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GP Funding: South-west England
(1 day, 12 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
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered GP funding in the South West.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. GPs are the front door of the NHS. They diagnose and treat illness, prevent disease and provide vital mental health support. As Lord Darzi once observed, general practice displays “the best financial discipline” in the NHS family while constantly innovating to keep patients out of hospital. However, GP funding is complex, obscure and insufficient. The bottom line is that the amount of money GPs receive is insufficient to deliver the obligations they carry. That is a view held by every single one of the 28 practice managers I met in and around my district, who tell me the situation is unfunded, unsustainable and unsafe.
GP funding is broadly based on two elements: a so-called global sum for core service costs, and additional quality and outcomes framework payments. The global sum starts with a payment per patient per year of £121.79—that is less than we might pay for our dog to go to the vet for an annual check-up, or about a third of the cost of servicing a Renault Megane. It is no wonder that practice managers spend their evenings juggling spreadsheets simply to keep the lights on.
It gets worse. That paltry sum is then modified by something known as the Carr-Hill formula. Carr-Hill was designed for a different era. It weighs patient numbers and postcodes but underrates deprivation, multimorbidity and today’s population health priorities. The consequences are stark and deliver what is known as the inverse care law. In my constituency, the Buckland surgery looks after some 4,000 patients on its list but is effectively funded for 3,200.
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
The hon. Member talks about the number of patients that GP practices have on their books. We have an ambitious plan for building more houses. Does he agree that we need to consider not just existing GP practices but funding the infrastructure for future practices, so that we have adequate services for people? There are places in Swindon that will be expected to take on thousands more patients, and the infrastructure is simply not there right now.
Martin Wrigley
The hon. Member is absolutely right: we have to consider these things. I have spent many hours persuading my local hospital trusts and the integrated care board to talk to the local authorities and work in the cycles of the local plan, so that they get their requirements into that plan. All too often they say, “A new housing development has just been built. We need a new GP practice with it,” and that is too late. The cycles do not add up. The system is broken, and we need to change that.
The Buckland surgery is underfunded by some 800 patients every year. It is part of the Templer primary care network, in which 2,500 patients are effectively treated for nothing. This means that the Buckland practice faces an annual shortfall of approximately £84,000—money that would cover another GP. If we then look at the changing number of patients per GP, in 2019 each GP was supporting 1,800 patients, compared with around 2,400 today.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
My constituents tell me of their difficulty in getting an appointment with their GP. Does the hon. Member share my view that GP practices should get a bigger share of NHS funding, which would enable them to improve the health of our constituents? And does he share my concern that much of the extra money allocated by the Government risks being swallowed by increased national insurance contributions, inflation and pay awards?
Martin Wrigley
Practice managers tell me that that has already happened and they are less funded now than they were last year.
On the changing numbers, each GP was supporting 1,800 patients in 2019 and is supporting 2,400 today, but safe care is often estimated to be closer to 1,400 per GP. So we are overloading GPs with patients. Practices make heroic use of pharmacists, physios and nurse practitioners, but the arithmetic does not add up. Meanwhile, the other part of their funding, the quality and outcomes framework scheme, has faced changes that have negatively impacted primary care. This meant that, nationally, £298 million was redistributed from the QOF into the global sum—we can see how bizarre this funding set-up gets; the names are just weird—and into cardiovascular disease prevention funding. Another £100 million of funding was repurposed but does not put extra capacity into the system. Rather than providing new money to support GPs, this felt to practice managers that the Government had been rearranging the deckchairs.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He is right to address this issue—I spoke to him just before his introduction. We have great difficulty across all this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland when it comes to securing GPs for practices. In recent years, I have been trying to ensure, with the health service, that action can be taken regarding the student loans of young medical students, if they give a commitment to remain in a GP practice for a set period of, say, five years. That would enable more GPs to stay in the system. Does he feel that that is something the Minister and the Government should take on board?
Martin Wrigley
All those things help, along with things like bringing back nurses’ bursaries. On rearranging the deckchairs, it is no wonder that practice managers described this year’s settlement as unfunded, unsustainable and unsafe.
Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)
Does the hon. Member agree that the increase of over 7% in GP contract funding for 2025-26, which the Government put in place, represents the biggest investment in GPs for more than 10 years? We always want to get more money for GPs and the Government are committed to that, but does he think that the largest increase in 10 years should make at least some difference for his constituents in Newton Abbot as well as mine in Mansfield?
Martin Wrigley
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, but sadly, I must disagree. That is not what practice managers are telling me. Their costs have gone up so much that all of the increase has been swallowed up, and they are not sure they can keep the lights on. They are really struggling. I have partners in GP practices who are paying themselves less than the minimum wage, which is not sustainable.
Patient demand has also increased post pandemic, and continued cuts have seen the removal of many services and social care that have supported what GPs do. On top of the cuts to Sure Start and a 40% drop in health visitors since 2015, carers already stretched thin face the prospect of losing personal independence payment support, which will inevitably rebound on general practice—the first line of defence. That is not to mention long covid and pandemic backlogs. All of those drive more people to want to see their GP. The cost of living crisis is compounding multimorbidity, where the most vulnerable in society with chronic illnesses are further pressured.
And then, we get the new requirement to run the appointment schedule from 8 am to 6 pm, filling every single slot. From October, practices must hold digital front doors, open all day, for non-urgent requests. With 100% booked appointments, there is no spare capacity for the person who falls in the care home or for the child who needs attention after school. Partners in the Albany surgery in Newton Abbot warn me that an unlimited invitation will flood a service that simply cannot be limitless. This is unsafe—unfunded, unsustainable and unsafe.
Talented doctors are leaving. The partnership model, still the cheapest and most community-rooted option, is no longer attractive when partners shoulder unlimited liability for premises, pensions and payroll, yet cannot guarantee safe staffing levels. The Royal College of GPs reports a 25% fall in GP partners over the past decade. The chair, Professor Kamila Hawthorne, put it bluntly:
“It makes no sense that trained GPs cannot find sustainable posts while patients wait weeks for appointments.”
Ian Roome (North Devon) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. Patients in Lynton, one of the remotest communities in North Devon, will soon have access to a GP, but that only happened because of a spirited campaign by local patients. Does he agree that if we are relying on an active community to highlight gaps in provision, it will always be the marginalised communities who find it hard to see a GP?
Martin Wrigley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I commend him on obtaining a ministerial visit to his hospital in North Devon. North Devon district hospital is fantastic and we need to ensure that it gets the investment it needs—just so long as we can get some south Devon patients there as well.
In Teignmouth, the previous four practices have merged into one, mostly due to not being able to find new partners. In Newton Abbot, one practice was on the verge of handing back its patient list due to not being able to replace retiring partners. We have not even talked about specific issues facing some of these surgeries, such as the unbreakable lease on a building that is not fit for use as a GP surgery, where the only possible course of action they could see was to declare themselves bankrupt. As doctors, that ends their careers.
And yet, these practices are doing amazing things. The Kingsteignton medical practice, partnering with the charity Kingscare, has created a model that is delivering for patients. Just think what could be done with a better funding model. Buckland surgery would like to link with the local school to tackle adverse childhood experiences before they turn into permanent ill health, providing better family support—much as it has already done with its links to a number of local support services through the Buckland hub.
Prior to the election, the now Health Secretary often quoted that a GP visit cost £40, whereas an A&E visit cost £400. I am not sure I agree with the absolute numbers, but the principle is fine: it is 10 times more expensive to put somebody through A&E than it is to put them through a GP. If we talk to Devon integrated care board on GP resilience and prevention, the evidence is crystal clear: prevention saves money. And yet, as Torbay and South Devon NHS foundation trust remains in NHS operational framework 4—we might perhaps equate it to “unsatisfactory” if it was a school—because of historical deficits, it is tasked with huge efficiency savings and is understandably risk-averse. Community services that once propped up primary and secondary care—the stroke recovery group, Devon Carers hospital service, the Torbay and Devon dementia adviser service—have vanished as funding evaporates. Closing gaps in prevention only widens cracks elsewhere. It is not getting better.
To sum up, the funding formula is broken. It delivers the inverse care law that the availability of good healthcare tends to be inversely proportional to the need for it within a population. We need to fix it. I am asking the Government today to: end the Carr-Hill formula, and make deprivation, rurality and workload properly weighted; invest in core general practice, not just peripheral schemes, so that partnerships remain viable; protect prevention budgets in the next spending round, as it is cheaper to keep people well than to rescue them later; support premises and digital infrastructure so that online access enhances rather than overwhelms safe care; and publish a workforce plan that retains experienced GPs, accelerates training and makes partnership an attractive career again.
Several hon. Members rose—
Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members to bob if they wish to be called. I ask for some self-restraint, with speeches restricted to six or seven minutes, so that we can get everybody in.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this important debate and for his contribution on this matter of long-overdue concern.
Cornwall faces some of the most severe health inequalities in the country. In January, more patients waited more than 30 minutes in ambulances outside hospital in Cornwall than anywhere else. That is not just a statistic; it is a clear sign that our health system is under serious pressure locally.
We know the reasons: our higher levels of deprivation, an older population, poor transport links that make it harder to recruit and retain the NHS and social care staff we urgently need, and the enormous impact of our visitor economy, which is finally going to be taken into account in local government funding, thanks to the fair funding review. Those deep-rooted structural challenges mean that many people across Cornwall struggle to access timely care.
For that reason, I welcome the forthcoming announcement by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care that the Labour Government will top up the system with £2.2 billion to improve general practice in the poorest areas with the highest health need. That is the right decision and the right priority for communities like mine in St Austell, Newquay and the clay country. The impact is already being felt. In mid-Cornwall, Newquay health centre and Brannel surgery are already set to receive vital upgrades. That is part of the biggest investment in GP facilities for five years, even before today’s announcement.
Steve Yemm
Last month, the Government announced the primary care utilisation and modernisation fund, which will deliver more than £100 million for upgrades to more than 1,000 GP surgeries. A number of GP surgeries in my constituency will benefit, including the Sherwood Medical Partnership surgery in Forest Town, Mansfield. Does my hon. Friend agree that that funding will make a huge difference? It will enable practices to boost productivity by seeing more patients and will improve patient care overall.
Noah Law
Yes, I agree. I am greatly relieved for my hon. Friend and his constituents that vital funding is already coming through and that the urgency has been recognised. In Newquay, for example, people have not even been able to sign up with a new GP. That is shocking, given that it is now Cornwall’s biggest town and one of the fastest growing. The assertion should not be levelled that we are not doing enough to invest in infrastructure and services alongside house building, because we are coming forward with the needed investment.
Nationally, we are looking at 8.3 million more GP appointments a year, but it is not just about the numbers. It is about restoring trust in the NHS—trust that the infrastructure and services that we need will come together with growth, which will make care local, accessible and timely. We are fixing the front door of the NHS in our GP surgeries and, thanks to our Health Secretary’s leadership, we are fixing the corridors, the consultation rooms and the care that happens before patients reach A&E, as the hon. Member for Newton Abbot mentioned. That should be the goal.
Cornwall must not be overlooked. We must be prioritised in the 10-year plan for health. How will the Government ensure that rural and coastal communities such as those in Cornwall are prioritised for once and receive their fair share of new investment, particularly considering our peninsula penalty—just as we are now starting to see happening through local government? Will the Minister commit to delivering not just more appointments, but a long-term workforce plan that reflects the needs of our ageing population and the barriers to staff recruitment in rural areas? Cornwall’s health inequalities have been ignored for too long, but with this new Labour Government we finally have a partner in Westminster that is listening and acting.
Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this important debate on GP funding in the south-west, and for his passionate speech.
I want to shine a spotlight on a village in my constituency called Sherston, where the future of the local GP surgery hangs in the balance. I realise that Sherston may not be the centre of everybody’s universe, as it is of mine, but in many ways it is a microcosm of the wider issues facing NHS-funded GPs in the rural parts of the south-west. For years, residents of Sherston and the surrounding villages have lived with growing uncertainty as to whether they will continue to have access to primary care close to home.
Here is the situation: the lease on the current building for Tolsey surgery expires in 2027 and, for a range of reasons, it cannot be renewed. A local housing developer stepped in and offered to build a brand new surgery at no cost to the NHS, in exchange for a modest increase in the number of homes in a proposed development. Understandably, the community overwhelmingly backed the plan. The only missing piece is a commitment from the integrated care board to fund the running of the surgery.
The issue has been running and running. It is not just the local residents who have been calling for action; the parish council, our county councillor and I have all repeatedly urged the ICB to commit to supporting this facility—not just the bricks and mortar, but the long-term operation of a much-needed service. After months of dialogue, however, no clear answer has been given.
The ICB relies on a toolkit to decide how to allocate resources. Early in our discussions, it acknowledged that the toolkit was designed with urban settings in mind and is not well suited to rural areas, yet the ICB has continued to defer to the toolkit, as if it is unable or unwilling to apply common sense to a rural context. It argues that there is spare capacity at the Malmesbury primary care centre, but anybody familiar with these places knows that that is simply not the case. Staff are stretched, appointment slots are limited, car parking slots are even more limited and patients are already struggling to get seen. Understandably, the people of Sherston are at their wits’ end. This is not just about one surgery; it is about a broader failure to meet the healthcare needs of rural communities.
Access to healthcare in rural areas is closely tied to transport. Sherston has no regular reliable public transport to Malmesbury, which is five miles away. Many elderly residents no longer drive. For a sick or disabled person in significant need of a GP, or for a parent with young children, getting to a GP appointment in another town can be close to impossible. Once again, as in so many other contexts, we see rural issues—transport, healthcare, infrastructure and resilience—being treated in silos, when in reality they are deeply interwoven. We must start recognising that in the system.
Following the Health Secretary’s announcement in May of new funding for GP surgeries, I wrote to his Department to ask whether Sherston might benefit. Unfortunately, the reply was disappointing. I was told that the surgery did not meet the criteria and has
“not been selected for this year’s funding.”
Well, Sherston surgery does not have very many years left. This response reflects a deeper issue: a fundamental lack of understanding of rural life in our national decision making. A site visit and a short attempt to navigate the journey from Sherston to Malmesbury by bus—or, more likely, the lack of a bus—would speak volumes. I understand that not every village can have its own GP surgery, but when a brand-new, purpose-built facility is being offered, free, to replace a much-used existing practice, why would we say no?
It is not just Sherston. Across the south-west, rural GP surgeries are being overlooked in NHS investment planning. If we are serious about levelling up healthcare access, that has to change, so I have launched a petition to save Sherston surgery. I invite residents to sign and share it. Once we have gathered sufficient support, I will present it in Parliament to show the Government just how strong the feeling is.
I was impressed by the figures from the Health Secretary that my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot cited—that the cost for a GP visit is about £40, versus about £400 for an A&E visit. Failing to fund rural GPs adequately is a false economy. For economic reasons as well as for health reasons, rural communities should not be treated as an afterthought. Everybody, wherever they live, deserves compassionate, reliable and, above all, accessible healthcare.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain.
GPs epitomise the NHS for us all. They support us from cradle to grave like no other part of the NHS. Although they represent 90% of the patient’s experience of the NHS, they get less than 10% of the budget. To better understand these issues, I have spent recent months meeting doctors and practice managers, but I have also spent a morning shadowing a GP at Walford Mill medical centre in Wimborne to see the reality of their life at first hand.
I thank Dr Wright and every patient who kindly allowed me to observe often deeply personal and distressing consultations. I witnessed high-quality, compassionate care. Despite a busy schedule, the GP took time to liaise with hospitals, arrange tests, write referrals and fully support his patients. Almost every patient was supported with more than they arrived to discuss. He sensitively raised worrying comorbidities with them and encouraged them to come back and think about their wider life. I could not fault the care that he gave.
That brings me to appointment times. The British Medical Association recommends 15-minute appointments for GPs. Most surgeries allow only 10 minutes, but they typically try to get away with five minutes. There is no way a GP can look after a person in that time, particularly given the emotional connection that they have with their patients. One minute they are telling a patient that they have cancer; the next, they are comforting a new mum who is worried about the health of her baby. How does a doctor download their own emotions in between, particularly when they are dealing with financial pressures and their own home lives too?
GP surgeries are also struggling with having to do things that they were not designed to do and not being reimbursed properly. One of the issues I witnessed was the reimbursement of blood tests. That practice recently negotiated a contract with NHS Dorset, which not only did not agree with the amount that the GP said they needed, but cut it dramatically. The GPs are being reimbursed at 25% of the actual cost to them, so they personally subsidise every blood test that they undertake, in a drive to push blood tests to hospitals where patients do not want to be and that they cannot get to. It is quite distressing for them. It is in the patients’ best interests for blood tests to be taken locally.
On the flipside, NHS Dorset’s pathway for cancer means that the follow-up investigations, including some very personal examinations, have to take place at a surgery with a GP who does not know the patient. The patient does not start their cancer journey by going to the hospital and seeing people who actually know about cancer. I found that quite worrying and distressing.
The other issue I experienced was the discrepancy between the electronic systems used by GPs and the paper systems used by doctors in hospitals, where letters were still being sent by post, causing delays and additional administration in surgeries. Bizarrely, paper prescriptions were still being issued by hospitals, meaning that patients were not able to leave to get their prescription elsewhere, and people rushing to get their family member home were having to get a new prescription, creating more delay and unnecessary work for GPs.
I have some examples with which the Government can perhaps help. I am grateful to the Minister for replying to one of these cases, so it may be familiar to him. The GPs at Wareham surgery are all partners, and they are working out of a building that was part of a hospital and ambulance station, but the building is falling down. The hospital was going to be rebuilt, but that was shelved long ago, and the surgery has finally found a new building. Unfortunately, the building comes with a 25-year lease, which extends beyond even the most youthful of partners, and there is no break clause. It also has a requirement that there be at least three GP partners, and if there are not, retiring GPs will remain personally liable until there are.
However, what we are finding in both Wimborne and Wareham is that people can no longer afford to be a partner in these surgeries. Bethan, my niece, is a GP in her early 30s, and she has probably accrued more than £100,000-worth of debt to get there. She probably has a £250,000 mortgage, because she lives on the south coast. How on earth can she, as a young woman, be expected to take unlimited personal liability on top of that? More people are therefore becoming salaried GPs. They are working their socks off in clinical terms, but they do not have any of the burden of running their surgery, taking that responsibility and subsidising patients.
The GP surgeries I mentioned are struggling to find people willing to be a partner, so that they can take up that lease. I did not hear from the Minister any real reassurance or understanding of the fact that the nature of being a GP is changing. What are the Government doing? Are we expecting the GP partner model to be phased out, and if so, what will replace it? How do we make sure that these organisations can remain?
I was most bothered when the chief executive of NHS Dorset said that GPs are independent contractors and are responsible for sorting out their own businesses. I find it absolutely appalling that we treat our GPs as if they are the local carpenter. GPs are the heart of our communities, and we need to start talking about them as an integral part of the NHS, not as an independent business that needs to make money. These people are not making money; they are saving our lives and keeping us well, and we need to treat them much better.
The population of Wimborne has doubled, and people are worried because the town has lost a GP surgery. They are constantly writing, “We need another surgery.” The surgery in Wimborne, like most surgeries, wants to expand, but one of the problems with the funding model that GPs can access—I would be grateful if this could be looked at—is the requirement to bid, design, obtain planning permission and build within a financial year. With the best will in the world and the most efficient planning system, there may be a tiny district that can do that, but I do not know anywhere that can complete the whole process in a year. We need to find a way for GP surgeries to access funding over multiple years, so that communities know they have an NHS fit for the future.
I look forward to the Minister’s comments.
Adam Dance (Yeovil) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this important debate.
GPs are the front door of our health service, particularly in rural constituencies such as Yeovil and many others in the south-west. Despite their hard work, GPs in Yeovil are stretched thin because the necessary funding and support simply are not there. Everyone deserves access to safe and accessible local healthcare, and all of our constituents should be able to see a GP within a week. Unfortunately, 23% of patients in Somerset are waiting more than 14 days for an appointment, and over 7% are waiting more than 28 days. I have heard from too many constituents who have waited that long or even longer, which is also not good enough.
We need to ensure that everyone has the right to see a GP within seven days, or within 24 hours in urgent cases, and we need more GPs to deliver that. We should also ensure that everyone aged over 70 or with a long-term health condition has access to a named GP. Many of my residents and constituents are concerned that they do not know who their GP is, or that they do not have access to a named GP. They find it concerning that they regularly have to see different GPs or locums.
Many of our GP surgeries are struggling with their buildings. As I have previously said, I am grateful to have received confirmation from the Minister that Crewkerne health centre and Church View medical centre in Neroche are set to receive a share of the £102 million to deliver upgrades to their practices, but other surgeries are seriously struggling and feel overwhelmed and overlooked. Ariel Healthcare in Chard urgently needs funding and support to upgrade its services to help local residents with urgent needs.
We cannot support our GPs in isolation. We desperately need to improve public transport in the south west so that people can get to their appointments. The cancellation of the No. 11 bus service in Yeovil highlights that issue, and residents, particularly those who are vulnerable, now struggle to access Preston Grove medical centre and Hendford Lodge surgery.
We also urgently need to fix NHS dentistry, because people are forced to go to their GP or hospital for help. Can the Minister provide a clear timeline and costed proposals for fixing the NHS dental contract? The British Dental Association has only had scoping meetings so far, so I hope the Minister and the Government will push that.
We also need to increase investment in public health. Somerset is 11th from the bottom in public health grant allocation despite having a growing public health crisis, particularly around addiction. I was a public health cabinet member for two years and we had only £100,000 to push dental health. It is just not good enough.
On average, we are £13.6 million short across the country, and public health desperately needs reforming. I hope the Minister takes on board our calls to ensure that GPs in the south-west get the funding they deserve and desperately need to support our residents. Without our fantastic GPs, there is no future for our NHS.
Brian Mathew (Melksham and Devizes) (LD)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this important and timely debate.
I will quote a GP in Melksham and Devizes who also covers part of the neighbouring constituency. He wrote in an email to me this week:
“Without a significant improvement in GP contract payments, the ICB will push us into a position where we have to reduce the hours our surgeries are open. This for us at best means closing sites 1-2 days per week to try to minimise our staff wage bill which is our largest expense. Depending on what happens in 1-2 years, one or more sites would have to close.”
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
My hon. Friend is making a strong case for Three Shires medical practice, which has three surgeries in my constituency. Does he agree that if any of the surgeries were to close, it would be a disaster for patients because of the poor public transport links? Does he agree more generally that it is more expensive to deliver GP services in rural areas because we cannot centralise to save money without dramatically reducing patient access?
Brian Mathew
I totally agree with my hon. Friend.
On funding, although the general medical services baseline is around two thirds of our income, it has gone up by 7.2%, with 6% eaten up by the increases in employer national insurance contributions and the national living wage. Our other income streams—dispensing, QOF and enhanced services—have gone up very little. Our emergency section 96 one-off funding has helped us to postpone that decision, and further tightening our belts has stabilised our financial position. However, partner income remains lower than it was two years ago, and it is little more than that of salaried GPs, making reappointment difficult.
