Business Before Questions
Oral Answers to Questions
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Paul Davies (Colne Valley) (Lab)
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
Natasha Irons (Croydon East) (Lab)
Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Pat McFadden)
Sympathies to you, Mr Speaker, on your recent injury. If you require a WorkWell appointment with a health practitioner, we recently had a national roll-out, and I am sure that we can arrange that for you.
We believe that work is good for people. That is why we are expanding youth hubs to more than 350 areas, ensuring that every 16 to 24-year-old, including those not on benefits, can access the support needed to earn or learn. That is part of our effort to take jobcentre support out of the jobcentres and meet young people where they are. It comes on top of the strengthening of our youth guarantee, backed by £820 million of investment to offer training, work experience and subsidised employment to young people who are out of work.
Paul Davies
I recently met with James Boyle, who runs Longwood FC, a grassroots football club for young people in my constituency. Longwood FC has had a really positive impact on the mental health and physical wellbeing of the young people involved, and is a great example of community-led youth engagement. I commend the Government for their investment in such youth engagement through youth hubs across the country. Can the Minister confirm the timetable for the roll-out of youth hubs in my constituency?
Pat McFadden
I congratulate my hon. Friend’s constituent James Boyle on his work running several teams at Longwood FC. That is a great example, and a number of youth hubs are located in football clubs and other sporting organisations. I understand that Huddersfield youth hub currently serves at least some of my hon. Friend’s constituents, but if he wants to explore further options, I encourage him to contact his local jobcentre so that it can work with local partners to see what is possible.
Patrick Hurley
Will the Minister join me in recognising the work of the Big Onion, which provides skills training, employment support and related services in my Southport constituency? It has supported more than 1,400 young people into careers across the wider borough. Will the Minister also set out what further support the Department can give to community organisations like that, and how its success can be shared across the whole youth hub programme?
Pat McFadden
The Big Onion is one of a number of organisations doing excellent work in trying to help young people into work. It is part of a larger partner group that the local jobcentre works closely with. In fact, one of our youth employability coaches is based with the partner group in the town hall once a week. This is exactly why we are expanding youth hubs across the country, so that we can work with other organisations to take the help where young people need it in the community.
Natasha Irons
The expansion of Department for Work and Pensions youth hubs and the roll-out of Young Futures hubs are a testament to the Government’s commitment to stand alongside young people and support them to succeed. The Centre for Young Lives has called for Government Departments to work jointly to ensure clear alignment across those hubs to prevent duplication and to stop young people falling through the gaps. What steps will the Government take to ensure that Young Futures hubs and DWP services share information effectively, align their programmes and provide seamless pathways to improve outcomes for young people?
Pat McFadden
One of my first visits in this post was to the youth hub at Selhurst Park, which is close to my hon. Friend’s constituency, as part of our partnership with the Premier League. When I was there, I heard the story of one young person, Erin, who had had a successful outcome: she increased her confidence, got a job and wanted to move on to another one. It is important that we put in place handover arrangements, particularly for 16 to 18-year-olds, to ensure a smooth transition from the earlier help they will get in a Young Futures hub to the kind of age group we deal with in youth hubs, which is more focused on employment and careers.
Jas Athwal
Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of hosting a roundtable with the Jack Petchey Foundation, where young people from London and Essex spoke powerfully about the barriers they face, including feeling that there are fewer opportunities for them. What steps is my right hon. Friend’s Department taking to deliver on the Government’s targets for two thirds of young people to be in university or an apprenticeship, so that young people can gain the skills they need to achieve their goals?
Pat McFadden
One of the early steps we have taken is to change the way that the growth and skills levy—the apprenticeship levy—works, so that more of that money is directed towards young people. That step was necessary because there had been a 40% decline in youth apprenticeship starts over the past 10 years. If we want to focus on young people and on employment for young people, we need to ensure they have a good chance of getting an apprenticeship start.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
I wish the Secretary of State well with this initiative, but does he share my concern that as his Department seeks to reduce youth unemployment, the Chancellor is doing everything she can to increase it, with her jobs tax increasing unemployment? Of the 170,000 payroll jobs lost since the election, until November 2025, some 45% involved young people. This Government have cost young people 150 jobs per day since they came into office. How does his scheme cope with that?
