest group. I have said it before during proceedings, but it is not for the Government of this country in a parliamentary democracy to sectionalise the law in favour of one interest group or another. Clause 113 is particularly dangerous, and I support my noble friends’ amendments to it. I hope the Government will not proceed with it.
Lord Carter of Haslemere (CB)
My Lords, I support the comments made, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Murray. This is an extraordinary clause; I am not aware of anything else on the statute book like it.
My practical question to the Minister is: if the Secretary of State takes it upon himself or herself to go to court on a worker’s behalf, and the worker is strongly against that, what will that do to the relationship between the worker and the employer? It could absolutely devastate that relationship, because the employer will greatly resent the fact that the Secretary of State is taking proceedings on behalf of the worker, even if the worker has said that they do not want those proceedings brought. This is not good for industrial relations at all.
I really urge the Government to rethink this. What are its practical implications? How will it work in practice if the worker is against it? Will they be called as a witness by the Secretary of State, if necessary? Will they then be a hostile witness? It is all a complete and utter mess, I am afraid. I was not planning to speak on this, but this is an extraordinary clause and I urge Ministers to drop it completely.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I was happy to sign the clause stand part notice with my noble friend Lady Coffey. I am thinking of the words of Zhou Enlai, I think, who, considering the French Revolution, said, “What did they mean by that?” I look at this clause and think, “What do they mean by this?” Maybe the Minister will open the trinket box at the end of this process and let us into the secret of this bizarre, perverse clause, but I really cannot see the point of it.
I am mindful of the fact that we are surrounded by very accomplished lawyers, so I will not get too much into law, but lawyers and others will be aware that Magna Carta—1215; I know the noble Lord, Lord Katz, likes a history lesson occasionally in Committee—resiled from the arbitrary power of the state. It is an arbitrary power of the state for it to insert itself into civil litigation without any real methodological basis, any timeline or, as my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth so rightly said, any tests being met. That is very odd.
Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us as to the rationale. The clause is novel. It is completely perverse and unheard of, to be quite honest, because it will engender a disputatious regime, more litigation and more disputes in the workplace. It will have a deleterious effect on business, commerce and profitability, and on how businesses are run. What tests will the Minister use? How likely is it that these powers will be used and at what likely cost? Is there any impact assessment or opportunity cost as to the use of these powers?
Why does subsection (2) leave agricultural workers out of the process? There may be a specific sectoral reason for that, but that is a reasonable question to ask. Why are they not swept up in these powers? Why are their rights not circumscribed to not get involved in civil litigation in respect of employment?
Finally, the most bonkers part of a truly epically bonkers clause is subsection (7). It is so crazy that it could have been written by the Liberal Democrats, but it would be unkind to make such an observation. My noble friend Lady Coffey has already made the point that you do not even have to be a worker to have the Secretary of State impose themselves into your potential litigation on a matter; you can be someone seeking employment as a worker. Presumably, anyone who is of working age can be affected by this clause. Subsection (7) also states that a worker is defined more widely as an individual who is a worker for the purposes of Part 4A of the Employment Rights Act 1996.
I really do not understand the rationale for or the logic behind this clause. The Minister is clearly aware of the great disquiet that it gives rise to, and I hope she answers the specific points made, not least by the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere. It takes something for a noble Lord of his experience in the law to say that this is the most perverse and strangest clause he has seen in a piece of primary legislation. On that basis, I hope the Minister will respond to that and answer those specific points that noble Lords, in particular the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, have raised.
Lord Ashcombe (Con)
My Lords, I support my noble friends Lord Sharpe of Epsom and Lord Hunt of Wirral in some of the amendments in this group, and my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lord Jackson of Peterborough in their opposition to Clause 113, which I must describe—much as the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, did—as quite extraordinary. It is extraordinary because it grants the Secretary of State exceptional powers—namely, the ability to initiate proceedings before an employment tribunal on behalf of a worker without that worker’s consent or even their knowledge. How can this be right? If a worker has chosen not to pursue a claim, whatever their reasons, how can the state reasonably step in and proceed in their name? Unlike my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth, I am no lawyer, but I think this demonstrates the need for Amendment 271D.
Consent is a fundamental principle in so many aspects of law and life, yet here it appears to be disregarded. Amendment 272ZZA at the very least seeks to restore some balance by ensuring that the worker in question is given the opportunity to consent or decline. If consent is not given, the matter should go no further: all bets should be off. I find it puzzling that those on the Benches opposite consider it appropriate to have the ability to disclose personal data, whether legally privileged or not, without the written consent of the individual concerned. It is not typically something permitted in other circumstances. It is not fair, and we are about fairness in this House.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I begin by saying what a pleasure it was to be chaired by the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, who is celebrating 55 years of public service today. I congratulate her.
Back to the not-so-inspiring business: I am responding to the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, on his amendments relating to civil proceedings and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, and the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for giving notice of their opposition to Clause 113. The Government are committed to ensuring a fair playing field for all employees and businesses. This includes enabling the fair work agency to challenge breaches of employment rights and labour abuse where individuals may not be able to pursue this for themselves or where these cases are not suitable for other enforcement routes.
I am sorry to hear that some noble Lords cannot envisage the circumstance in which these powers might be necessary but, as we rehearsed on a previous group of amendments, many vulnerable workers, especially migrant workers, are reluctant or unable to bring their case to the tribunal to enforce their employment rights. Rogue employers exploit this, break employment law and get away with it. That is unfair for the majority of businesses that do right by their staff. It is unfair for the vulnerable workers involved in being denied their rights. It is unfair for British workers who are denied work opportunities due to illegal practices undercutting them. That is why, in the plan to make work pay, which was a manifesto commitment, we set out that the fair work agency will have the power to bring civil proceedings to uphold employment rights. This is why the Secretary of State will have the power to bring proceedings in place of a worker. It will mean that all employers are held to the same standards.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and the noble Lord, Lord Carter, that these provisions on civil proceedings are modelled on the Equality Act 2006, which allows the Equality and Human Rights Commission to institute legal proceedings that are connected to the commission’s functions. This includes bringing proceedings for breaches of the European Convention on Human Rights and assisting individuals who are party to proceedings related to the Equality Act 2010.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
If the noble Lord lets me finish this point, I may answer his question.
The Employment and Human Rights Commission does not need consent for this and has issued proceedings in its own name before. When acting as an intervenor, the EHRC has also previously received court approval to take over conduct of an appeal on behalf of an appellant when the appellant decided to withdraw from the legal proceedings. This was done with the consent of the Supreme Court in the case of MS (Pakistan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department. I give way.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for reaching the end of that paragraph. She agrees that the power for the EHRC to intervene in proceedings is not a power to take over and institute proceedings if people do not want to. Instead, it is a power to intervene and carry on proceedings in the event that somebody wants to withdraw. That is not based on any statutory provision; this is still extremely novel. I am sure that the Minister will agree that there is no statutory precedent for the kind of power that the Government want to take in Clause 113.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
As the noble Lord has more legal expertise than me, I am happy to write to him on that point because it is an important point that we need to clarify. Of course, these are relatively new powers that we are taking on board, and we are taking them for very good reasons. I am sorry that noble Lords opposite do not see the case for this, because, certainly, an awful lot of workers are being exploited out there. At the moment, they do not have the power to speak for themselves in the way that many others who are better informed can do.
While I respect the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, behind some of his amendments, I must state they are unnecessary. Some of the provisions of the amendments are already provided for, either within the existing drafting of the specific clauses or in other clauses of the Bill. Regarding Amendments 271D, 272ZZA and 272ZZD, as I mentioned on Monday, normal practice would be for the Secretary of State to bring proceedings with a worker’s consent and involvement. However, in the worst cases of serious exploitation and intimidation, workers may fear the repercussions that they may face from their employer should they be de-anonymised. By allowing the Secretary of State to take a case forward without consent, it would be harder for employers to attribute blame to individual employees. Therefore, limiting this power in the way that these amendments seek to do could prevent the Secretary of State pursuing serious breaches in some of the most egregious cases.
Amendment 272ZZB is an unnecessary amendment. Legally privileged material and confidential information is already protected under the Data Protection Act, as well as under usual legal rules and principles that apply to proceedings.
On Amendment 272ZZC, normal public law principles already take account of all considerations referenced in this amendment, including the best interests of a worker. This is therefore another unnecessary amendment.
Amendment 272ZZE is yet another unnecessary amendment. Clause 113(6) does not provide a blanket exclusion from all liability, and it is self-evident that the Secretary of State would be held accountable if they undertook actions that were unlawful. This is a basic principle of the rule of law.
On Amendment 272ZC, it is clearly in the interests of enforcement authorities and all parties that the most effective and proportionate means of enforcement is chosen. The Bill already provides that civil proceedings cannot be initiated where a notice of underpayment has been given. It would be inappropriate to impose hurdles on the fair work agency’s use of its powers; it should be able to decide how best it will use this and its other powers to enforce labour market legislation in each case.
On Amendment 272AA, Clause 92 already provides for the fair work agency to prepare and publish an annual report, which we would expect to cover all of its activities. It is simply not necessary to require individual reports on individual powers.
We strongly resist Amendment 272AB. Ultimately, the business of the next Parliament should be for that Parliament to decide and not for us to dictate now.
Briefly on Amendment 272AC, only officers with appropriate knowledge and training will carry out these powers. Clause 87(6) already clearly provides that a person can exercise the powers of an enforcement officer only to the extent specified in their appointment by the Secretary of State. This amendment would duplicate that existing provision.
To summarise, Clause 113, together with Clauses 114 and 115, delivers a manifesto commitment. It provides a new power that will enable fair work agency enforcement officers to bring proceedings to an employment tribunal in place of a worker. It is designed to address situations where a worker has a legal right to bring a claim but, for various reasons, including fear of retaliation, lack of awareness or language barriers, they are unable to do so. This clause enhances the state’s ability to support the most vulnerable workers in accessing justice and will be particularly valuable in cases involving labour exploitation or breaches of minimum employment standards.
It will bring broader benefits. The fair work agency will be able to bring multiple complaints simultaneously. This will save time and costs for workers and employers alike. It has the potential to reduce the burden on the employment tribunal system over current practices, where most claims are brought individually.
Importantly, the clause is tightly drawn. The fair work agency’s tribunal proceedings will follow the same process as if they were brought by workers. This includes a requirement for ACAS consultation. Additionally, the power cannot be used in cases where a notice of underpayment has been issued under Section 100. This ensures that there is no duplication of enforcement mechanisms. Both the Secretary of State and the worker can appeal a decision, recognising that both parties have a legitimate interest in the outcome. The clause includes safeguards to ensure that the Secretary of State cannot be held liable to the worker for how they exercise this power, reflecting the discretionary and strategic nature of enforcement.
This clause forms a crucial part of the fair work agency’s toolkit, enhances the effectiveness of labour market enforcement and delivers a manifesto commitment upon which Members in the other place were elected. It should stand part of the Bill.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I am listening very carefully to the Minister, and she did not address either of my specific points. Given that she is saying that this rather strange clause is to defend the interests of new migrants and black and minority-ethnic folk, many of whom work in agriculture, particularly in the east of England and other parts of the UK, why is there a carve-out for agricultural workers? The Minister did not answer my question on why that happened. Secondly, can I press her on my specific point on why de facto unemployed people fall under the purview of subsection (7) of this clause, allowing the Secretary of State to insert state apparatus into their litigation, when they are not even in gainful employment?
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord. My apologies; I should have answered both of those questions. On the issue of agricultural workers, I do not know the answer, so I will write to the noble Lord. On his question about why subsection (7) covers people who are not yet employed, the clause was worded in that way to capture whistleblowers and was amended to widen it to include zero-hours contract workers. I hope that answers the noble Lord’s questions.
Baroness Verma (Con)
I am slightly confused. This seems to be quite a heavy-handed way of capturing workers who may have difficulties understanding their rights. Instead of being so heavy-handed about the whole approach and making it look like a two-tier system is being created, in which migrant workers in particular are focused on, maybe we can look at how we can inform both employers and employees about their rights, without taking such an approach. The people we are trying to protect will most definitely not be protected by this.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
Although I did talk about migrant workers as an example, this is meant to capture all vulnerable workers and all workers who are exposed to unfair practices or intimidation—which happens rather more than noble Lords opposite like to acknowledge.
In conclusion, the civil proceedings powers within the Bill align with our manifesto commitment—
Baroness Coffey (Con)
The Minister explained subsection (7)(a)(i) of this clause with regards to zero-hours contracts. In subsection (7)(a)(ii), I am struggling to understand how an individual
“seeking to be employed by a person as a worker”
could be a whistleblower. I would be grateful to understand that better, but I am happy for the Minister to write.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
On that point of clarification, I will write to the noble Baroness.
In conclusion, the civil proceedings powers within the Bill align with our manifesto commitment to strengthen enforcement and improve outcomes for workers through a fairer, more accessible system. We need to let the fair work agency operate with the tools it needs, guided by the statute but not constricted by inflexible restrictions or ministerial bottlenecks. I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, to withdraw Amendment 271D.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply. She will not be surprised to know that I am afraid I did not buy any of those arguments.
I am extremely grateful to my noble friends Lady Coffey, Lady Lawlor, Lord Jackson, Lord Ashcombe and Lady Verma for their interventions; they all made extremely good points. I will return to the points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Carter of Haslemere and Lord Murray of Blidworth, in a second.
We have just heard this clause described variously as “beyond belief”, “especially bonkers”, “an utter mess”, “quite extraordinary” and “perverse and unheard of”. Do you know what? It is all of those things. This has been an extraordinary debate, and so many interesting points have been made that it is hard to sum up. However, there is one point that was brought to my attention by the noble Lord, Lord Sandhurst, who was sitting next to me at the time. He pointed out that this clause might be in contravention of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights: the right to respect for private and family life. This needs to be explored, and it is important for the Minister to take account of, because, under Section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act 1998, she has to sign on the front of this Bill that it is compatible with the rights under that convention.
I will read the relevant article, so it is on the record:
“Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence … There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others”.
I do not expect the Minister to answer this now, but I would be very grateful if she could at least allude to the legal advice that she was given before she signed the Bill to confirm that it did not contravene Article 8.
I appreciate that government legal advice is rarely published, but, having had some experience of government lawyers and their risk-averse nature, I would be very surprised if they had considered this in its entirety. I would be grateful if the Minister would come back to that issue, perhaps in the letter to my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth. This is clearly one of the subjects to which we will have to return, because, as both the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and my noble friend Lord Murray have explained, this is extraordinary and positively Kafkaesque.
I will leave the last words to my noble friend Lord Murray of Blidworth, who pointed out that we could end up in a state where we have litigation about litigation on behalf of someone who does not want to litigate. That is frankly absurd. For now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Before I sit down, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fookes, on her 55 years of public service. I believe that she was first elected on 18 June 1970 to represent Merton and Morden—many congratulations.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
That is most kind, but we must not be diverted from the business in hand. Is it your Lordships’ pleasure that this amendment be withdrawn?
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the definition of “worker” being inserted into Part 5 by my amendment of clause 148 at page 147, line 9.
Baroness Coffey
“(1A) This section only applies to an individual, not a trade union or a person acting on behalf of a trading union, seeking to take action against an employer.”
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, in moving my Amendment 272BA, I will speak also to Amendments 272D to 272L and to oppose Clause 114 standing part of the Bill. With Amendments 272J to 272L, I will consider parts of Clause 115.
I have looked at the Labour Party’s manifesto plan, Make Work Pay. In a previous debate, we talked about enforcement, but no reference was made to this being done without the consent of the worker involved. The manifesto is silent on providing funds, so I thought it was worth debating why we are having this, who it will go to and what amount of money we are considering. Consequently, I have proposed a number of amendments. They were actually tabled before we had the debate on Monday in which covered elements of this. At that time, I noted the response of the Minister, who said that the word “person” used in this legislation—I am not a litigator but a legislator, and I continue to learn about some of these matters—could also include an employer, which I also somewhat address in aspects of some of these amendments.
One of my questions is: who will this benefit? My reason for putting forward Amendment 272BA is to try to make it explicit that we are not talking about money going off to a trade union, which might provide legal advice or legal assistance. When we discussed it the other day, we never got to the bottom of what “any other … assistance” may be. I appreciate that that might be a catch-all, but it would be helpful to get some examples of what Clause 114(2)(c) would cover.
When we get into this—I appreciate that the noble Lord, Lord Fox, has tabled an amendment about legal aid in a later group—it is important to ask: where is this really going? The EHRC has some similar powers to finance proceedings. When I asked the EHRC to set out the amount of money, it said that, as of last month, there were four live cases and that, since April 2020—five years ago—it had spent £1.2 million on this sort of provision. Recognising that the EHRC can already provide assistance on aspects of discrimination and the like, I wanted to try to explore, in this clause stand part debate, what the Government were signing themselves up to and, as I pointed out, to whom it would go.
Amendment 272D is intended to be a probing amendment to examine how much an individual could claim—whether for advice or for representation—and to consider how often people might be turning to the fund that the Government seek to put forward. Should we cap that? How many times can somebody go to get basically free advice? I do not know who would even provide it. We could well consider that it should be provided by only the government legal service, under the auspices of the Attorney-General. I cannot imagine that that is what the Government are thinking, but it would be useful to understand who they think will deliver this and how.