Most of the new money is tied to the primary care network, so it is centralised, or it is delivered via the additional roles reimbursement scheme, which is mainly restricted to non-GP roles such as pharmacists. There has been a scheme to allow PCNs, not practices, to employ newly qualified GPs in a temporary capacity—for example, at a central hub practice. That arrangement disadvantages rural practices, as resources are centralised towards urban centres.
At Three Shires, we have reduced our use of locums to cover GP absences by about 60%, resulting in fewer appointments overall. We have allowed retiring nurses and salaried GPs to leave without replacement, or only be partly replaced, to make savings. That has meant offering fewer appointments and greater work for remaining staff. Our patient participation group has been amazing. It formed the Friends of Three Shires, which has fundraised for new equipment, such as ECG machines and examination couches, helping to keep facilities up to scratch for patients.
The integrated care board has effectively imposed a deadline at the end of September for us to demonstrate that we can continue. Would the Minister be prepared to meet me and GPs from my constituency to hear directly from them about the stark realities of rural GP practices, so that they can help?
Jess Brown-Fuller (Chichester) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing today’s important and timely debate. He is a tireless advocate for his local community, and I commend him for shining a spotlight on GP funding and the broader state of healthcare in the south-west. He spoke about the funding model for GPs, which is complex, obscure and outdated, and does not account for rurality.
As the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for hospitals and primary care, I hear all too often from my constituents and from people across the country who are struggling to access the care they need. Our NHS is the pride of the nation, but years of underfunding and mismanagement under the last Conservative Government have left services in crisis.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in general practice, with patients facing increasingly long waits to see a GP, as highlighted by my hon. Friend’s statistics. In 2019, the average GP had 1,900 patients on their books; today, they have 2,400, and some people cannot get an appointment at all. People rightly tell me that they are not included in the Government’s waiting list statistics because they have not managed to get on a waiting list in the first place—or even speak to a doctor.
Those are not isolated complaints. I am sure many hon. Members will recognise those concerns from their own constituency surgeries, or from spending a morning with their local GP, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) described. We also need to be honest about the scale of the problem. In 2024 alone, more than 2 million people in the south-west waited over 28 days for a GP appointment, and that pattern is repeated across the country. Chichester is not in the south-west, but nearly 30% of patients in my constituency had to wait more than two weeks, and around 8% waited more than a month. That is not acceptable.
The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay (Noah Law) made an important point about tourism. The population of my coastal communities such as Selsey, Pagham and the Witterings doubles over the summer months with holidaymakers, which can put additional stress on primary care services.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) made an important point about the role that planning and ICBs play. Too often, developers come forward with large site proposals that include a GP surgery on the site. However, unless they have buy-in from the ICB, so often those GP surgeries that have been specifically designed for that purpose sit empty without a GP practice to go into them.
My hon. Friend also spoke about her village of Sherston. It might not be the centre of my universe—that is my little rural village of Westbourne—but both Sherston and Westbourne face the exact same problems. My village of Westbourne is about to lose its rural surgery; we are waiting for the ICB’s final decision. Residents of Westbourne do not have a public transport link to the GP that they are being asked to go to, across the border in Emsworth.
The Liberal Democrats believe that everyone should have the ability to live a healthy and fulfilling life, which means they must have timely and local access to healthcare, whether that is from a GP, a dentist, a pharmacist or a mental health professional. We must invest in early access to community care, in order to relieve the burden on hospitals and fix the social care crisis that leaves too many people stuck in hospital beds waiting for help that never comes.
Research by the House of Commons Library that was commissioned by the Liberal Democrats found that funding for GP practices was cut by £350 million in real terms between 2019 and 2024. Those cuts have hit communities hard, and the impact is being felt not only by patients but by the hard-working professionals trying to keep the system going. GPs who I speak to are burnt out and overburdened, and GPs in general are leaving the profession in record numbers. The result is a vicious cycle, with fewer staff, longer waits and growing public frustration. I know some incredible GPs, and New Zealand is really lucky to have them, but I would rather they were here. Despite a 2019 Conservative pledge to hire 6,000 more GPs, by the general election last year there were 500 fewer GPs than when that pledge was made. In fact, the UK has 16% fewer qualified GPs per capita than comparable high-income countries.
It does not have to be that way. Healthcare is not a luxury. It is a fundamental right and not a privilege. Everyone should be able to see a GP when they need to, and that is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for a legal right to see a GP within seven days, or within 24 hours if the situation is urgent. To make this a reality, we are calling for the recruitment of 8,000 more GPs. We would achieve that by supporting junior doctors to specialise in general practice and by introducing new schemes to help experienced GPs to return to the workforce.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Adam Dance) said, we also believe that everyone over 70 and those with long-term conditions should have access to a named GP. Such continuity of care is not only vital for building trust and supporting staff morale; it also improves health outcomes and saves money in the long term. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), who is the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, has said, continuity of care is key. Patients who have had the same GP for more than 15 years have a 25% lower chance of dying compared with patients who change GPs regularly. Continuity of care builds trust, improves outcomes and reduces hospital admissions. It is good for patients, good for staff and good for the system as a whole.
We must also address the broader picture. Community pharmacies are closing at an alarming rate when they should be playing a bigger role in delivering frontline care. Fairer and more sustainable funding is needed to keep these services open, to relieve pressure on GPs. I am a big fan of Pharmacy First and I know that the Minister is, too; I have heard him talk about his passion for it. But pharmacists in my constituency tell me that with the regular increase in targets, they are struggling to keep up.
Adam Dance
I spent an evening with one of my local pharmacists, and it was so shocking that people were coming 20 or 30 miles to his pharmacy, because it was the only one open near my village of South Petherton. He was struggling so much because he could not get the medication that people needed, despite the fact that they were travelling so far to try and get medication from him. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is just not good enough and that the Government need to support pharmacies a lot more?
Jess Brown-Fuller
I am sure the Minister will talk about the hub and spoke model that the Government are championing, but my hon. Friend is right about the difficulties in rural areas especially. Many constituents have talked to me about the distance they are having to travel to get basic medication that means they can function, go to work the next day or get their children to school.
This is why we have been calling for a fairer and more sustainable long-term funding model for community pharmacies. They play a vital role in relieving pressure on GPs, yet they are being squeezed out of existence. Since 2017, 1,200 pharmacies have shut their doors. Community Pharmacy England has warned of real-terms funding cuts of at least 25% since 2015, leaving the network on the brink of collapse.
This is not just a failing system; it is a broken one. This Labour Government have a responsibility to act. They were elected on a promise of change, but that change must begin with fixing our NHS. I am sure the Minister will celebrate the budget increase, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Melksham and Devizes (Brian Mathew) said, this has been swallowed by the increased costs and national insurance contributions. That is why the Liberal Democrats tabled an amendment to exempt healthcare services from the NICs rise, which the Government chose not to accept.
General practice is the front door to our health system. If we do not invest properly in GP services, everything else suffers. We must not let that door remain closed to so many. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot rightly said, we do not have to accept broken systems—we can fix them, and now is the time to prove that we will. Will the Minister commit to the Liberal Democrat proposal of a legal right for patients to see a GP within seven days, or within 24 hours in urgent cases? Does he agree that everyone over 70 and those with long-term health conditions should have access to a named GP?
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your leadership, Dame Siobhain, and to be here. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this debate on a topic that I am all too familiar with, having spent time as a GP. This place may not be so familiar with the inner workings of GP practices, so it is fantastic to have the chance to discuss it. I declare an interest: many of my immediate and wider family are GPs, and it is important to put that on the record.
This debate has allowed us to discuss a huge variety of things, including the Carr-Hill formula and the QOF. We did not touch on DES and LES—directed enhanced services and local enhanced services. Rural dispensing practices are a really important funding stream. We have talked about the partnership model, retention, joining up services, ICBs and their toolkits, the interaction with the planning department and rurality, which has a particular impact on services in my area.
I want to pick up on the comments made by the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade). Fair play to her for going out and shadowing a GP to see what their life is all about. At the heart of what she said was the good care that goes on. If we were to believe the Daily Mail, every GP is on the golf course and only cares about the money. The money is important, but GPs care far more about the patients and the quality of care they give. That is what drives them and gets them out of bed each day. We in this house must not forget that when we discuss healthcare, because it is important. We will get far better healthcare than ever before in the last few decades, and we must not lose sight of that.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newton Abbot for giving me my first chance as a shadow Health Minister to debate general practice and ask the Minister some questions. Without further ado, I will turn to those questions. First, what is the Government’s current position on primary care and its models? In an interview in The Times in January 2023, the current Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said:
“I’m minded to phase out the whole system of GP partners altogether and look at salaried GPs working in modern practices alongside a range of other professionals.”
He went on to speak at events held by the King’s Fund and the Institute for Public Policy Research, where he acknowledged that he has
“observed a GP partnership model in decline where very soon we’re going to have more salaried GPs than partner GPs”
and that the
“status quo is not an option”.
Then 18 months ago, just six months before the election, the Secretary of State stated,
“What we were minded to do is to sort of phase it out over time. I’m still not sure whether or not the GP partnership can survive in the longer term. But I haven’t reached a sort of firm conclusion that says that it shouldn’t.”
In the light of that, and given the importance of the partnership model, could the Government clarify their position with regard to the partnership model and any other models that are being considered?
Vikki Slade
I thank the hon. Member for his comments about my visit to the GP, because it was an absolutely wonderful experience. If the proposal is to phase out the partnership model and move to a salaried model, how would that work, given the severe cuts that ICBs are facing? With 50% cuts to most of the ICB funding, somebody will have to pick up the costs of running these organisations, rather than the clinical side of it.
Dr Evans
The hon. Lady is spot on. I posed my question to the Government because we know that primary care is one of the most efficient parts of the NHS. Why? Because the people running those businesses—they are businesses, and we have to be open and honest about that—pay attention to where the money comes in and goes out. They take full pride in it, first, because they care, and secondly, because their salaries are paid from the profit that comes out of that. Again, “profit” is a dirty word that people do not like to use, but it is the reality of what we are dealing with when it comes to how we break down the funding.
The Government have proposed to get rid of NHS England, and it is still unclear not only how much that will cost, but how much it will save and where the administrative burden will fall. On top of that, we do not know what will replace the partnership model if we lose it, and this is the question to be asked. Given that it was only six months before the election that the Secretary of State stated his intent, I too am keen to find out the answer.
I have a second question to pose to the Government. There are concerning reports this month in the Health Service Journal, which has had sight of a leaked version of the Government’s 10-year plan to improve the NHS. It says that the plan will push back the Government’s ambition to increase the share of NHS spending on primary and community care to 2035, rather than 2029 as originally promised. Can the Minister confirm or deny those reports?
When it comes to funding, the Government raised taxes directly on GPs as part of the national insurance increase. Has the Department made any assessment of how much of the £886 million uplift that has been allocated to GP practices will be needed to meet the increase in employer’s national insurance contributions?
I turn to the figures for the ARR scheme. The Government announced in April that they thought they had reached 1,500 new GPs, but as the RCGP pointed out at the time, although having
“more GPs employed in the workforce is encouraging, when considering full time equivalent GPs—which gives the most accurate picture of the GP workforce and the care and services GPs are able to deliver for patients—the numbers published today are lower, at 851 GPs”.
The increase is encouraging, but when we dig into the data, it appears that we are simply seeing more locum doctors coming back into the scheme. I would be grateful to understand exactly how the numbers are made up, and where the inference of 1,500 GPs comes from.
More importantly, where is the scheme going in the future? Is it time-limited? Will it continue? Will it be expanded and, if so, what does that look like? Although it is an important part of addressing provision, we also need to understand exactly what is going on. Initial reviews of the data suggest that appointments have not kept up with the pace of the introduction of GPs, so I am interested to understand from the Minister why, despite the supposedly new GPs coming in, the number of appointments has not increased proportionately. I would be grateful for any comment on that.
Finally, I turn to recruitment. Training new GPs has understandably been seen as the priority when it comes to solving the long-term workforce problems in England. As Pulse magazine puts it:
“This is probably one of the areas of workforce planning that could be considered a success. Health Education England, which has been incorporated into NHS England, has been able to meet its target of over 4,000 new GP trainees a year.”
The NHS workforce report, launched under the previous Government in 2023, made commitments to increase that. It set goals to increase the number of GP specialist training places to 6,000 by 2031, ensure that all foundation-year doctors do a rotation in general practice, and require GP registrars to spend the full three years in general practice.
There has been progress, but along with progress come new problems. The British Medical Association has warned that up to 1,000 GP registrars could face difficulty when qualifying in summer 2025 without funding for GP practices to recruit newly qualified, unemployed or underemployed GPs. What active steps are the Government taking to avoid that, and what support will they be offering newly qualified GPs?
Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)
The ARR scheme in my practice at May Lane surgery in Dursley is employing newly qualified GPs who provide a lot of extra appointments for the surgery, so the scheme is working quite well for newly qualified GPs.
Dr Evans
I am pleased to hear that the scheme is working well, but the question is—as the hon. Member would know if he had been here for the start of the debate and all the way through it—what does it look like going forward?
In other places, are locums simply being stepped into the ARR scheme because there has been a shift in the way that GPs commission their work and PCNs are looking to deal with that? That is the question at the heart of it. We seem to be training more GPs than ever, yet at the same time, we have a disproportionate number of people at the top end who are not able to find work.
It is important to build up multidisciplinary teams that take account of the pharmacists, nurses and mental health workers around GPs, and I welcome the fact that the ARR scheme allows that. It has been widened to get more funding but, as the hon. Member will know, there is a discrepancy in how much doctors are funded for and there are limitations on how long they can work in the scheme. If I were to return to practice, I would not qualify under the scheme. The Government need to pose these questions; although the scheme is welcome, does it solve the whole problem? I do not think so, and my final set of questions relates to that.
We have seen a trend in international medical graduates coming to work in the UK, with the number of international medical graduates overtaking domestically trained medics for the first time in 2023. Have the Government considered something similar to the Australian scheme? Australia classifies locations using the modified Monash model or the Australian statistical geography standard to rank areas from major cities to remote regions, and then prioritises overseas doctors into the areas of most need. That could help to deal with the disparities across different parts of the UK. Will the Government consider that model in attempting to address those disparities? Whether it is right for the UK is for the Government to decide.
Hospitals might save your life, but your GP has been quietly guarding it for decades. That fact is often lost in our debates, so it has been a privilege to remind the Government, the House and the public of that fact today. I look forward to the Government’s response.
The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Martin Wrigley) for securing this debate and raising this important issue. I pay tribute to every hon. Member who has taken part in the debate for their insightful contributions.
The health and wellbeing of constituents across the south-west remains a top priority for us all; I welcome the opportunity to address the concerns that have been raised today. The issue strikes at the very heart of the NHS and its ability to serve our communities effectively. General practitioners are the cornerstone of the NHS. They provide the first point of contact for millions of patients, enabling access to specialist services, managing long-term and chronic conditions, and delivering preventive care.
The south-west is a unique part of our country with a population that faces distinct challenges, from its rural geography and dispersed communities to an ageing demographic and areas of health inequality. The dedication of GPs and primary care teams, often working under difficult conditions, is a testament to the NHS’s commitment to accessible healthcare. I thank those professionals for their invaluable service.
I was pleased to see the fantastic interest and engagement that we had from the south-west in our 10-year health plan consultation. The hon. Member for Newton Abbot and his colleagues from the area will be pleased to note that the south-west had a higher than average response rate compared with the rest of the country on our change.nhs.uk platform. We also saw that 126 community-led events were run in the south-west using our “workshop in a box” toolkit, which demonstrates just how important reforming the NHS is to people in the region.
The Government recognise that GP practices in rural and remote areas face specific pressures, including recruitment difficulties and population fluctuations due to tourism. We also acknowledge the demographic reality. The south-west has a higher proportion of older residents, which increases the demand on primary care for managing complex, long-term conditions. These challenges require tailored and effective responses.
Since taking office, the Government have made primary care a central pillar of NHS reform. We have committed to strengthening GP services nationwide through a series of measures designed to increase funding, support workforce growth and improve patient access. These measures support progress towards a neighbourhood health service, with more care delivered locally to create healthier communities, spot problems earlier, and support people to stay healthier and maintain their independence for longer.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
The Minister mentions the ageing demographic of the south-west. I do not know if it is actually a fact, but one of my favourite things that I have ever been told about the population of West Dorset is that if we were a country, we would have an older population than Japan—we would be the oldest country in the world. The only things older than our population are some of our GP buildings; about one in five predates the NHS itself. Can the Minister outline how the Government intend to help GP surgeries to upgrade their facilities?
Stephen Kinnock
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and for that fun fact. I will come on to it a bit later in my speech, but the £102 million primary care utilisation fund will make a major contribution to upgrading the creaking primary care estate. He is right to identify that as a major challenge. It is also major drain on productivity. We must ensure that our GPs have the tools at their disposal to do the work they need to do.
Adam Dance
Will the Minister visit Ariel Healthcare in Chard in Somerset, where the building is really not fit for purpose, and meet the GPs to talk about their concerns?
Stephen Kinnock
I am impressed by the way the hon. Gentleman did that and I congratulate him on it. If he would care to write to me to set that out, I will have a look at it and get back to him.
I want to take this opportunity to briefly outline what we have done since July 2024, and what we intend to do, to ensure that GP funding and services in the south-west are fit for purpose and capable of meeting the needs of the local population. In February, we concluded the annual consultation between the Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and the general practitioners committee of the British Medical Association. For the first time in four years, GPC England voted in favour of the GP contract package, which illustrates the progress we are making to rebuild our relationship with the profession.
The 2025-26 contract is already improving services for patients and making progress towards the Government’s health mission. It supports the three key shifts the Government want to achieve: from analogue to digital; from sickness to prevention; and from hospital to community care. Patients across the country can expect online GP services to be available throughout the day, and better continuity of care for those who would benefit most. Patients can also expect a stronger focus on prevention, in particular to tackle the biggest killers, such as cardiovascular disease.
In 2025-26, we are investing an additional £889 million into the core GP contract to fix the front door of the NHS. Despite the difficult financial situation this nation faces, we are backing our health workers with above-inflation pay rises for the second year running. We are accepting the Doctors and Dentists Review Body’s recommendation of a 4% uplift to the pay element of the GP contract on a consolidated basis.
Dr Luke Evans
The Minister talks about contracts, which is an appropriate point to question him again on his Government’s position on the GP partnership model. It is not clear what that looks like from any of the documentation, so I would be grateful to understand that or, if the Secretary of State is considering new models, what they are and when we can see them.
Stephen Kinnock
We recognise that the partnership model has many strengths. It is a very important part of the system, and it helps to drive efficiency, innovation and a kind of go-getting approach to general practice. That is what we want to see—innovative approaches.
We are committed to substantive GP contract reform. We see the partnership model as a really important part of that, but we also recognise that fewer GPs are interested in going into partnership. The partnership model is not the only model delivering general practice; GP practices can and do choose to organise themselves in different ways. Many practices cite evidence of good outcomes on staff engagement and patient experience through the partnership model. I do not think it is right to say that there are any specific plans to change the partnership model, but we recognise that there are a number of other ways, and we will always keep the way in which the contract is delivered under review.
Vikki Slade
For some leasehold properties, there is a requirement that practices have partners. How is the Minister ensuring that such practices can be taken on, either by the ICB or the DHSC? Somebody has to take responsibility for those practices, and if we are moving to a model of having more salaried people, who will do that?
Stephen Kinnock
In debates about how we deliver health and care in our country, the question often comes up about the balance between the role of the DHSC at the centre, the role of ICBs and the role of those who are at the coalface delivering services. I do not think there is a single answer to that question. What is important is that we commit to devolution and to empowering those who are closest to their communities, because they are in the best position to make the decisions that work for their communities.
It is vital that we at the centre agree on and set desired outcomes for health, access and quality that the entire system is expected to meet. We have to set a framework, and it is then up to those at the coalface to decide how best to deliver it. It would not be right for me to say, on specific leasehold cases for example, that case A should go this way and case B should go that way; to try to dictate that from the centre would be a recipe for disaster. We do need to hold the system to account, however, and the system needs to hold us to account. That is the way to deliver true political and strategic leadership.
Jess Brown-Fuller
It is interesting that the Minister mentioned devolution, because the effect of the cuts to ICBs has meant that Sussex ICB is now having conversations with Surrey ICB about a merger. The cuts are therefore achieving the exact opposite of devolution, because such a merger would move power further away from communities. Does he have any thoughts on that?
Stephen Kinnock
Integrated care boards in the south-west have received almost £1.3 billion in their primary medical care allocation for ’25-26, which is an increase of nearly 13% compared with ’24-25, so I am not quite sure where the hon. Lady is getting her figures. For me, a 13% increase is not a cut.
That growth in local resources includes the south-west’s share of the additional £889 million agreed for the GP contract, as well as the transfer of some additional roles reimbursement scheme funding that had previously been held centrally by NHS England. Those funding allocations will be further uplifted to fund in full the pay recommendations of the DDRB and the NHS Pay Review Body.
Rachel Gilmour (Tiverton and Minehead) (LD)
I appreciate that recruitment, including of GPs, is extraordinarily difficult in the south-west. In Minehead, there is one GP practice and just one doctor. He is outstanding, and everybody knows him—to that extent, he fits the named GP pledge—but he serves 11,000 people. Rural premium or not, would the Minister agree that that is simply unacceptable and unsustainable, irrespective of where in the country one might be?
Stephen Kinnock
That is an extraordinary statistic. There are clearly major imbalances in the way the system works and general practice is funded in our country. A little later I will come to the Carr-Hill formula; I am sure hon. Members will have seen announcements trailed in the media today about what my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary will say shortly in a speech in Blackpool. The issue raised by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Minehead (Rachel Gilmour) is directly pertinent to the work we are doing around the formula for funding GPs, to ensure that it is needs based, unlike the current, deeply anachronistic and dysfunctional funding system.
On funding, general practices are funded through a range of streams, the majority from core payments known as global sum payments. The rest is made up of incentive schemes, premises payments and enhanced and additional services. The Carr-Hill formula is applied as a weighting of 50% to 60% of GP funding allocated through the core contract, and is a workload-based formula designed to reimburse practices for their expected workloads.
The formula takes into consideration patient demographics, such as age and gender, and factors such as morbidity, mortality, patient turnover and geographical location. I am truly proud that today my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary is in Blackpool to announce that we are reviewing the Carr-Hill formula, which is outdated and not fit for purpose. Currently, GP surgeries that serve working-class areas receive on average 10% less funding per patient than practices in more affluent areas, and that needs to change.
Politics is about choices. For 14 years, the Conservatives —propped up for five years by the Liberal Democrats, I am afraid to say—chose to favour the richest. Who can forget the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) boasting about how he had deliberately redirected funding from deprived urban areas to leafy suburbs? This Labour Government are reversing that ethos. Our decision to reform the Carr-Hill formula is a clear example of how we are putting our Labour values into practice.
We recognise the importance of ensuring funding for core services is distributed equitably between practices across the country. In our upcoming 10-year health plan, that is what we will do, through our review and reform of the Carr-Hill formula. Alongside that work, the Advisory Committee on Resource Allocation—ACRA—will be asked to advise on how the setting of ICB allocations can better support the reduction of health inequalities, to ensure that resources are targeted where they are most needed.