Pat McFadden
The hon. Member will be aware that 513,000 more people are in work compared with this time last year. He referred to the Chancellor. I am grateful to the Chanceller for the £820 million funding for the youth guarantee, which will bring training help to 300,000 young people and provide subsidised employment for those young people who have been out of work for 18 months. That is important to get young people into the habit of the discipline, pride and purpose that comes with having a job.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
Bicester is one of the fastest-growing towns in the country, yet it currently has no dedicated youth hub. In the town centre sits the former Courtyard Youth Arts Centre, which remains largely configured for youth work. The courtyard currently serves a purpose as limited office space, but could clearly be repurposed back to its original purpose. Does the Secretary of State agree with me that the funding announced in December for youth hubs should prioritise places such as Bicester, where existing public assets could be better used to deliver youth services at high value for money for the taxpayer?
Pat McFadden
I thank the hon. Member for his question. I am aware of the employment and growth generated by Bicester Village as a major retail and visitor location, and I understand his representations about having a youth hub that may be associated with that. We will look at all representations, because, as I said, we want to get the help to where people are in the local community.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
May I encourage the brilliant team at Kendal jobcentre, who already do a fantastic job reaching out to young people across the Westmorland area, but also congratulate the Secretary of State on what is a very positive initiative? Will he bear in mind, however, that in communities like mine where the distances to travel are enormous, we—and he—should be looking at having youth hubs outside the main towns such Kendal and Penrith, and look at Kirkby Stephen, Appleby, Grange and Windermere, so they are closer to the people who need those services? Will he also pay attention to, and discuss with his Cabinet colleagues, the fact that awful bus services in rural areas like ours mean that young people cannot get to appointments?
Pat McFadden
All the beautiful locations the hon. Member mentioned tempt me to offer a visit. I echo his thanks to the people who work in Kendal jobcentre and the other jobcentres around the country. The issue of transport and distances is an important one, which is why the Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North and Cottingham (Dame Diana Johnson), is pioneering the roll-out of mobile jobcentres, located in vans, that can visit a small area, one or two days a week.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
It strikes me as odd that rather than extolling the virtues of the Government’s flagship youth guarantee, we have had a number of Labour MPs asking about youth hubs. Is that because it is easier to defend the setting up of some youth hubs than feeding back on the roll-out of the youth guarantee? Since the Labour Government came into power, businesses have stopped hiring young people in roles where they could be paying someone more experienced the same amount of money. That has meant that youth employment has gone up since July 2024, with the most recent figures showing a 103,000 increase in unemployed young people.
Does the Secretary of State agree that rather than Back Bench-pleasing schemes tinkering around the edges of the youth unemployment crisis, what we need is a strong economy with confident businesses actively seeking to employ the hundreds of thousands of talented yet unemployed young people across the country?
Pat McFadden
It is very nice to see the Conservative Front Bench here—you can never be sure these days who is going to be turning up on the opposite side, Mr Speaker. I take it from the shadow Minister’s question that she is against youth hubs, but I have to remind her that the initiative began under her Government; we have expanded it. It also seems that she is for a cut in wages, but the Government do not think that is the way to go. I remind her that more people are in work than there were a year ago; the economic inactivity figures are down; real wages are rising; and as for unemployment, it was going up for the past few years, including while the shadow Minister’s party was in power.
Mr Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
My review of the personal independence payment will be co-produced with disabled people, and its 12-person steering group will meet with me and my two co-chairs face to face for the first time later this week. I cannot pre-empt the choice of priorities and recommendations, but the review will draw on the full range of voices to build a system that is fair to everybody.
Mr Quigley
I thank the Minister for his response. Many cancer patients receiving PIP and universal credit were alarmed by proposals put forward last summer suggesting that individuals undergoing active cancer treatment might be required to complete a work capability assessment before accessing those benefits. What assurances can the Department give that people in the midst of cancer treatment will not be burdened with these assessments at such a vulnerable and challenging time?
Sir Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend raises a good point. However, on the work capability assessment, people claiming universal credit can be treated as having limited capability for work and work-related activity—LCWRA—if they are being treated for cancer, if they are likely to be treated within six months, or are recovering from treatment. I hope that will reassure my hon. Friend’s constituents.
Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
Good work is generally good for health and wellbeing, so we want everyone to get work and get on in work. Through our Pathways to Work guarantee, which is will be backed by £1 billion a year of new funding by the end of the decade, and our Connect to Work supported employment programme, more disabled people and people with health conditions will be supported to enter and stay in work.