Part of the role of the single enforcement body was supposed to be a place for anyone to go to get advice for free. So I am trying to understand what further is in this. By the way, the Government’s intention— I think it is in their manifesto and other papers they have developed—is that employers can go to the new fair work agency to get advice on how this all works and what they should do as employers. So I am interested to understand where else this could be.
Turning to Amendment 272E, I am conscious that—as was rightly pointed out to me a few weeks ago by, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway—Clause 114(2) says “may provide”, rather than “must”, so it will not become a right to get this money. But it would be fair for statutory guidance to be developed and published—ideally, as quickly as possible—on the result of this subsection coming into effect. Candidly, if people anticipate that extra funding will be available, it is important that they understand what expectation they should genuinely have.
In Amendment 272F, I am trying to address the situation that just came up in the debate on Clause 113. I find it hard to understand how we can be in a situation where, having taken over a case, it would go against the sense of natural justice that the worker themselves would then not be able to make representations to the tribunal, or indeed to other courts, to help consider why it has been taken over, when they did not want such action to do. I felt that it was important that, frankly, the Government should pay for that. For me, that felt like a sense of natural justice in that regard.
Amendment 272G concerns something I have raised before, but I wanted to specifically address it. I find it astonishing that the Government are opening up this fund for people to get advice—which, I assume, they cannot get from the fair work agency—but they will not be allowed to use it towards mediation. The answer given in previous debates was, “Well, people can just go to ACAS”. That is right, they can—and ACAS is free. However, while it is free for early conciliation, it is not free for more advanced mediation.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, in this group of amendments, I have the stand part notice for Clause 114. I support the several amendments in this group in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey, many of which are probing amendments to try to find out more about this clause. I could find no clear rationale that the Government have given for Clause 114, in the sense of providing a rationale for the state—that is to say, taxpayers—funding the legal and other costs of civil proceedings in employment matters cases.
The scope of Clause 114 is huge. Not only does it cover the whole of employment, trade union and labour relations law, but the intended recipients seem to be unlimited. My noble friend Lady Coffey referred to the use of “person”. Subsection (1) refers to
“a person who is or may become party to civil proceedings”,
which covers a huge number of persons, and there does not seem to be any clear target for this clause. Of course, as we have heard, the funding can also extend to litigation involving non-employment matters, which seems extraordinary to me. All of this adds up to Clause 114 being very wide.
We already have in the UK a system for providing support for people in legal cases. It is called legal aid. It costs the taxpayer around £2 billion a year, nearly half of which is for civil litigation. That already has rules for employment tribunal support, where there is no funding for legal representation but there may be funding for advice on preparing cases. Successive Governments have had to make hard choices about what will be funded by legal aid in order to keep the cost of it within reasonable bounds for taxpayers as a whole but, now, with Clause 114, the business department is going to undermine that completely by taking powers to fund legal cases completely outside of the structures and limits that have been created for the legal aid system. The Government are again showing that they are, at heart, a two-tier Government, with unlimited legal aid by the backdoor for some favoured employment cases but tough eligibility criteria and financial limits for everybody else.
I now turn to the costings, which my noble friend Lady Coffey mentioned briefly. I could not find out what Clause 114 is going to cost. There is a limited amount of information in the paperwork that surrounds the Bill on the estimate of the overall costs for the fair work agency but, as far as I could find, there is no reference to how much the implementation of this proposal to fund legal costs will be within that totality. So my question to the Minister is really quite simple: what are the Government’s estimates of what Clause 114 will cost?
Going beyond that into the underlying assumptions, how many cases do the Government expect to bankroll every year? Will the Government support only cases with a better than average chance of success, or will they also fund no-hopers? What is the average cost of the cases that they think they will fund using the powers under Clause 114? What are their assumptions about cost recovery? I would have expected to find all these things analysed in detail somewhere in the papers, but I could not find anything. I hope the Minister will be able to answer these specific questions, and maybe also explain the lack of analysis in the documentation that the Government have prepared surrounding the Bill so far.
As I said earlier, I support my noble friend Lady Coffey’s amendments in this group, and I will listen carefully to what the Minister says in response to those amendments and, indeed, on Clause 114 standing part overall. My view is that, in the absence of good justification and a good understanding of the costs of Clause 114, it should not stand part of the Bill.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I commend my noble friends’ excellent speeches on this clause. I press the Minister on what the Explanatory Notes say about subsection (4), because we have talked about the concept of persons and what that actually means. My noble friend spoke earlier about ministerial powers and the lack of information on costs, which should have been in a proper and more detailed impact assessment but is not. It is not in any supporting material, including the Labour Party manifesto for the general election. Presumably, the Minister will say that such information about the form and function of the clause will be developed in secondary legislation.
The sentence in the Explanatory Notes about subsection (4) is extraordinary, because it touches on what is potentially ultra vires and will certainly, I think, be subject to litigation or judicial review. Given that this is an Employment Rights Bill about labour relations and employment, it says:
“Subsection (4) makes provision for situations where proceedings relate partly to employment or trade union law … and partly to other matters”.
I just do not understand what those other matters can be. This is an employment law Bill. It is about labour relations and the relationships between employers, trade unions and a workforce. What other matters are within the bailiwick of Clause 114? I think we need to press the Minister on that, because we are being invited to give a blank cheque with taxpayers’ money to something that is very opaque, we do not understand, is not costed and is not detailed. On that basis, the Minister should address those specific issues.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friends Lady Coffey, Lady Noakes and Lord Jackson of Peterborough for some penetrating questions about the power to provide legal assistance as set out in Clause 114. First, I would like the Minister to share with us what discussions have been held with the Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Justice. A number of the points made by my noble friends relate to the fact that legal aid is already available in certain circumstances, so what is this all about and, as my noble friend Lady Coffey asked, who is this going to benefit?
Lord Katz (Lab)
I do not want to disappoint the noble Lord, but I am afraid he is stuck with me again. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for tabling amendments on legal assistance and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for notifying us of her opposition to Clause 114 standing part of the Bill.
I will start with Amendment 272BA. To be fair, the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and others indicated that this has overlapped with not only previous discussions today but discussions of groups on previous days in Committee. As my noble friend Lady Jones said on Monday, the drafting of Clause 114
“was carefully thought through and is deliberately broad and inclusive”.—[Official Report, 16/6/25; col. 1883.]
It is only fair that it covers not just employees but employers and trade unions. To answer a specific question from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, about what other assistance could be provided, this could include help in understanding procedural requirements, preparing documents or accessing expert input. It is designed to be flexible and responsive to individual needs. Given this, we cannot support Amendment 272BA.
Amendment 272D would restrict the amount of support that could be offered to any individual through this power. It is not a reasonable measure. I understand that it is a probing amendment, as the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, said, but the small amount proposed in the amendment would leave the power meaningless. As we have discussed, this would be, although it is not intended as such, tantamount to a wrecking proposal, because it is such a small amount. Obviously, as we have discussed, this is a manifesto commitment. The fair work agency should be able to decide how much support it can offer, without being constrained to random financial limits for no good reason.
Amendment 272E would create an additional process before the power can be used. Part 5 of the Bill already calls for the fair work agency to publish an annual strategy, as we discussed on an earlier group. Requiring yet another administrative document in this way would be burdensome and unnecessary, and I think we share across the Committee a desire to reduce bloated bureaucracy—a phrase that has already been used this afternoon.
Turning to Amendment 272F, the powers under Clause 114 will operate in tandem with those in Clause 113, but workers will not always want to be separately represented in proceedings brought by the fair work agency. They can be represented, but they do not have to be. Therefore, we cannot support this amendment.
Amendment 272G would mean that the fair work agency would duplicate ACAS’s existing responsibilities regarding dispute resolution. This power is not intended to be a replacement or a duplication of existing support. We cannot support this amendment, as it would complicate the enforcement landscape when we are trying with this Bill to simplify it.
Amendment 272H would limit the scope of this power. It would create situations where legal assistance would have to cease, even if proceedings continued, leading to unfairness. It could lead to people being unable to continue their cases, which could cover other matters such as discrimination, because support could no longer be offered. The fair work agency should be able to decide what is appropriate and fair in each case.
Amendment 272I would put an unnecessary burden on the Secretary of State to have insurance in place before being able to provide advice on a settlement agreement. To be fair to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, she sort of indicated uncertainty around this. To be clear, this amendment wholly contradicts established government practice. I refer her to paragraph 4.4 of Managing Public Money, which sets out that the Government should generally not take out commercial insurance and it is not good value for money.
To summarise on Clause 114, the legal system can be intimidating, particularly for vulnerable workers or those from marginalised backgrounds. To repeat what my noble friend Lady Jones said in the previous group, many vulnerable workers are reluctant or unable to bring their cases to tribunal to enforce their employment rights, and this has serious consequences. Rogue employers exploit this, breaking employment law, and get away with it. For instance, Citizens Advice suggests that high-paid workers are more likely to file a case with an employment tribunal than lower-paid individuals, despite the latter being more likely to have their rights infringed. As I said, this lets rogue employers off the hook, and that is unfair for the vast majority of businesses, which we all know do the right thing by their staff and want to. It is unfair for the vulnerable workers involved—to state the obvious—who are being denied their rights, and it is unfair for the rest of the workforce, who are denied work opportunities due to illegal practices undercutting them.
As was said in the last group, that is why, in the plan to make work pay—again, a manifesto commitment—we set out that the fair work agency will have powers to bring civil proceedings to uphold employment rights. The Bill will give the fair work agency the power to bring civil proceedings in the employment tribunal to uphold rights. This is a critical power, particularly for situations where a worker feels unable to bring proceedings themselves. But there are occasions where a person is able to bring proceedings in the tribunal or another court but needs assistance, or where the case has wider ramifications and the person concerned could benefit from the fair work agency’s expertise.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, can the Minister remind us to what extent there has been consultation with the Secretary of State for Justice? Has the Lord Chancellor been involved in putting together this scheme, which is going to sit alongside legal aid, for which she is responsible? It would be really helpful if the Minister could make sure that the Government is joined-up in putting forward what is, in a way, as my noble friends have pointed out, quite a blank cheque, which has not properly been costed. Can he put us right on all this, please?
Lord Katz (Lab)
I am more than happy to. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, anticipates the comments that I was just about to come to—but we can address the point now. The noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, focused on this as well. This is not expanding legal aid. The power is intended to give the fair work agency a discretion to provide support in employment-related cases. It is not an alternative to legal aid and it will be used in specific cases. The Government will set out how and when the fair work agency will exercise its power in due course and will discuss this with a range of stakeholders. I reassure the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, we have regular conversations with the Ministry of Justice, including on the Bill’s implementation.
I return to what I was saying about the importance of ensuring that the power of legal advice is appropriately bounded. It cannot be used to fund dispute resolution facilities delivered through other routes. Importantly, the clause protects the integrity of the courts and tribunals by confirming that nothing in the clause overrides existing restrictions on representation imposed by legislation or judicial practice. This clause complements the fair work agency’s wider role in promoting access to justice and fair treatment in the workplace. It provides a vital lever for supporting individuals who might otherwise face legal barriers alone or for ensuring compliance with relevant law, and it delivers our manifesto commitment on which Members in the other House were elected.
The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, asked about the costs. These will be set out in due course and will be discussed with a range of stakeholders, particularly employers, trade unions and employees.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
That was a rather surprising statement. Is the Minister saying that these costs are not included in the estimates that have already been given for the costs of the fair work agency, which were included in the various documents surrounding the Bill? He has just implied that it will be done later. It is rather extraordinary to produce a clause in a Bill without having a costing for it. Can I press him again on what the costs are, whether they are included in the existing estimates of costs for the fair work agency and, if not, when they will actually be made clear?
Lord Katz (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for that intervention. The costs are not factored in. As I said, they will be set out in due course, following discussions with a range of stakeholders. I hope that this has persuaded the noble Baroness that Clause 114 should stand part of the Bill.
I turn finally to the amendments on recovering costs for legal assistance. Regarding Amendment 272J, if an individual has received free legal assistance from the fair work agency, any cost award should be returned to where that assistance came from. To be clear, a cost award is separate from any other awards a tribunal may make in favour of an individual. This amendment will prevent the fair work agency recovering costs and could lead to situations whereby individuals receiving legal assistance could receive money for costs they had not incurred. I hope noble Lords will agree that this is completely unreasonable.
On Amendments 272K and 272L, removing the ability to provide for the appointment and expenditure incurred is unreasonable and could lead to uncertainty about what expenditure of the Secretary of State is recoverable. In addition, while Amendment 272L looks consequential to Amendment 272K, it would actually remove the requirement for regulations under Clause 115(5) to be subject to any parliamentary procedure. I am sure that this is not the intention of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey. Needless to say, we oppose removing requirements of parliamentary procedures in this way.
In response to noble Baroness’s question on why the regulation for Clause 115(5) is negative, this follows precedent from the Equality Act. I indeed note and point out to the noble Baroness that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has raised no concerns with the Government about this power.
The legal assistance powers within the Bill are necessary to deliver our manifesto commitment to strengthen enforcement and improve outcomes for workers through a fairer, more acceptable system. These amendments would hamper that goal and might even unintentionally limit access to justice. The current drafting has been carefully considered. It is both deliberate and necessary. I therefore ask the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, to withdraw Amendment 272BA.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
In the case of the noble Lord’s response to this group of amendments, and the response to the previous group of amendments by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, the Ministers have claimed that these clauses are covered by manifesto commitments. The Labour Party manifesto is not something I carry around in my handbag, but, from memory, I do not think it covered these particular clauses. What makes me so sure that this is the case is that these two clauses were introduced in the other place on Report. They were not part of the original Bill that was introduced. That means, inter alia, that they received no substantive examination or discussion whatever in the other place. More importantly, this suggests to me that they were not a part of the original package that can claim manifesto support. I think we will want to examine that extremely carefully. If the Minister has a response now, with a chapter and verse in the manifesto, I will be happy to look it up afterwards, but I think we find unconvincing this part of the Government’s defence of these clauses.
Lord Katz (Lab)
I do not have chapter and verse but a page number. Noble Lords can find it on page 16 of the Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay document, which was part of our manifesto.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I must press the Minister. I have looked at the Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay document and it does not make reference to de facto legal aid. It says:
“We will also consider measures to provide accessible and authoritative information for people on their employment status and what rights they are owed, tackling instances where some employers can use complexity to avoid legal obligations”.
That is very different to what the Minister has outlined to your Lordships’ House.
Lord Katz (Lab)
I do not want to extend the debate too much or do too much quoting across the Dispatch Box but, to counter that, Labour’s Plan to Make Work Pay talks about establishing a single enforcement body that
“will have the powers it needs to undertake targeted and proactive enforcement work and bring civil proceedings upholding employment rights”.
To a fair-minded person that is pretty clear.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, this has been an exceptionally revealing debate on this group of amendments and the clause more broadly. I somewhat agree with the Minister on creating the ability to initiate legal proceedings—which, by the way, continues some of the work already being done by the existing authorities—but the Bill does not refer to being able to do that without the consent of the worker, which will surprise a lot of people, and absolutely does not make reference to the level of financing, which we have just discussed in relation to Clause 114.
Another point I noted is that, on Monday, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, referred to “employees and employers”, but the Minister at the Dispatch Box today has been very clear that this is also about funding trade unions. As I said, this has been a revealing debate and one that, after I discuss it with my Front Bench, we may explore further on Report. With that, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Goddard of Stockport
“Legal aid in employment tribunals(1) The Secretary of State must, within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, lay before Parliament a report on the options for expanding the right to legal aid in employment tribunals.(2) The report under subsection (1) must consider—(a) the impact of employers’ compliance with measures contained within this Act, and(b) the impact on employees’ personal finances.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new clause would require the Secretary of State to report on the impact of expanding the right to legal aid in employment tribunals within 6 months of the passage of this Act.
Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)
My Lords, for the sake of clarity, we on these Benches fully support the Government on expanding employment legal aid beyond discrimination cases to improve fairness and efficiency and also on the importance of maintaining the power of employment tribunals to ensure summary judgment, speed up proceedings and reduce unnecessary hearings. However, we have concerns over the existing backlog of employment tribunals, which we have debated several times on previous evenings, which is causing delays of up to two years and making the system very difficult to navigate.
I strongly support Amendment 273, tabled by my noble friend Lord Fox, which would
“require the Secretary of State to report on the impact of expanding the right to legal aid in employment tribunals within 6 months of the passage of this Act”.
This modest but important proposal recognises the reality facing too many claimants today. Legal aid in employment cases is currently restricted almost entirely to discrimination claims, leaving workers pursuing other serious issues such as unlawful deduction of wages, unfair dismissal and whistleblowing without any publicly funded legal support. These are not simple matters.
For claimants without legal training, navigating the tribunal process, understanding evidential requirements and articulating legal arguments can be incredibly challenging. This lack of access undermines both fairness and efficiency. If claims are poorly presented or inadequately understood, they are less likely to succeed and more likely to absorb more of the tribunal’s valuable time. Given the current backlog of employment tribunal cases in which claimants often wait for more than two years before their cases are heard, the process can feel effectively impossible to engage with. This amendment would, based on evidence, begin to build the case for change. I hope that the Minister will look on it constructively.