On workforce and recruitment, we recognise the difficult situation whereby patients have been unable to get GP appointments and recently qualified doctors have been unable to find jobs. That is why, in August last year, we announced £82 million in ringfenced funding, allowing primary care networks to recruit newly qualified GPs through the additional roles reimbursement scheme. More than 1,700 GPs have now been recruited through that scheme.
As part of the 2025-26 GP contract package, we made the additional roles reimbursement scheme more flexible, to allow PCNs to accommodate local workforce needs better. That includes removing restrictions on the number or type of staff covered, including GPs and practice nurses. When I took up my ministerial responsibilities in July, I was astonished to find that it was not possible to recruit GPs through the ARRS. We have bulldozed that red tape, which has resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of GPs on the frontline.
Dr Luke Evans
On that point, what would the Minister say to junior doctors, now coming to be registrars, who will be looking for a job? Should they look to the ARRS as the way forward when they qualify? What will he say to them if they do not get a job? Should that be the route they look to? Is it an expansion he is asking for? What are the alternatives for those graduating in August?
Stephen Kinnock
We have been really pleased with the take-up under the ARRS. It is a rapid and clear way of recruiting, particularly because it has the ringfence and the reimbursement system underpinning it. We absolutely encourage newly graduating GPs to take up opportunities through the ARRS; it is an important tool for bringing more GPs on to the frontline. The challenge is not so much the number of qualifying and graduating GPs in the pipeline, but getting them to the parts of the country that need them most. That variation in provision is the No. 1 priority. The review of the Carr-Hill formula will also have important synergy with the issue of recruitment and workforce.
Dr Luke Evans
It seems pertinent to ask this question now: the Australian scheme I mentioned is one way that another country has dealt with the issue. Would the Government consider placing overseas doctors in the areas of most need? Is that something under consideration?
Stephen Kinnock
The hon. Member raises an interesting point. We are thinking strategically about the whole way that recruitment and workforce function. Similarly, on another part of my portfolio, we have several thousand international dentists who are waiting to do the overseas registration exam. We need to get that sorted out, because we have issues with capacity and there are ways of addressing them. We are absolutely committed to prioritising the training and appointment of our home-grown talent, but we also need to look at other options and solutions. We are going into this with eyes open, and I thank the hon. Member for that suggestion; it is definitely something we are looking at.
In addition, the newly launched £102 million primary care utilisation and modernisation fund will help create much-needed additional clinical space in more than 1,000 GP practices across England. The investment responds directly to findings from Lord Darzi’s independent review of the NHS, which highlighted how outdated, inefficient premises can hinder the delivery of high-quality patient care and negatively impact staff productivity and morale. This is the first dedicated national capital funding stream for primary care since 2020, and a clear demonstration of the Government’s commitment to strengthening primary and community care infrastructure.
Once again, I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot for securing this debate and thank all Members who have spoken for their passionate and insightful contributions. The Government remain fully committed to ensuring that GP funding in the south-west reflects the region’s particular challenges and needs. Through investment in the workforce and infrastructure, we aim to deliver a sustainable, high-quality primary care service for all. We also remain committed to delivering a neighbourhood health service that will improve people’s experience of health and social care and will increase their agency in managing their own care, health and wellbeing.
As we get our NHS back on its feet, and as we build an NHS fit for the future, we need more care closer to people’s homes and in people’s homes. For too long, NHS resources have been tilted towards hospitals and away from communities. The result is poorer services for patients who would benefit from care closer to home and in their communities. Moving care from hospitals into the community will be at the heart of the 10-year health plan, which will set out how we will continue to transform the NHS into a neighbourhood health service. The full vision will be set out in the plan, which we will publish very shortly.
We recognise the pressures on GPs and the impact on patients, and I assure hon. Members that addressing those challenges is a top priority for the Government. The NHS is evolving, but its founding principle remains: healthcare free at the point of use, accessible to everyone, everywhere.
Martin Wrigley
I am not quite sure what to say now that the Minister has actually said that my prime ask will be delivered. That is fantastic, and shows the emphasis of these debates.
I thank colleagues from across the House for their contributions. We all agree on the importance of GPs and the need to fix their funding. It is vital to recognise the many good things that GPs and GP practices have been doing in what have been difficult circumstances for a good number of years.
It has been delightful to hear that MPs have been interacting with their local GP practices to understand the problems with the funding formula. Delighted as I am to hear the Minister announce changes to the Carr-Hill formula, GP funding is still complex. I tried to show how complex it is by focusing on just on two of its elements, but we have heard from other hon. Members that the extra funds are even more complex. The fact that the 7% increase is eaten up by the 6% increase in wages, NICs and so on shows that it is not simple.
I thank the Minister for being here—
Martin Wrigley
I have never been interrupted by a Minister before—I would be delighted.
Stephen Kinnock
I do not even know whether an intervention is allowed here, Dame Siobhain—this is a revolutionary step—but the hon. Gentleman raised some concerns about the quality and outcomes framework, and I wanted to say that we have retired 32 out of the 76 quality and outcomes framework indicators, reflecting the fact that we agree with him: it was way too complex and there were too many indicators. By retiring those, we freed up £298 million, £100 million of which will go into the global sum, maximising the flexibility for practices to do what is right for their patients. The remaining £198 million will be repurposed to target cardiovascular disease prevention.
Martin Wrigley
I thank the Minister for the intervention. I am not quite sure what the protocol is; I do not think that that has ever happened. This is a most fantastic debate.
Capital investment in GP practices and buildings is welcome, but we have heard from across the Chamber that we need more. The problems with ICBs and the difficulties with trusts that are in NHS oversight framework segment 4 still impact GPs and how their funding works.
I will push my luck, because the Minister has been very generous with his time and very patient with us all: will he meet me and some practice managers to talk about the complexities of managing the practices with such a level of complication in funding, and to see whether the Government can identify further ways of making it easier to run these businesses, so that they can get on with delivering what they are there to deliver: healthcare for the greatest number of people with the maximum possible benefit? That would be helpful. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions.
Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)
I respectfully say to Members that, while I do not have the power to stop interventions from people who turn up 45 minutes, an hour, or an hour and three quarters into a debate, speaking on a personal level—I am not the most formal of Chairs—I think it very impolite to make an intervention when you have not had the opportunity to hear from other Members. I do not have the power to enforce that, but if I could, I would.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered GP funding in the south-west.
English Wine Production
(1 day, 12 hours ago)
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Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered English wine production.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Siobhain. I am grateful for the opportunity to bring forward this debate at a timely moment: the middle of English Wine Week. The theme this year is creating new traditions, and I cannot think of a more fitting description for the English wine industry as it stands today. It is a sector that combines modern ambition with rural heritage, and world-class expertise with local entrepreneurial spirit. It is a sector that is growing, not only in economic potential but in the public imagination.
As one of my local winemakers puts it, English wines tend to have a steely, citrus backbone. I like to think that this is an apt description of our nation’s character too: resilient, bright and quietly distinctive. English wine is increasingly a source of national pride, and we should be doing everything we can to support and protect it. The industry is growing fast, and the Government should be helping rather than hindering.
In 2023, UK vineyards produced over 21 million bottles of wine—a new record—and it is exciting that sales of English wine continue to buck wider market trends. Domestic wine sales were up 10% in 2023. Sales of UK sparkling wine have nearly trebled since 2018, from roughly 2 million bottles to over 6 million. Similarly, sales of still wine have more than doubled over the same period. We should all be toasting that success.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the hon. Lady for securing this debate. Northern Ireland does not produce any of its own wine; we do not have the necessary climate. We could use European Union grapes to make wine, due to Brexit regulations—but that is by the way. What can we do in Northern Ireland to ensure that English wine is something that we like to have? How can it be promoted, not just in England but in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? Why not buy British, as we should?
Katie Lam
The hon. Gentleman is a fantastic champion of our Unionist and one nation principles. The best thing that our friends, brothers and sisters in Northern Ireland can do is to purchase English wine and drink it. That is a win for all concerned.
British wines are now exported to 45 different countries. There are healthy markets in Norway, Japan, America, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Hong Kong and South Korea, to name but a few. We now have over 1,100 registered vineyards and more than 240 wineries.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
One of those many vineyards is the Oatley vineyard in my constituency, run by Ned Awty and his family. Mr Awty raised with me, on a recent, pleasant visit, that small brewers and cider makers benefit from a duty relief scheme to encourage production. Would my hon. Friend join me in asking the Minister to extend that scheme to small vineyards?
Katie Lam
I will discuss later in my speech what support I think would be appropriate, so my hon. Friend will hear my thoughts on that in due course.
I am incredibly proud that the Weald of Kent boasts some of the best vineyards and wineries in the country. Across the nation, 4,200 hectares of land are under vine—more than double the area just a decade ago. It is no coincidence that even French producers are quickly buying up land in southern England. They recognise the opportunity here, and so should we.
Our English vineyards are not centuries-old family estates, handed down through the generations, like on the continent. They are new businesses, built on entrepreneurial risk, with eyewatering start-up costs, and land that is among the most expensive in Europe. The vineyards springing up in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and beyond are often founded by families who have risked everything: buying land at a premium, planting vines in an uncertain climate—that we all experience—and investing in years of training, equipment and marketing before even a single bottle is sold. Many vineyards are warning that rising national insurance contributions, and the recent increase to minimum wage payments, have left them unable to reinvest in their businesses.
Edward Morello (West Dorset) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate during English Wine Week. I could not allow her to list the places where we produce wine without mentioning beautiful West Dorset, which has 11 small wine producers, many of whom have been in touch with me about what this Parliament can do to help small producers in England. Dorset Downs Vineyard suggested that draught relief and small producer relief could be raised from 8.5% to 14% because most English wine sits between the 11% to 14% marks. Currently, beer and cider produced locally get all the benefit, but English wine producers do not. Does she agree with that suggestion?
Katie Lam
That is a similar point to the one made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox). It is not uncommon for vineyards and wineries to produce both types of drinks, and so have to operate under two different duty systems, which is also additional bureaucracy. I think that change would make a substantial difference.
Our producers represent the future of winemaking. They certainly should not be hindered by rising costs. We need long-term policies that will support their continued growth. WineGB estimates that there are 16 million potential visitors to the UK wine tourism sector: a huge untapped market. In my constituency, the excellent Chapel Down welcomes over 60,000 visitors a year for winery tours. It continues to be a major contributor to our local economy, and that is just the beginning. Producers such as Gusbourne, Westwell, Biddenden, Balfour, Dingleden, Ham Street, Warehorne, Woodchurch, and Domaine Evremond all play a part. We are so fortunate in the Weald that I could not even attempt to name them all in the time I have in this debate. It is, of course, a tremendous chore to visit them all, but my commitment to public service remains unwavering.
Many vineyards now make up to 50% of their sales directly to consumers, in so-called “cellar door sales”. That is often the only way for small producers to avoid the razor-thin margins created by intermediaries, excise duties and distributor fees. The potential is enormous. Wine tourism helps to create skilled jobs in rural constituencies like mine. It supports regional identity and allows producers to build a direct relationship with their customers. A targeted duty relief on direct-to-consumer or tourist cellar door sales would help wine producers, in the way that beer and cider receive help from draught relief and small producer relief, as we have heard from hon. Members in this debate.
Will the Government consider implementing a wine tourism relief, to recognise this youthful industry’s potential and give small producers the boost they need to truly thrive? More broadly, visits to UK vineyards and wineries were up more than half in just two years. That is extraordinary growth by any measure. What plans does the Minister have to support one of the few industries in the UK that is demonstrably expanding, creating rural jobs, driving tourism and building our export potential from the ground up?
If we are serious about backing British agriculture and business, this is exactly the kind of sector that deserves targeted support. Yet, as is too often the case in the UK today, the more businesses grow, the more they seem to be penalised by heavy-handed regulation. Take the extended producer responsibility—EPR—scheme, which affects businesses, including winemakers with a turnover of £1 million or more—a threshold that many of our leading vineyards are proudly surpassing. That success comes at a cost. EPR imposes disproportionately high fees on glass packaging, but glass is the only viable material for sparkling wine. On top of all that, winemakers now face hours of additional paperwork collecting data on the type and weight of materials used, simply to remain compliant with opaque packaging rules.
That is not the only example of over-regulation choking the industry. The previously flat wine duty has now been replaced by 30 different rates based on tiny, 0.1% increments of alcohol content. In the context of wine, that makes no practical sense. As has already been pointed out in the House by the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), ABV varies naturally by vintage and by vat. It is hugely difficult to predict and the system causes confusion, not clarity. Although I accept that the Minister did not create that system, will he take the opportunity to outline what steps the Government might take to ensure that our wine producers can spend more of their time tending their vines, rather than filling out forms?
While the previous Government may have implemented some regulations that caused challenges to wine producers, they recognised the need for active investment in the UK wine industry. I was pleased to see them establish the future winemakers’ scheme, with £1.5 million set aside for training opportunities for the next generation of viticulturists. Will the Minister recommit to the scheme today, ensuring that the UK wine industry secures the future talent it needs to reach its full potential?
Though welcome, deregulation and training schemes alone are not enough. If we allow the definition of English wine to be blurred or co-opted, the industry risks dying on the vine. There is serious concern among winemakers that third-country producers could ship foreign-made still wine in bulk to the UK, carbonate or transform the product here, and market it in a way that implies it was locally made. That would be misleading to consumers, would undermine the integrity of the English wine label, and would make a mockery of the investment our producers have made in their land, climate and local communities.
I want to press the Minister on a simple point: will he commit to ensuring, particularly as the Government restart their third round of post-Brexit wine industry reforms, that wines sold as British or English must be made exclusively from British-grown grapes? He knows as well as I do that the majority of UK wine is sparkling. I am sure he would agree that English wine deserves the same protected designation of origin—PDO status—that champagne and prosecco receive in their respective markets.
There are few products that bring together so many public goods: rural jobs, tourism, export potential, environmental stewardship and national pride. English wine is not a nostalgia project or a romantic curiosity; it is a viable, growing industry—one that sits at the intersection of agriculture, manufacturing, hospitality and culture. To support this fantastic product is to invest in our countryside and our brand as a country. We have the chance, as English Wine Week says, to “Create new traditions.” I ask the Minister to seize that opportunity: let us support wine tourism and, above all, ensure that the label “English wine” means what it says—wine made from English grapes on English soil.
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), a fellow Kent MP, for securing this absolutely critical debate on a sector that, as she has admitted, has fizz, body and character. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on GB wines, an area of significant passion to me. As mentioned, it is English Wine Week, an annual celebration of English wines, during which growers, merchandisers and wine consumers—including me, and probably many in this room—will shine a spotlight on some of the excellent English wines.
This sector is one of our most successful agricultural growth areas at the moment—not only because of the changing climate, but because of the quality and long-standing tradition of wine growing that we now see across parts of Kent and elsewhere in the country. I would suggest to other hon. Members that it is not just in the south of England that vineries are growing; we are seeing increasing numbers in Scotland, north-east and north-west England. So be very careful: I suspect we might see vineries in Northern Ireland very soon as well, especially as the way grapes are grown has changed. It is a universal success story, and I am very glad that hon. Members agree.
We know that vineyard registrations are up by 7.1%, as has been mentioned, and 21 million bottles of wine are now produced annually, with over 241 vineyards across the country and 4,300 hectares under vine. We are also seeing significant export success—net exports are up 8% per year. This is one of those sectors that, if nurtured, can grow to success. It is a cyclical industry; we know that 2023 saw a record harvest and a blossoming sector, but some years it is not as successful. It is inherently risky, and we have seen a lot of people starting up in vineries who need extra support when launching, because it can take up to five years before they see a return.
The sector has some unique challenges—not least the climate and the way the Government work. Both parties and both Governments need to do more to support this sector. I welcome the fact that, over the last 14 years, vineries and the wine industry have grown significantly. That is the result of a real focus in that space. However, we are up against significant headwinds and risks—not least that our main European competitors have state-based subsidy and sponsorship of their wine industries. In parts of Europe, up to €1 billion is set aside just to support the culture of wine consumption and production. That is not something we do here. We are also up against the headwinds of an increasing diversity of different alcoholic products. As the chair of the APPG, I echo some of the statements that have been made today.
I will ask the Minister about three things in the brief time that I have. What can we do to promote the export markets here? WineGB has specifically said that it is after very small amounts of money to ensure that we present a professional approach to our exports, so that when we visit trade fairs around the world, our presentation does not put us at a competitive disadvantage compared with other nations. This market is growing in Japan, the USA, Switzerland and South Korea. We know that our wines are very much in vogue and we can successfully market them for very little investment. What can the Government do to promote those exports and create the global Britain that we promised?
I absolutely agree on wine tourism relief. What more can we do to promote tourism in this sector? Vineyards are now diversifying their businesses into restaurants, hotels and other markets, so what can we do to support that?
Also, what can we do to provide support for energy and other production costs? The Government have this week announced energy provision support for some sectors. Wine production is an energy-intensive industry. Is there any consideration of offering start-up energy cost reductions to such businesses? This industry can be an extremely successful driver of agricultural growth at a time when rural economies are struggling, so what can we do to promote the industry, to ensure that it continues to grow and to be the success it is today, and also in 10 years’ time to be double or triple the size?
Dame Siobhain McDonagh (in the Chair)
I think the hon. Member has finished speaking. The hon. Member for Winchester might want to intervene on the Minister at an appropriate time.
The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Daniel Zeichner)
It is a pleasure, as always, to serve with you in the Chair, Dame Siobhain. I thank the hon. Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam) for securing this very important debate. As she said, this is English Wine Week, so it is a timely and fitting moment to celebrate the remarkable achievements and growing global reputation of the English wine industry. Wine events and regional showcases taking place across the country this week demonstrate the increasing breadth and variety of domestic wine production. It is an industry that not only carries historical and cultural significance, but is also a modern success story of innovation, investment and rural regeneration.
The Government absolutely recognise and celebrate the rapid growth of the English wine sector. It is one of the fastest growing agricultural industries in the UK, with production, exports and consumer demand all on the rise. For example, exports of English wine doubled from 4% of production in 2021 to 8%, as was celebrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tristan Osborne), whose contribution as chair of the all-party parliamentary group I welcome. It is imported by 45 different countries across the world, and that growth is a testament to the hard work, vision and entrepreneurial spirit of those working across the sector.
The area represented by the hon. Member for Weald of Kent is home to some of the most distinguished and pioneering vineyards in the country. Chapel Down, Balfour and Squerryes Winery are shining examples of excellence in English wine production. They not only produce award-winning wines, but contribute significantly to local employment, tourism and rural development. Their success reflects the broader momentum of the English wine industry and the exciting opportunities that lie ahead.
English wines have built a well-earned reputation for quality and high standards, and the Government are committed to working with the industry to champion and protect that reputation both at home and abroad. My hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford asked how we can help to boost those exports. We have an excellent group of agricultural attachés who work very hard across the world to boost our exports and products. I am conscious that they are working very hard to make sure this brilliant British product is exported across the world.
The Government are steadfast in their commitment to support rural economies. We are determined to ensure that the UK has a thriving and diverse economy that promotes local jobs, boosts growth and supports communities across the country. The English wine sector is a really good example of that vision in action.
Dr Chambers
I am sure that all hon. Members would agree that Hampshire sparkling wine is the very best in the country, and the awards prove it. On supporting the wine industry in rural economies, Sparsholt college in Winchester—an agricultural college—has recently started vineyard curating courses as part of its horticulture courses so that the local wine industry has a trained workforce. Can the Minister look at rolling that out to the rest of the country, in areas that are appropriate?
Daniel Zeichner
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: it is really important that we get the skills in place for the future. I recently had the pleasure of visiting Domaine Evremond and the Simpsons’ Wine Estate, and I was knocked out by them, frankly. They are not just vineyards, but symbols of confidence in the UK’s wine industry. They export half their produce to international markets, with Norway being the top destination. The scale of investment and the ambition are inspiring and yet, exactly as hon. Members have said, we are probably only scratching the surface of what is possible. The opportunity for growth in relation to both domestic and international investment is enormous and absolutely aligns with the Government’s broader mission of boosting economic growth and global trade.
We are committed to working together with the sector to support the ambitions for growth and exports. We are also focused on ensuring that the growth translates into high-quality, sustainable jobs in rural communities, exactly as the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) suggested. I am talking about jobs that support families, strengthen local economies and preserve our countryside.
We are working closely with stakeholders to improve the English protected designation of origin and protected geographical indication schemes. One exciting possibility under consideration is the creation of a separate sub-category to allow alternative production methods under the PDO scheme, which would further broaden the appeal of our wines and open up new market opportunities. My officials are engaging with local producers, including those in the constituency represented by the hon. Member for Weald of Kent, to support an application for formal recognition of distinctive regional areas such as the Kent Weald. This initiative aims to highlight the region’s unique geological and agricultural characteristics, which contribute to the exceptional quality of its produce. By talking with stakeholders on the ground, the Government are ensuring that the application reflects the authentic identity and heritage of Kent’s landscapes. Such recognition not only promotes regional pride, but enhances market opportunities for local producers, reinforcing the area’s reputation both nationally and internationally.
A number of questions were asked, and I will try to address them. The hon. Member asked about the possibility of a wine tourism relief. We are very interested in linking the production to the tourism offer, and I understand that WineGB is about to launch a campaign for a wine tourism relief. I cannot make any commitments today, because it is a Treasury issue, but certainly, it is something that we are interested in looking at. On my visits, I was very struck by the ingenuity and entrepreneurial zeal of the winemakers in linking it to a really sophisticated tourism offer—I think that when I visited, they were hoping they would not get too much rain over that weekend; it now seems extraordinary we should even be thinking about rain. But this shows how it is possible to transform not just the wine production area itself, but the local economy: the local pubs, hotels and so on. It is really exciting.
The hon. Lady also asked about packaging and the extended producer responsibility, which has been a long-running issue. I can tell her that the latest set of fees will be announced on Friday, so that should bring some certainty, I hope. She also asked about transformation. That is a complicated issue, which we will look at when we come to the third phase of wine reforms. However, I can assure her that any wine that is imported into the UK but not transformed—if it is shipped in bulk and only bottled in the UK, but not transformed—cannot be marketed as being made in England, or similar. We are very clear about that.
Sir Ashley Fox
Small cider producers in Somerset benefit from a duty relief scheme. I realise that the Minister is about to conclude his remarks, but he does not appear to have touched on the subject of duty relief for small vineyards. Will he at least give a commitment that he will talk to the Treasury about that, because it seems illogical that small brewers and small cider producers benefit from duty relief but small vineyards do not?
Daniel Zeichner
The hon. Gentleman tempts me to stray into Treasury matters. What I will observe is that the 8.5% limit is part of the health approach, and I think we will stick to that.
To conclude, the UK wine sector is a source of confidence, growth and success. I am committed to working with it—and have very much enjoyed working with it so far—every step of the way to drive growth, boost exports and ensure that rural communities across the UK share the benefits of its success. When we see the climate being transformed before our eyes, that produces a lot of challenges for the food sector in general, but this is an opportunity that, it seems to me, we should really seize.