I also welcome my noble friend Lord Fox’s Amendment 323, which seeks to ensure that employment tribunals continue to have the power to make summary judgments in cases brought under this Act. Tribunals already use this mechanism to resolve matters early when one party has no reasonable prospect of success. It is an essential part of an efficient system that avoids unnecessary hearings and reduces pressure on the tribunal’s time. With the Bill creating new routes to claim and potentially increasing the volume of cases, the continued ability to make summary judgments in those procedures will be more important than ever. It provides certainty to respondents facing unmeritorious claims and reassures claimants that their cases will be dealt with proportionally and swiftly when they are clearly valid. I will be grateful if the Minister can confirm that this power will remain fully enforced under the new regimes and that guidance will reflect the continuing relevance of these points.
Lastly, I note that Amendments 279GA, 330ZA, 330D and 334A by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, are concerned with ensuring that the employment tribunal system has the capacity and resourcing to absorb these responsibilities. Those are legitimate concerns and considerations that the Minister should address. Tribunal delays are already a source of frustration for many users, and it is right that we consider how implementation will interact with the wider system. I urge caution, however, against any suggestions that reform must wait until conditions are perfect. A parallel process is needed, with sensible, targeted reform on one hand and sustained investment in the system on the other. I beg to move.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, my Amendment 279GZA seeks to understand what “and, in certain cases” means in Clause 149. I would be grateful for an explanation. I looked extensively in Schedule 12 and saw only the insertion of a regulation to do with Northern Ireland. I would be grateful to understand that.
I am happy to support Amendment 323, which seems a sensible way of trying to ensure that justice is delivered effectively and people can still have fair access while also making sure that we make the best use of employment tribunal judges’ time.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Coffey for introducing her amendment and also to the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, for speaking to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, the first of which proposes a report on the expansion of legal aid in employment tribunals. It would not itself change entitlement but seeks to prompt a structured exploration of the options. Legal aid is, of course, a complex and often contested area, and this amendment simply calls for a government-led review that considers both employer compliance and the financial position of workers. It is reasonable to assess whether the current system adequately supports access to justice in employment disputes.
I have a question for the noble Lord, Lord Fox. I will discuss with him outside but, just to get it on the record, I am curious to know whether the “report on the options”, which he describes in subsection (1) of the proposed new clause in his lead amendment, extends to small and medium-sized employers as well. I am interested to know whether he thinks they should be included within that survey based on the fact that many of them will also suffer some financial hardship.
On the proposed new clause on summary judgments in employment tribunals in Amendment 323 by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, such a power could offer a means of reducing the burden on tribunals, improving efficiency and focusing resources on cases where the issues genuinely require full examination. In short, both amendments are interesting and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I will first speak to Amendment 279H in my name, which increases the time limit for making a claim to an employment tribunal in relation to paid time off for employee representatives in consultations on certain changes to occupational and personal pension schemes from three months to six months. This would amend the employment tribunal time limit that is set out in the Schedule to the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Consultation by Employers and Miscellaneous Amendment) Regulations 2006.
This amendment is essential to ensure consistency with the time limits for the majority of tribunal claims which are being amended to six months throughout the Bill. This is a technical amendment which brings the provisions on consultations on pension schemes in line with the other clauses in the Bill regarding the increase in time limits which have been set out.
Increasing tribunal time limits will provide employees and employers more time to resolve disputes internally or through the conciliation process as well as more time for employees to consider the merits of bringing a claim to an employment tribunal. Judges will continue to have the discretion to hear out-of-time claims on a case-by-case basis.
Amendment 279GZA from the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, seeks to provide that the extension of employment tribunal time limits from three to six months does not apply in respect of industrial tribunals in Northern Ireland. We have worked closely with the Northern Ireland Executive to develop an approach to extending time limits which respects the Northern Ireland Assembly’s competence to legislate on devolved matters. Where time limits are in UK-wide legislation that extends to Northern Ireland and that relates to matters that are reserved, such as the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, this Bill amends the time limits for bringing a claim to the industrial tribunal in Northern Ireland. We will continue to work with the Executive to consider implementation and, if appropriate, these changes may come into force at different dates for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The Bill does not amend time limits in legislation that extends to Northern Ireland and is transferred—that is, devolved powers.
On Amendments 273 and 323, I understand the motivation of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, in tabling his amendments, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, for speaking to them so ably. In order for the reforms we are making through this Bill to be effective, it is vital that workers can enforce their employment rights. As noble Lords know, tribunals, including employment tribunals, are designed to be informal, accessible and low-cost means of accessing justice. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, that the backlog of tribunal claims at the moment is unacceptable. We are taking steps to address that backlog in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice, and the fair work agency can also play a part in easing that load. We will be able to debate the measures that we are taking further in later groups.
However, I would like to reassure the noble Lord that legal aid is available, subject to means and merits tests, in relation to discrimination and breaches of the Equality Act 2010. Where an issue falls outside the scope of legal aid, funding may still be available through the exceptional case funding scheme. Of course, members of trade unions will receive advice and representation anyway as part of their membership.
Turning to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, on employment tribunal summary judgments, I can reassure the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, that employment tribunals have a wide range of existing powers to address weak claims or responses, including strike-out and default judgments, to achieve the aims set out in this amendment. The strike-out rule in its framing and application is already similar to that of Rule 24 in the Civil Procedure Rules. It allows employment tribunals to strike out half or all of a claim or response, including where there is no reasonable prospect of success. I therefore ask the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, to withdraw Amendment 273.
Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)
I thank all noble Lords—a small but perfectly formed band on this group—for their contributions to the debate. The contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, was reasonably complimentary on my noble friend Lord Fox’s amendment, and when I speak to my noble friend, I will mention the point about small and medium-sized companies; there is some mileage in that, if we have further discussions. The noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, is fast becoming my buddy again for supporting in essence these amendments—to my certain knowledge, she has never called any of our proposals “bonkers”, so she gets an extra bonus point for that as well.
We support the Minister’s amendment, which brings clarity. For me, it shows an understanding that the Minister gets it; sometimes in these debates on the Floor of this Chamber, such as in the previous debate about litigation and whether it was known about by somebody, some people do not get it and you need to bring it back to the real world. Tribunals are very stressful for people and very complicated, so the simpler and more efficient we can make it, the better. But that does come with a price. I honestly think that, working together, we can deliver this Part with a degree of certainty, because all parties want this to happen. On this occasion, therefore, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment makes a minor drafting change.
“The Security Industry Authority.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would enable information obtained in connection with the exercise of enforcement functions under Part 5 of the Bill, or functions under or by virtue of clause 113 or 114 (powers in relation to civil proceedings), to be disclosed to the Security Industry Authority for the purposes of its functions.
Baroness Hamwee
“Restrictions on disclosure: immigration and nationality purpose(1) Nothing in sections 132 or 133 authorises information to which subsection (2) applies to be used for a purpose within section 40(1) of the UK Borders Act 2007.(2) This section applies to information disclosed to an enforcing authority— (a) regarding a person who has been the subject of labour abuse, for the purpose of that person requesting or receiving support or assistance, or(b) by a person who has been witness to labour abuse, for the purpose of evidence or other assistance in connection with an investigation into or a prosecution or other legal proceedings relating to that abuse.(3) Paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the Data Protection Act 2018 shall not apply to personal data to which subsection (2) applies.(4) In section 20 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 after subsection (2B) insert—“(2C) This section does not apply to information to which section (Restrictions on disclosure: immigration and nationality purpose) of the Employment Rights Act 2025 applies.”(5) In this section “labour abuse” includes—(a) a labour market offence,(b) an offence under the Gangmasters (Licensing) Act 2004, and(c) an offence under the Modern Slavery Act 2015,in England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland or a suspected or alleged offence.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new secure reporting Clause would prevent information disclosed about a victim or by a witness of labour abuse being used for a purpose within section 40(1) of the UK Borders Act 2007. This aims to help ensure that migrants with insecure status are able to equally benefit from the improvements in employment rights brought by this Bill.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 273P is a real-world amendment, to echo my noble friend. I am very conscious that I have a single amendment to this Bill, that others have laboured into what is day 10, I think, and that noble Lords are waiting for the important discussion on the Casey review, so I will try to be almost telegraphic.
This amendment is about a firewall, with the objective of protecting workers who are in great need of protection, so it is squarely within the fair work agency’s client base, if you like. The firewall would restrict the disclosure for use for immigration purposes of information about someone who has suffered or witnessed labour abuse. That may sound counterintuitive: surely these are people about whom all the agencies of the state should have information. In the case of migrant workers, the situation is not so straightforward. It was during the passage of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 that I first heard about the conditions in which some overseas domestic workers existed—I use that term rather than “lived”. Slavery was the right term. A change in the rules was made, but it was minor and quite inadequate. Our law did not and does not protect them and all migrant workers as it should.
Migrant workers, not only overseas domestic workers, are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, not just because of the consequences if their existence comes to the attention of immigration authorities but because of their fear of the consequences. If you do not know your way around the system, you are on the wrong side of the power balance with an unscrupulous employer who can threaten that you will be detained or deported, or that you will have your children taken away, so you cannot take the risk of reporting abuse and exploitation to anyone in authority.
I understand that that fear is well founded. I am told by the sector that evidence indicates that data is often shared between labour market enforcement agencies, the police and immigration enforcement. They have no obligation to share, but they do. In a way, that is not surprising; they have their own jobs to do. I am not surprised, because I have a long history of opposition to paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the Data Protection Act, which allows that sharing—opposition with which someone who is now in a very high place in the current Government became associated and led the troops into the right Lobby.
The current situation has a widespread effect. It fosters mistrust of migrant communities, prevents the police and labour inspectors doing their jobs properly, and drives down conditions for all workers. Secure reporting has been implemented elsewhere, including in the Netherlands and in Spain, and I am pleased to say that Surrey Police has implemented a firewall and the Greater London Authority is undertaking a pilot. Had I more time, I would explain the detail.
Secure reporting mechanisms are badly needed in many sectors, such as agriculture, health, social care, cleaning and domestic work. Your immigration status should not mean that you should not have access to safe, decent working conditions and be protected against abuse and exploitation. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Watson of Invergowrie, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London, who have signed my amendment, as has my noble friend Lord Paddick. In turn, I have signed his two amendments in this group. They are probing amendments. They are hugely important because they seek to ensure that the fair work agency, which is not a legal entity but will be an agency of the Department for Business and Trade created administratively, can carry out all the powers and functions of the GLAA, or that somebody does, because what the GLAA is able to do in this area must not slip out of the legislative framework. I beg to move.
Lord Paddick (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 279ZA and 279ZB, which are in my name and that of my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. Before I speak to them, I will say how much I support her Amendment 273PA.
My amendments are probing amendments, as the noble Baroness just said, to seek reassurances from the Minister that the fair work agency will have the capacity and focus to maintain the safeguards provided by the Modern Slavery Act that are currently undertaken by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority—the GLAA. I am grateful to Dame Sara Thornton, a former Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, and her colleagues at the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University for highlighting these issues.
The GLAA has two important responsibilities under the Modern Slavery Act in this context: it is a first responder referring victims of modern slavery into the national referral mechanism, and it has a duty to notify the Secretary of State for the Home Department in cases where victims of modern slavery refuse to be referred, to ensure that the Home Office has a comprehensive understanding of the nature and extent of modern slavery and those affected by it. My understanding is that, under this Bill, the GLAA will be abolished and its responsibilities will be taken over by the fair work agency, but it is not clear from the legislation whether the GLAA’s first responder status and duty to notify will also be transferred, or whether amendments such as those proposed are necessary to ensure that those important responsibilities and duties are carried out by the fair work agency once the GLAA is abolished.
In addition, the GLAA is focused on protecting vulnerable and exploited workers and on illegal activities such as human trafficking, forced labour and illegal labour provision, whereas the fair work agency will have a much wider remit, including what is currently in HMRC’s national minimum wage unit and the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate. Staff expertise in modern slavery may be lost, and if the fair work agency is not adequately resourced, the emphasis is likely to be on compliance rather than enforcement. By ensuring that the fair work agency has first responder status and a duty to notify, it is more likely to retain its level of expertise in modern slavery.
Under Section 43 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015, the GLAA has a duty to co-operate with the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, enabling the commissioner to access unpublished information that assists in understanding and responding to modern slavery in the UK. Again, it is unclear whether the fair work agency will also have a statutory duty to co-operate with the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner in the same way as the GLAA, which it is replacing. The second amendment would make that duty explicit.
Can the Minister reassure the Committee that the focus on modern slavery is not being lost or diluted by the absorption of the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority into the fair work agency, either through a lack of resources or a lack of expertise, and that the GLAA’s statutory responsibilities as a first responder, its duty to notify and its duty to co-operate with the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner will not be lost or diluted as a result of these changes? I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, I support Amendment 273PA in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. I want to give an example of why this amendment is so important. Following a five-month freedom of information battle, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism was finally given access to 19 farm inspection reports produced by the Home Office between 2021 and 2022. Nearly half of the 845 seasonal migrant workers interviewed raised welfare issues including racism, wage theft and threats of being sent home. In nearly two-thirds of farms inspected, workers said that they were not always paid for the hours they spent at work, off sick or travelling, or that they faced pay deductions beyond the maximum allowed by law. Workers who complained were ignored or told they could leave the farm and go back to their home countries. One visa sponsor was recorded saying:
“Look, do you want to go home? Shush then”,
by workers protesting about working conditions.
A report by the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration found that none of the allegations raised during these inspections was ever investigated by the Home Office. Workers understandably concluded that the Home Office was more interested in checking their immigration status than upholding their rights and dignity at work. The only way that the fair work agency can do its job of stamping out exploitation is to guarantee safe reporting. Only then can migrant workers speak out about exploitation at work without fear that it will result in a bad employer silencing them by removing their visa. Ultimately, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, the rights of all working people are only ever as strong as those of the most vulnerable workers. This amendment seeks safe reporting that will benefit workers and decent employers alike. I hope my noble friend the Minister can support it too.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I am conscious of the sentiments expressed here, but it would put the Government and the Secretary of State in a very difficult legal situation if they were to hold information that they were not allowed to pass on to relevant authorities within the rest of government. I hear what the noble Baronesses have said, but I do not know, with all the other rights that are starting to come through this Bill, why anyone should be afeared, especially when they are here on a legitimate visa as in the example to which the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway, has just referred. I am conscious of some of the exploitation, but I believe that same sponsor was suspended from sponsoring any more visas. I was not aware of what the Home Office did or did not do, but restricting the Secretary of State from formally upholding the law is quite a worrying trend.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, whom I had the honour to serve when she chaired the Home Affairs Select Committee. She has raised a number of key points, as has the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway, and my noble friend Lady Coffey for their speeches as well.
Let me make it absolutely clear: modern slavery remains one of the gravest human rights abuses of our time, and tackling it requires vigilance, clarity and effective enforcement. It is crucial that the agencies tasked with identifying and assisting survivors and with co-operating closely with the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner have clear mandates and necessary powers to act decisively. While the specific amendments before us seek to clarify the transfer of roles from the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority to the fair work agency, the wider point is this.
Enforcement bodies must be both effective and well co-ordinated to respond to the complexities of modern slavery. Without this, vulnerable individuals risk slipping through the cracks, and the machinery of justice and protection loses its impact. Ensuring transparency about which bodies are responsible for what and guaranteeing that they are properly equipped underpins our broader commitment to eradicating modern slavery. It is not just about legal technicalities but about safeguarding human dignity and upholding fundamental rights.
Lord Katz (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for tabling Amendments 279ZA and 279ZB and the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, for her Amendment 273PA. I reflect that on an earlier group we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough—whom I am glad to see now in his place—with his Amendment 273PB, so we have seen two ends of the spectrum in terms of an approach to information sharing and enforcement with modern slavery. One might speculate that perhaps we have, in a Goldilocks way, achieved the right balance with what we are proposing in the Bill. I hope noble Lords agree.
Turning to Amendment 279ZA and 279ZB, I understand that these are probing amendments and the noble Lord is seeking reassurances that the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority’s vital work tackling labour abuse will continue under the fair work agency. Let me provide that reassurance very clearly now. Action on labour abuse and modern slavery will be core and central to the mission of the new fair work agency. I am happy to join in the sentiment set out by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Wirral. Modern slavery is a stain on our society as well as on our economy. We are determined as a Government to continue the work of previous Administrations in stamping it out. My noble friend Lady O’Grady of Upper Holloway set out very starkly for us why this continued exploitation needs our continued focus and vigilance.
All the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority’s functions, including in relation to labour abuse, will transfer to the Secretary of State. Its vital work in this area will continue. We are also committed to ensuring that there is no disruption as we set up the fair work agency. The fair work agency will continue to work in close partnership with Eleanor Lyons, the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, as the GLAA does now, to identify and disrupt patterns of exploitation across sectors such as agriculture, construction and adult social care. The Bill lays the foundation to build on that successful working relationship between the commissioner and the GLAA. Clause 132 and Schedule 9 together will enable the two-way sharing of information between them where this will help both fulfil their statutory functions. To address the questions from the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, the fair work agency will still have first responder status and a duty to notify.
Regarding Amendment 273PA in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, I appreciate the noble Baroness’s concerns but there is a need for information to be shared with the Home Office to help protect the public, including vulnerable migrants, from harm. The need for this was recognised by Parliament in the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Mechanisms already exist to support those of insecure immigration status who may be victims of abuse. The national referral mechanism is in place to ensure that individuals can be properly identified and supported, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick. The NRM is a framework for identifying and referring potential victims of modern slavery and ensuring they receive the appropriate support. The online process allows first responders to submit an NRM referral through a single online form, regardless of their location in the UK or whether the victim is an adult or a child. This provides a structured and compassionate route for potential victims of modern slavery to receive help without fear of immediate immigration consequences.
I am concerned that creating a legislative blocker to information sharing could have unintended consequences and make it harder for the vulnerable individuals concerned to get the help that they need and deserve. My department will continue to work with the Home Office to ensure that we strike the right balance between protecting vulnerable workers and maintaining the integrity of our immigration system. I therefore ask the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, to withdraw Amendment 273PA.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady. I was not surprised that she was able to produce that example; there are lots of examples.
I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, that there is data protection for a good reason. I cannot say that the current situation “breaches” it, as it is not illegal, but it does not observe that data protection.
The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is of course right about human rights abuse. He used the important term “safeguarding”. Obviously, I am disappointed with the response from the Minister—I will have a good read of it. I think we might be returning to this issue in the next Home Office Bill that is coming to us—the noble Lord, Lord Hanson, has not reacted.
With regard to my noble friend Lord Paddick’s amendments, I still do not follow quite how the assurances can be implemented. I ask the Minister—though perhaps I shall go back to Dame Sara Thornton and the Rights Lab to be sure that I have not got it wrong—to write to my noble friend and me explaining just how those assurances work their way through in the legislation, because to have just the assurances without a statutory underpinning seems not to be enough.
Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Member's explanatory statement
The effect of this amendment is that enforcement costs recovered by the Secretary of State under clause 140 will be payable into the Consolidated Fund.
Child Sexual Exploitation: Casey Report
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, as my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott said last week in response to the Government’s previous U-turn on winter fuel payments, we are pleased that the Government have finally listened to the wishes of the British public and agreed to hold a full national inquiry into grooming gangs.
The abhorrence of the crimes committed by these gangs is beyond belief. It is vividly apparent that the victims have repeatedly been let down. The audit by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, lays bare the scale of the institutional failure across the country. I pay tribute to all those survivors who were systematically ignored by authorities for fear of being branded racist. Those who have come forward to whistleblow and share their harrowing stories have demonstrated unbelievable bravery, such as the survivor Fiona Goddard, who was exploited and abused by an Asian grooming gang at the age of 14 when living in care in Bradford. She was led to believe that her abusers cared for her, before they plied her with drugs and continuously raped her. I cannot imagine the horrors experienced by the many thousands of children groomed by these gangs. I am particularly concerned—I raised the matter with the Minister at Questions earlier today—about what steps the Government will take to ensure that the victims are at the centre of their response.
We must be under no illusions. This is not a historic sexual abuse story; these vile crimes are still being perpetrated. Young girls are still, to this very day, being groomed and sexually exploited by gangs, as the report by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, makes abundantly clear.
The fact that these gangs continue to operate, with young girls still not being believed and their voices still not being heard, makes it even more difficult to understand why the Government have taken so long to listen to what my right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition has been saying since January. The Conservatives gave the Prime Minister three opportunities in the other place to back a full national inquiry, and Labour Members voted against these measures on all three occasions.
Not only that, but Government Ministers repeatedly opposed such an inquiry. The Secretary of State for Education accused those who called for an inquiry “bandwagon jumpers” who “don’t care about children”. The Leader of the House of Commons claimed that the issue of grooming gangs was a “dog whistle”. The Minister for Safeguarding rejected an appeal by Oldham Council for a national inquiry last October, and in April this year announced just five local inquiries. Indeed, the Minister here said on 22 April, in response to a question that I posed to him, that:
“We could certainly have a national inquiry, as the noble Lord has mentioned, but this Government’s judgment is that we know what the problem is”.—[Official Report, 22/4/25; col. 624.]
Even the Prime Minister himself said that anyone calling for an inquiry was jumping on a far-right bandwagon and repeatedly opposed holding such a national inquiry. He has, of course, now changed his mind once again.
Can the Minister explain why the Government opposed a national inquiry for so long, and why they have now done such a complete about-face on this issue? Surely now is the time for the Government to apologise for repeatedly making false claims about those who have been calling for this national inquiry since January.
I place on record my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, for her no-nonsense, hard-hitting and thorough audit. Her candour and tenacity are exemplary. She has not shied away from highlighting the fact that these child rape gangs were largely comprised of Pakistani men, a point that all too many have previously been scared to make. She also highlights faults in the available datasets. As the report states, the complex organised child abuse dataset includes all child sexual abuse and exploitation that is committed by two or more perpetrators, and this includes familial abuse, child-on-child abuse and institutional abuse. It is therefore difficult to ascertain the true scale of grooming gangs.
There are 12 recommendations presented in the audit. I look forward to hearing the detail of how and when the Government will take them forward.
Baroness Brinton (LD)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I pay tribute to the victims and the whistleblowers from the police and other authorities for their bravery and absolute consistency in continuing to fight for their cause.
I am sorry that the Conservative spokesman has taken the line that he did. I am afraid that from these Benches we have a different standpoint. It was really disappointing on Monday to hear the leader of the Opposition attack the current Government when this applies to Governments of all parties over recent decades, including my own, but especially the Conservative Government who commissioned Professor Jay’s IICSA report, published a response but then did nothing. Surely it is better for all of us to come to this in humility and admit that, time after time, politicians failed to listen. This is not just about parliamentarians; it is about elected mayors, councillors, assemblies and combined authorities too. We did not just fail to listen but we all failed to act.
The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, said that now is the time to right wrongs, and that is correct. The victims and the whistleblowers, even when reported in the news and documentaries, have had to listen time and again to promises of action but nothing changing. It is refreshing that the Statement says that the Government will act on all the noble Baroness’s recommendations. But we know that this promise has been made before in response to complex, long-standing and shameful incidents over the years, and I am sure that some still continue. As Professor Jay said in her IICSA report, we lie to ourselves if we think that child sexual abuse and exploitation are not happening now.
We are seeing similar issues with the slowness of the infected blood compensation scheme, the Post Office Horizon compensation scheme and the Windrush scheme. Will your Lordships’ House hear that the inquiry will be set up swiftly and will be fully funded, including support for victims, as has been promised for the other schemes I have just mentioned, but which has not always appeared? Will the inquiry also draw evidence from the previous reports and reviews, so that the evidence it takes will build on what is already known? As I mentioned at Oral Questions, there are two reasons for this. First, it is much less traumatic for the victims and whistleblowers, many of whom have had to give the same evidence many times, each time revictimising them. Secondly, that should ensure a shorter evidence period of the inquiry; as the Statement says, there is an urgent need for action and accountability, whether for the perpetrators or the organisations that did not protect these children when they were raped and groomed, including councils, the police, the judiciary, social workers and more.
Will victims, including whistleblowers, be supported properly, right from the start, and not be revictimised? How long will it take to review the convictions that some of these young people, mainly girls, received, because they were perceived as complicit and able to give consent when they were plainly children? What steps will the Government take, in the light of the noble Baroness’s audit review, to ask councils, the police, the judiciary, social workers and others to review their working practices now? While the inquiry’s future report and recommendations are important, it is evident that there is enough for those organisations to reflect and change their practice now, in light of this audit review.
The Government have promised a form of mandatory reporting, as well as a Bill on the duty of candour, or Hillsborough law. Can the Minister say when we will see them in Parliament? Both are urgent to prevent this happening again in the future.
The recommendations on appropriate data collection and data sharing are also vital and, I am afraid, long overdue. The use of the Smith algorithm in West Yorkshire sounds helpful in identifying people possibly in scope as victims and survivors. Will it be rolled out elsewhere, given West Yorkshire’s positive experience?
The noble Baroness’s report proposes research into taxi drivers for group-based child sexual exploitation, including online. Unlike the monks, teachers and children’s workers involved in other group child sexual exploitation, taxi drivers are below the regulatory radar, other than the licence for their taxis. So will the Government ensure that statutory standards for taxi drivers will be brought in, to end “out of area” taxis plying their trade in places many miles away, where they are not on the radar of the local authority in which they are trying to work?
Will the Government publish a plan for communication to the wider public? This is a highly sensitive topic for young people, families and communities. In particular, will the Government work with faith groups and community groups? The noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika, rightly pointed out during Oral Questions that most Muslims are absolutely horrified by the behaviour of small groups of truly evil men, but it will be important for these communities to understand what they need to do to prevent it from ever happening again.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Hanson of Flint) (Lab)
I am grateful to both Front-Bench speakers for their contributions and questions. I will try, as ever, to address those issues.
Let me go straight to the heart of the challenge from the noble Lord, Lord Davies, to the Government regarding accepting the inquiry recommendations. When we came to office last year, we looked at the IICSA recommendations, which had been ignored for two years by the previous Government. We have accepted and have begun to implement the vast majority of the IICSA recommendations. Some are still being examined, but the broad direction of travel is to accept. In January this year, we also commissioned the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, to whom I pay full tribute, to produce a report on emerging trends and how the four or five major potential inquiries in towns that we are familiar with were progressing, and whether we needed some national co-ordination on those issues. She entered that with an open mind and has come back and made 12 recommendations, including the Government producing national frameworking standards as part of an inquiry to support the local inquiries that were commissioned and taking place.
I regard that not as a U-turn but as a positive contribution from an independent colleague of ours, the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. The 12 recommendations have come forward in a way that we can make further progress to tackle this horrendous issue which, as the noble Lord mentioned extremely well, impacts on victims across the country—there have been 500,000 victims of child abuse and 100,000 victims of sexual exploitation. It is beholden on this House to look at those recommendations seriously, and we have accepted the need for that national inquiry.
Both the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Davies, mentioned how the inquiry will be established. I said earlier at Oral Questions that we will be bringing that forward at an early opportunity; we have to appoint a chair and set terms of reference. We brought the report straight to this House and the House of Commons this week; we will do that in relatively short order and I will report back to this House when that is complete.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, also mentioned victims. We want to ensure that victims are central to this and that their testimony and experience are brought to the inquiry. We will be giving a mandate to the chair, whoever he or she may be, to bring forward that support for victims in due course—a point mentioned also by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton.
Since the election, more than 800 grooming gang cases originally dropped by the police have been reopened, and the child sexual exploitation police task force has increased arrests by more than 50% in the past year. So there is action on the ground as well as progress on the recommendations.
It may help Liberal Democrat Members and His Majesty’s Opposition if I run quickly through the 12 recommendations. One is the inquiry, which we have accepted. On mandatory charges of rape, we will begin an immediate consultation with the CPS and the police to develop legislative change on that recommendation. On the national police operation, we will actively increase policing and statutory partners to design an operation that will take criminals to task in a much more strategic and energetic way. The national inquiry is a recommendation we have accepted. The noble Baroness mentioned reviewing the criminal convictions of victims; we will be legislating in the police and crime Bill, which has just completed its passage in the House of Commons, to put in place a scheme to disregard those convictions. When legislation has been passed, that will occur. The mandatory collection of ethnicity data is an extremely important point that was raised in Oral Questions. We will undertake that and will commission it to begin immediately for police forces, and we will be issuing guidance.
Mandatory information sharing between statutory agencies is a provision in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, currently before Parliament. We are making it unequivocally clear that information must be shared. The recommendation from the noble Baroness on unique reference numbers for children is also in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill before the House currently. The recommendation from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, on research into drivers of group-based child sexual exploitation will begin immediately in the Home Office. The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, mentioned taxi licensing, and the Department for Transport is committed to working as quickly as possible to consider the options the noble Baroness brought forward. So the Government will be taking forward all 12 recommendations, and I hope that will be welcomed across the House.
I should also just say, because I am slightly confused— I hope the House will bear with me—that the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, has been pressing this Government to implement the IICSA recommendations and has been asking questions about the IICSA recommendations on child sexual grooming and on a range of other matters, all of which, I have informed this House, even as recently as Questions today, will be in the Crime and Policing Bill before these Houses of Parliament.
The noble Lord does not have the opportunity to address this now, but maybe he can think about this, because not one hour ago His Majesty’s Official Opposition in the House of Commons voted against that Bill at Third Reading and, in doing so, voted against the measures to implement the IICSA report. His Opposition Members of Parliament walked through a Lobby voting against those measures not one hour ago, and not just those measures but measures on retail crime, on prevention of terrorism and on a whole range of things in the Crime and Policing Bill, which will come to this House of Lords very shortly for Second Reading. He has an opportunity, at Second Reading in a few weeks’ time, to think through his position on this and reflect on whether his party, his leader, his official shadow Home Secretary can continue to support that opposition to the Crime and Policing Bill measures, because those measures are the very things that he stood up, along with the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, to support this Government in doing. I will just let him reflect on that. And it was not just his party—the Reform Party voted against the Third Reading of the Crime and Policing Bill.
I am not sure what this is coming to, but these measures are important, and I mention them today because the grooming gang recommendations which we have accepted here today will be implemented in the Crime and Policing Bill. If the noble Lord continues his position of voting against that Bill at Third Reading, they risk not becoming law. Also, he has not supported the measures that I thought he was supporting, on child sexual exploitation, that we put in the Crime and Policing Bill to meet the IICSA requirements on things such as mandatory reporting. I just put that before the House because it is hot off the press and I think it is worthy of reflection.
However, I give the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, a commitment that the 12 recommendations before the Government from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, will be implemented. We will, as we have done, implement the vast majority of the IICSA recommendations and will be looking at the ones that are still outstanding to see how we can implement them. We will continue to press down, through prosecution and through police activity, on grooming gangs to ensure that we tackle those. I commend the Statement to the House, and I am happy to answer further questions on it in detail.
Captain of the King’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard and Deputy Chief Whip (Baroness Wheeler) (Lab)
We will hear from the Labour Party, followed by the Cross-Benchers.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I am sure that we are all incredibly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, for this work, as in her previous independent inquiries on behalf of Governments of all stripes. There is, no doubt, a problem when walking on eggshells prevents the investigation and prosecution of particular criminals because of fears of racism. That is clear from this report, but does my noble friend the Minister agree that we have seen these group scandals in relation to child abuse in the Catholic Church and the Church of England—if the right reverend Prelate will forgive me, patriarchal communities where vulnerable people are not believed? With that in mind, and also referring to the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, is the age of criminal responsibility, at just 10 years old in England and Wales, too young when children and girls who are exploited in this way, drugged and put into prostitution, are then treated as criminals and not as victims?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for echoing the praise and support for the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, and the work she has done. She has set down a further set of developments that we can look at and action to help reduce victims and reduce this level of crime. My noble friend tempts me into addressing the age of criminal responsibility. What I will say is that that issue is one that we will reflect on in government. I cannot give her chapter and verse on that today, but what I can say—I said it a moment ago in relation to recommendation 3, which is on reviewing convictions of victims—is that we will legislate in the Crime and Policing Bill to introduce a disregard scheme for the convictions of individuals who were found guilty of prostitution offences as children. The criminal law has rightly evolved to make it clear that children cannot be prostitutes, and it is long overdue that individuals convicted of child prostitution offences have their convictions disregarded and their criminal records expunged. We will do that in the Crime and Policing Bill, and I look forward to His Majesty’s Official Opposition supporting us on that Bill, not voting against it as they just have done in the House of Commons.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister say whether the review involving children will also consider young boys? As patron of a drug treatment centre and chair of a homeless housing association, I am convinced that there are young boys who are led into prostitution in a similar way.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
The potential amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill will look at individuals where criminal convictions have occurred, be they male or female, at an age when they were deemed to be children. We will be tabling amendments to that Bill to ensure that those convictions are expunged, those records are removed, and that the individuals will not be subject to that in future. I look forward to her support on that.
Baroness Verma (Con)
My Lords, it is really good to hear what the Minister has said, but victims will need a lot of help to readjust into normal life. We cannot just do an inquiry and leave them to fend for themselves. Will the Minister please find support for all those who have come forward, and for all the hundreds that we are, I am afraid, going to find? Will he assure us that a national inquiry means a national inquiry, that it will not be just five or six local authorities that are going to feed in, and that all authorities, all police agencies and all social services will feed in on what they are doing, in whichever part of the country they are, to be able to respond to questions about victims?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s support. I was just checking what my right honourable friend the Home Secretary said on the Statement in the House of Commons:
“On support for victims, my right honourable friend the Health Secretary—
that is, the Health Secretary for England—
“will fund additional training for mental health staff in schools on identifying and supporting children and young people who have experienced trauma, exploitation and abuse”.
On broader victim support, the Home Secretary drew attention to additional funding for mental health support in schools and has also ensured that the independent commission will gather and assess victim support as part of its remit once the chair is established and the terms of reference are determined.
The point that the noble Baroness made about the UK nature of this inquiry is extremely important. I have responsibility for England and Wales, and the Department of Health has responsibility for England, but, obviously, some matters are devolved: policing in Scotland and in Northern Ireland; and health in Wales, Scotland and in Northern Ireland. I want to ensure—and we have given a mandate to the potential chair in due course—that it deals with all the devolved Administrations, consults them and looks at lessons which can be applied, with the consent of the devolved Administrations, on a UK-wide basis.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I fully support the comments of my noble friend Lady Brinton, particularly around the lack of action previously seen around the Alexis Jay report, but I will press the Minister on one of the points that my noble friend highlighted, around bringing in a Hillsborough-style law that would put a duty of candour on local authorities. The Minister did not respond to that, and I think it is really important, because if we are to bring in that law, if we are to have this inquiry and it is to have results, then we need that duty of candour.