I again thank the hon. Member for Weald of Kent for securing this debate. In English Wine Week, it is especially important that we recognise the passion, progress and future of this vital industry. We are committed to supporting the English wine industry by listening to its concerns and acting upon them, and by working collaboratively towards common goals.
Question put and agreed to.
Armed Forces Recruitment: North-east England
(1 day, 12 hours ago)
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Alan Strickland (Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered armed forces recruitment in the North East.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. It is an honour to lead this debate in Armed Forces Week, as we take time to mark the huge contribution that our service personnel make to the security of the UK and our allies. As we celebrate their public service, in this debate we will discuss how to recruit the next generation of warfighters that our country needs.
There has never been a more important time for this discussion. The recent strategic defence review called for
“a landmark shift in our deterrence and defence…moving to warfighting readiness to deter threats and strengthen security”.
A step change in how we recruit must be a fundamental part of that. As a region with a proud history of supporting our armed forces, the north-east can make a significant contribution in the future.
I will make three points today. First, I will talk about transforming armed forces recruitment to meet the rapidly evolving threats that we face. Secondly, I will explain how we can attract the high-tech warfighting skills that we need for the future. Finally, I will discuss how we can modernise recruitment to harness our armed forces as an engine of social mobility.
Let me start with transforming armed forces recruitment to meet the rapidly emerging threats. From the many visits that I have made to RAF bases at home and abroad as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, and having met service personnel in my constituency, it is clear that our armed forces’ greatest asset is their people. They demonstrate extraordinary commitment, resilience and professionalism day in, day out, and I am sure we can all agree that our men and women in uniform represent the very best of British public service. But as the Defence Secretary said:
“The world has changed. The threats we now face are more serious and less predictable than at any time since the Cold War”.
That means we need to look again at how we make sure we have the right people in the right numbers, and with the right skills, across our armed forces.
How do we do that? First, we need a step change in the number of people joining the regular forces and the reserves to give us the mass that we need to meet evolving threats. In doing so, we need to tackle the recruitment crisis that Ministers inherited from the last Government. It is incredibly disappointing that in the last four years, the number of people joining the regular forces fell by 40% in the north-east region. Across the country, it fell by just under a third. Over the last year, we have seen a welcome 19% increase in recruits, but as Ministers have made clear, there is much more to do.
To improve the scale of recruitment, we must transform its speed. It is vital that military recruitment, like all other aspects of UK defence, quickly starts operating at a wartime pace. For too long, new entrants have faced bureaucratic barriers, delays to medical screening and outdated restrictions on pre-existing conditions. This has meant that the length of time between filling in an application form and donning a uniform has often been too long.
Lola McEvoy (Darlington) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech on this crucial issue. Does he agree that the system used to apply to join the armed forces is outdated and often cumbersome? I am very happy to say that a constituent of mine has successfully been able to submit an application, but this was after finding that she did not get a notification to say that she had missed some bits of her original application, so she had been waiting indefinitely. She is a keen young person from Darlington who really wants to serve the country, and we absolutely need to take advantage of having people like that.
Alan Strickland
I thank my hon. Friend for her helpful intervention, and I entirely agree. I, too, have had casework in my constituency involving people who are keen to join the forces, but whose applications have been lost or delayed. In other cases, medical checks have never been booked. I hope that the Minister will set out some of the practical steps that will be taken to speed up the process.
The problems that we are discussing have hampered recruitment efforts and led to the loss of highly skilled applicants, and we must tackle that. The top priority must be to deliver faster, more flexible and more dynamic recruitment that delivers at pace the new generations of talented servicemen and women that we need.
I turn to attracting the high-tech warfighting skills that we require. As we know, the nature of warfare has changed dramatically in the last few years, and in the appalling conflict in Ukraine, we see it evolving rapidly every single day. In response to that, the strategic defence review makes it clear that our warfighters need a broader range of skills across a wider range of professional and technical specialisms. That is because we need to defend and deter across the five domains of modern warfare— air, land, sea, cyber and space—all of which are developing at pace. I see that clearly in my constituency and across the north-east, where, alongside the manufacture of conventional defence supplies, we have a growing cluster of world-leading space and satellite businesses, many of which are involved in defence.
This rapid innovation means that our military personnel not only need to be skilled in deploying the latest technologies, but must be able to use the full range of defence capabilities in a seamless and integrated way to project maximum force. How do we make sure that people with this evolving and sophisticated range of skills can be successfully recruited into the armed forces?
First, we need to find ways of making roles in the regular forces attractive to those who might not have traditionally seen defence as a career option for them. That means convincing cyber experts, satellite engineers, drone operators and those from a range of high-tech industries and jobs in science, technology, engineering and maths that a career in uniform could be a valuable use of their talents.
Mary Glindon (Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate and on his fantastic speech. To take a slightly different angle, does he agree that our many cadet units across the region, which are often based in very deprived areas, provide wonderful opportunities for young people to gain many life skills and get high-skilled qualifications, leading to good jobs, and that they promote opportunities for young people to consider a career in the forces? Does he look forward to hearing about the Government’s plans to boost cadet forces by 30% over the next five years?
Alan Strickland
My hon. Friend is right to set out the vital role that our cadet forces play, not only in encouraging young people to think seriously about the armed forces, but in developing their skills, teamwork, leadership and a range of really valuable things that we want young people in the north-east to be able to access.
In addition to the cadets, we need to be innovative in rethinking how we recruit to our reserve forces. There will be many in the north-east and across our communities who have specialist skills that are of huge value to the armed forces, but who may not be able to serve full time. By establishing the digital warfighter group recommended in the SDR and promoting a range of other opportunities, we could provide flexible and fulfilling part-time roles for those with the skills that we really need. Also, let us look at the opportunities to retrain and reskill our existing personnel, so that our modern warfighters evolve as quickly as modern warfare.
Finally, I will talk about how we can better harness our armed forces as an engine of social mobility.
Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, for securing this debate in Armed Forces Week and for the fantastic speech that he is making. Proportionally, the north-east sends more of our young people into the armed forces than any other region in the country. I am proud of that contribution, yet relative to other regions, we have fewer armed forces personnel stationed in the region, and the Ministry of Defence spends less with businesses and industry in the region—in fact, I think it spends the least there. Does he think that the Ministry and the armed forces could be more visible and do more to champion the contribution of the armed forces to our region?
Alan Strickland
I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, for that intervention. She is right that as well as making sure that we recruit from the north-east and that there are opportunities there, through the work that is happening on the defence industrial strategy, there must be an opening up of procurement opportunities not just across our region, but particularly for high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises. We know that, for too long, they have been excluded from defence contracts in our country.
Just as our renewed defence industries can be an engine for growth across our country, our efforts to transform recruitment can be a powerful engine for social mobility, spreading opportunity more widely across our nation. When meeting RAF personnel as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, I have been struck by the extent to which careers in our military can genuinely transform lives. On one of my first visits to a base, I met a young recruit from Tyneside, who said that being in the RAF had given him opportunities he could never have dreamed of. He was a working-class lad and he said that many from his family had struggled to find and secure jobs. He proudly told me that the RAF had trained him, trusted him and invested in him. The Air Force gave him the chance to train as a world-class engineer, broadened his horizons and allowed him to work all over the globe—all by his early 20s. I have had inspiring conversations like that at base after base. It has been brilliant to hear at first hand just what a difference military careers can make.
In the north-east—a region where, for too long, opportunities have not been spread as widely as talent—the routes our military provides into world-class skills development are all the more powerful and all the more needed. I would be grateful if the Minister can set out how we can show more young people in the north-east that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (Mary Glindon) mentioned, supporting our armed forces—whether that is through the cadets, reserves or regulars—could not only make a huge difference to our collective defence, but have a transformational impact on their lives.
Lola McEvoy
I thank my hon. Friend for being so generous with his time. He is making an excellent speech in Armed Forces Week. Does he agree that the important incentives for joining the forces include not just pride in the country but a secure career afterwards? Does he also agree that the work the Government are doing to ensure people have decent careers in sectors that really need those with resilience, excellent teamwork, good discipline and grit is a great way to ensure that people think about joining the armed forces, as well as about what they do afterwards?
Alan Strickland
My hon. Friend is right that the range of skills that our servicemen and women develop, particularly as we move into a rapidly evolving technical warfighting age, set people in good stead for their future careers. On my RAF visits, station commanders often complain that because they have trained people so well, their personnel are snapped up by the private sector.
One of the things the review mentions is that this does not have to be a binary choice. As my hon. Friend said, there could better opportunities and more sophisticated ways of encouraging people to get trained in the military and contribute. If they move into the private sector for a while and come back into the military full time or go to the reserves, or take part in defence manufacturing, they stay within the defence family, but move around. We actively support that because it means keeping those skills in the wider sector.
I would be grateful if the Minister can set out what more we can do to ensure that schools, colleges and universities do not shy away from talking about military careers, but actively encourage and embrace them. What message will he send to people in the north-east, of all backgrounds and ages, about why they should seriously consider lending their time to UK defence?
As I draw my remarks to a conclusion, let us in this Chamber send a very clear message. If you are a young person looking for an exciting and challenging career, get involved in your local cadets. If you have the specialist skills that Britain needs for defence in a highly technological age, why not share them through the reserves? Be one of our new cyber warfighters. If you are an employer with staff who want to lend their talents to our armed forces, back them, support them and encourage them. And if you are considering how you might have a fulfilling career that develops the skills that my hon. Friend mentioned, why not consider becoming a regular and joining the forces?
Of course, the fundamental reason that this is so incredibly important—the reason why we must think so hard about these opportunities and challenges—is that our final message from this Chamber should be this: if you are a hostile nation, if you are an adversary of the UK and our NATO allies, we will in the next few years be taking major steps to recruit a new generation of world-leading warfighters who will provide world-class defence and deterrence.
Several hon. Members rose—
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that they should bob if they wish to be called in the debate.
Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland), not only on securing the debate but on his doughty championing of the armed forces in our region and around the UK.
Armed forces recruitment in the north-east is of regional and national importance, and matters very deeply to my constituents in Stockton, Billingham and Norton. Our armed forces community is a great source of pride, as hon. Members will have seen if they were with me on Stockton High Street on Saturday, when we had a flag-raising ceremony for Armed Forces Week. There were representatives of our local regiment, the Royal Yorkshire Regiment; the Royal Military Police, which has a base in Norton in my constituency; and our cadets—the sea cadets and RAF cadets based in my constituency, and Royal Marine cadets too.
Those brave members of the regulars and reserves deserve more than my words and the words of hon. Members in this Chamber; they deserve real action. As my hon. Friend pointed out, the reality is starkly different from some of those words. The British Army is now at its smallest size in 200 years. With due respect to the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), who I know is personally a strong supporter of the armed forces, the last decade did not cover his party or the previous Government in glory on this issue.
The armed forces have been hollowed out. They have been underfunded, overstretched and undervalued. As we have heard, over the last decade the number of recruits in the north-east has fallen by a third. This in an area that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah) said, is proud of its commitment to the armed forces, and where people know that joining the armed forces provides a route of opportunity that is sadly lacking elsewhere in our economy.
Lola McEvoy
What does my hon. Friend think are the causes of the drop in recruitment in our area? I frequently speak to veterans and the aftercare for people coming out of the forces has been really poor. Does he agree that the Labour Government have an opportunity to show not only that we are proud of people when they are serving, but that when they leave, they need to be looked after properly?
Chris McDonald
My hon. Friend is right that aftercare is very important. On why recruitment levels have fallen, I would expand on the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor made about the recruitment process and criteria, such as the medical requirements.
When Admiral Sir Tony Radakin spoke to the Public Accounts Committee in April, he clearly said that there is no shortage of people wanting to serve—as we know in the north-east—but too few of those applications are turned into recruits. The rigidity of medical standards is certainly an issue: 76,000 applications were rejected on medical grounds in the last five years, and the MOD’s website makes it clear that even a minor or historical health issue that does not affect daily life could disqualify someone.
Sir Tony is far more qualified than I am to speak about this, but he made a very compelling point that we are assessing people for 22 years of service when most will serve only 10. In fact, if we could take a more flexible approach and think about a five-year service interval, that would open the door to thousands more capable recruits willing to serve.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
I thank the hon. Member for his kind personal remarks. He is absolutely right, and I will be saying more about this point in my speech, but would he acknowledge that whatever colour of party is in government, all armed forces across the western world are now struggling to recruit and, particularly, to retain personnel? The problem is not unique to the United Kingdom, or indeed north-east England.
Chris McDonald
The right hon. Member has a point. Many countries struggle with recruitment, and perhaps the cuts to the armed forces and the delivery of the so-called peace dividend have been an issue in some countries. In the north-east in particular, however, which is the subject of this debate, there is no shortage of committed people desperately wishing to serve. Ultimately, it is the systems in place that are preventing them from doing that.
We are clearly in an increasingly hostile world. We have war in Europe, an increasing threat from China, and, of course, what is happening in the middle east. People are seeing that on their TV screens each evening and they are wanting to serve. We should make it easier for them to do that. If the right hon. Member wants a more direct answer, I think that the outsourcing of recruitment, which was fundamentally a cost-cutting measure as part of austerity, has weakened not just our public services, but our national security.
When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence took office, he inherited a system that had missed its recruitment targets every single year for over a decade—we had more people leaving the forces than joining. That is why I welcome his commitment to modernisation. We need to cut red tape, to scrap these outdated entry requirements, and to make it fundamentally easier for people to serve.
The strategic defence review recognises the scale of the workforce crisis with plans to invest in infrastructure and people. That includes the award of a 4.5% above inflation pay rise for personnel, which is the beginning of proper recognition of the professionalism and sacrifices of our armed forces, and the commitment of £1.5 billion for armed forces housing. I am sure that many hon. Members have been appalled by the current housing conditions. As my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) mentioned, if we want to retain talent, we need to think more long term about how people are treated when they leave, and how their families are treated while they serve.
Every day, our armed forces keep Britain safe at home and abroad. They deserve more than gratitude; they deserve a system that works for them. Service personnel in Stockton, Billingham, and Norton know that they are fully supported by our local community, and I am sure they also know that they are now fully supported by this Labour Government.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) for setting the scene. I was here for his first debate in Westminster Hall; I am now here for his second, and I am sure I will be here for many more to come.
It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate. Obviously, the title of the debate is armed forces recruitment in the north-east, but I want to speak about Armed Forces Day, as other hon. Members have, which we had last Saturday in Newtownards. I will also speak about the tradition of service in uniform in my family, including among my uncles, who fought in the second world war, and my cousins. When I was an eight-year-old boy—which, by the way, was not yesterday; I am long past that—I wanted to be a Royal Marine commando.
I never made it to a Royal Marine commando, though not because I did not try—go for the highest!—but the Minister for Veterans, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), did get that job. I always liked the look of him; he achieved that goal and we all have great fondness for him. I think of him climbing Mount Everest—wow, if you are not impressed by that, you should be.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
As we all know, the tagline for the Royal Marine commandos was “99.9% need not apply”. When it comes to parliamentary spoken contributions, the hon. Member is in top 0.1%, so he has achieved that goal.
Jim Shannon
That comment is on the record.
I always wanted to be in the Army and I joined the Ulster Defence Regiment as an 18-year-old. There were different rules back in the ’70s—everyone will now be able to judge my age—and I served for three years as a part-time soldier in that regiment. It was clear that that was an anti-terrorism role; those were incredibly difficult times for all of us in Northern Ireland.
I later left the Ulster Defence Regiment and joined the Royal Artillery as a Territorial Army soldier, where I served for 11.5 years. Altogether, I served for 14.5 years, and they were some of the most exciting times of my life. I used to make a silly joke: people would ask me what I was in, and I would say, “The SAS”. Of course, their ears would perk up and they would say, “The SAS?” I would reply, “Yes, Saturdays and Sundays.” Those were the days when we did our training and our competitions, and made ourselves try to be soldiers in whatever role we were playing.
Last Saturday, as hon. Members have already said, we hosted Armed Forces Day for Northern Ireland in Newtownards in my constituency of Strangford. What a day that was: the sun was shining and the children were laughing, but most importantly the armed forces were honoured, with an estimated 60,000 people coming to Ards to enjoy the host of food stalls and armed forces stalls, as well as all the different charities and regiments that were able to be there. There was also the chance to see—as we all wanted to when we were small, and not because we are from Northern Ireland—the guns, the helicopters and the other things up close, as well as the dancing and the fun on the fields. Those things were all part of last Saturday.
The Falcons started off the aerial events, and I could hear the gasps and the comments from the watching public. Those guys were coming out of the sky, and people were pointing at them, but my eyesight is not what it was and I am afraid I could not even see them until they were almost there. We saw what they did, and how precise they were in landing exactly where they needed to on the airfield—if it were me, I would probably be in Strangford lough somewhere. We learned about the regiment and wondered at their skill. The drumhead ceremony was respectful, and the sounds of the crowd singing the national anthem will stay with me for a long time.
Of course, the highlight of the day for many were the incomparable Red Arrows, whose skill and showmanship reminded us all of the strength of the armed forces in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland—undoubtedly the best in the world. The beating of the retreat was the perfect end to the day, and I thank the Royal Irish Regiment bands for their world-class performances.
I am sure that the event has given many young people the desire and opportunity to see how they can join the best in the world, as hon. Members have referred to, in particular the hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor. We need to encourage more local authorities to highlight those opportunities in their area, including in the north-east and across the whole United Kingdom.
Northern Ireland has historically given a higher proportion of service than any other country in the UK, and that remains the case. In the latest recruitment year, Northern Ireland has again contributed a large number of individuals to the UK armed forces. That figure represents recruitment to the Royal Navy, the Royal Marines, the Royal Airforce and the British Army. Overall, UK armed forces saw a 19% increase in recruitment in the 12 months to 31 March 2025, with the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines experiencing the largest percentage increase. That is great news, but it is obvious that more needs to be done, which is why we are having this debate.
I apologise for not welcoming the Minister to his place. He is a good friend of the armed forces—I do not say that to give him a big head; I mean it. Whenever he faces issues that refer to Northern Ireland, he asks all the Northern Ireland MPs for their input. That shows his interest, and that he wants to hear what our constituents are telling us and feed that into the process. I very much look forward to his response; I do not think anybody in the Chamber will be disappointed by it.
There are things we should do. First, we could do more with the cadets. I understand there are issues for the cadets, and I am anxious about those; the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend (Mary Glindon) referred to the cadets in her constituency. I visited Ballykinler three months ago and met the cadets from County Down who had their weekend camp there, and I was greatly impressed.
I understand that the role of the cadets is not to make people want to join the forces—and I understand the reason for that; they are at a young age—but I am keen to get the Minister’s thoughts on how we can do better. When I talk to the officers and those who train the cadets, I say, “You’ve got a potential recruitment pool here. Can we do more?” I know that some of those cadets will go on to join the Army, particularly the Royal Irish Regiment or the RAF, but we could do more. I leave that question for the Minister.
Secondly, on Saturday, I also spoke to some people who hold ranks in my old regiment, the Royal Artillery, including the commanding officer. I asked him how recruitment was going with the TA, and he told me, “Jim, it’s not as good as it used to be.” I said, “Is it not? I thought we were recruiting well in Northern Ireland.” He said, “Yes, we’re recruiting above the quota in Northern Ireland compared with the rest of the United Kingdom, but here are some ideas.” I said, “Tell me what your ideas are.” He said, “We need to promote more of the skills that can be learned in the forces.” I understand that the Government, and the Royal Air Force, the Royal Navy and the Army, enable people to do skills courses that give them better opportunities for recruitment.
Thirdly, the commanding officer also said, “Employers need to be more flexible.” I said, “What do you mean by that?” He said, “Maybe with getting time off, for instance, at the weekend.” Is there a job to be done with employers to ensure that we do something better? Those are three positive ideas for the Minister—that is always how I do things—and if we can do them, I think we will encourage people.
There is no doubt that the 60,000 people who were at the Armed Forces Day in Newtownards last Saturday felt pride in the country, pride in the flag and pride in the uniform. Pride in the flag and uniform transcends both sides of the community, some of whom fought tooth and nail over 30 years of a terrorist campaign. Both sides of the community serve in uniform. For instance, the cadets in Northern Ireland come from both sides of the community, and percentage-wise it is equal. That tells me that the forces of today have appeal right across both the spectrum of political opinion, if that is what it is, and across the communities of Northern Ireland. There are good things happening, but there is much to do.
Lola McEvoy
I thank the hon. Member for his interesting outline of the differences in what is going on in Northern Ireland. On his point about good things happening, does he agree that this Government have taken direct action in their first year, with the Armed Forces Commissioner, to tackle some of the institutional problems that have put people off joining the forces? Add to that the biggest pay rise in a generation, and those good things should hopefully see a boost in our numbers.
Jim Shannon
The hon. Lady is right to outline that. Clearly, the Minister should be in no doubt that I commend him and this Labour Government on their commitment to the armed forces. I am impressed by what has happened, and I am also impressed by the 5% commitment to GDP by 2035. How could anybody not be impressed by that? Today, on the Floor of the House, there was a clear commitment to new nuclear-certified aircraft and I welcome that. That is the right thing. The policies that have been carried out by Ministers, the Labour Government, and the Defence Secretary are to be welcomed and I wholeheartedly support them.
Moving on to the increase in spending to 5% of GDP, although we need increases in cyber tech, know-how and weaponry, we also need boots on the ground. We cannot fight all wars with drones; the cyber age seems to be taking over. The message needs to go out that all skillsets are needed and wanted in the Army. I wrote the next sentence before the hon. Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy) intervened, by the way: this Government are committed to strengthening the armed forces across this United Kingdom.
I hope the Minister will agree that the greatest fighting men hail from Ulster, with great respect to everyone else in the rest of the United Kingdom. One of my favourite quotes on the world war is from Wilfred Spender; I know the Minister will remember it, and perhaps others will, as well. It was spoken after the battle of the Somme:
“I am not an Ulsterman, but yesterday, the 1st July, as I followed their amazing attack, I felt that I would rather be an Ulsterman than anything else in the world. My pen cannot describe adequately the hundreds of heroic acts that I witnessed…The Ulster Volunteer Force, from which the Division was made, has won a name which equals any in history. Their devotion deserves the gratitude of the British Empire.”
What I love about the British Army is that it is a British Army of us all in this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is the Scots, the Welsh, the Northern Irish and all the English, all together as one. That is how it should be. This is the courage that flows through our veins. It is this courage and expertise that makes us—British soldiers, the Air Force and the Royal Navy—simply the best in the world.
We need to get the message out to people throughout this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland that we are better together—and we fight better together. What people might associate with Ulstermen is that whenever they are not fighting somebody else, they are fighting themselves. I am not quite sure if that is true, but I know this: boy, do we fight better together.
Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan.
It is a privilege to participate in this debate in Armed Forces Week, given Sunderland’s proud tradition of military service and as a member of a serving armed forces family. My good friend Dr Dan Jackson, in his excellent book “The Northumbrians” on the history of the north-east, outlines in some depth the martial tradition of our region. His central thesis is that for a significant part of our history we were a border region and that over the centuries the north-east, through a range of different conflicts and wars, has contributed significantly to our nation’s defence.
Men from Sunderland were traditionally recruited to the Durham Light Infantry, which I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) will speak about. Of course, Bernard Montgomery, having served alongside the DLI throughout the second world war, said:
“There may be some regiments as good, but I know of none better.”
Chris McDonald
My hon. Friend is giving an excellent overview of regiments in the north-east. He mentions “The Northumbrians”, so will he join me in welcoming to the Public Gallery Ammar Mirza CBE, an honorary colonel of the 101st (Northumbrian) Regiment Royal Artillery? Does he agree with me that he is doing an excellent job by attending this debate, demonstrating the commitment in the north-east to our regiments not just from politicians, but from our honorary colonel?
Lewis Atkinson
I will absolutely do that. I commend the gentleman in the Public Gallery and all those who serve. The tradition of connection between place and service is so important and an asset that we must continue to use as we consider recruitment in the future.
One in 20 of my constituents are veterans, probably one of the highest percentages in the UK. Sunderland as a whole—not just my constituency, but the local authority area—has 11,000 veterans. That is partly due to that proud military tradition, but also because, particularly in the ’80s during the period of deindustrialisation when the pits and the shipyards closed, young people lacked work opportunities and, naturally, they joined the forces. There are veterans alive today in my constituency who made incredibly significant contributions in the Falklands, Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflicts. As other Members have mentioned, the forces offered apprentice-style careers that gave people great life chances, apprenticeships and opportunities to travel around the world. They opened up opportunities and horizons for working-class men and women in the north-east.
Our cadet units play a key part in that tradition. I will not repeat the points that my hon. Friends have made, but I want to pay tribute to the units in my constituency. For example, the excellent Southmoor academy, a local community school, has a combined cadet unit embedded in it, enriching the curriculum for those who participate and those who do not. It provides a pathway to options for further recruitment. There are also Territorial units and facilities in my constituency, in particular the Territorial Army centre in Seaburn, which is a base for the Rifles and a medical regiment.
I will, however, refer mainly to issues regarding our regular forces. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) on securing the debate and opening it, and, as he said, there has been a recruitment crisis in the wider country and particularly in the north-east of England. The most recent statistic available for Sunderland Central is that around 10 people per year have joined each of the services. If we contrast that with the 11,000 veterans across Sunderland as a whole, we can see the drop-off.
Mark Ferguson (Gateshead Central and Whickham) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for the speech he is giving. I am very proud that the Royal Naval Reserve is based in part on the banks of the Tyne, on Gateshead quays. Does he agree that visible representations of armed forces bases in our communities is incredibly important in encouraging people to know that such careers are available to them?
Lewis Atkinson
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. There are occasionally differences between the Tyne and the Wear, but this is absolutely not one of them. I think of the Royal Naval Association on Roker Avenue in my constituency, another representation of the community and the service of generations of seafarers and those who have served in the Navy, and I know that in his constituency HMS Calliope fulfils that role.
As the Secretary of State reflected recently, the fact that three in four recent applicants for the forces gave up before they reached even the medical element or were rejected for any other reason is just not good enough. I am sure that the Minister will say more about the mobilisation of the new recruitment service, which I welcome. I understand that it will operate on a tri-service basis, which will be increasingly important as we seek to have multi-skilled forces that are able to work on that basis. It absolutely makes sense—including, presumably, economic sense—for recruitment to occur on a tri-service basis, so that different forces are not competing. Will the Minister say something about the mobilisation period, which I understand extends to 2027? How quickly does he expect the delivery of the training start date within 30 days of application?
Terms and conditions are important for both attraction and retention, but when we talk about retention we sometimes miss the link back to attraction. There should be no better advert for joining the forces than current service personnel. If they are having a good experience, they are the best recruiters for others.
Lola McEvoy
As it is fresh in my mind, I wanted to mention that I was recently at park run in Darlington where two young men won in record time—unbelievably, intimidatingly quickly—and it turned out that they were armed forces personnel who were stationed at Catterick. They were great adverts for the health benefits and discipline of being a member of the armed forces. Does my hon. Friend agree that that level of fitness has wider mental health impacts?
Lewis Atkinson
I absolutely do, and that applies to both the regular forces and, for example, the cadets and reserves, as others have mentioned.
The 6% pay increase last year and the 4.5% increase this year are hugely important to ensuring that serving personnel of all types receive above the national minimum wage, but equally important is action on housing, not only for serving personnel but for their families. We are talking about serving men and women. Historically, of course, personnel in the north-east and across the country were men, but the recruitment of talented, patriotic women into our armed forces is critical.
We should not apologise for saying that for anyone, men or women, serving needs to be compatible with family life. Everyone who is inspired to serve understands that, at moments of conflict and crisis, they must be willing to go wherever our nation needs them to go, without notice and at significant cost to their families. The psychological bargain, as it were, is that in times of peace and for planned activities in the UK—for example training—the more certainty that we can give serving personnel about where they will be, the better. That allows them plan their lives, increases retention and, critically, increases attraction into our armed forces in the first place. I would be grateful if the Minister could update us on that.
Finally, at the end of that cycle through from recruitment to retention is aftercare and care for our veterans. The veteran population in Sunderland is fortunate to have a fantastic veterans’ charity, Veterans in Crisis—it was an honour to host the Minister for Veterans and People there recently. Ger Fowler, the founder of the charity, says that people feeling they will be looked after when they leave is another advert for the forces.
Mary Glindon
My hon. Friend is giving a marvellous speech. On that subject, will he commend all the veterans’ charities that work across our region and the support provided by volunteers, particularly with mental health and finding homes—all the social issues that affect people who come out of the service back into civvy street? They work tirelessly, and our well-deserving veterans would have many more problems if those charities were not in our communities.
Lewis Atkinson
I absolutely share my hon. Friend’s sentiments. The strength of the veterans’ charities network also speaks to the wisdom of the Government’s approach to veterans. It is about building a network of support for veterans—on top of the fantastic work that our veterans charities do—through Operation Valour and the £50 million that the Government are investing, recognising the strength of community that already exists.
It has been a really good debate this afternoon, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute. I hope that by giving people in our communities the opportunities that they need while strengthening our armed forces, we can make some changes in the coming years to strengthen recruitment under this Government.
Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) on securing this important debate, and all hon. Members on their contributions. It is quite tough to follow them and to add anything, given the quality of the speeches that we have already heard.
It is very appropriate that we are having this debate in Armed Forces Week, and it was a pleasure to speak at the Armed Forces Week flag-raising event that was held in Stanley Front street on Sunday. Such is the passion for the armed forces in North Durham that Stanley gets two bites at the cherry, as there is also a ceremony this Sunday to mark the end of Armed Forces Week. Front street will be full of gazebos from different military units, cadet forces and veterans’ organisations.
As has been flagged already in the debate, North Durham is closely associated with our historic county regiment, the Durham Light Infantry—the DLI, known as the Faithful Durhams—whose record of service in the two world wars and further back in British military history is incredible. I pay tribute to the individuals involved in that, but also to the many others who answered the call to duty across all branches and units. When I go door to door or meet people in the street, it is like a quiz: do I recognise the cap badge or know something about the history of the different units that people have been involved in?
As other hon. Members have said, the north-east has contributed immensely to the defence of the UK. At the 2021 census, there were over 100,000 veterans in the north-east, and the statistics for my constituency are similar to those for the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson): one in 20 individuals in North Durham is a veteran, and one in 10 households has a veteran in it. I am so proud to represent the many veterans, serving personnel, reservists and their families in my constituency, as well as what will hopefully be the next generation. I will just name-check the combined cadet force at Park View school in Chester-le-Street, where the headteacher was really proud of the pupils’ involvement.
As we rightly renew our nation’s defences in the face of a much more unstable and uncertain world, we must recognise that the most important element of our defence is its people. Sadly, the number of people serving in the UK regular forces decreased significantly under the previous Government, and the headcount at the end of April 2024 was down by over 15% compared with a decade earlier. As armed forces recruitment has fallen in recent years, the impact has been particularly acute in the north-east compared with other regions, perhaps because recruitment was disproportionately high in the north-east. Between 2015 and 2024, untrained intake into the armed forces reduced by 14% across the UK as a whole, but the reduction in the north-east was 34%.
I welcome this Labour Government’s commitment to tackling not just recruitment in the armed forces, but retention. As hon. Members have mentioned, we have seen the largest pay rise for personnel in over 20 years, as well as recruitment reforms to scrap outdated policies and make the process more straightforward for those who wish to join our armed forces. We also now have the Armed Forces Commissioner Act, which is a key part of renewing the nation’s contract with our armed forces. It was a privilege to serve on the Public Bill Committee alongside the Minister and the shadow Minister.
Mr Francois
I am ever so sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but technically it is still a Bill. We are debating it in the main Chamber next Wednesday.
Luke Akehurst
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for correcting the record. It is indeed still a Bill, but soon to become an Act.
The introduction of a new independent armed forces commissioner is a key part of the Government’s plans for improving service life for personnel and their families. For too long, morale and satisfaction with service life among our armed forces have been falling, as measured in the continuous attitude survey.
I also welcome the Government’s action on military housing, which has shamed our country for too long and has often been a factor in people leaving or being put off joining in the first place. Bringing the armed forces housing estate—more than 36,000 service family homes —back into public ownership is a decisive break with the past, reversing the privatisation made by Conservative Ministers in 1996, which failed British taxpayers, British service personnel and their families.
The members of our armed forces, who put their lives on the line for the safety and security of our country and people, give the greatest service possible. I pay tribute to every one of our men and women in uniform, including the many hon. and gallant Members, the veterans who serve on both sides of the House, whose contributions I have heard today. My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) brings insights as a former member of the RAF. On that note, I will conclude and once again thank you, Dr Allin-Khan, for so ably chairing the debate.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
It is as pleasure to serve under your chairship for the first time, Dr Allin-Khan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) on securing the debate.
Few topics are more important for the armed forces than recruitment and its partner, retention, which the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) ably articulated. I am the Liberal Democrat spokesperson today but I am also a proud former soldier. I will try to encompass the whole of the armed forces in my remarks, but my natural tendency is to substitute the word “Army” because that is where I was shaped as a young man.
The Army is on its knees. The cuts it faced under the previous Government were as merciless as they were reckless: 10,000 soldiers were cut from the Army, in addition to failing recruitment. The latter has continued and we have lost 2,000 members of the Army since the general election. We are left with the smallest Army since the 1790s. As we know, that is while a war is happening on NATO’s border in Ukraine. I would argue that that decline in our Army has left us dangerously exposed.
In addition, only 75% of our troops are medically deployable. When we look at the size of the recruited Army, that is a deployable force of only 52,000, which is incredibly small when one considers how dangerous the world is at the moment. Depending on which figures are to be believed, Russia, by contrast, has 750,000 troops in Ukraine. There is a glaring mismatch.
We saw some of that play out in conversations around the coalition of the willing, and whether we could put troops alongside allies in Ukraine. As some other hon. Members have mentioned, it is not just the UK; other European forces also suffer from smaller armies than they should have and problems with recruitment. I am sorry to repeat the words of the Minister back at him, but recently he told the Defence Committee that “more work is needed” to ensure that the UK is ready to fight an enduring war. I would contrast that with the national security strategy published yesterday, which says that we need to be ready to defend our homeland now. I encourage the Government to take away the juxtaposition of those statements and respond.
We often hear people say in the media, “Do we need soldiers in an age of cyber, information and space? Perhaps we don’t need people anymore.” This is the siren call about how technology will solve our military problems, but the answer is: yes, we do need those people. There are no alternatives to having boots on the ground. It is only troops that can take and hold territory—and the last time I checked, land is where everybody lives, so that is the decisive domain in warfare. Perhaps more importantly, when we look at how dangerous the world is at the moment, ground troops are what deter, more so than any other type of force—and I for one can think of nothing scarier than a division of Northumbrians, Mackems and Geordies facing me. [Laughter.]
That is why—from jokes to serious policy—the Liberal Democrats are proposing to reverse the Conservative cuts of 10,000 to our Army. I note that the Government hinted in the strategic defence review recently that they might increase the size of the Army at some point—I think the wording was that it would be desirable—but that this must of course fit within our financial envelope. With the new announcement of 3.5% on core defence expenditure, perhaps we could accelerate some of that increase in the size of the Army, because although the SDR was a very good document, I think it represents jam tomorrow, and I would argue that the threat is today—as I think the Government would also accept.
In addition to reversing those cuts, the Liberal Democrats would focus on the recruitment problem. Although the pay increases are welcome to our hard-working armed forces—indeed, we also welcome that as Liberal Democrats —we would argue that specific recruitment and retention bonuses would help to accelerate recruitment into the forces. We therefore propose a £10,000 bonus for new recruits who complete their phase 1 and phase 2 training and then serve for two years—that is, their initial commitment. We would also pledge a further £20,000 bonus for those who have left the forces and then return. We could then get them in already trained, so to speak; they would just need to do their annual training to get back up to speed. Those two things, coupled with some of the pay increases that have come through recently, would help with the recruitment pipeline.
As hon. Members have said, recruitment into our armed forces in the north-east accounts for a disproportionate share of the total, with the region contributing 7.3% of new recruits despite accounting for only 4.6% of the working-age population. It is also the region with the highest rate of per capita recruitment in the country. This reflects a deep sense of pride and patriotism, which I saw for myself when serving in Afghanistan alongside members of the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, who are so distinguishable by their headdress—a red hackle, in Labour colours, appropriately for today.
But we cannot rely just on the north-east, nor can we ask more of our forces without giving them the support that we need, and this is where we come to retention. So many forces personnel are leaving because of the conditions they face. I would like to focus on two things. The first is an issue that we have explored repeatedly, but where things have perhaps not improved as quickly as we think they should have: bullying and harassment, particularly —almost exclusively—of female recruits and women in the armed forces. This was laid out comprehensively in the Atherton report, and recently we had the service chiefs in front of the Defence Committee, which I sit on. I questioned General Sir Roly Walker, the Chief of the General Staff, on this, and I read out to him some accounts.
One woman described being pinned down and assaulted in front of a senior officer, yet nothing was done about it. That was just one example. How can we expect women to remain in the armed forces when they are not respected for the important contributions that they make? Obviously, this is a cross-party issue; no party would seek to make political capital out of it. We all agree that it is completely unacceptable. But I urge the current Government to continue to push hard on it and to make sure that the service chiefs understand that it is a political priority and a leadership issue.
I will conclude now. We have discussed a plethora of issues and there have been many good suggestions from across the House today. Some of the failures reek of apathy, which I hope is being corrected. I hope that we are going forward into a new era of better funding and greater focus on some of the recruitment and retention problems that the armed forces have faced. Unless we take action, we will fail those people who are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Dr Allin-Khan, and to sum up for His Majesty’s Opposition on the important subject of armed forces recruitment from the north-east of England.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) on securing a debate on such an interesting topic, in Armed Forces Week to boot, and, if I may say so, on introducing it so very ably.
The British armed forces have a proud tradition of recruiting soldiers, sailors and, more recently, airmen from the north-east of England. I will take the Army as an example; being a former infantry officer, I hope that the hon. Member and the Minister will forgive me if I concentrate on infantry units. There are many proud regiments across the Army, both the teeth arms and those who support them, that historically have recruited from this corner of England.
To begin with, the Coldstream Guards, which is the oldest continually serving regular regiment in the British Army, takes its name from the village on the English-Scottish border where it was first formed in 1650. It was originally Monck’s Regiment of Foot, before becoming the Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards following Monck’s death in 1670. It was, of course, instrumental in restoring royal rule after the civil war and proudly remains part of the Household Division to this day.
However, there are others. For instance, the Northumberland Fusiliers was first raised as an infantry regiment of the British Army in 1674. In 1751, it became the 5th Regiment of Foot and in 1836, after the Napoleonic wars, it was designated a fusilier unit and became the 5th (Northumberland Fusiliers) Regiment of Foot. This proud name is now incorporated into the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, the deputy Regimental Colonel of which is now Colonel Jez Lamb, an excellent officer with whom I had the privilege of serving in the Ministry of Defence.
There are other proud names, too. For instance, there is the Durham Light Infantry, which was formed under the so-called Childers reforms in 1881 and is today part of The Rifles, one of the largest regiments in the British Army. The hon. Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) paid handsome tribute to the Durham Light Infantry and he was absolutely right to do so.
Of course, both the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines have also actively recruited from the north-east of England in the past. The RAF has maintained an active presence in the north-east of England, not least at RAF Boulmer in Northumberland, which I visited when I was a Defence Minister and which plays a vital co-ordinating role in the air defence of the United Kingdom. In short, the north-east has always played a part in the defence of these islands and no doubt always will.
As I am sure the Minister will go on to agree, armies across the western world find it difficult to recruit and especially to retain regular armed forces personnel. Given modern lifestyles, it is increasingly challenging to find enough people who wish to undergo the rigours of service life, including the pressure that it puts on their families. Indeed, we know from the armed forces continuous attitude survey, or AFCAS, that although there are often a number of reasons why people leave the armed forces, the pressure of service life on family life is the greatest determinant of that decision and has been for several years now.
As the Minister may recall, this is a subject I know a little about. After I left the MOD, where I served as the Armed Forces Minister, in 2017 I was commissioned by the then Prime Minister, Theresa May, to write a report about how to improve recruitment into the armed forces, which was submitted to No. 10 in 2017. It was entitled “Filling the Ranks”, and it is still available on my parliamentary website. Following that work, I was recommissioned to do a further study on retention. Even when looking at recruitment, we soon become involved in discussions about retention, because in effect they are two sides of the same coin. To put it another way, there is no point widening the aperture of the recruitment tab if we cannot put a retention plug in the sink. Partly as a result of that work, I was recommissioned by the same Prime Minister to write a second report on retention, entitled “Stick or Twist?”, which was submitted to No. 10 in February 2020, albeit to a different Prime Minister and just a month before the country went into lockdown because of covid.
I am pleased to say that the previous Government actioned the vast majority of the recommendations in both reports, including those designed to help recruiting by taking a more realistic attitude to minor medical ailments that previously disbarred some enthusiastic potential candidates from joining the armed forces. However, as the hon. Member for Stockton North (Chris McDonald) ably pointed out, there is still much further to go. As the Minister knows, one of the principal challenges to speeding up the recruitment process is gaining access to candidates’ GP medical records. I have to say that it has at times been like trying to cut the Gordian knot. There must be more that can be done in this area, even if it means—and I do not say this lightly —amending the GP contract.
As the hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor correctly pointed out, the challenges faced by people living in the north-east of England who want to join the armed forces are not so different from those around the rest of the country. In 2012, the Army decided to outsource its recruiting to a consortium led by Capita. At the same time, the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force decided to stick, as it were, and retain their recruitment in-house. Although I admit that it happened under a previous Conservative Government, the outsourcing contract was not an outstanding success. The number of soldiers actively recruited into the Army, including from the north-east, began to fall dramatically shortly after Capita took responsibility for that function, and it has hardly ever hit its recruitment target since. Before the Minister leaps to his feet to intervene on me and point out that that happened under a Tory Government, I would simply offer that I served on the Defence Committee for seven years, during which there was no fiercer critic of Capita than me.
We now have a situation in which personnel, including those from the north, are leaving the armed forces faster than we can recruit them. Indeed, Ministers have said several times in the past few months that for every 100 who join across all three services, 130 leave. Against that background, the MOD has recently decided to relet the recruiting contract to a new consortium led by Serco. However, that does not fully go live until April 2027, and there will be a transition period during which Serco will prepare to take over from the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, and will work in tandem with Capita as it runs down the current recruiting contract. In a very knowledgeable contribution, the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) rightly touched on that point.
I want to take the opportunity to express real concern about the process and, in particular, the period of joint working between Capita and Serco. All experience suggests that if Capita is unable to hit its targets during the interregnum, there is likely to be a great deal of finger-pointing between the two companies. But it will be the strength of the regular Army, including recruitment from the north-east of England, that suffers, so I very much encourage Ministers to be alert to that.
There is a further challenge to recruiting, including in the north-east, and it is one for which a previous Conservative Government cannot be blamed: the current Government’s plans to use a remedial order to excise parts of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023. As of 15 minutes ago, 137,953 UK citizens have signed a parliamentary petition entitled “Protect Northern Ireland Veterans from Prosecutions”, which we will debate in this Chamber next month. Suffice it to say that I believe all the contributions made by Labour Members have been entirely genuine—indeed, passionate—and I have to believe, therefore, that they would be very reluctant to go through the Lobbies this autumn to vote for a proposal that not only opens up our Northern Ireland veterans to prosecution, but would make it easier for Gerry Adams to sue the British Government.
Although I am an Essex Member of Parliament, I am also a bit of a military history buff, so I know that there are counties in the north-east of England that have a proud tradition of providing personnel for what are now His Majesty’s armed forces. I conclude by congratulating again the hon. Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor on securing such a timely debate. I look forward with genuine interest to what the Minister has to say to us.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Luke Pollard)
It is very good to see you in the Chair, Dr Allin-Khan. You and I being in the same room will probably alert the Whips—they will be keeping an eye on us both very shortly. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor (Alan Strickland) for introducing this debate, putting this on the record and being a proud champion of the north-east and of the men and women from the north-east who serve with such distinction in our armed forces. He has done his constituency and his region enormous credit with the way that he introduced the debate. I will turn to some of the points he raised in just a moment.
Let me say how warmed I am by the contributions to this debate from all parts of the House in Armed Forces Week. It is so important at this time that we take a moment to thank the people who serve, celebrate their service and highlight that a career in the armed forces not only provides the opportunity to keep our country and our allies safe, but provides someone with a lifetime of skills that, as we know, are in demand in the private sector and will give them pride in what they do. One of the members of the armed forces that my hon. Friend spoke to said that the armed forces had trained, trusted and invested in him. That is exactly what we seek to do for all the members of our armed forces.
I must declare an interest as the son of a Royal Navy submariner, albeit one based in Devonport in Plymouth rather than in the north-east. I am confident that, wherever we are in our proud United Kingdom, we can all feel a sense of pride in the service of the people in uniform and, importantly, the families that stand behind them. The people of the north-east have a long and proud tradition of doing just that—a tradition captured by the permanent exhibition at Newcastle’s Discovery museum, reflected in the annual military parade in Sunderland, which is traditionally the largest outside of London, and honoured earlier this month by 100 soldiers from the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards, who departed King’s Cross in their scarlet tunics and bearskin caps to make the symbolic pilgrimage to Berwick-upon-Tweed, where they were formed 375 years ago and where they were received today with great pride.
Service personnel from the north-east have been and continue to be central to the history of our armed forces. They are central to the missions we deliver today to keep our country safe and central to the future of our armed forces. As Britian moves to warfighting readiness through the commitments set out in our strategic defence review, we have placed defence personnel at the heart of our plans.