In response to what I heard from the noble Baroness, I will also talk about charities in places such as my home city of Sheffield. The organisation I worked for for 30 years, Sheffield Futures, was the lead organisation for CSE in that city, and I just make one plea. There are lots of accusations about certain communities. If we are to get justice, any police officer will tell you that they have to work within those communities. Alienating communities will not deliver justice, because I tell you now, from 30 years’ experience in youth service in South Yorkshire, there will be victims of South Asian origin as well, but because of the issue around honour—and colleagues in here will know what that means—some of those victims have remained silent. It is upon us all to make sure that those victims also have a voice.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising this issue. I extend my apologies to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton; I am trying to cover a range of issues in a very short time.
On the question of the duty of candour and the Hillsborough law, the noble Lord and the noble Baroness will know that the UK Government had a manifesto commitment to introduce that legislation. As yet, it has not been introduced, but I know that work is being done behind the scenes to do that. As a supporter of the Liverpool Football Club, and somebody who, when a Member of Parliament, had constituents who were victims of the Hillsborough incident, I know that that will be very welcome legislation. It is still being worked on in government terms, and will be published in due course.
The noble Lord mentioned the support of voluntary organisations. That is extremely important. I would hope that the prospective chair, whoever he or she will be, will reach out and look at the role of the voluntary sector as well.
The noble Lord is absolutely right to say that victims know no ethnicity. There are perpetrators from every walk of life and every religious and ethnic group, including white British, and there are victims from every group. We have a particular focus on organised gangs, and that has been prevalent in certain places. The noble Baroness, Lady Casey, has made recommendations about ethnic data collection, which we will look at and which will help inform in future what is happening for both victim and perpetrator, but the noble Lord is absolutely right to raise this issue today.
Baroness Hazarika (Lab)
My Lords, it is so important that both sides do not play politics. The reality is that none of our parties has covered themselves with glory, including my own—I absolutely put my hands up to that. It was not that long ago when a Conservative prospective Prime Minister said that money being spent on historic child abuse inquiries was money “spaffed up the wall”. I think we all need to remember that. These crimes are not historic and I would like the Minister to update us on what is being done to protect victims today. We know that these crimes are still happening and that these rape gangs are still operating in our towns and cities across the country.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend. I want to have consensus in this House on the measures that we take forward as a whole, which is why I reflect on the fact that measures in the Crime and Policing Bill were voted against in the House of Commons within the past hour and a half.
My noble friend is absolutely right to focus on the issue of what is being done now. We have focused on putting additional support into policing and tracing convictions. We have investigated a lot of cases—some 800 cases that were closed cases previously—and increased the conviction rate by 50%. That is an important measure. With the acceptance of the 12 measures from the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, and the inclusion of the IICSA recommendations in legislation, along with action and the further examination of a couple of those, this Government are taking the issue very seriously.
The Lord Bishop of Manchester
My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of the national police ethics committee. Despite the fact that the very first recommendation of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, was that we must see children as children, it has really taken until tonight in this House for much of the conversation to move into that area. This was a point made by Sir Stephen Watson, the chief constable of Greater Manchester, at an event I attended earlier today. He has talked about how much of the failure to prosecute was down to police forces treating abused children not as victims but as somehow culpable in their own abuse. I thank the Minister for already confirming that we will have a victim-centred approach to this inquiry. Can he assure us that the inquiry will explore Sir Stephen’s point, including through the data it collects, so that we can determine to what extent it was a poor response by police forces to the victims of these serious multiple rapes that lies behind the failure to prosecute and convict? Does he agree with me that this is far better than just lazily assuming, as the media seem to be doing, that every single failure comes down to questions of the ethnicity of perpetrators? Finally, on a happier note, will he join me in congratulating Sir Stephen on his recently announced knighthood, a worthy acknowledgement for a man who has turned round how my city and its surrounds are policed?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I join the right reverend Prelate in congratulating Sir Stephen on his knighthood as chief constable of Greater Manchester. It is a great honour for an individual to receive that and a recognition of the important work he has done in turning round Greater Manchester Police, with the support of the mayor.
The right reverend Prelate mentioned the issue of convictions, which I hope I have covered. Where individuals have had convictions, we will legislate to have those overturned.
It is important that we look at the whole issue of how we got here. The focus is on gangs of a particular ethnicity, and that has been a driving force for the work that is being done in local, and now the national, inquiry. But I think we need to look at the police response as a whole to child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation, and at how we ensure that young children who are victims find a place where they can have trust in the system to bring forward their experiences, and be believed in bringing forward those experiences, and for the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts to provide a mechanism for them to secure the conviction of those evil predators who have abused them in their childhood.
Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)
My Lords, one of the greatest failings in this horrific case of exploitation was that many, particularly police officers, were afraid to come forward. They felt that they would be accused of being racist and that would be the end of their careers. What support is the Minister going to give in the context of this inquiry to new police officers, new council officials and new people in authority who may feel the need to come forward as part of this inquiry? What cover will be given so that they can come forward without fear of losing their career? It should be borne in mind that it was a Labour Prime Minister who said that people who wanted these inquiries were somehow far right. That set an environment of fear. How are we going to wind that back and give people the space to do their jobs properly?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
If I may paraphrase the Prime Minister, I think he was referring to the fact that people on the far right were using this to exploit fears and prejudices and to stir up fear and hatred.
What I am trying to do—I am sure the noble Lord will share this aim—is find concrete solutions by accepting the recommendations here and accepting into legislation, as far as we can, the recommendations of the IICSA report, and by taking positive action to encourage the police to go after particular groups that we know now can have their cases reopened, and so improve the prosecution rate accordingly. It is absolutely right that the core duty of police officers should be to follow the evidence and the truth and not worry about the ethnic background of the individual who may or may not be the perpetrator—they should bring the perpetrator to justice, whatever background they are from. I will ensure that guidance is given by our chief constables to ensure that the police understand that duty, as I believe they now do.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I urge more humility and a little less complacent gaslighting. No parties have clean hands. Too many people, including the victims, were smeared as racists for even raising the issue—and that includes in this House, as an aside. Will the 2020 Home Office paper on group-based child sexual exploitation be immediately withdrawn now that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, has exposed its much-cited false claim that group-based CSE offenders are most commonly white, which the audit says does not seem evidenced by research or data—in other words, it is misinformation? It is a Whitehall policy wonk version of the literal Tippexing out of the word “Pakistani”. Can the Minister assure us that that report will now be taken out of public circulation?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her question. I will say two things to her. The 2020 report, as I recall, was not produced this Government or this Home Office. I will look at that report and the action, but the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, herself said only yesterday at the Home Affairs Committee, “If you look at the data on child sexual exploitation, suspects and offenders, it is disproportionately Asian heritage. If you look at the data for child abuse, it is not disproportionate, it is white men”. We need to accept the discussions and focus we have had to date and look at positive solutions for dealing with this.
When the noble Baroness says we need less complacency and more humility, I say that I have stood at this Dispatch Box on behalf of this Government and accepted all 12 recommendations from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. I have accepted the bulk of recommendations from the IICSA report from Alexis Jay, and I have put in place additional police support to take action on historic cases and bring 50% more offenders to justice. I do not think that is complacent. I ask the noble Baroness to try to work with us constructively; let us look at the solutions. I will accept constructive criticism, but I am not going to be called complacent when we have accepted every recommendation, done the things we have done on IICSA and brought more people to justice.
Lord Cryer (Lab)
My Lord, the first person who raised the issue of the rape gangs—in other words, the first whistleblower—happened to be my mum, Ann Cryer MP, who started raising this in 2003. She was then smeared and attacked—particularly by Labour figures, I have to say—for being a racist. I am not talking about Ministers in the then Government, many of whom supported her, and my noble friend Lord Blunkett, then Home Secretary, went out of his way to make sure that prosecutions happened—which they did. I am talking about councillors, councils and other institutions that went on the attack, and lied and smeared about the rape gangs. It is possible that some of them genuinely thought that they could not bring themselves to believe it, but I do not believe that about all of them. I think some of them were complicit. Some of them knew it was going on and they decided to cover up. If there is evidence to that fact in those cases, they should be brought before the courts and prosecuted.
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I pay tribute to Ann Cryer, the mother of the noble Lord, Lord Cryer. I served in Parliament with Ann and I know she raised these matters and faced extreme difficulties locally as a result, and took a very brave stand at the time. Again, I say to colleagues across the House, let us look at how we deal with this issue. My party has not been in Government for 14 years, but we have been in control of some of the councils. My party was not in control of government when a lot of these issues happened, but I still have a responsibility to make sure we deal with these in an effective way. I want to make sure that we accept these recommendations and see them through, and this House will monitor me to make sure we do it.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, in responding the right reverend Prelate, the Minister said victims need to find a place they can trust. Among the promises of action in the Statement is a promise of further action to support child victims. For many of these children and young people to be able to speak out, they will need the support of known and trusted adults: people like youth workers, teachers or medical professionals. Are the Government going to ensure that there are enough resources in affected communities so that those kinds of trusted adults are available to support victims?
Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)
I hope I can answer the noble Baroness in a positive way. I have said already that we will look at how we support victims to interact with the inquiry and the potential chair. I want to make sure that the chair, whoever he or she is, has an opportunity to look at how they frame the issue, rather than have central government directions on it. The Prime Minister has been clear that the inquiry will be fully funded, and we are looking forward to how we can develop that. The involvement of victims is central and we need support for them, because I do not want to retraumatise people who are talking about their cases and what happened to them in the past. It is important that we get to the truth of what has happened, where there have been institutional failings and how we put in place policy options to rectify that, reduce future victims and ensure that we bring perpetrators to effective justice.
Employment Rights Bill
(1 day, 4 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Chakrabarti
“Secretary of State: equal pay enforcement function(1) Payroll and other company information required by HMRC for the purposes of taxation may be used by the Secretary of State for the purpose of monitoring compliance with the equal pay duty under the Equality Act 2010. (2) The Secretary of State may conduct more detailed investigations into equal pay compliance on the basis of such monitoring of payroll and other information and an employer must take all reasonable steps to cooperate.(3) In the event that the Secretary of State is of the view that a particular employer is in breach of its duties to provide equal pay for like, equivalent or work of equal value, they may—(a) issue a private notice to the employer, advising of that view and recommending rectifying measures in relation to past discriminatory pay or future pay practices and policy,(b) issue a public notice with the type of advice set out in paragraph (a) above, or(c) seek such relief as would be open to individual employees in the appropriate court or tribunal, on their behalf.(4) A court or tribunal finding in favour of such an application may, in addition to awarding appropriate compensation to victims of discriminatory pay practice, impose a civil penalty, not exceeding 10% of the employer’s annual turnover, as it finds appropriate in all the circumstances.(5) The Secretary of State may employ algorithmic technology including artificial intelligence software in the monitoring of equal pay compliance but must provide any court or tribunal in which relief is sought, with details of any relevant software and evidence of the effective functioning of the computer system employed in the monitoring and investigation of the employer in question.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to probe why equal pay laws have been left to individual employees to enforce by personal litigation, and how an element of state enforcement might assist such employees in achieving their rights to equal pay as provided for under the Employment Act 2010.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that the principle that sits behind my probing amendment, like the principle of equal pay for equal or equivalent work, is uncontroversial and therefore that I need not detain the Committee for too long—I am a sort of guest of this Committee, when some noble Lords have been really putting the hard yards in for so long. Over the years, I have been incredibly grateful to discuss my concern about equal pay legislation with a number of Members in this Committee and noble Lords in general. I have been particularly grateful to my noble friend Lady Jones of Whitchurch and her officials, who have been very generous with their time and responded to me by agreeing to consider my proposal as part of their preparations for a more specific Bill—not too long in the future—that will cover these issues.
There has been a broad consensus in British politics for some years that there should not be discrimination in pay. We have had the Equal Pay Act since 1970 and successor legislation; I do not believe it has been controversial in party-political terms. That will be 75 years of equal pay legislation in December, and still nowhere near equal pay. My own view is that, right from the beginning, there was a fundamental design fault in the legislation—which was so brilliantly “Made in Dagenham”—because the enforcement mechanism was wanting.
I have said before there is no other area of regulation in this country that we take seriously that we would leave to an individual citizen or consumer to enforce for themselves. Imagine school standards, food standards, nuclear safety standards, health and safety standards, environmental standards and so on if the only enforcement mechanism in the legislation was for the individual citizen to investigate the regulatory breach and then, with or without the support of a trade union or an NGO, to sue for themselves. That has been the position for individual workers under equal pay legislation from the very start, and that is problematic.
My amendment creates the possibility of the state acting as a backstop to stand behind an individual worker, so that she does not have to go through those ridiculous hoops—which will take years of expensive investigation and legislation—to find out what her colleagues are getting paid, not just for the same job but for equivalent work, with all the complications around that, and then, with or without trade union support, sue her employer. Who wants to do that? It is just not a realistic regulatory enforcement mechanism.
In my probing amendment, I suggest that some agency of the state ought to sit behind as a backstop in that investigation and enforcement process. If that were the case, we could help to avoid unnecessary and expensive litigation and the bankruptcy of some local authorities. A state regulator could, for example, investigate a particular employer that had become a concern with a range of regulatory options, including private notices and private conversations, before public conversations and potential enforcement action. Entrenched inequality in pay practice could be nipped in the bud before years transpire and the debts accumulate. I think, having listened to some previous debates on this Bill, that this principle ought to be welcomed on all sides of the Chamber, because it could be good for the business as well as for workers.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I will speak very briefly on this amendment. It is quite an ingenious and intelligent amendment that is quite superficially attractive. I know the Minister will give it proper and due consideration.
My only problem is that it draws an analogy that does not really stand up to close scrutiny. I defer to the noble Baroness’ greater legal expertise, but when you are employed, there is a personal contract between the employee and the employer that you have freely entered into. It may be that, in the course of that contract, your pay falls behind and there are societal and economic reasons why you are paid different amounts of money. We could be here all week discussing that.
However, it is not the same as the relationship you have with a nuclear power station, where you have the expectation that you will be kept safe from accidents and drastic events; with your local water authority and the expectation that you will not be flooded; or when you go on an aeroplane that, God forbid, that aeroplane will not crash. You do not have that direct contractual relationship with those bodies. In other words, you essentially defer that responsibility legally to other bodies to intercede on your behalf. Therefore, this amendment, in a circuitous way, undermines the very concept of a one-on-one contractual relationship, so I do not think it is analogous.
Having said that, I would not particularly oppose this amendment. It is ingenious and interesting but, with all due respect, I do not think the noble Baroness draws an accurate analogy between the two.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Lord for taking the argument so seriously. Of course, I disagree with him. When you go to eat in a restaurant, go to school or buy a can of baked beans, you may well have a private, contractual relationship with the supplier of that good or service. None the less, the state has decided that it needs to intervene because these power relationships are not all equal and there is a public good in the baked beans being safe to eat, the school delivering a good service, et cetera.
So, from the moment the UK Government and the UK people took the democratic decision that there should be laws to protect school standards, food safety, health and safety and non-discrimination in pay—supported by people from all parties, including in your Lordships’ House—it is not just a matter of private contract between two parties anymore; it is actually a matter of public policy and a wider rule of law point. The non-discrimination point has been non-partisan in this country for some years.
Most equality legislation has, perhaps, been promoted by Labour Governments, but the disability rights Act is the obvious exception. There has been a bipartisan consensus that we should not discriminate against people because of their sex, including in pay. We just have not been delivering on pay as well as we have been delivering in other areas of women’s lives. Therefore, the analogy with school standards, health and safety standards and food standards works. If we want to achieve equal pay, we have to take it seriously in enforcement.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
Just to come back to the noble Baroness, would she therefore extend the provisions of her amendment to all protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010?
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, that was a most interesting exchange, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and my noble friend Lord Jackson for it. As I have said many times, I am not a lawyer, but as a broader observation, there seems to be a slight philosophical discussion developing this evening between intervention and initiation when it comes to various state interventions in certain areas of law.
I have no doubt at all that the intention behind the noble Baroness’s amendment is to strengthen the enforcement of equal pay laws. As she rightly says, we all support that objective, but we feel that this particular proposal is somewhat flawed, not least because we just do not think it will work. At its core, the amendment risks conflating pay disparity with unlawful discrimination. It assumes that if a pay gap exists, there must therefore be wrongdoing. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, acknowledged, it is not that simple, because pay disparities can and often do arise for entirely legitimate reasons, such as differences in experience or qualifications, performance geography or even negotiated terms, to my noble friend Lord Jackson’s point. To suggest that a mere statistical difference is indicative of discrimination is to abandon the nuanced legal framework carefully set out in the Equality Act 2010. While paying a great deal of respect to the arguments—and there is considerable merit in this—we cannot support this amendment.
The Minister of State, Office for Equality and Opportunity (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, like my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti, I am also an occasional visitor to this Committee, but I am very pleased to be here this evening to address her Amendment 275. I thank her for recognising the engagement there has been with the Government and others on this up to this point.
Certainly, the Government want to make very clear that we share the broad aims behind this amendment. Over 50 years after the Equal Pay Act 1970 and 15 years after the Equality Act 2010, it is clear that equal pay has not yet been achieved. That is why the Government have committed to strengthen the equal pay regime and end pay discrimination. I share the concerns of my noble friend in identifying the challenge of enforcement in this case. There is more we can do to ensure that the onus does not fall only on women to find out whether they are receiving the same pay as their male colleagues for equal work and to take enforcement action against employers in the case of a breach.