Chris McDonald
I thank my hon. Friend for his warm speech about the pride of the various regiments in the north-east of England, but there is a big gap at the moment. A number of years ago, the Durham Light Infantry lost their national memorial when the building that was housing it was no longer fit for purpose. That is a sad loss to our region. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in calling on the new Reform Durham county council to pick up the plans previously put down by local people to recreate a fitting memorial for the Durham Light Infantry in our area?
Luke Pollard
I commend and thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It is so important that we tell our story. We have not just accidentally arrived today—we are here because of the contributions of the generations that came before us. It is right that we acknowledge and remember the sacrifices of the people who served in uniform in countless battles and wars in the past. To have a permanent, fitting memorial where people can see that contribution seems a very good campaign, and I encourage the hon. Gentleman and all Members present to get behind it. I hope that the council he referenced will understand its value.
Since coming into office, we have taken a number of decisive steps to deal with the serious retention and recruitment crisis that we inherited from the previous Administration. We have sought to make recruitment more efficient. We have eliminated over 100 outdated recruitment policies already. We have slashed the time to access medical records from weeks to hours with a new digital pilot that we hope to roll out across all our services. We have restructured Army recruitment, and are moving towards a tri-service recruitment scheme, which will make recruitment easier, more efficient and, most importantly, faster for the people involved.
We have made a career in our armed forces more attractive by awarding service personnel the biggest pay rise in more than two decades. Importantly—this is a source of great pride not just to the Defence Secretary but to all Defence Ministers and, I imagine, all Labour MPs—for the very first time, every person who serves in uniform is now paid the living wage. That should always have been the case. It was not, but it is now. That is the difference that this Government are making.
I am pleased that many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst), spoke about the importance of upgrading military accommodation. It was a national scandal that so many of our people and their families are being asked to live in housing that is, frankly, not fit for purpose. The £7 billion that we will invest in military accommodation, including an extra £1.5 billion to be spent in this Parliament, will make a substantial difference by upgrading military accommodation nationwide.
We are trying harder to keep the valued people who are most at risk of leaving. We have introduced a £30,000 retention payment for about 5,000 eligible aircraft engineers and an £8,000 retention payment for around 12,000 eligible Army privates and lance corporals. The results speak for themselves: year-on-year inflow of recruits is up 19% and outflow is down 7%. The Royal Navy has exceeded its yearly recruiting target, Royal Air Force applications are up 34% compared with early 2024, and the British Army has recorded a seven-year high in applications.
We are determined to go faster and further, starting with cadets. I was pleased to hear from hon. Members about how cadets contribute to their communities and provide people with opportunities to understand that a career in the armed forces is good not only for their employment, but for their mental health and their community. The cadet experience raises awareness of exciting careers and opportunities. Former cadets account for around 40% of officers and 35% of other ranks, and on average those who have served in our cadets serve six years longer than their peers. That is good for our armed forces.
The commitment to increase our cadet forces by 30% is an important SDR recommendation. I encourage all Members, whether or not they are in the north-east, to be part of the expansion of our cadet forces and to work with their local cadets, whether they are sea cadets, air cadets or whatever else—a number of varieties are on offer—to encourage people to get involved. Most importantly, let us tell the story for those communities that do not always access the cadets, especially those from some of our poorest and most deprived communities, where participating in the cadets could have a profound and positive effect for their entire lives.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister for his comprehensive and helpful response. I had a conversation with the Minister for Veterans and People some time ago, and he told me personally that extra money would be available for the cadets in the Northern Ireland, specifically to recruit another 1,000 cadets. The cadet forces and others have told me that that money will ensure that the 1,000 other cadets can come in. I welcome that commitment by the Veterans Minister to Northern Ireland—which I think he told me before he announced it.
Luke Pollard
Don’t be saying that we have been out telling people things before we announce them—we will get in big trouble for that, as the hon. Member will know. He is exactly right to talk about the possibilities that come from further investment in cadets and was right to raise those issues with my colleague the Minister for Veterans and People. We are not undertaking Operation Mountain Goat, climbing up Everest; the Minister is certainly powering the expansion of our cadets and activities in reserves.
Mark Ferguson
While the Minister commends the work of cadets, will he join me in commending 361 Gateshead air cadets for the critical role they played in remembrance services by leading the parade through the centre of Gateshead last year? Does he agree that the role of the cadets in remembrance is incredibly important in building a sense of community and a sense of the role that we all must play in remembrance, alongside the cadets?
Luke Pollard
I join my hon. Friend in celebrating the work of 361 Gateshead air cadets. What he has just done speaks to the critique, which I often hear, that young people are not interested in service. Nothing is further from the truth. Our young people are absolutely determined and feel a sense of pride, but as a country we have not provided the vehicle for them to be able to serve.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Lewis Atkinson) gave the stat that three in four people leaving the recruitment process because it takes too long, but it is worse than that. In the situation we inherited from the previous Administration, 84% of people left the recruitment process because it took too long. The time of flight, which is how we categorise the period between the application form and donning the uniform, as my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor described it, is far too long—in some cases over a year. That is not an acceptable time of flight.
We are determined to cut that, which is why we have introduced the 10/30 policy. That means that we want all applicants across all forces to have an indication of whether they are acceptable within 10 days—have they passed the nationality check or do they have a criminal record that would disbar them?—and to have an approximate start date at a training establishment within 30 days. That is so important because it provides people with the certainty to understand how long they will have to wait.
The targets that we are setting internally in the Ministry of Defence to reduce the time of flight are serious and substantial, because we know that we lose too many good people as the process takes too long. That is why we are working not just to enhance and cut the time taken to access medical records, but to do security vetting and to make sure that people know when they can start. That will make a big difference to our ability to help people to understand whether they can take a part-time job or go travelling, or whether they need to wait a bit longer or have time for additional study before they start. The lack of certainty poisons our recruitment process; we are taking steps to deal with that properly.
I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor spoke about digital warfighters because it is true that, as the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin), said, we need to have troops to hold ground, but we also need people with cyber and digital skills to deal with the threats we face every single day. Luckily, we are not under missile attack every day, but we are under cyber-attack every single day from hostile states, from those that wish to undermine our security, and from criminal networks that can be state-backed. The new direct entry into cyber that we have begun is a pioneering scheme. We have had a huge number of applications, including from people from the north-east. We will make further announcements about that success as the cohort starts its training.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Aycliffe and Spennymoor was right when he spoke about many of our people being snapped up by the private sector. That is what happens with austerity and pay pressure, which mean that our armed forces personnel have faced real-terms pay cuts—as many of them have for the last 14 years, under the previous Government—and their wages have not kept pace with their market value. That is why we have introduced two above-inflation pay rises for our people since coming to office.
That is also the reason why we are looking at zigzag careers, so that people serving in a regular role in our armed forces can undertake reserve work and apply for the reserves while they are serving—rather than having to leave and apply, as they do currently—so that they can then undertake work in our private sector, in our defence contractors, after which they will be able to rejoin. At the moment we zig, but we do not zag. We need to improve the system. That is what we are seeking to legislate to deliver. That will mean an increase in people being able to return.
Keeping people within our larger defence family is absolutely right. My hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah) was right to speak about the importance of investment in our defence industries. At the moment, we spend approximately £380 million in the north-east, which is not enough. It is the determination of this Government to make sure that we spend more of the Ministry of Defence’s increased budget with British companies, creating good, well-paid apprenticeships throughout the country and making sure that we can create the products that we can sell to the world, not just to ourselves.
Mr Francois
As the hon. Member is well aware, many of those who served on Operation Banner were recruited from what we would now call red wall constituencies, many of them in the north-east of England. As we have many north-east MPs here this afternoon, will the Minister give us an absolute assurance that the Government will not proceed with their totally counterproductive remedial order to throw those veterans to the wolves?
Luke Pollard
The right hon. Member has made his point; I am turning to the points raised by other Members, if he will forgive me.
We currently spend £380 million, but we want to spend more. To do that, we not only need defence companies to invest more in manufacturing facilities; we need many of the companies that already operate in the north-east to realise that they could be defence companies. They might be able to support the provision of gizmos and gadgets for our equipment, or they might be technology companies that could expand into providing new services. That is why the new defence industrial strategy, which we are publishing later this year, will help to direct more attention and more spending towards our industries in Britain, including those in the north-east.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham for talking about the Armed Forces Commissioner Bill, which is going through Parliament. I want it to achieve Royal Assent soon. The ping-pong needs to come to an end. We need to get it passed into law, complete the recruitment of the Armed Forces Commissioner and get on with providing an independent champion for the people who serve. It is vital to restore trust and confidence.
I am grateful to the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells, for talking about the need to address culture, because the toxic culture within our military is not acceptable. It is not acceptable in our politics and it should not be acceptable in our armed forces. However, I point out to him that the Fusiliers do not wear Labour colours. It is a proud hackle that came from their traditions—it just happens to be red. It is important that at this time we do not seek to politicise any of our armed forces, because they should enjoy cross-party support. He gave me a fair challenge, though, about whether we need to do more work or defend the homeland now. The answer, of course, is both. That is why the SDR sets out 62 recommendations, which we have accepted in full, to do more to defend our country, to develop new technologies to replace the old capabilities, and, perhaps most importantly, to invest in our people.
Finally, the shadow Minister, the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), raised a number of topics that are of concern to many people. I welcome the debate that will be taking place in this Chamber very shortly. That will be a matter for the Northern Ireland Office, as he is aware, but my colleague, the Veterans Minister, takes a great deal of interest in this matter as well; I am certain that he will be able to contribute further.
At this very moment, there will be people up and down our country, including in the north-east of England, wondering whether to join our armed forces—wondering whether a career in uniform will support them and their aspirations, and will provide the opportunities for them to start a family and to buy their own house, and contribute to a lifetime of skills. Let the message go out clearly from this debate: whether you join the Army, the Navy or the Air Force, there are incredible skills on offer in our armed forces, and incredible opportunities to travel and to keep our country safe.
I am grateful to all Members across the House for contributing to the debate. They have made the case for improvements in recruitment, highlighted the armed forces as a great career to join, and supported Armed Forces Week.
Alan Strickland
I thank all hon. Members who have taken part today, and you, Dr Allin-Khan, for your excellent chairing, which has kept us in good order. I also thank the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin). He said in his comments that he was slightly terrified of all the angry Geordies and Mackems coming at him in battle; I hope we were not too scary today. I am sorry to hear that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) did not make it as a commando, but his 14-and-a-half-year service to our country does us proud, as does the service of the shadow Ministers.
In Armed Forces Week, I thank everyone who serves in uniform to defend our nation, all veterans who have served, the armed forces charities that do brilliant work, and the armed forces families who sacrifice so much so that our nation can be so well defended.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered armed forces recruitment in the North East.
Flags: Public Buildings
(1 day, 12 hours ago)
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Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)
I remind hon. Members that they may make a speech only with prior permission from the Member in charge and the Minister. As is the convention for 30-minute debates, there will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the flying of flags from public buildings.
Thank you, Sir Desmond, for calling me to speak in this debate about the importance of flying flags from public buildings across our United Kingdom. I have studied and campaigned on the subject for many years, even before I entered the House of Commons. In 2000, as a councillor in the London borough of Havering, I campaigned for the Union flag, also correctly known as the Union Jack, to be flown all year round from the main flag mast at our townhall in Romford. It was a great sadness to me that the then Labour council, supported by some members of the Havering residents association, voted against my motion to do so. That led to a public outcry, leading to the eventual backing down of the then administration, which accepted that the people of my borough wanted to see their national flag flown 365 days of the year.
I mounted a similar campaign when I entered Parliament in 2001, calling for our national flag to fly from the Victoria Tower throughout the year. But the tradition then was that it would only fly when Parliament was in session. After nine years of campaigning for this rule to change, I finally managed to persuade the powers that be that it was only right and proper that the Union Jack should fly all year round, during weekends, evenings and recess periods—at all times.
The idea of the flag flying only when the House was sitting originated, so I was told, from when the monarch looked out of their window at Buckingham Palace to see whether the flag was flying and know whether Parliament was in session. When Her Majesty, our dear late Queen Elizabeth II, visited Romford around the time of the golden jubilee, I was proud to sit with her over lunch in the Wykeham Hall of St Edward’s church in Romford market and was able to discuss the matter directly with her. I was surprised to learn that Her late Majesty had never heard of that tradition. She told me that when she wanted to see whether the House was sitting, she would generally switch on BBC Parliament.
After much debate, following that revelation, the Union flag was eventually raised permanently above the Victoria Tower on 6 January 2010, where it has proudly flown every day ever since, for the millions of visitors to London to see and for everyone to take pride in.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate, which intrigues me. Coming from Northern Ireland, we are a nation of flag fliers; I have flown a flag nearly all my life. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the only flag that should have pride of place on public buildings is the Union flag? We should take the opportunity to fly it to encourage a sense of national pride, and as a symbol of the things that unite us. We have different colours, creeds, genders, ambitions, qualities and skills, but we are all British, and together we can make this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland a better place for everyone.
Andrew Rosindell
I entirely concur. I commend the hon. Member for his patriotism, his love of country and his understanding of the importance of being proud of being British. Flying the Union flag is an essential part of that.
I refer the House to early-day motion 1199 of 29 March 2010, signed by Mr Speaker himself, which records the significant moment in parliamentary history when the Union flag was raised permanently on the Victoria Tower in the Palace of Westminster. In 2007, I established the all-party parliamentary group on flags, which became the APPG on flags and heraldry, and which now forms a central part of the APPG on British heritage, which I am proud to chair.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
It was in that guise that my hon. Friend came to see me on the subject when I was a Cabinet Office Minister. We had some success in that venture, as he will recall, and subsequently, thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Sir Oliver Dowden), we had further success. We worked together to ensure that flags were flown from Government buildings across Whitehall; no doubt my hon. Friend will tell us about that. He deserves great praise for his endurance, perseverance and determination.
Andrew Rosindell
I thank my right hon. Friend for his continued support for flying the Union flag and other national flags across the United Kingdom. When he was a Cabinet Office Minister, he was entirely supportive of the campaigns that I have been running for many years. I thank him for that.
The APPG on British heritage is meeting today at 5 o’clock to discuss issues relating to flags, heraldry, national symbols, historic counties, patron saints’ days and all things important to the heritage of our proud island nation. I put on record my thanks to the president of the Flag Institute, Captain Malcolm Farrow OBE, and the institute’s chief vexillologist, Graham Bartram, for their support and guidance over all these years on matters relating to flags.
I commend the work of the Flag Institute, the expert institute that understands the importance of flags and the protocol that surrounds them across the United Kingdom, the Crown dependencies and the British overseas territories. I also commend the College of Arms and Peter O’Donoghue, the York Herald, who has given us extremely good advice on the topic over many years. The College of Arms registers flags in its institution: they are there for all to see, admire and recognise as important parts of our national character.
Chris McDonald (Stockton North) (Lab)
Many towns and boroughs, such as Stockton and Billingham in my constituency, have achievements of arms featuring important emblems of the past of the town. In Billingham, we have a ship as our crest; in Stockton, there is an anchor and a sea lion, celebrating our shipbuilding and maritime past. Does the hon. Member agree that the flying of achievements of arms as flags over town halls not only enables heraldists like myself to experience some joy, but enables people in the local area to have real pride in their town or borough?
Andrew Rosindell
I completely agree. I only wish that my own London borough of Havering would recognise that. I have tried for many years to ensure that the Romford town crest is displayed in Romford. Sadly, however, because of the corporate identities of London boroughs, my borough has steadfastly refused. I fought that battle against my own party, which governed the council for 20 years and failed to do anything about it, and I am still fighting against the current council, which is controlled by the residents association. Local patriotism, local town crests and local flags are also very important to the culture and make-up of our great British society.
Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)
Prior to my election to this place, I was provost of West Dunbartonshire council; “provost” is the Scottish term equivalent to “mayor”. One of my civic roles was to have complete responsibility for which flags would be flown from our civic buildings across the whole of West Dunbartonshire.
My experience is that flying flags is often a source of division. Somebody would always object when I decided to fly the Union flag or to fly the saltire. Does the hon. Member agree that the authority to fly flags should never be used to stoke division or hate in our communities? It should always be used as a force for good, such as in the flag-raising ceremonies that we often had on national days across the United Kingdom? We had flags for international Holocaust Memorial Day, Merchant Navy Day, Armed Forces Day and Commonwealth Day. We would fly those flags on our civic buildings. Does the hon. Member agree that there is a purpose to that?
Andrew Rosindell
Yes, I do. I thank the hon. Member for his helpful intervention. I will refer to much of that later in my speech.
On the matter of flying flags from public buildings, I draw the attention of the Minister to my early-day motion 1452, which so far has been supported by my hon. Friends the Members for Windsor (Jack Rankin), for Mid Leicestershire (Mr Bedford), for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) and for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), the right hon. Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson) and the hon. Members for Great Yarmouth (Rupert Lowe), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell). I also thank Ryan-Mark Parsons and George Bundock, the staff of the hon. Member for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith), for their advice and amazing support for the campaign to uphold neutrality in flying flags from public buildings.
It is now more important than ever for this House to recognise and unequivocally support the importance of maintaining the institutional neutrality of Government and publicly funded spaces. That is particularly vital when seen in the context of a range of entirely new and overtly political flags or banners—as they should be correctly referred to—being flown not only by individuals, as is their right, but by publicly funded bodies such as local councils, town halls, civic centres, hospitals, schools, universities, police stations, railway and underground stations, bus garages and other institutions and organisations, as well as Departments of His Majesty’s Government.
This innovation of recent years is not only alien to the civic traditions of this country. I believe that it is emblematic of a declining understanding of the importance of national unity and pride in our national heritage and constitution that is often alienating to many hard-working, law-abiding citizens of this great country who see themselves, first and foremost, as British and not part of a minority or a separate community. I believe that the British people firmly stand for upholding neutrality of the public square, enabling all to have their welcoming corner, but under one nation, one Union flag and one King.
The recently announced policy of Reform UK is actually the policy that I have long championed. I am glad to see it adopting that stance in the local councils that it now controls across England. I believe that all political parties should do the same. Our free society is one that I cherish, but all that we have in Britain today is founded on our forebears, embracing one cultural heritage based on the customs, traditions, conventions, laws and constitution of these islands. I am sure that some in this House may hold a certain reticence about the position that I am taking, but I say to them that it is abundantly clear that the flying of identity-based political banners, especially those representing what is sometimes only a slim, exclusive and often exclusionary subset of a particular interest group or social movement, is often seen as implicitly endorsing a specific viewpoint.
Some may ask why there is any problem with that being a permissible approach for public bodies to take. They may say that this great nation should accommodate freedom of belief and expression that finds voice in flying flags. I fully accept, and indeed endorse, the notion that free individuals and organisations on their private property may express their identities and customs in whichever manner they see fit, but a publicly owned building or a state-owned or funded institution must, I believe, maintain neutrality.
For example, if a town hall chooses to fly a banner for one group of people, it would surely be obliged to fly one for another group, and another group, and so on. In so doing, the council will inevitably appear to be endorsing every cause, identity and political campaign, of which there are absolutely no limits. Not only is that divisive to many who do not necessarily support the cause in question, but the costs and staff time spent on displaying a seemingly never-ending array of banners and flags to please and appease every possible cause—not to mention the organisation of individual ceremonies to go with them—is devaluing the significance of flying the flags of nation, country, county, city, village and town that unite and represent everyone in that community. Indeed, it is becoming unmanageable, as so many banners representing a multitude of groups and causes are being added to the list. It simply has to stop.
We must restore a flag protocol regime that upholds our national identity, which should always come first, followed by that which represents our country, boroughs, counties, cities, towns and villages. Of course, no flag of any kind should take precedence over the Union flag on a public building, apart from the royal standard when His Majesty is present.
Private expression of political sympathies, and other institutional expressions of political sympathies, are entirely different. Although individuals and communities must continue to be free to express their identities and customs, including by flying flags of public institutions, they should exercise extreme caution and professionalism in order to remain inclusive to all British citizens regardless of their views. Quite contrary to silencing minorities, this age-old position ensures that everyone can pursue their expression and association, find a place and be represented in this country under our nation’s official flags. That is the only logically defensible position, and it is the stance taken by the vast majority of British people, with whom I am in profound agreement.
Once we have accepted the importance of maintaining the neutrality of the public square, enabled by the local and national publicly funded institutions of this country, the particular rules for how that should be governed must be decided and expressed in plain English. There is guidance on flag etiquette and rules on flying flags, and the Flag Institute are the experts in this field. I hope the Minister will take advice from them in making sure that everything is handled in the correct fashion.
Flag protocol largely dictates how flags should be handled, including how they should be put up, taken down and illuminated. There are flags that require special consent to be flown, and others that do not and ought not, such as national flags, the Commonwealth flag and flags of the United Nations. They should, of course, be flown. There are also flags that are rightly and expressly banned from being flown, most notably those of proscribed terrorist organisations. These rules should strictly be enforced in their entirety. However, there is a grey area in the middle that has been not only occupied, but actively exploited by minority and sometimes extreme political factions—as well as their subscribers or sympathisers—in public institutions.
That is the area for which new guidance and rules ought to be implemented, published and enforced, so that we can prevent the domination of public institutions and the public square by overtly political interest groups. That would prevent the continuous vying for a position of institutional dominance by a range of sometimes extreme minority groups, of both the left and the right, which are unrepresentative of British people, culture or heritage, and enable freer expression and a sense of belonging for all British people.
I therefore call on all public bodies, especially those representing national and local government, to adopt clear and consistent policies limiting flag displays to flags representing the nation, country, county, borough, city, town and village or those representing the monarch, the royal family or officially recognised flags, to preserve neutrality, true freedom and toleration.
Andrew Rosindell
I am afraid I have to continue as I have very little time to complete my speech.
When representatives from other countries visit, it is of course right that, out of courtesy, their national flag should fly for the occasion. Alternatively, when there is a tragic event in a particular country, it is right for that nation’s flag to fly for a strictly limited period out of respect and sympathy.
I firmly believe that we are reaching a point of broad consensus on the flying of flags, and it should be based on the principles of neutrality of public institutions, public buildings and the public square when it comes to matters of deep political controversy, much like the position of Speaker of the House of Commons. That is needed now more than ever.
I have here a copy of the booklet on the approved flying of flags. It is available in the Speaker’s Office. It explains the policy on flying flags on flagpoles on the parliamentary estate and outlines what I consider to be, with a few exceptions, a broadly correct approach. However, I strongly believe that the cross of St Patrick or the red hand of Ulster should be flown on 17 March for St Patrick’s Day, in addition to the cross of St George, the cross St Andrew and the red dragon for St George’s, St Andrew’s and St David’s Days respectively.
However, in many town hall and public buildings across the UK, political polarisation has reached a new height. Change in a variety of social and political principles is coming fast. Civic unrest is on the rise and I do not believe that ever more calls for diversity are the answer. We need a more unified approach, with the British people represented by national symbols, including flags, which bring us together and do not divide us further. One example is the so-called Progress Pride flag, which many believe promotes a contentious ideology that harms women and vulnerable children. It is clearly politically divisive and should not be flown from public buildings anywhere in the United Kingdom.
There is a clear and simple expression of the position that I believe we ought to adopt. We must recognise the importance of institutional neutrality in government and publicly funded spaces. We must acknowledge that the flying of political flags can be seen as implicitly endorsing specific viewpoints.
We must enable individuals and communities to freely express their identities and customs, while ensuring that public institutions exercise strict caution to remain inclusive to all British citizens. We must call on all public bodies, especially those representing national and local government, to draw up clear and consistent policies limiting flag displays to country, county, city, borough, town, village, military or those that represent the monarch, the royal family or officially recognised flags such as Armed Forces Day, VE Day, VJ Day, and for occasions such as the Royal Air Force flag for Battle of Britain Day, the red ensign for Merchant Navy Day, the Royal Navy flag for Trafalgar Day and the British Army flag on Waterloo Day.
We, the Parliament of the United Kingdom, must give a firm answer to the grey area filled with uncertainties and questions. It must be one of unifying patriotic neutrality. Finally, I commend His Majesty’s Government for continuing the tradition of flying the flags of historic counties for one week in July every year. Our historic counties, my own being Essex, make up the genuine identities of peoples across these islands, separate from the administrative and council boundaries. However, I strongly believe that the display of county flags in Parliament Square each July for Historic County Flags Day should be strictly restricted to the historic county flags alone. Regional flags and other flags can be flown on other days, but it is important that only historic flags representing the historic counties are flown.
Sir Desmond, thank you for allowing me to speak at such length today. I commend the Minister for her interest in this subject. I also thank her for visiting the Channel Islands earlier this year, where I am sure she was proud to see the flags of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney and Sark for their 80th anniversary of Liberation Day. Pride and patriotism in our countries is something that all people, and all members of all parties, should be proud to uphold. I have no doubt that the Minister will not disappoint Members of this House today.
Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)
I call the Minister, in the time that remains to you.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I will do my best to do justice to this very important subject in the very short time I have. I begin, of course, by congratulating the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) on securing this important debate, and on what was a thoughtful and passionate speech about an issue he has cared about for many years. I join him in thanking the flag institution, the College of Arms.
Flag flying is a very British way of showing joy and pride as regions, as communities and as a nation. It brings people together to express shared identities. The Union flag is the primary symbol of our nation and rightly takes central position in flag flying as a source of unity. It appears on the flags of many of the UK’s overseas territories and our fellow Commonwealth members. The Union flag is a joint expression of our history, our national identity and the UK’s place in the wider world. I was especially struck by its importance and meaning when I attended the Liberation Day event in Jersey on 9 May, to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I know he takes a really keen interest in that subject. Of course, that event marked 80 years to the day that the islands were liberated from Nazi occupation, with a re-enactment carried out by Force 135, the British liberating force of 1945, supported by the Royal Marines. It included the raising of the Union flag, as it occurred on Liberation Day on 9 May 1945.
In Wales and Scotland, flag flying on public buildings is a devolved matter. In Northern Ireland, the issue is subject to special regulations set out by Ministers at the Northern Ireland Office.
The Government support state and ceremonial events by helping London look its best for occasions, such as the recent commemoration of VE Day and Remembrance Sunday each year. They often involve flying flags on some of the most highly visible public buildings and spaces in the country. Every year, we adorn the Mall, Horse Guards Parade and Parliament Square with flags for state visits, trooping the colour and other occasions, visible to thousands of people each day. The Cenotaph is the public space where flag flying is at its most sensitive and poignant. It is the national war memorial and focal point for public mourning. Last month, to mark the 80th anniversary of victory in Europe, the Cenotaph was draped in two large Union flags, emulating the way in which it was first revealed to the public in 1920. As I am sure that Members would agree, the results were spectacular.
In addition to the events described, the Government take an active role in promoting public flag flying across Britain. We disseminate an annual list of designated days on which all UK Government buildings are required to fly the Union flag. That ensures that it is flown on some of our nation’s important cultural occasions, including to mark Remembrance Sunday and the anniversary of the King’s accession.
The Union flag has its origin as a royal flag, developed first in 1606 by James I and added to in 1801. For much of its early history, it was flown solely above royal residences, aboard naval vessels and in other specific circumstances. By the 1920s, the practice of flying the flag had been formalised into the list of designated days—such as the sovereign’s birthday, or anniversary of the coronation—on which Government buildings, in addition to royal properties, were expected to fly the flag each year. As a legacy of that practice, until 2008 Government buildings were expected to fly the Union flag only on specific dates. That was consulted on following the 2007 Green Paper entitled “The Governance of Britain”, which highlighted the importance of the Union flag and sought to broaden its use.
As a result, in 2008 the Labour Government, under Prime Minister Gordon Brown, allowed Government buildings to fly the Union flag on any day of the year, rather than solely on royal and ceremonial occasions. That was further expanded in 2021, at the decision of Ministers. Since then, Government buildings have been not only allowed but actively and formally encouraged to fly the Union flag every day. Consequently, more Union flags are now flying from Government buildings than ever before, actively fostering the sense of national unity and pride that we all value so highly. The hon. Member for Romford spoke movingly about the history of the flag flying over Parliament and the important change in 2010. Of course, another important Government duty regarding public flag flying is that in times of national mourning or tragedy, instructions are issued to require the half-masting of the Union flag on UK Government buildings.
The approach taken by Departments to flying flags more generally on their buildings has evolved organically over the last 15 to 20 years under successive Governments. With the approval of Ministers in government at the time, Departments have, in addition to the Union flag, increasingly flown other flags to show support for causes in Britain and throughout the world. For instance, many people will have seen on the way here the Armed Forces Day flag flying proudly from buildings along Whitehall in preparation for the day itself, which is this Saturday. I began this week by attending the flag-raising ceremony at Barnsley town hall to see our Armed Forces Day flag raised and flown as we pay tribute this week to our brave service personnel ahead of Armed Forces Day on Saturday 28 June.
I know that the hon. Member for Romford has long encouraged the Government to fly the flags of the British overseas territories and Crown dependencies to recognise their importance, and I am pleased that although they were not frequently flown in the past, that has become more common. Hon. Members will be aware that those flags are currently flying in Parliament Square, alongside the flags of Commonwealth nations along Horse Guards, and Union flags along the Mall. This is since the 80th anniversary commemorations of VE Day in May, and with the upcoming state visit by President Macron of France, they will continue to fly.
The practice of Departments flying the Pride flag, which the hon. Gentleman referred to, or other LGBTQ+ representative flags, has increased since March 2014, when the Cabinet Office flew the six-stripe rainbow flag to mark the first same-sex weddings taking place in Britain. The then Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said at the time:
“Raising the rainbow flag on Whitehall is a small symbol to celebrate a massive achievement.”
After that, more Departments have chosen to fly it. That does come from a conscious decision of the elected Government of the day, but I want to acknowledge that over time the Government approach to decision making for flag flying from Government buildings and the implementation of central guidance have developed organically, following the policies of successive Governments. That has enabled individual Government buildings to select and fly flags whose meaning is rooted in their Department’s specific remit, or that have particular significance.
Although the Government’s primary duty in relation to flag flying from Government buildings is to celebrate and encourage the Union flag as a symbol of the UK as a whole, we are working with officials to consider whether further central guidance to Departments regarding flag flying may be helpful to ensure that decisions and implementation by Departments are as consistent and transparent as possible. That would mirror the approach taken at local level. In the time that I have left, I want to echo the hon. Gentleman’s comments on historic counties and how local decision makers do know best.
In relation to Government buildings, we acknowledge that the individual processes for decisions on flags will vary and could benefit from further accountability and transparency. I am a very passionate believer in the Union flag. I have it displayed in both my offices—here in Westminster and in the constituency. One of my formative memories is of drawing a St George’s flag to fly when England were in the semi-finals of Euro ’96, although sadly it did not have the desired effect. And as Minister for VE and victory over Japan commemorations, I have been encouraging local communities to display Union flag bunting as part of local events. I know the joy that it brings to many.
Flag flying on public buildings is an emotive subject, and we respect the strongly held views of people across the country who want to see it represent our unique strengths as communities, regions and a nation. I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Romford for bringing to the House this important debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Access to Banking Hubs: Hertfordshire
(1 day, 12 hours ago)
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Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered access to banking hubs in Hertfordshire.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank Clementine Manning from my office for the extensive work she has put into researching for this speech and many of my other contributions to the House. I urge colleagues to be gentle with me; this is my first Westminster Hall debate, and I have yet to learn how to do these things properly. I am grateful that the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) is here to show me the way, with hopefully an intervention in due course.
Access to banking services is essential for everyone across the country, and more and more our rural and semi-rural areas are seeing their access to banking services reduced. That is a particular issue for those who are unable to use technology to access online banking, and I know that many who are able to use online banking still feel more reassured if they are able to carry out banking activities face-to-face. Having seen the immensely positive impact that increased access to banking services through the post office has had in Rickmansworth in my constituency of South West Hertfordshire, I am campaigning for the establishment of a banking hub in Abbots Langley, another area in my constituency, to ensure that as many of my constituents as possible are able to access these essential services. I appreciate that everyone else here wants the same.
Hertfordshire in particular has felt the impact of the withdrawal of banking services, as, despite there being over 160 banking hubs now opened, just four are in Hertfordshire, with none in my constituency. Rural areas are twice as likely to depend on their local post office for cash and banking services, and it is essential that people in those areas are not left behind. Post offices have always been, and remain, critical assets to our communities, providing essential services. I have had the pleasure of meeting local postmasters in Abbots Langley and Rickmansworth, as well as visiting a Royal Mail distribution centre, to learn more about the sheer volume of service provided by their hard workers. From speaking to those postmasters, the essential role that they play in supporting our communities in all ways is clear. With many people unable to use technology, or simply more comfortable with face-to-face provision, the provision of banking hubs is just one of those essential services.
In the UK as a whole, 99% of the population live within three miles of a post office branch, as do 97.9% of the UK’s rural population. Post offices also make up more than 66% of all branch-based cash access points in the UK. That is particularly relevant because of the decline in the number of bank branches. This is not just an issue in Hertfordshire or my constituency; across the UK, we have seen 6,200 bank or building society branch closures since 2015. In my constituency of South West Hertfordshire, 89% of banks have closed since 2015, leaving us with only a Nationwide in Rickmansworth.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
My hon. Friend is right that this is a problem felt across Britain, as banks abandon their customers and close branches in my constituency in Crowland, the Deepings, Holbeach, Long Sutton and Sutton Bridge. The key thing about this issue is that it affects those least able to bank online; it also affects all of us who believe that banking should be an experience where people meet other people and personal service counts. I thank my hon. Friend for this debate. I call on the Minister to have more banking hubs, as the Payment Choice Alliance has requested—I hope she will say that when she sums up.
Mr Mohindra
My right hon. Friend has obviously had early sight of my speech, because I was going to get on to exactly that about human interaction, but I will let colleagues hold off for a few minutes while I carry on the main body of my speech. As my right hon. Friend said, the situation is deeply desperate, but sadly, not unique to South West Herts. I know other Members in this House will be feeling similar circumstances, as one in seven constituencies across the UK have only one bank or no bank at all.
Access to cash is essential, and it is important that we retain the ability to withdraw and deposit cash to support that, particularly as that allows those who do not use online banking to keep an eye on their personal finances. The post office supports this vital service and is essential for people in my area. On average, £1.6 million is withdrawn from post offices in my constituency every month, while £3.5 million is deposited. Although the post office provides an amazing service, a banking hub in a post office gives people proper support. We must prevent the closure of post offices, many of which are now run by a single person and are not necessarily profitable. It would be a great damage to all our areas if post offices were to close too.
Although post offices such as the one in Rickmansworth have stepped up to provide greater banking services than those normally available, we cannot expect our constituents to rely on post offices to replace the banks if there is no banking hub in place, as they do not provide the same level of service. Although Rickmansworth is fortunate to have some banking services available via the post office, as well as in the Nationwide branch, since I was elected in 2019 South West Hertfordshire has lost NatWest, Barclays and Santander in Rickmansworth.
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent point about the need for in-person banking services. In my constituency, we have experienced exactly what he has described in the south-east of England. My experience is that many who are vulnerable, or overwhelmed by getting into the town centre or have mobility problems are particularly affected, and so are many small businesses that deal in cash. Would the hon. Gentleman like to comment further on the need for those groups to be better served?
Mr Mohindra
Once again, an hon. Member has pre-empted part of my speech. As the hon. Gentleman alludes to, the issue is not specific to the south-east, but occurs across the country. I look forward to reassurance from the Minister in her speech.
The situation is worse in other parts of my constituency. Many of my residents do not have access to any banking services on their high street. That is particularly the case in Abbots Langley where, in 2021, the Barclays branch closed, leaving residents in the town and surrounding area with no access to banking services. The issue matters greatly to people in my constituency. I joined forces with our local Conservative councillors, Vicky Edwards and Ian Campbell, to support a campaign to bring a banking hub to the post office on the high street. I met with the local postmaster and Vicky and Ian recently to discuss the value that would bring to constituents.
John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. I have had similar challenges in my constituency in the Scottish Borders. Like him, I have been campaigning for banking hubs—in Selkirk and Eyemouth. Indeed, I presented a petition in the House of Commons a few weeks ago. The banking hub we have in Jedburgh is working very well, but part of the problem for getting new banking hubs is the criteria that Link uses to determine whether a community is suitable. Does my hon. Friend share my concerns, and will he put further pressure on the Minister to persuade Link to extend the criteria, so that more communities can get the benefit of banking hubs?
Mr Mohindra
My hon. Friend is a doughty champion for his constituents. Part of my remarks today, and I am sure of others’ later in the debate, concerns that exact point about increasing flexibility. We must not create criteria for banking hubs that do not necessarily solve the problem; we are trying to solve access to cash and banking services for all our constituents, irrespective of where they live.
More than 1,300 residents have already signed a petition in support of our campaign in Abbots Langley for a banking hub. I continue to push hard for that to be achieved, as that area in my community would greatly benefit from a banking hub as an obvious solution to the current lack of access those residents have.
Returning to the importance of access to cash, it is essential that the key service provided by banks continues to be available to people. I appreciate that we are moving increasingly towards a cashless society. It is rare now to find a shop that does not accept card payments, or indeed accepts cash at all. The idea of carrying emergency cash may, for many of us, seem less common. As someone with a background in small business, I understand the importance of cash for small and medium-sized businesses. Although ATMs make cash available to the wider population, it is not the same as the face-to-face interaction that a banking hub provides. I am glad that the major banks have recently signed a five-year access to cash deal with the Post Office to allow free withdrawals and deposit of cash, but that is a small step compared with the need for the services that banking hubs provide.
Of small businesses, 28% use cash at least weekly, and with more than 5,500 small businesses in South West Hertfordshire, banking facilities are not a service they can go without. Ahead of the debate, I thought it was important to speak to local businesses in my area. I contacted businesses across Abbots Langley, Rickmansworth and Kings Langley for their views on banking services and the role that cash plays in their everyday business. Many of the businesses I engaged with supported banking hubs, because they regularly need to deposit cash. Business owners in Abbots Langley told me that because they have no access to banking services, they often have to travel long distances to Watford to deposit large amounts of cash, which is time-consuming and potentially unsafe. That would be solved if Abbots Langley had a banking hub.
Small business owners are not the only group affected by the digital exclusion that comes with the loss of high street banks. Nearly a third of people over the age of 65 across the UK say that they feel uncomfortable using online banking, particularly for large or delicate transactions. Some 19% of people in my constituency are over 65. Having a banking hub allows the elderly and vulnerable to feel more comfortable, because they can access and deal with their finances in person. It is great that people often feel that they can trust their postmaster. Again, this may be some of the only social interaction that many people have, and it benefits their mental health and wellbeing.
It is not just the elderly who are affected by the move towards a cashless society. I have long advocated ensuring that the infrastructure in South West Hertfordshire, including essential services such as banking, is accessible for everyone. Those with a disability or impairment are also being impacted by the move away from high street banks. In a recent survey of a group of 2,700 people who had a disability or impairment, more than half said they had been negatively impacted by bank closures. They struggle with security features, authentication checks and speaking to their bank over the phone. They are simply left with no other alternative, and should not be forced to travel to other towns, often on unreliable, infrequent public transport, simply to access their money.
More than 1 million people in the UK rely wholly on cash, and 8 million adults report that they would struggle in a completely cashless society. For the elderly and the vulnerable, the opening of local banking hubs reduces the risk of their becoming victims of financial abuse and allows them to remain independent. As I have said, post offices and the postmasters who run them are often more than just a post service. They see their regulars frequently, and will notice if someone has not been seen or does not look well. They are not healthcare professionals, but they are another set of eyes and ears that can tell how customers are doing.
The process of opening a banking hub is currently undertaken by Cash Access UK, Link and supporting banks, and I look forward to meeting with Link shortly to begin discussions about getting a banking hub in Abbots Langley. I previously discussed the process with other colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), who expressed concerns about the parameters that are used to determine whether an area qualifies for a banking hub.
Matt Rodda
The hon. Gentleman is making an excellent point about this issue. My experience is that the criteria appear to be drawn too tightly, and that there is perhaps a lack of appreciation of the scale of need in some areas. In my own area, although there is frequent public transport from the Reading suburb of Caversham to the town centre, Caversham falls 1 minute outside the minimum criterion for travel time, yet it has thousands and thousands of residents, as well as a significant older and disabled population. Surely it would be wise for Link to consider the broader context, not just travel time.
Mr Mohindra
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, which I think will be echoed in later contributions. The criteria feel too stringent. With the Minister’s support, I hope that conversations with Link and others will mean that the criteria are a bit more flexible, so that banking hubs are accessible to all, rather than just fitting an arbitrary parameter.
I have already expressed my concerns about the parameters used to determine whether an area qualifies for a banking hub, and I will emphasise in my meeting the importance of ensuring that the proximity of Abbots Langley to Watford should not prevent it from getting a banking hub, for the reasons that I have already outlined.
The problem with semi-rural areas such as mine—and Reading, by the sound of it—is that the criteria established by Link for determining the need to set up a new banking hub are likely to miss areas such as Abbots Langley, because they focus on when the last bank branch in a town closed. Abbots Langley is a village that has not had a bank for a very long time. I will raise this with Link in my meeting, especially because villages and smaller communities have been disproportionately affected by bank closures, losing 70% of their banking network since 2015 compared with less than 50% in urban areas.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
After a long campaign, we have finally been successful in securing a banking hub in Ilkley, despite having to wait for the last bank to announce its closure. However, securing access to cash is not just about securing a banking hub; it is about securing an ATM that people can access when the hub is closed. We found that, unfortunately, Cash Access UK and Link, which decide applications for hubs, have determined that we should not need an ATM on the outside of the building. Does my hon. Friend agree with me about the importance of such an out-of-hours facility?
Mr Mohindra
My hon. Friend is a passionate advocate for his community, and his point about access to cash outside of office hours is really important. One of my community’s frustrations is that while they may have access to an ATM, the money runs out very quickly on, say, a Saturday morning, so if someone needed cash on a Sunday, they would have to travel further, because that cash machine would not be restocked until the following Monday. I agree with my hon. Friend and hope the Minister will take on board his point that it is about not just having a banking hub, but making sure that ATMs are available and stocked with cash at all times.
Link has deviated from its standard framework for approving banking hubs in around 32 locations so far, and I hope that that could be the case in my area. I am sure that the hon. Member for Reading Central (Matt Rodda), my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes) and others will encourage it to consider the exceptional circumstances in their own areas. The alternative to the establishment of a banking hub is for Abbots Langley post office to get enhanced banking services, such as a deposit service, similar to the one that was set up in Rickmansworth following the closures there.
The Government should be doing more to ensure that all UK residents have access to adequate banking facilities. I will continue to work with local post offices, banks such as NatWest and Barclays, and Link to bring more banking hubs to my constituency, and I know that others in the Chamber are doing the same. We cannot allow our high streets and residents to be without access to financial services, and I hope to see the Government do more to support this endeavour.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Desmond Swayne (in the Chair)
Order. I suggest that Members limit themselves to five minutes.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) for securing this very important debate.
In recent years, banking services have been withdrawing from my constituency. Every single high street has seen bank branches close, and we now have fewer of them, but Cheshunt has borne the brunt. Cheshunt is a busy town of 40,000 people, right in the heart of my constituency, but not a single bank branch remains. That simply cannot be right.
The lack of in-person banking facilities is depriving individuals and businesses of access to vital services and, for so many older and vulnerable people, causing huge difficulty and frustration as they are forced to use digital services and smartphone apps. My own nan is one of them, and she is not happy about it. Across Broxbourne, more than 3,000 people are living with sight loss, and that group is particularly reliant on in-person banking services. Many cannot use online banking at all, and they feel the pressure that not being digitally connected puts on them. That is why they like going into a bank branch, to get help from a real person to access their cash. They might specifically pick a bank with a branch on the high street, but if it closes, some banks now require customers to use an app to get a code in order to speak to the bank over the phone. That does not solve the issue.
It is the sensible view of me and my constituents that Broxbourne needs a banking hub and, in particular, that the town of Cheshunt would be the perfect place for one, as it is right in the middle of my constituency. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire mentioned, the process for securing a banking hub is far from sensible.
Link has told me that Cheshunt does not meet the criteria for a hub because
“there are already cash access services and facilities within a 1-mile radius which are suitable for the needs of the local area”
and “the deficiency does not” affect my constituents enough. Well, not having a bank really does affect my constituents. This is typical civil service protocol on where policies should be implemented and where they should not be. The rules simply need to change.
Link points out that my constituents can take a 15-minute bus journey to Waltham Cross, where a handful of banks remain for now, but do not get me started on the state of the bus services in Broxbourne. It is true that there are bus stops in the precise centre of Cheshunt and a few of my constituents will be able to get a bus—if it turns up and it is on time. In most cases, buses simply do not turn up on time or do not turn up at all.
However, the vast majority of the people of Cheshunt do not live on top of a bus stop. Link has told me that journey times of less than 15 minutes are deemed acceptable, but many of my constituents living in residential areas off the high street, in neighbourhoods of Cheshunt such as Flamstead End, Rosedale or Bury Green, or in the village of Goffs Oak have much longer journeys even to board a bus, let alone to travel to a bank. That is not acknowledged at all in the assessment process, which uses only an
“approximation of the centre of the high street”.
That is not acceptable; it does not reflect the wider catchment area of towns such as Cheshunt and the role that Cheshunt serves for my constituents.
The criteria need to change to ensure that any town that wants a banking hub can have one. Surely that is within the Minister’s gift. I thank her for meeting me recently to discuss my campaign to get a banking hub in Cheshunt, but every time that I have asked for one, I have been told that we do not meet the access to cash criteria and that there is nothing the Government can do about it—they simply wash their hands of it. I was told in a written answer that it is all down to Link, or the financial services sector, or the Financial Conduct Authority. Well, I have met Link and it tells that it cannot help; I have met the Financial Conduct Authority and it says that it is up to the Government to change the law. Will it really take the closure of every bank in my constituency before we are even considered for a banking hub? It looks inevitable that that day will come.