It is possible to envisage, in relation to the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, a system in which you have both the contractual arrangement and the ability to take individual action as is the case now and an enforcement body that supports people doing that in general terms and identifies thematic or consistent ways in which equal pay is being breached. That is why the Government are committed to establishing an equal pay regulatory and enforcement unit with the involvement of trade unions. As part of this, we will carefully consider how we can improve the enforcement of the equal pay scheme.
On 7 April we launched a call for evidence on this issue and wider equality law to ensure that any steps we take will lead to a meaningful strengthening of protections against pay discrimination—an objective that I am sure my noble friend will share. It is important that the Government are able to develop these changes in partnership with business, trade unions and civil society to ensure that the law works for everybody. For that reason, I hope my noble friend will recognise that this will be a more appropriate process through which to address these issues. As she suggests, we will give these areas very close consideration in advance of the equality, race and disability Bill.
In relation to some of the specific points my noble friend raises about the way this might operate, we certainly recognise the benefits that can arise from government departments, including HMRC, working together. HMRC already has a number of joint working and data-sharing arrangements with departments and agencies. The Government are therefore not closed in principle to establishing new data-sharing arrangements with regulatory authorities where this can support their regulatory functions.
My noble friend made a very interesting point about the use of AI. It would not be sufficient simply to compare the pay of different people working within a workplace unless you could also have some analysis of how that applied to the nature of the work and whether that was work of equal value. It may well be that advances in technology, including AI, would be a way in which we could support that monitoring.
Policy is at a very formative stage. My officials will explore a wide range of options to improve the enforcement of equal pay rights. While taking great care to ensure that safeguards are put in place in relation to personal data, particularly where that relates to discrimination and protected characteristics, I suspect the sort of description that she gave of the contribution of AI is very much part of what, across government, we are wanting to see in terms of its use in future.
We are sympathetic to the ultimate objectives of my noble friend’s amendment. I hope she recognises that and the progress that we intend to make on that pledge to deliver stronger enforcement mechanisms and, in particular, an equal pay regulatory and enforcement unit. With that assurance, I hope she feels able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My apologies to the Committee. It has of course been 75 years since the European Convention on Human Rights and 50 years since equal pay legislation—forgive that rather glaring howler. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, in particular, and to my noble friend the Minister, whose officials have been very generous and thoughtful with their time. I look forward to watching their thinking develop on this forthcoming legislation. With that, I beg leave to withdraw.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
Member’s explanatory statement
This is a probing amendment to understand Parliament’s role as an employer itself and the role of over 600 other employers on the site.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 279ZZZA—it somewhat reminds me of ZZ Top. This is, again, a bit of a niche amendment. The reason I say that is because many people—not your Lordships, I am certain—may think that “the Crown” in Clause 144 applies just to the King and the Royal Family. In fact, UK Ministers are of the Crown, and “Crown premises” means any government building and any land that it has, and so on. So the reality of what this clause refers to is much broader. I am sure that Ministers are thrilled that subsection (3) applies to them, so they will never be found criminally liable in that regard.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Finlay of Llandaff) (CB)
Does the noble Baroness wish to move her amendment?
Baroness Coffey (Con)
I thought I started by saying I would move it, but yes, I certainly do want to move it.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Coffey for her amendment. She raises thoughtful and important questions about Parliament’s role as an employer and the complexity of managing the site, which contains over 600 other employers. These are legitimate concerns that deserve proper consideration, not least because Parliament should seek to model best practice in matters of employment and compliance. I think we all agree with that, but does it comply, and should there be a power of entry into these premises to check that we are complying?
My noble friend has made compelling points, and I hope that the Minister will respond with clarity and detail. The concerns that my noble friend outlined are not theoretical; they touch on the credibility of this institution as both lawmaker and employer. I therefore look forward to hearing the Minister’s response and the Government's justification for retaining—or reconsidering—the exemption as drafted.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Information and Technology (Baroness Jones of Whitchurch) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, for her amendment, which raises an important topic: how the enforcement provisions in Part 5 would apply to Parliament and MPs as employers.
Parliament must of course comply with employment legislation. However, the Bill provides that the powers of entry in Part 5 cannot be exercised in relation to
“premises occupied for the purposes of either House of Parliament”;
otherwise, Part 5 would apply to both Houses of Parliament and to MPs as employers. We are in danger of having something similar to—but slightly less than—a deep constitutional crisis, because the approach was agreed on the advice of the House authorities. It is therefore not a government decision; it is a decision made by the House authorities. They are more powerful, as far as I can see, and they can therefore overrule what the Government may think about all this.
This approach is not unusual. It aligns with recent precedents, such as Section 165(1)(a) of the Building Safety Act 2022, to respect parliamentary privilege. In this case, Parliament has to comply with employment legislation. The only issue raised here is about the power of entry not applying to the Parliamentary Estate. The noble Baroness might understand why we want to make sure that the Parliamentary Estate is secure from that challenge, and there is probably another place where she could raise her concerns about employment in the Parliamentary Estate. I have some sympathy with some of the cases that she argued about, but I suggest that she sees the House authorities about them. I therefore ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
I certainly will withdraw it. I did not mean to put the Minister in a difficult place, and her answer was very gracious. My amendment was based on the expectation that this is a royal palace, where things such as licensing laws and health and safety rules do not technically apply. However, that aside, we still need to consider how we act. If nothing else, I hope that this short debate has contributed to reminding ourselves of the obligations that we all share. With that, I beg leave to withdraw.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom
“Impact assessment on enforcement of holiday pay compliance(1) The Secretary of State must, within 12 months of the day on which this Act is passed, lay before Parliament an impact assessment of the ability of businesses to comply with the enforcement provisions of this Act relating to holiday pay entitlements.(2) The assessment under subsection (1) must include—(a) an evaluation of the practical, administrative and financial implications for employers in meeting the requirements relating to holiday pay,(b) consideration of the capacity of small and medium-sized enterprises to comply with those requirements, and(c) an analysis of any barriers to compliance identified during implementation.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment places a duty on the Secretary of State to assess how effectively businesses—particularly small and medium-sized enterprises—are able to comply with the enforcement mechanisms relating to holiday pay under this Act, and to identify any practical barriers or burdens.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 279ZZB and 305 to 309, which are in my name.
Turning first to Amendment 279ZZB, we firmly support the principle that workers must receive their full entitlement to holiday pay and that those rights must be enforceable. However, we believe that achieving that goal in practice, particularly under the new framework set out in the Bill, requires us to be clear-eyed about the real-world challenges that many businesses face. Holiday pay is one of the most complex areas of employment law and has only become more so following the changes introduced in January of this year.
While some employers regrettably seek to avoid their obligations and should rightly being sanctioned, the reality is that many more are simply trying to navigate a legal framework that is very confusing, technical and still evolving. For small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, compliance is not always a question of willingness but of capacity and clarity. That is why this amendment is both timely and proportionate: it asks only that the Secretary of State undertakes an impact assessment to consider how businesses—particularly SMEs—are coping with the new enforcement provisions. It would require an evaluation of the practical, administrative and financial implications of compliance and establish whether any barriers have emerged during implementation.
Crucially, this is not about weakening enforcement. In fact, it is quite the opposite: it is about ensuring that the fair work agency, which we hope will become a cornerstone of enforcement under this Bill, is properly resourced, modernised and equipped to support both workers and employers in meeting their obligations.
Turning to Amendment 305, this Government have managed to get unemployment to hit its highest since the pandemic—4.6%, according to the most recent ONS figures. This is not a figure that we can shrug off because, of course, behind it are real lives, real households and real businesses that are facing uncertainty. At the same time, the business environment is under considerable strain. Recent changes to national insurance contributions have forced employers to make extremely difficult decisions. The employer rate has risen from 13.8% to 15% and the threshold has been lowered, placing even greater pressure on payrolls.
Research from S&W has shown that around a third of UK business owners are still planning further job cuts as a direct result of these changes. Many have already begun reducing headcount. Others are cutting hours, freezing pay or raising prices—moves that will impact both employees and consumers. So, the question that has to be asked is: how will this legislation affect employment in that context? I should also have mentioned, of course, that May showed a very significant drop in payroll numbers.
It is easy to sit in Westminster and write these rules. It is much harder to understand how the rules will play out in towns and factories, in small businesses, in hospitality, in logistics, and across the many sectors that make up our labour market. That is why this amendment is vital.
I turn to Amendment 307. The British Retail Consortium has warned of a potential “high-street bloodbath”, with one in 10 retail jobs at risk over the next three years, if the Bill’s measures are implemented without careful consideration. Retailers are already grappling with rising costs and squeezed margins, and these additional employment burdens could accelerate job losses in an industry that is vital to our economy. I believe that 180,000 jobs—I forget the precise number—are at risk through to 2028, according to the BRC.
Similarly, the Institute of Directors has published stark findings showing that nearly three-quarters of its members—72%—believe that this legislation will dampen economic growth. Some 49% of business leaders say they plan to reduce hiring; 36% of them intend to outsource more roles; and 52%, more than half, anticipate investing further in automation as a response. These figures paint a clear picture: employers are preparing to scale back on job creation and are likely to replace human roles with technology, in response to rising costs and compliance demands.
The Federation of Small Businesses echoes these concerns. SMEs are the backbone of the UK economy, yet many are telling us that the cumulative impact of new regulations, increased national insurance contributions and rising wage floors are forcing them to reconsider recruitment plans or even reduce existing staff. The FSB has called for a more balanced approach that safeguards workers’ rights without stifling the very businesses that create these jobs, and the growth. Can the Minister name a single business that expects to increase hiring because of the measures in the Bill?
On Amendment 306, what of our youth? At a time when the Government should be prioritising opportunities for young people entering the workforce, the figures are concerning. Between January and March 2025, an estimated 354,000 young people aged 16 to 24 were not in education, employment or training; that is up by 21,000 compared with the same period last year. The Government will no doubt argue that the provisions in this Bill, such as the right to guaranteed hours and changes to statutory sick pay, are designed to protect vulnerable workers, many of whom are young and may be on the margins of employment. However, the reality is more complex. Although well intentioned, these changes will make it more costly and complicated for employers to hire young people, who often lack the experience and are seeking flexible or part-time work to get started in their careers. The burden of additional costs and rigidities can discourage employers from offering entry-level roles or apprenticeships—exactly the opportunities that young people desperately need to develop skills and build work histories.
On Amendments 308 and 309, let me turn to a specific sector in the UK: manufacturing. In the north-west, manufacturing is not only a significant contributor to the regional economy but a vital source of skilled employment and innovation. Many manufacturers there are actively seeking to invest in advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence and automation, to improve productivity and to remain competitive on the global stage. However, these ambitions risk being undermined by the additional costs and compliance burdens imposed by this Bill. Manufacturers are already grappling with the challenges of global tariffs, supply chain disruptions and inflationary pressures; adding further regulatory and financial strain threatens to hollow out this critical sector.
If the increased labour market enforcement and associated costs become too great, there is a real risk that manufacturers will reduce investment, scale back hiring or even relocate operations. The knock-on effects on local economies, particularly in regions depending on manufacturing, would be severe, affecting jobs, skills development and regional growth. While the objectives of the Bill—to protect workers’ rights and promote fair employment practices—are indeed laudable, we must ensure that they do not come at the expense of vital industries and communities. I beg to move.
Lord Goddard of Stockport (LD)
My Lords, these amendments collectively highlight the critical importance of supporting small and medium-sized enterprises as they adapt to the changes introduced by the Bill. We have raised this issue repeatedly throughout our deliberations. Night after night, this comes up in other parts of the legislation. It all comes back to small businesses. My biggest postbag at the moment is from small businesses concerned about their future—of no political persuasion at all. This is one of the few chances, in this small debate, where we get to talk about those challenges and the enforcement mechanisms, especially around things such as holidays. As alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, compliance can be complex and resource-intensive, although I do not fully agree with his complete doom-and-gloom scenario of this part of the Bill.
Recent data shows that SMEs employ around 60% of the UK workforce, yet many report that regulatory burdens can disproportionately strain their limited administrative capacity. The amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, such as Amendment 279ZZB, would place a duty on the Secretary of State to assess how effectively the SMEs can meet those obligations and to identify any practical barriers that they face. It is important to ensure that the Bill’s ambitions do not inadvertently disadvantage the very businesses that form the backbone of our economy. That the Government should have a means of tracking how the Bill’s implementation is impacting on the economy is vital.
I briefly turn to the reviews called for in Amendments 305 and 309, which seek to examine the Bill’s impact on employment, youth opportunities, job creation and regional labour markets, especially in the north-west of England, where my heart still lies and where the Industrial Revolution began. We are trying to embrace AI. We are trying to become ground-breakers again at Manchester University and other establishments. I know that these really affect the regional labour markets, but these are valid concerns, as we are still recovering from the recent economic shocks. The requirement for independent assessment would help us get a clearer picture of this legislation and how it affects businesses and workers. While amendments by the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, and others are cautious in their approach, they reflect a genuine concern that implementation must be manageable for SMEs, without stifling growth for employment.
As we move forward, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s view on these amendments and would appreciate some remarks about how the Government intend to physically support SMEs throughout these changes and the unintended consequences. Because that is at the heart of this. You can have and develop the policies, but what businesses are asking me is, “What are you going to do? What can I see that helps me to embrace this legislation and to take people on, train them and employ more people?”—as opposed to the perception that the burden is against that, which is an unintended consequence of trying to do the right thing of giving everybody employment rights, and it is a fine line. We are politicians and we understand it a bit clearer than people in a small company employing 10 or 15 people. They are just concerned that something is going to overwhelm them: something is going to come that they cannot control.
I want the Minister to explain the following to me and members of my group. What practical things will the Government put in place to give those small businesses confidence to embrace this and to work with them to make employees more secure, safer and have better rights? Meanwhile, how can small and medium-sized companies, not the giant multi-million companies, carry on creating jobs, developing the economy and lifting us out of the doom and gloom? We have done it before, and we can do it again. That is the question that needs answering—whether or not the Minister can do so tonight, we need some clarity before Report, or we will be meeting other people. This is important. This is not just me grandstanding; small businesses are saying to me, “Just ask the Government what they are doing and how they can help us”. This is what I am trying, clumsily, to say as we draw to a close this evening: if the Minister can give me some hope that what we are doing and have put in place will help small and medium businesses, I will be satisfied.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Leong) (Lab)
My Lords, here we go again on impact assessment. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, will forgive me if some of my notes repeat what was said in previous debates, but I will answer some of the points here. First, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Sharpe, Lord Hunt and Lord Goddard, for their amendments relating to impact assessment.
I refer to the point by the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, about what the Government are doing concerning SMEs. I have just recently been appointed as the spokesperson for the Department for Business and Trade, and my priority is to have regular communications with micro-businesses and small businesses. That is what I will be focusing on. Today, we appointed the Small Business Commissioner, who will start work very shortly in tackling late payments and some of the abuses that small businesses experience from big companies not paying them on time. We will be publishing a small business strategy very soon, and our industrial and trade strategy very soon as well, hopefully sometime next week or thereabouts. We are doing a lot—not only myself but the Secretary of State, my noble friend Lady Jones and all the Ministers in the department. We have regular contact right across the business community.
We have had extensive debate already on impact assessments related to this Bill. My commitment in an earlier debate to meet noble Lords to further discuss the impact assessments still stands. The Government have already published a comprehensive set of impact assessments based on the best available evidence on the workers likely to be affected by these measures. This includes an assessment on the economic impacts of the Bill, including on workers, businesses, sectors and regions. This package shows that there are clear, evidence-based benefits from tackling issues holding back the UK labour market. This analysis is based on the best available evidence and consultation with external experts and stakeholders, including academics and think tanks. Further analysis will be forthcoming, both in the form of an enactment impact assessment when the Bill secures Royal Assent and when we consult on proposed regulations to meet the Better Regulation requirements.
Before I conclude, I share with noble Lords some really startling statistics. We already know that healthier and happier workers are more productive workers. The Health and Safety Executive estimates that stress, depression or anxiety accounted for something like 17.1 million working days lost in 2022-23, which is equivalent to a loss of something close to £5.3 billion in output per year. In addition, close to 2 million employees report feeling anxious about hours worked or shifts changing unexpectedly. By increasing the job security of these workers, the Bill would have well-being benefits worth billions of pounds a year. The Bill will therefore create a healthier and happier workforce, which is not only the right thing to do but will help businesses by making the workers more productive as well as resulting in lower treatment costs for the NHS.
Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, asked me what we have done to support growth since getting elected. I am proud to share with the noble Lord that, since the election, 500,000 more people are in work. In recent weeks, we have had the strategic defence review with some 30,000 new jobs building submarines created, and the announcement of the Sizewell C project, which will create some 10,000 new jobs. So, we are creating new jobs.
In addition, we have people who are investing in this country and who have confidence in this Government. Jamie Dimon, who has run one of the largest US banks, JPMorgan Chase, for two decades, told the Financial Times:
“I’ve always been a believer in the UK’s inherent strengths as a place to do business and there’s much to like about the new government’s pro-growth agenda”.
Further, a couple of weeks ago, Jon Gray, president of Blackstone, one of the largest private equity companies in the world, which has invested close to £100 billion in the UK and employs some 50,000 people, told the Times:
“I would give the UK government a lot of credit for embracing business”.