John Lamont
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech about banking services in Hertfordshire, but I want to make a broader point about the criteria for allowing banking hubs. To be fair to the Minister, she has engaged well with me, too, but surely the point has come for Government intervention, to try to persuade—or tell—Link that the rules have to change, because they are no longer fit for purpose, and that those communities that desperately need these banking hubs should be allowed to have them.
Lewis Cocking
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point and I completely agree. Now is the time to change the rules and it is up to the Government to step up, be accountable to the electorate they serve and change the rules, rather than hiding behind unaccountable bodies such as Link, which do not determine the rules but just sit in their ivory towers and say, “This looks good on paper,” when it does not work in reality. I hope that the Minister will commit to go away and change the rules so that we can get more banking hubs open, not just in Hertfordshire but across the United Kingdom as a whole.
Susan Murray (Mid Dunbartonshire) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I thank the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) for securing this important debate.
I begin by acknowledging that my constituency does not fall within the boundaries of Hertfordshire; it is slightly further north. However, as we have heard, the issue of access to banking hubs is an important one across the UK. My constituents, like those of the other hon. Members here today, understand the difficulties brought about by banks closing. Older constituents who have no access to digital equipment or services are often the worst affected. For some, their family members step in to support them with things such as making NHS appointments, but for many, handing over control of their banking feels like a step too far and a loss of independence. Others have no family nearby to help. Being pushed to use complex online banking is not always appropriate for these customers.
In addition, as we have heard, the ability to deposit cash is crucial for many local businesses, and with the closure of more and more post offices, it is a growing problem. Despite having many elderly residents, Bearsden in my constituency has lost all its bank branches and it appears that there is no access to an ATM. There are also no plans for a banking hub there.
The Government have made assurances that by 2029 banks will have set up 350 banking hubs. The truth is that that is woefully inadequate and much too slow. The number of bank branches operating dropped from almost 15,000 in 1986 to just 5,745 by 2023.
Sir John Hayes
The hon. Lady is making a powerful point and she is right about the number. The Payment Choice Alliance, to which I have already referred, estimates that if every community with a population of 5,000 or more were provided with a banking hub, there would be about 1,200 of them. Ministers want solutions, not just questions, and that is a solution. I invite the Minister to consider that: any community with a population of 5,000 or more that does not have a bank should have a hub. I think that would be reasonable.
Susan Murray
I thank the right hon. Member for making a good point for the Minister to consider.
The closure of branches and their replacement with only 350 hubs represents nothing more than big banks trying to increase their profits further at the expense of their customers. That is not just a mild inconvenience; it presents a serious accessibility issue, as we have heard. For the disabled, the elderly and those without technical know-how, bank branches are often a vital resource.
John Lamont
In addition to some customers not being comfortable using digital, some are unable to do so because they do not have broadband. I am sure the hon. Lady’s constituency is like mine. For some communities, if the bank branch has gone, using the banking app is not possible because the broadband capability is not there.
Susan Murray
The hon. Gentleman is correct. Even in my constituency of Mid Dunbartonshire, we have dark spots where people cannot access wi-fi. That is an important point.
A vital local resource, banks allow people to deposit cash and cheques, withdraw their money or check their details, and get help from staff. To allow the closure of banks without suitable access to a replacement banking hub is not just inconvenient; it is a step backwards for equality. With that in mind, I urge the Minister to look at the Liberal Democrat proposal for a financial inclusion strategy that would ensure that the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority take into account financial inclusion. That would help to protect access to cash for those who need it, ensure that rural communities are not excluded from accessing resources and, importantly, support banking hubs.
Stuart Anderson (South Shropshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) for securing the debate. Banking hubs are really important in his constituency, as they are in rural constituencies across the country, including mine.
My constituency is 700 square miles of the most beautiful towns and villages, which are a delight. With that beauty and tranquillity come remoteness and lack of connectivity for many people, who can feel isolated. We have seen the decline of the high street bank over years. Some services that we took for granted are no longer available, though they are still of huge importance to local communities.
We recently lost Lloyds banks in Bridgnorth and Ludlow, which is seen as a major loss to both towns. I was quick to launch a survey to find out what residents thought. They were overwhelmingly upset, because they still require face-to-face services and access to cash. We were fortunate that Dudley Building Society came to Bridgnorth recently, opening a branch just opposite my office, but it does not offer the full service of traditional banks, and setting up banking hubs, which is hard to do, is not viable at the moment.
I wrote to many organisations to see what support we could get on our high street. Link came back to me and said it had conducted an assessment—as many Members have said—but it did not recommend any additional services in any of my rural towns. It believed that there was adequate access to cash and banking services for local residents in all those areas. I disagree with that.
Bridgnorth is served by Nationwide and HSBC, while Ludlow has NatWest and Nationwide. However, if people are not with those banks, they are stuck. They might have been with Lloyds for years, only to find that they have to travel to Wolverhampton—or, if they are in Ludlow, to Hereford, which is probably 40 minutes away. That is not suitable for everyone. This is a reactive approach, just watching the decline of our high street. We should change the regulation so that we can be proactive and allow Link to put services into the high street. I do not want to wait for every bank to close before we can get a banking hub. That is not the right approach.
Joe Morris (Hexham) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for his part in this largely harmonious debate—although I challenge him briefly on which is the most beautiful constituency. I represent a constituency similar to his in many ways. The hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) registered the point about flexibility and Link. When that situation arises, the impact falls not just on those living within the tightly drawn parameters that Link draws, but on the more rural towns and villages that lie just outside those one-minute, 10-minute or 20-minute commuting distances. A hub would help businesses there, including hospitality businesses. Prudhoe in my constituency has just lost a branch, meaning that businesses have to go often from the borders of County Durham into Newcastle to access their bank of choice. Adding to the flexibility would be incredibly valuable and would grow and benefit the wider rural economy.
Stuart Anderson
The hon. Member is right; I said that people have to go 40 minutes from Ludlow to Hereford, but some might take 20 minutes to get to Ludlow. Given the inaccessibility of remote areas and rural towns, the system is not working. When the Minister sums up the debate, I would appreciate it if she could address the issue of how Link assesses access to banking hubs and the criteria used, and if she could tell me what support she can provide to get more banking hubs in South Shropshire.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I commend the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) for securing this debate. He said that it is his first Westminster Hall debate; no doubt, now that he has the taste for it, he will be back next week for another one. I jest, of course, but I am sure that he will be back at some time in the future.
I am a strong supporter of banking hubs and offering communities the service that they deserve, so it is great to be present both to support the hon. Gentleman, and to ask the Minister for help constructively across the whole United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Banks are not closing just in South West Hertfordshire; they are closing everywhere else in the United Kingdom. Over the past six or seven years, 11 banks have closed in my constituency. We feel the pain of that even today.
Speaking locally, from the point of view of my constituency, local high streets in Northern Ireland have witnessed a series of banking closures over the past 12 to 24 months. The Ards peninsula, where I live, is a banking desert. All the banks that were on the peninsula have closed. In fairness, they have been replaced by two credit unions, and the post offices have been strengthened, so there are some things to fall back on—but the banks on the Ards peninsula are all away. They went to other towns and bigger cities, which do not have the same accessibility for those who need them, especially those who are vulnerable, elderly and isolated. The hon. Gentleman mentioned bus services, but they are not always available to get to the banks or even to the cities, so the accessibility of the services is limited.
Banking and post office services are used daily and are essential to the lives of our constituents. Northern Ireland has a range of banking hubs across the province. This year, it was announced that two are to be developed in my constituency. One has opened in Comber. It is in an excellent location, exactly in the centre of the town. The post office is there, and the four banks—two of which used to operate in the town—do a half-day each in the Comber hub. From the point of view of a potentially good service, the hub is a step in the right direction. The other hub, in Ballynahinch, is to open shortly as well. The same offer will be available there; the banks that were in the town will do a half-day each and the post office is available within that. Will that meet all the banking requests that people have? Probably not—but it does, by and large, give people access to the banks.
The problem I have with bank hubs is that, between when the banks closed and when the hubs were instated, there was a time of perhaps two years. Cash Access UK is delivering those hubs to support residents with the services that they require. We undertake a lot of discussion nowadays on digital inclusion and exclusion. While it is great that we as a society are able to modernise, that does sometimes mean our elderly population, who are used to doing things a certain way, are left behind. Face-to-face services that are accessible for them are imperative. I hope that in future we can look to a greater scope of hubs across the UK, which will also increase employment in local areas.
I conclude with this comment as an example of the problem we are facing: last year one of my staff bought her first house, and her solicitor required a printed statement from her help to buy ISA for Barclays bank. The Barclays in Newtownards, where she lives, closed in 2023. The Barclays mobile service in Bangor, around a 15-minute drive away, could not carry out that function as it did not have the services available. She had to travel to the centre of Belfast, which is 40 minutes by car, to obtain a single, one-sided document. Banking hubs and mobile vans are great, but they must be accessible in terms of what services they can carry out for people; otherwise, in many cases, there is no convenience. Banking hubs delivers some things, but they do not deliver them all.
Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra) on securing his first debate, and securing such an important one. It is a pleasure for me to respond on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, and as a fellow Hertfordshire MP.
I have been particularly struck by the number of contributions from colleagues who have highlighted just how important access to cash is for so many people, particularly older people, small businesses and people with disabilities. I know from my own experience supporting somebody who is learning disabled that, even in a physical bank, the design and signage can be incredibly confusing and put people off—let alone when banking online, even if they have the internet to do so. We would all welcome comments from the Minister about what more the Government can do to support people who are not digitally confident, and in areas where people are digitally excluded.
We Liberal Democrats welcome the Government’s move to introduce more banking hubs and their promise to set up 350 banking hubs by 2029. We continue to call on the Government to do more to protect access to cash and face-to-face banking services. I know that the Government will shortly be introducing a national financial inclusion strategy, so I repeat the calls from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray) and ask the Minister to confirm today whether that strategy will include measures to ensure that both the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority will be required to have regard to financial inclusion. I also ask the Minister whether the Government are able to guarantee that they will at least consider expanding the roll-out of banking hubs beyond the 350 target if they consider that that is needed.
We Liberal Democrats welcome the changes made last September to the eligibility criteria, which previously excluded towns and villages with a building society, even if that building society did not provide business banking services. That change has enabled Liberal Democrat-led Harpenden town council to open a new banking hub in the town hall. I give credit to local resident and campaigner Derek French, who has been a real driving force in that constituency. I know that colleagues in the town, which is very near to St Albans, are working with the Post Office, Cash Access UK and other partners to find a permanent home for that well-used hub. I congratulate the town council and Derek French on driving that fantastic project forward.
I understand the frustration of residents in Abbots Langley, which is not too far from St Albans, because residents there lost their last remaining bank, the Barclays branch, in 2021. I know that Liberal Democrat-run Three Rivers district council is keen to support the efforts of the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire in his campaign to secure a banking hub in the village, and I would certainly encourage him to reach out to work on a cross-party basis, as we often do in Hertfordshire. Across Hertfordshire, my Liberal Democrat colleagues have been hugely supportive of the temporary banking hubs in Hatfield and Royston and are keen to make sure that those hubs get permanent homes.
In St Albans, we are fortunate to still have a number of banks and building society branches on our main high street, but many businesses rely on the incredibly busy and conveniently located Crown post office branch on St Peter’s Street for banking and cash-handling services. As the Minister may know, Post Office Limited has been proceeding at pace with plans to sell off the Crown post office branches, and we have had confirmation that ours will soon be put out to franchise. Will the Minister make sure that Post Office Limited guarantees access to personal and business banking services on our high streets when the final Crown post office branches disappear in the coming months? The villages around St Albans—Colney Heath and London Colney, for example—also rely on their local post office branches for basic banking services and access to cash.
Finally, many areas that do not have branches, banking hubs or post offices have to rely on ATMs for access to cash. We have heard from a number of Members during the debate that, for many communities, it is frustrating not to be able to access cash outside core hours—and, of course, many ATMs are inaccessible for disabled people. The Royal National Institute of Blind People reports that fewer than four in 10 ATMs have audio assistance, which is critical to enable their use by the blind and partially sighted, and often machines are out of reach for wheelchair users or those with other impaired mobility.
Once again, I congratulate my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire, on securing this valuable debate. We can all agree that banking hubs are a lifeline in rural and semi-rural areas, essential to our high streets and vital to make banking inclusive for all.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your talented leadership, Sir Desmond. It is very good to be here. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra). This may be his debut debate in Westminster Hall, but I am sure that it is the first of many. He has always been a champion for his constituency and I am surprised that he has not been here a thousand times before. As he eloquently put it in his opening remarks, banking hubs show why banking must remain at the heart of all our communities, and we should cherish the role of banks in our society.
I have long been a huge fan of the banks, having been on the banking commission, which was a great opportunity to see just how important they are. We all talk about their importance for banking local businesses and local communities, but banks perform two extraordinarily complicated functions. The first is taking money from where it has accumulated and delivering it to where it is needed—for loans for businesses and all the rest. But they also do something else—they are almost like Doctor Who in their ability to transform time. They take money that has been put on deposit overnight and turn it into a 25-year mortgage that pays for all our constituents to buy their homes and bring up their families. We must never forget how incredibly important banks are.
The previous Government recognised the importance of maintaining essential banking services as a foundation for public confidence in the sector. We provided a system of free and convenient access to banking through Post Office’s branch network. The banking framework partnership between Post Office and more than 30 of the UK’s banks and building societies means that consumers and businesses can access banking services through the Post Office network where there is not an alternative bank. Post Office now has more branches than all the banks and building societies combined. I hope the Minister agrees that the banking framework was a real success story—one of many success stories, by the way—of the previous Government.
However, we in the previous Government also recognised that post offices do not completely fill the hole left by the loss of the high street bank. That is why we also introduced banking hubs, as we have heard today, which have been a successful concept where they have been delivered. I welcome the fact that the new Government have now embraced the idea and set an ambition to deliver hubs across the country by 2030—I understood it to be 500, although the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), said that it was 350, so it would be helpful if the Minister clarified exactly how many the Government are hoping to have.
The new hubs, whether there are 350 or 500, are a new solution to meet wider banking needs, particularly in communities where the last bank branch has closed. Members have made many eloquent points about the decline of banking services in their constituencies. In my constituency, adjacent to that of my hon. Friend the Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson), Stourport-on-Severn, my second biggest town, has just one bank left—a TSB—and Bewdley, the third biggest town, now has no banks at all.
I hope the Minister will address how Members could be more involved in deciding where new banking hubs will be located—that is an important point. I am sure that all Members would like to have input and make representations to get these services in every constituency. Local knowledge and community engagement must be at the heart of these decisions. That is why Members of Parliament, as the elected representatives of these communities, must be part of that process.
Banking is rightly a commercial sector, so I would also like to hear how the Minister can encourage banks to deliver their own innovations. For instance, the multi-bank kiosk proposed by the Building Societies Association has already been piloted. With a cost of just one third of a traditional banking hub, the kiosks offer a cost-effective, building society-led solution that could work alongside banking hubs in areas that have a strong mutual presence but lack a high street bank. Will the Government support the expansion of the kiosks and encourage more private sector innovation alongside banking hubs?
I do not want to hold the room for too long, so I will draw my words to a close. Today’s debate and the recent Backbench Business debate on high street banks have shown just how much Members support high street banking services. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how the Government will support our high street banking services. Once more, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Hertfordshire for the extraordinary hard work he does for his constituents.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Emma Reynolds)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your excellent chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I congratulate the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra); this may be his first Westminster Hall debate, but I am sure it will be the first of many. Can I just say how much I enjoy the debates in Westminster Hall? We often get a bit more time to express opinions, and the Government can give a greater degree of detail than I certainly could in the Backbench Business debate on the Floor of the House a few weeks ago.
I thank all the hon. Members present, who have come from beyond Hertfordshire, if my geography is good. I know the beautiful rural areas of Shropshire extremely well because I have family there. When the hon. Member for South Shropshire (Stuart Anderson) was talking, I could not suppress a smile at his description of the beautiful hills of Shropshire, which is where I spend many of my recesses with my children. My parents live in his constituency, in the beautiful town of Ludlow. I could go on, but I had better stop there.
From Shropshire to Strangford and beyond, we have heard perspectives from different parts of the country. I have met many hon. Members who have championed their constituencies and campaigned for banking hubs. It was good to hear from the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Lewis Cocking), who is a doughty champion. We have had a number of discussions in private and in the House, as well as in written questions. I know he has real concerns, and is campaigning, particularly, for the banking hub in Cheshunt. It was good to hear from the hon. Member for Mid Dunbartonshire (Susan Murray), who stressed the importance of rural areas, which I will come back to. The hon. Member for South Shropshire also mentioned that, referring to his 700 miles of beautiful countryside. He also asked about the criteria for the Link assessment, as did other hon. Members.
It is always a pleasure to hear from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He often asks difficult questions on a variety of subjects. The way in which he is able to range across different subjects in the House is really quite impressive. He talked about digital inclusion and exclusion, as did other hon. Members, and I will come back to that. I thank the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper); I met her constituent Derek French, who is a doughty campaigner for access to cash and banking. I pay tribute to his work.
Daisy Cooper
Derek French is a constituent in my neighbouring constituency of Harpenden and Berkhamsted —I just want to put that on the record. Harpenden very proudly defends its independence from St Albans and I do not want anybody to be inadvertently offended by my trying to secure some recognition from the Minister in the House, but I thank her for her congratulations.
Emma Reynolds
I am grateful for the correction. I would not like to get in trouble with the hon. Members that represent different parts of Hertfordshire, not least our Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern), who also represents a constituency there. I have better knowledge of Buckinghamshire, which is nearby, but I thank her for that correction to the record. I do not want to get in trouble with the hon. Lady’s colleague, the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins), who was very active in our previous debate on this issue.
I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), for his speech. I will come back to the points that he made in a moment. I also thank, for their interventions, my hon. Friends the Members for Hexham (Joe Morris) and for Reading Central (Matt Rodda), the right hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes), and the hon. Members for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) and for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont). I have met some of them separately to this debate.
I thank again the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire—I was going to call him my hon. Friend; the debate feels very friendly. I have looked in detail at his constituency, thanks to his calling this debate, which is always a benefit of having such Westminster Hall debates, as he will attest to. I have had a look at Abbots Langley and Rickmansworth. I often go through his constituency on the way home, particularly the Rickmansworth area. They are very different parts of the constituency, from what I can see, in terms of the scale of the population and the number of shops in those areas. In Abbots Langley, I am told—he can correct me if this is not true—that there has been no community access request, as of our information. So if he does want to campaign for a banking hub there, it is open to him and his colleagues on the council he mentioned to request such a thing. Equally, I know he has an enhanced post office in Rickmansworth. Again, it is open to him or others in the community to make the application so that Link would assess the criteria.
Mr Mohindra
I thank the Minister for her summing up. In terms of Abbots Langley, she is correct that the post office has not yet put in an application. It was first establishing the criteria and trying to learn lessons from others. The postmaster is now in a position to actively pursue that, and part of my local campaign is to support that. I hope the Minister will give her blessing and potentially a letter of support, if that is within reason, to ensure that Link and others think that is practical. In terms of the Rickmansworth one, she is correct. It is an enhanced banking hub rather than a full banking hub, as the debate suggests.
Emma Reynolds
The hon. Gentleman will have to excuse me; I cannot offer letters of support. If I were to do that, there would be a number of letters that I would be writing. The Link assessment is independent and is what the previous Government set up and legislated for, in terms of access to cash. I will come on to that in a moment, if that is okay, and give him some more clarification on that.
We need to recognise that the landscape for retail banking has changed significantly in recent years, turbo-charged by the pandemic. For example, last year we had 93% of people with current accounts access their bank online or via a mobile app. That obviously does not include the nan of the hon. Member for Broxbourne, who I have heard about on numerous occasions, but there are lots of people who access their banking in that manner. There has also been a shift among older customers, with 83% of those aged over 75 now using online or mobile banking, compared with just 27% in 2017. That is a marked shift.
We know, however, that there are vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and people with disabilities, who very much appreciate and value in-person banking. Branches can act as anchors in a local community and are very important to small businesses, as several hon. Members mentioned, not least the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire. When a high street branch closes, particularly the last branch on the high street, it can be a real blow to an area, especially where the alternatives are limited.
That is why the Government, when we were in opposition and formulating our manifesto, secured the industry’s commitment to roll out 350 banking hubs—that is in totality. I say to the hon. Member for St Albans that that is not a limit, and actually, we are quite far along that journey. We have 230 that have already been agreed, and more than 170 are open. That includes 108 that have been open since the general election, and we are not even a year into our Government. We promised 350 by the end of the Parliament, but we are running much more quickly than that. I hope that we will surpass 350 by the end of the Parliament.
Robbie Moore
I would like to put on record my thanks to the Minister for her interaction with me in my endeavours to get a banking hub in Ilkley. Could I ask the Minister about the assessment criteria that Link and Cash Access UK are using? Is it the right course to get to the point where we are relying on the final bank to close before we start looking at applications? Secondly, does the Minister not feel it is right that when we do manage to secure a banking hub, an ATM could be located on the outside of that banking hub so that people could access cash out of hours?
Emma Reynolds
The hon. Gentleman brings me to the meat of my speech, which I must move on to, as I do not have very long left. I always get lulled into a false sense of security in Westminster Hall, where I think I have quite a long time to speak. I made the position very clear on the Floor of the House a couple of weeks ago, when we had a similar debate. The hon. Gentleman will know that under the previous Government’s Financial Services and Markets Act 2023, Parliament legislated to protect reasonable access to cash. Specifically, Parliament gave the Financial Conduct Authority new powers to ensure that communities could both withdraw and deposit cash, but that governs only access to cash; it did not include access to in-person banking.
The hon. Member asked about the Link criteria, an issue that has been raised in previous debates. The Government do not have the power to amend the assessment criteria. Any decisions on changes to Link’s criteria for access to banking services are an independent matter for Link. As he will know, the set-up of banking hubs is a voluntary initiative by the banks. I visited a very good banking hub in Buckingham that has different community bankers coming in every day of the week, which works extremely well.
The hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire and others asked whether we are minded to change this situation. We continue to monitor it, and we have heard lots of concerns expressed today. I continue to meet hon. Members, and I have another session next week for those who, if they have not met with me, would like to. Currently, however, the Government are not minded to change the legislation. I am soon to meet John Howells, the chief executive of Link, and I have listened to the concerns of hon. Members, particularly those with rural constituencies, including the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. I think that Link should take into account his point about the different rules for what is rural and what is urban.
I am running very low on time, and I am conscious that the hon. Member for South West Hertfordshire should be allowed a brief wind-up. I promise to respond in writing to some of the questions asked about the Post Office in the debate.
Mr Mohindra
I thank the Economic Secretary to the Treasury for that response. She will have heard the sentiment around the Chamber that all of us want to see more banking hubs throughout the country. Although the target of 350 may once have been ambitious, that does not mean we should not have more, especially if we already have 230 in place. I thank hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions and for making my first Westminster Hall debate so enjoyable.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered access to banking hubs in Hertfordshire.