This is not what the Government are saying, but what people with money who are investing in this country are saying to us. Further, every single day, £200 million is being invested in tech companies in this country. I do not call that a small sum, I call it confidence in the UK Government and what we are doing for business.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I listened very carefully to that wonderfully rosy picture of the UK economy. Can the Minister reconcile that with the most recent employment statistics, which show a decrease in payrolled employment and an increase in unemployment? That does not reconcile with what he is trying to convince us is the case.
Lord Leong (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for that. Figures go up and down every month but let us look at it in the longer term. We are creating new jobs and that is what is really important. In conclusion, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
I am enormously grateful to the Minister for his passionate defence of his Government and for his remarks. I am genuinely delighted that he has taken on a new role in small business because, unlike the vast majority of his Government, he actually knows what he is talking about when it comes to small business. We are very pleased to hear that and we welcome his general remarks. I also agree with Jamie Dimon about the growth agenda, but the fact is the Bill will not help the growth agenda. That is the argument we are trying to make.
I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Goddard, for his remarks. He accused me of being doomy and gloomy, but I did not get those statistics out of thin air; they were all supplied by the employer organisations that we referenced. If he would like, I will happily put him in touch with them all. The fact is that, once again, the Minister could not rise to the challenge of naming a single business that expects to increase hiring because of the measures in the Bill, and references to the strategic defence review do not help that argument.
The other reason why I am doomy is because, the other day, I came across a notice in a window in London that said, “After much reflection, and as a result of the substantial business rate and national insurance cost increases imposed on us in this year’s Budget, we have made the difficult decision to close. Our final day of service will be 28 June 2025”. That is a real business going out of business—that is disgraceful.
The Government’s impact assessment of the Bill, which we have debated a number of times and which I know irritates the Minister every time we bring it up, was simply inadequate. There is not enough detailed rigorous analysis to understand how these enforcement measures will affect businesses and employment across the country. Without that, we are walking blindly into serious economic risks. At this rate, if the Bill proceeds without the necessary amendments and safeguards, it will not just fall short, it will create unemployment. The additional burdens on employers, especially small and medium-sized businesses and crucial sectors like manufacturing, threaten to reduce hiring, stall investment and ultimately cost jobs. This is not speculation; it is happening, as my noble friend Lady Noakes pointed out. It is a clear and present danger based on the evidence that we have seen, and the trend is unlikely to diminish.
We support workers’ rights, but not at the expense of widespread job losses and economic harm. The Government have to provide a proper, thorough impact assessment—one that honestly addresses these risks—before we proceed further. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his offer of a meeting to discuss this, but I am not sure what there is to discuss without the actual impact assessment or the commitment to hold it as soon as possible. If this does not happen, the Bill will fail both workers and employers, and we will face the consequences of higher unemployment as a result. That is something no one wants. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“(2) Any reference in section 134 to HMRC information includes a reference to any information mentioned in sub-paragraph (1)(a) or (d) which—(a) was disclosed to the Director of Labour Market Enforcement or a person falling within paragraph (a), (d), (e), (f) or (g) of paragraph 6(4) by the Commissioners for His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs or a person acting on behalf of the Commissioners, and(b) was not obtained by an officer in the course of acting for the purposes of the National Minimum Wage Act 1998 or by virtue of section 26(2) of the Immigration Act 2016.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment provides for information previously disclosed by HMRC to enforcement authorities, and treated by paragraph 13 of Schedule 11 to the Bill as having been obtained by the Secretary of State in connection with the exercise of enforcement functions under Part 5 of the Bill, to be treated as HMRC information for the purposes of clause 134, which imposes restrictions on the onward disclosure of such information without authorisation from HMRC.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment corrects an incorrect cross-reference.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on my amendments of clause 148 at page 146, line 43 and page 147, line 9.
““employer” has the meaning given by subsection (1A);”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the definition of “employer” being inserted into Part 5 by my amendment of clause 148 at page 146, line 43.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment is consequential on the definition of “worker” being inserted into Part 5 by my amendment of clause 148 at page 147, line 9.
“(1A) In this Part “employer” means any of the following—(a) an employer within the meaning of section 230(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 or Article 3(4) of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (S.I. 1996/1919 (N.I. 16));(b) a person who is an employer for the purposes of Part 4A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 in relation to a worker mentioned in section 43K(2) of that Act;(c) a person who is an employer for the purposes of Part 5A of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 in relation to a worker mentioned in Article 67K(2) of that Order;(d) a person who is the principal for the purposes of section 47A or 63A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 or Article 70A or 91A of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (right to time off for young person for study or training);(e) a person who is—(i) an employer for the purposes of Chapter 3 or 4 of Part 2A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (zero hours workers) by virtue of section 27BJ(7) or (as the case may be) 27BP(8) of that Act,(ii) an employer in relation to a zero hours arrangement within the meaning of Part 2A of that Act (see section 27BZ2(1) of that Act), or(iii) an employer in relation to a non-contractual zero hours arrangement within the meaning of Article 59A of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996;(f) in relation to an individual who is an agency worker within the meaning of Part 2A of the Employment Rights Act 1996—(i) a person who is the hirer within the meaning of any Part of Schedule A1 to that Act (agency workers: guaranteed hours and rights relating to shifts);(ii) a work-finding agency within the meaning of Schedule A1 to that Act (see section 27BV(4) of that Act);(iii) a relevant person within the meaning of section 47I of that Act (agency workers and Schedule A1 rights);(g) in relation to an individual who is an agency worker within the meaning of the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (S.I. 2010/93) or the Agency Workers Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2011 (S.R. (N.I.) 2011 No. 350)—(i) the hirer within the meaning of the relevant Regulations;(ii) (where the worker is not actually employed by the temporary work agency) the temporary work agency within the meaning of the relevant Regulations;(h) in relation to an individual seeking to be employed by a person as a worker, that person.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment defines “employer” for the purposes of Part 5. In particular, the definition reflects the persons on whom requirements are imposed by clauses 1 to 5 (zero hours workers, etc).
“(4) In this Part “worker” means any of the following—(a) a worker within the meaning of section 230(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 or Article 3(3) of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 (S.I. 1996/1919 (N.I. 16)); (b) an individual who is not a worker as defined by section 230(3) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 but who is a worker for the purposes of Part 4A of that Act (see section 43K(1) of that Act);(c) an individual who is not a worker as defined by Article 3(3) of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 but who is a worker for the purposes of Part 5A of that Order (see Article 67K(1) of that Order);(d) an individual who—(i) is a worker for the purposes of Chapter 3 or 4 of Part 2A of the Employment Rights Act 1996 (zero hours workers) by virtue of section 27BJ(7) or (as the case may be) 27BP(8) of that Act,(ii) works under a zero hours arrangement within the meaning of Part 2A of that Act (see section 27BZ2(1) of that Act), or(iii) works under a non-contractual zero hours arrangement within the meaning of Article 59A of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996;(e) an individual who is an agency worker within the meaning of Part 2A of the Employment Rights Act 1996;(f) an individual who is an agency worker within the meaning of the Agency Workers Regulations 2010 (S.I. 2010/93) or the Agency Workers Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2011 (S.R. (N.I.) 2011 No. 350);(g) an individual seeking to be employed by a person as a worker.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment defines “worker” for the purposes of Part 5. In particular, the definition reflects the persons on whom rights are conferred by clauses 1 to 5 (zero hours workers, etc).
Lord Hunt of Wirral
“(2) Subject to subsection (3), this section is repealed three years after the day on which it comes into force.(3) The Secretary of State may, following a full independent review of the operational impact of the section on tribunal efficiency and access to justice, by regulations made by statutory instrument provide that the provisions of this section are not repealed in accordance with this section but shall continue in force indefinitely.(4) The regulations in subsection (3) are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment introduces a sunset clause to ensure that the extension of time limits for bringing employment tribunal claims is subject to periodic parliamentary oversight.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 279GA would introduce a sunset clause to ensure that the extension of time limits for bringing employment tribunal claims is subject to periodic parliamentary oversight. I will speak also to Amendments 330ZA, 330D and 334A in my name.
I have tabled these amendments along with my noble friend Lord Sharpe of Epsom because I believe that the state of the employment tribunal system is deeply concerning and urgently requires our attention. The proposals before us introduce a range of new rights for workers, including the critical right to claim unfair dismissal from day one of employment. We must therefore confront the uncomfortable truth that the current tribunal system is simply not prepared to handle the additional burden that this Bill will place upon it. Indeed, we have heard from a respected law firm that there is broad consensus among legal professionals that the employment tribunal system is, in its words, the “biggest problem in the legal world”.
The Government’s own impact assessment suggests that tribunal cases will increase by around 15% as a result of these reforms, yet I must ask how this figure has been calculated. Given the scale of the backlog we are currently witnessing, can this be anything other than a gross underestimate? The reality is that, by extending the time limits within which individuals can bring claims, the Bill itself may actively incentivise an increase in the volume of cases. If people have more time to bring claims, it is only natural that more claims will be submitted—claims that must then be processed by a system that is already groaning under enormous pressure.
To put this in perspective, we are currently facing, we are told, an employment tribunal backlog of nearly 50,000 cases. This backlog has now reached record levels, with preliminary hearings being scheduled as far away as April 2026, and full hearings not likely to take place until well into 2027. This must be a crisis. A delay of this magnitude means that justice for many is effectively denied. When someone has to wait years for their case to be heard, the protection that the law is supposed to afford becomes little more than an empty promise.
The causes of this backlog are clear. There is an acute shortage of employment judges. There is insufficient funding. There is inadequate administrative support. Although the Government have pledged to recruit hundreds of new judges, the practicalities of ensuring that those judges have the necessary expertise and that adequate administrative support is in place remain significant challenges.
That is why I believe these amendments are vital. They do not seek to block or delay the introduction of important workers’ rights, but they instead insist on responsible, measured implementation. It is essential that before these new rights come into force an independent and thorough assessment is conducted to evaluate the capacity and effectiveness of the tribunal system. This assessment has to address current delays, judge numbers, funding and the likely impact of this Bill’s provisions on tribunal caseloads. Moreover, the Government must commit to implementing all necessary measures identified in this assessment to reduce the backlog to a manageable level, specifically to fewer than 10,000 outstanding claims. Only then should these rights be activated.
This is all about ensuring that, when workers exercise their rights, they have access to a tribunal system capable of delivering timely, fair justice. Additionally, the amendment regarding the extension of time limits for claims rightly insists that this measure cannot come into effect until the Senior President of Tribunals certifies that the system can handle the expected increase in cases without further lengthening hearing times. Without such a safeguard, we risk compounding the problem and turning an already overstretched system into something unworkable.
There is another important point that I must raise. Nowhere in the Government’s impact assessment is there any explanation of why the option of introducing a right to claim unfair dismissal between day one and two years was not considered. If the intention is truly to balance the employment relationship and provide fair protections, why do we have to leap to day one? This decision is not just a legal technicality; it carries real risks. One such risk is the disincentive it creates for employers to hire workers who may be perceived as risky or less secure in the labour market—such as individuals with a history of mental health challenges, younger workers or others on the margins of employment —by exposing employers to potential unfair dismissal claims from the very first day. This Bill may inadvertently make it even harder for these vulnerable groups to find work in the first place. This would be a tragic and unintended consequence, compounding insecurity rather than alleviating it.
We have debated at length the potentially vast powers of the new fair work agency, its funding and the role it might play. However, many questions remain. Will the fair work agency with its undefined enforcement officers and unclear operational framework genuinely take on the enforcement of workers’ rights in a way that meaningfully reduces the burden on the already overstretched employment tribunals? Or will tribunals continue to bear the brunt of this increased workload without adequate support or relief?
I now look to the Government to provide this House, workers, businesses, law firms, and no doubt the tribunals with some assurance, clarity and ideally a timeline for the day-one rights provisions in this Bill. Perhaps this is the moment when the Minister will at last share with us, at least in draft, the implementation plan that we have heard so much about during the course of this Committee. Will she please undertake to ensure that we have the implementation plan before we reach Report?
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendment 279GA for a sunset clause. I perfectly understand the reason for extending the period in which employees can make claims, but I am quite sure it will increase the burden on the tribunals. We have heard about the very long delay, with even preliminary hearings not scheduled until April 2026, and these delays have continued for some years. People going to tribunal sometimes have to wait more than 18 months just to have the preliminary hearing. If numbers increase, as they are likely to, as my noble friend suggested, it is going to put far more pressure on the tribunals. The parliamentary oversight proposed and the sunset clause must take account of that.
Not only is there no point in law in having a claim left unsettled for years, but it is very bad for business to have the uncertainty. It is very bad for employees and their lives to be subject to such delays and uncertainties in what is going to happen to them professionally, because taking a claim to tribunal is not an easy matter. It can be expensive and full of obstacles. Not knowing how it will pan out is very worrying for people. For businesses, being subject to constant pressures of claims in a tribunal, whether they are justified or not, brings insecurity and a lack of confidence.
For these reasons, I think this moderate request for a sunset clause and coming back to Parliament for an affirmative vote are a good proposal, and I hope the Government will listen kindly to it.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, for introducing these amendments, but I say to him that the problem he has described so vividly was one we inherited from the previous Government. We are acutely aware that these issues need to be addressed, and I share his desire to ensure that the employment tribunal system can manage its existing caseload and the potential increase from the Bill’s measures. I assure your Lordships that we are working across government and with business and the unions to identify ways to improve a system that we inherited that is not working currently for anyone.
We are already recruiting more judges and legal case workers and providing additional resources to ACAS. On top of that, we are considering other things, such as the role that the expanded fair work agency could play in reducing the time spent awaiting costly and lengthy tribunal claims.
I would be delighted to receive any constructive suggestions from the noble Lords on this issue, but it would be entirely disproportionate to make the vital improvements to workers’ rights contained in the Bill dependent on the kind of review that their amendments propose. It would be wrong to take workers’ rights to challenge unfair practices away from them when they are not to blame for the backlog that we are currently grappling with.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
The Minister made reference to the number of judges that the Government are busily recruiting so as to help the backlog, and this is part of the Government’s response. Of the 35,000 extra civil servants recruited since March 2024—these are the March 2025 figures—how many are judges, and how many of them will be in the employment tribunal service? I do not expect the Minister to have the figures to hand, but I would be pleased if she could write to me.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, 50 new fee-paid employment judges were appointed in 2024-25, and a further three recruitment exercises to further increase capacity are now being undertaken in 2025-26.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady Lawlor for putting all this in the context of the security or insecurity of workers right across the board faced with this terrible backlog. The Minister upbraided me for the previous Government’s culpability in this, but she will know that we have been expressing serious concern about this backlog for a very long time. The fact is that it has got worse: it is 20% up on what it was when the Government came into office last year. The Minister was quite right to say there was a backlog, but my plea to her is not to make it worse.
As we draw this debate to a close, I worry that the Government have not fully grasped the critical importance of these amendments. They are not obstacles to progress but necessary safeguards to ensure that the rights we are creating are not rendered ineffective by an overwhelmed tribunal system. We urgently need clarity on the implementation plans.
The Minister promised that we would have the implementation plan “shortly”. The definition of “shortly” is “within the next hour or so”. In the dictionary, we are told that shortly means that something is about to happen. So where is it? I would like to believe that the noble Baroness’s reference to the word, which she must have carefully considered, means that tomorrow we will get it. I am very happy for her to interrupt me if I am incorrect—perhaps she could clarify.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
I was trying to be helpful to the noble Lord, but since he provokes me, I will simply say that I have used my interpretation of “shortly”, rather than the dictionary definition. It will not be happening in the next hour, I can assure the noble Lord of that.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
Could I possibly have a copy of the noble Baroness’s dictionary? She has just quoted from her dictionary, but sadly I do not have it to hand. We would all like to see the implementation plan, so please can we, if possible, before our next day in Committee next Tuesday?
There are all sorts of issues we have discussed that have not been answered. Why a measured approach between day one and two years? Was it ever seriously considered? There has been no answer from the noble Baroness on that. Did she look at it or did she move straight to day one? The gap in reasoning leaves many of us deeply worried about the unintended consequences for workers and employers alike. Regrettably, these are crucial issues which remain unresolved, and the Government have yet to provide the assurances we need. As we approach Report, we will have to return to this matter with a determination to secure the clarity and commitments that are so essential if the Bill is ever to be successful. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I will be very brief. I feel like the support act, really, because the substance, the meat, of this issue and this clause has been debated, although I am delighted that this is the final schedule and the final part, so we are on the final stages of the Bill. I just say very briefly, with respect, to the Minister, that we often ask the Minister to write to elucidate the remarks that she and her colleagues have made in the course of the Committee’s proceedings. We are watching that and making sure that we do get replies and, if we do not get proper replies, we will raise those issues on Report. I do hope, very gently, that the Minister is aware of that. Of course, we understand that information is not always at her disposal or her colleagues’ disposal, but we will need that information in order to make an informed decision on Report if the House divides at that juncture.
The second issue that I think it is appropriate to raise, raised several Committee days ago by my noble friend Lady Coffey, is impact assessments. The Cabinet Office guidelines say that impact assessments should be updated as the Bill goes through. To the best of my knowledge, that has not happened, and I am not sure that the Minister has satisfactorily answered the question that my noble friend asked earlier. With that in mind, I think that the rationale that the Minister used for the extension from three to six months was not even tepid and not even weak; it was just non-existent. To say that the Law Commission has done a consultation I do not think cuts the mustard. We on this side believe firmly that extending that period will bring more uncertainty to business, will be more costly, will encourage more litigation and workplace strife and will be a false economy.
I look over at the Government Benches and I see the pawprints of the trade unions in this. I do not know why they would want to do this, but, as on so much of the Bill, they are seemingly pulling the strings and I think that, in the end, it will not be in the best interests of workers for this to happen, not least because, as my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral said, the system is creaking. It is no good saying, “Oh, well, it was creaking under you”; this Government have been in power 12 months now, it is incumbent on them to fix the system with their legislation and I think that this is a retrograde step. It will not work, it will backfire, and on that basis, I think that neither Clause 149 nor Schedule 12 should stand part of the Bill.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, most of what I needed to say was said in the last group, so I will not labour the points, except to add a bit of colour, because my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral and I consult quite widely. We consulted this morning with a distinguished employment lawyer, who told us that, if you apply now to an employment tribunal, you will have no chance at all of getting even a preliminary hearing for 10 months. That is next April. In order to get a resolution, a case resolved, you would be looking probably at December 2027. That is nearly two and a half years away. It will take a lot more than the number of judges the noble Baroness mentioned that they have recruited so far in order to fix that particular problem. I wish her good luck and I hope she succeeds, but I really do not think that we should be doing this.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, the first thing I will say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, is that if we say we are going to write, we will write: we do not need to be told that this is being monitored in some way. I would say that I feel that we on these Benches have bent over backwards to engage with noble Lords, not only in debates but outside, by having meetings and trying to work through some of these issues in more detail. So I do resent the accusation that we are somehow hiding from accountability on these issues. We are bending over backwards to be accountable.
I also say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, that we have updated the impact assessment and written to the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, about it already. As noble Lords have said, we have now debated this issue quite extensively. We argue that the proposals we are putting forward will benefit not only employees but employers, by increasing the time within which workplace procedures and conciliation can be completed, creating an opportunity for more disputes to be resolved without the need for litigation.
Current ACAS performance data shows that that around a third of early conciliation notifications go on to submit an employment tribunal claim. Therefore, the longer period of time for resolving disputes internally and/or via conciliation will simplify the time limits for making employment tribunal claims and improve access to justice.
I have heard the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, and, as I say, we have now debated this extensively. I can assure your Lordships that this clause and schedule are essential for those who need to bring a claim to a tribunal in order to have adequate time to prepare a robust claim. I therefore ask that they stand part of the Bill.
“Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Consultation by Employers and Miscellaneous Amendment) Regulations 2006
13A In the Schedule to the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Consultation by Employers and Miscellaneous Amendment) Regulations 2006 (S.I. 2006/349) (employment rights and protections in connection with consultation), in paragraph 4(2)—(a) in paragraph (a), for “three” substitute “six”;(b) in paragraph (b), for “three” substitute “six”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment extends from three to six months the time limit for bringing a claim in an employment tribunal under paragraph 4 of the Schedule to the Occupational and Personal Pension Schemes (Consultation by Employers and Miscellaneous Amendment) Regulations 2006.
Baroness Penn
“Substitution clauses: duties of company directors(1) The director of a relevant company has a duty to ensure that the company keeps a register of all dependent contractors.(2) The director must supply details of the register under subsection (1) with the Secretary of State within 12 months of the passing of this Act and every 12 months thereafter, subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 2018.(3) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision about what information must be supplied in the register of dependent contractors.(4) For the purposes of this section―(a) a “relevant company” is a company that―(i) provides services in relation to postal and courier activities, food and beverage service activities or taxi operation,(ii) has more than 250 employees in the UK and overseas, and(iii) includes provision within the company’s contracts with contractors which allow the contractor to send another qualified person (a “substitute”) to complete the work in the contractor’s place if the contractor is unable to complete the work,(b) a “director” includes any person occupying the position of director, by whatever name called, and (c) “dependent contractor” means a person who—(i) performs work or services for the relevant company,(ii) is paid according to tasks performed rather than hours of work,(iii) depends partially or primarily on the relevant company for employment and income,(iv) is not required to perform services for the relevant company, and(v) is not specified as an employee or worker for the relevant company within a statement of employment particulars or a contract of employment.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to require certain company directors to keep a register of the people carrying out work for the company under so-called “substitution clauses”, which allow companies to permit their suppliers – including some delivery couriers – to appoint a substitute to supply services on their behalf.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, Amendment 280 is designed to address the use of substitution clauses that allow for illegal working. There are different ways of measuring it, but on some estimates there are 4.7 million gig economy workers in the UK, including around 120,000 official riders at Uber Eats and Deliveroo, two of the largest delivery companies in the country.
For years we have heard stories of labour market fraud and visa abuse committed by contractors related to those companies, and much of that abuse has come through the legal loophole created by substitution clauses. These clauses have traditionally been used to give flexibility to businesses, but in the gig economy they are being used to allow illegal working. From late 2018 to early 2019 there were 14,000 fraudulent Uber journeys, according to Transport for London. During random checks two years ago, the Home Office found that two in five delivery riders who were stopped were working illegally.
I acknowledge that some action is being taken that will address part of this issue. Ministers have said that they will consult on employment status and moving towards a two-part legal framework that identifies people who are genuinely self-employed. I support that ambition, but as someone who worked on the original proposals in this area that stemmed from the Taylor review, I also understand the complexity of resolving this, and I fear that it could end up being put in the “too difficult” pile in Ministers’ in-trays.
The Government have also brought forward amendments to the borders and immigration Bill to include a legal requirement for organisations to carry out right-to-work checks on individuals they employ under a worker’s contract or as individual subcontractors, and for online matching services that provide details of service providers to potential clients or customers for remuneration. What are the timescales for the consultation and the secondary legislation to bring those measures into force? On my understanding, these provisions will not extend to the use of substitutes, meaning that this loophole will remain.
Amendment 280 seeks to go some way to addressing this through the introduction of a comprehensive register of all dependent contractors. Such transparency would help to ensure that employment rights are upheld and pay is not suppressed through illegitimate competition, and would also support the enforcement of right-to-work checks. An alternative approach would be to ban substitution clauses altogether, or at least for those companies and sectors where abuse is the most prevalent—or, as Amendment 323E in a later group from the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, seeks to do, restrict their improper use.
Given that substitution clauses have played an important part in case law on determining employee or worker status, this could have broader implications, so I have focused on transparency as a first step. But I would be interested to hear the Minister’s view on removing or restricting the use of substitution clauses and whether that is preferable to a register delivering transparency, for example.
A further alternative would be to introduce right-to-work checks for substitutes by the original engaging business. While this was deemed to be out of scope for this Bill in the Commons, I had hoped that the Government’s amendments to the borders Bill would fill this gap. However, unless I have misunderstood—I would be grateful if the Minister can clarify this for me—their approach leaves this loophole untouched. The impact assessment for the Government’s amendments to the borders and immigration Bill reflects the harms that illegal working has on our economy. It says:
“Illegal working creates unfair competition, negatively impacts legitimate businesses, and puts additional pressure on public services. A rapid growth has been observed in the UK in modern labour market models where businesses can currently engage workers without the requirement to complete right to work checks”.
Without further action to address the abuse of substitution clauses, as the App Drivers and Couriers Union has said:
“Unfortunately there is this loophole that allows some bad people to come through. They are not vetted so they could do anything”.
The Government need to take action to guarantee fairness and justice in our labour market. A register of dependent contractors provides a way to resolve this abuse and hold big employers in the gig economy to account. I beg to move.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Penn on tabling this important amendment. The requirement for certain company directors to maintain and report a register of dependent contractors under substitution clauses is a measure that would bring much-needed transparency to a complex area of employment. It recognises the evolving nature of work arrangements in sectors such as courier services and taxi operations. Of course, there are compliance burdens associated with maintaining such registers, especially for large companies operating over multiple jurisdictions. Additionally, data protection considerations must be carefully addressed to ensure sensitive personal information is handled appropriately and securely. These are important factors that require careful balancing against the benefits of increased transparency. We look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Lord Leong (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, for her Amendment 280 and for meeting with my noble friend Lady Jones and me last month to discuss this very important issue.
I reassure the noble Baroness that the Government are already taking action to tackle the main risks that arise from substitution, including illegal working. As she mentioned, substitution is a complex area on which we are still gathering data.
An ONS online survey of around 10,000 businesses from across the UK, published this month, found that close to 3% of UK businesses use substitution clauses. While we do not know the number of substitution clauses used in the gig economy, we know that this could impact a large number of individuals. Although estimates of the number of gig economy workers vary vastly in various surveys, from around 500,000 to 4.4 million people—the noble Baroness mentioned some 4.7 million people—the CIPD finds that roughly 75% of those in the gig economy consider themselves to be self-employed.
We have introduced an amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, as was mentioned by the noble Baroness, to extend the scope of employers required to carry out right-to-work checks to those who engage limb (b) workers or individual sub-contractors, such as those working in the gig economy. This requirement will cover those working as substitutes.
We understand the complexity of these issues, and of employment status more widely, and that is why we have committed to consult in detail on a simpler framework for employment status. Comprehensive consultation will better account for the full range of today’s employment relationships, while addressing the minority of employers who will seek to avoid legal obligations.
We were clear that some reforms in our plan to make work pay will take longer to undertake and implement. We do not have a set timeline for consulting on employment status at this point, and I assure the noble Baroness that we will keep her up to date as and when this happens. We understand the complexity of employment status, as I mentioned earlier, and we are definitely committed to consulting in detail. Comprehensive consultation will better accounts for the full range of today’s employment relationships, while also addressing the minority of employers who will seek to avoid legal obligations, as I mentioned.
The noble Baroness’s amendment would create significant additional reporting burdens for businesses and would not necessarily change how those businesses use substitution clauses, as I mentioned in my earlier speech. I therefore ask the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, to withdraw Amendment 280.
Baroness Penn (Con)
Before the Minister sits down, could I confirm what I think I heard, that the amendments to the borders and immigration Bill will cover the use of substitute workers and substitute clauses with the extension of right-to-work checks?
Lord Leong (Lab)
I had better clarify this. I said that the amendment to the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill will extend the scope of employers required to carry out right-to-work checks to those who engage limb (b) workers—perhaps one could classify that as those without many rights—or individual sub-contractors, such as those working in the gig economy. Perhaps that answers the question of the noble Baroness.
Baroness Penn (Con)
So not, therefore, the use of substitute workers. That answers my question, but it leaves the issue unaddressed. The challenge before the Government is that they have acknowledged the existence of this problem, with amendments brought to the borders and immigration Bill on Report, but they propose to leave this loophole unaddressed. The powers they are bringing in that Bill will require further consultation and then secondary legislation, and the Minister was not able to put a timeline on that. If this is not addressed by those proposals in that Bill, then when will it be addressed?
Lord Leong (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness. I stand corrected on that point. The officials have just given me a note that it does cover substitute workers.
Baroness Penn (Con)
Okay. Perhaps it might be good to sit down between now and Report and clarify the exact proposed powers in that Bill. If it does—although the powers are then for secondary legislation and the detail is to be worked through—if the Government are taking the powers to address this loophole and can do it through secondary legislation under that Bill, that is welcome news. The transparency measures proposed in my approach were really an interim measure due to scope and other wider considerations. If we can directly place the obligation to carry out right-to-work checks on those organisations engaging people and their substitutes, then that would be very welcome news indeed. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Noakes
“Employment Law Advisory Committee(1) There shall be a committee, to be known as the Employment Law Advisory Committee (in this Act referred to as “the Committee”), for the purposes of—(a) giving advice and assistance to the Secretary of State in connection with the Secretary of State’s functions under this Act and any other relevant labour market legislation, and(b) performing such other duties as may be assigned to the Committee under any enactment.(2) The Committee shall consist of no more than 10 members appointed by the Secretary of State and include equal numbers of each of the following—(a) persons appearing to the Secretary of State to represent the interests of workers,(b) persons appearing to the Secretary of State to represent the interests of employers, and(c) persons who have relevant expertise but who do not fall within paragraph (a) or (b).(3) The Chairman of the Committee shall be appointed by the Secretary of State from one of the persons falling within subsection (2)(b).(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations set out matters relevant to the constitution and operation of the Committee.” Member's explanatory statement
This amendment sets up a Committee to advise the Secretary of State on regulations made under this Act and other labour market legislation. It is intended to be similar to the Social Security Advisory Committee which advises the Secretary of State in relation to social security regulations.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
As noble Lords know, this is the final group of amendments, and I must say that I am very flattered that so many noble Lords on the Benches opposite have stayed to hear it.
The inspiration for these amendments is the Social Security Advisory Committee, which has been in existence for over 40 years and has established itself as an impartial and expert committee in the highly complex area surrounding our benefits system. Much of the benefits legislation is set out in secondary legislation.
It is an area marked by highly complex law, which has very important real-world effects for the people affected by the secondary legislation. If the Department of Social Security gets it wrong, people can suffer genuine detriment. The SSAC has been an important underpinning to the parliamentary approval of complex social security secondary legislation, and it gives parliamentary accountability some real substance. Parliamentary accountability is the key driver of these two amendments.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, given the hour, I will be incredibly brief. My noble friend and I do not always find common cause—even though we are on the same Benches—but this is an extremely sensible amendment, and my noble friend has explained the extent to which she has shaped it in accordance with the Government’s wider thinking in their approach to the Bill. Given the amount in the Bill that is being left to secondary legislation, if I was in the department I would welcome a proposal like this, even if it did not stem from our own proposals and officials. In having this proposed expert committee review the secondary legislation and help the department get it right first time, this is a good example of giving very careful consideration to what it would bring. That can only be welcome, so I add my support to my noble friend’s amendment.
Lord Sharpe of Epsom (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Noakes for so expertly introducing her amendment, and I welcome the contribution from my noble friend Lady Penn regarding the establishment of an employment law advisory committee.
We believe my noble friend’s amendments would significantly strengthen the framework for effective and balanced labour market regulation. The creation of a dedicated advisory committee, modelled on the Social Security Advisory Committee, seems a prudent and timely measure. It would provide the Secretary of State with expert independent advice that draws from a diverse range of perspectives: employers, workers, and independent experts alike. This inclusive composition is vital to ensuring that any regulations developed under the enacted Bill are well-informed, fair and workable in practice.
Moreover, the proposed committee’s clear statutory function to scrutinise draft regulations before they are laid before Parliament would introduce an important additional layer of oversight and transparency. It would help to ensure that regulations and the views of all relevant stakeholders are carefully considered. The requirement for the Secretary of State to publish the committee’s report alongside any laid regulations, including an explanation when recommendations are not followed, would enhance accountability and public confidence in the regulatory process.
In sum, we think that these amendments represent a balanced and constructive approach to policy-making in the complex area of employment law. They would help guard against rushed or poorly considered regulations, support better policy outcomes and uphold the principles of consultation and transparency that are essential to good governance.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for her Amendments 299 and 300. The Government have already committed to consulting on the detail of implementation and have already undertaken extensive engagement with employers, businesses and workers’ representatives, trade unions and experts. We will continue with this approach as we develop our secondary legislation.
There are some specific instances, such as in the enforcement space, where we are proposing setting up an expert group. Upgrading the enforcement of workers’ rights is an important and complex task, where it is right to draw on expertise from businesses, workers and independent representatives.
That is why the Bill requires the Secretary of State to establish an advisory board. It will play a critical role in providing advice and insight to the Secretary of State on their enforcement function under Part 5 of the Bill, which they will in practice deliver through the fair work agency. This is a proportionate and necessary step to help ensure the agency’s effectiveness. But this is not required across the Bill and wider labour market legislation as a whole. The committee proposed by the noble Baroness would be a repetition of the planned engagement and consultation on the Bill. We have already engaged with more than 190 different stakeholder organisations on our Plan to Make Work Pay, including employers of all sizes, from SMEs to large corporations, trade unions and representative organisations representing thousands of businesses and millions of workers.
We have held round-table discussions focused on particular topics, such as zero-hours contracts, and with particular groups, such as leaders of small businesses or retailers. As a Government, we are committed to engaging closely on our plans, and we will continue to do so. This engagement will continue throughout implementation, including as we develop regulations under the Bill.
On parliamentary scrutiny, the Select Committees will of course scrutinise the government proposals and reforms as they are rolled out. The Economic Affairs Committee had an inquiry on the labour market, and the noble Baroness was herself a member of that committee, so we know that there are already bodies in the parliamentary network that can be used to provide that scrutiny. On the basis of our proposed consultation and the parliamentary scrutiny available, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her Amendment 299.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I will not detain the Committee for long. With the exception of the expert group, which I was not aware of, I could have written the Minister’s speaking notes myself. They ran along the lines of, “Blah, blah, blah, consultation; blah, blah, blah, Select Committees” and, basically, “We know best”.
My amendment was a genuine attempt to try to enhance the process of parliamentary scrutiny. As I am sure the Minister is aware, Select Committees are simply not set up to deal with the detail of secondary legislation; they are set up to do some things very well—usually broader-ranging topics such as those undertaken by the Economic Affairs Committee of your Lordships’ House—but they never attempt to look at secondary legislation. I can see a lot of secondary legislation coming down the line and the need for a better process and greater information to help Parliament in its job on that.
I am not surprised by the Minister’s response. Before we get to Report, I will consider again what to do with my ideas, which I had hoped would be constructive contributions to the Government’s Bill. I beg leave to withdraw.