Andrew Lewin
I welcome the investment and the news earlier this month from the Office for National Statistics that the number of people in employment has risen by 500,000 since July 2024. I am sure that the Minister will join me in celebrating the fact that more people are entering the labour market under a Labour Government. While we should celebrate progress, we must recognise that there is more to do. What more are the Government going to do to support people with health conditions back into the workplace, and in particular, to build on the success of the WorkWell pilot?
Dame Diana Johnson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for talking about the WorkWell pilot. When I attended a recent WorkWell session in Cambridge, I was really impressed. Following the success of the pilots, which have so far supported more than 25,000 people, WorkWell will expand across all of England, backed up by a £259 million investment over three years, and could support up to 250,000 people into work. Participants receive proactive early support based on their health-related barriers to employment, such as mental health issues, musculoskeletal problems and other long-term health issues.
David Chadwick (Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe) (LD)
Access to Work is meant to help disabled people to stay in employment, yet numerous constituents tell me they have been waiting more than nine months for an assessment, and a year or more for changes of circumstances. Those delays are putting jobs and incomes at risk. How many people has the Department assessed as losing work because of the delays and what urgent action is being taken to clear that backlog?
Dame Diana Johnson
The hon. Gentleman mentions an important scheme that enables people to move into work and stay in work. It is right to say that that there have been some issues with Access to Work. More resources have gone in to ensure that those who are moving into work in particular are prioritised by the scheme. I am sure that the Minister for Social Security and Disability, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), who leads on Access to Work, can write to the hon. Gentleman with further detail on what more we are doing.
Mr Peter Bedford (Mid Leicestershire) (Con)
As a result of this Government’s economic vandalism, unemployment continues to rise, particularly among young people and those with disabilities. Now more than ever, it is crucial that we support people back into work, but the Access to Work scheme is overly bureaucratic and faces significant delays. Indeed, at the weekend, one of my constituents told me they had been asked by a Department official to fill in a fraudulent timesheet in order to be paid on time. What is the Minister doing to get this programme back on track so that disabled people have the support they deserve and are contributing to the broader economy?
Dame Diana Johnson
As I just set out to the hon. Member for Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe (David Chadwick), there have been some problems with Access to Work, but it is this Government who are dealing with them. We have already put in resources, with a particular focus on individuals who are moving into work to make sure they get access to whatever support they need. Again, I am very happy to provide further details of what additional support we have put in, but it is this Government who are actually dealing with these problems and ensuring that people with disabilities and long-term health conditions have what they need to support them into work and to keep them in work.
Mr Lee Dillon (Newbury) (LD)
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Torsten Bell)
As the Secretary of State set out on 11 November 2025, we are retaking the decision made in December 2024 as it relates to the communications on state pension age. We will update the House on the decision as soon as a conclusion is reached.
Mr Dillon
I was one of 100 MPs who signed a cross-party letter calling on the Government to take action for WASPI women. Such is the strength of feeling in my constituency that I am regularly contacted about this issue. In the Government’s determination, are they planning to consult with the Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign, especially if they are minded to deny 1950s-born women their lived experience again?
Torsten Bell
I know that hon. Members across the House will have been contacted by constituents who have been affected, and many of us will also have family members who have been affected. As I said, we will update the House as soon as a conclusion is reached. We have committed in public to doing so within three months of the decision in December, which means a decision will be reported to the House before the beginning of March.
I gently say that we need to be clear about what is at stake here: this decision relates narrowly to the question of the communication of the state pension age changes. For many women, including many of my constituents, the issue they are actually most focused on is the increase, and the acceleration in the increase, in the state pension age that was put in place by the coalition Government, which not a single Lib Dem MP voted against back in 2011. I think we should be clear about that, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be clear on that with his constituents when they raise the matter with him.
Sarah Dyke
There are more than 8,000 WASPI women across Glastonbury and Somerton, including Miriam from Martock, who has lost a staggering £50,000 because of the maladministration of state pension ages changes. Because she was unable to work, she was forced to sell her home and live on released capital; now, aged 70, she has rejoined the workforce. Miriam and women like her deserve fairness. Will the Minister commit to properly compensating 1950s-born women, and will the Government consult with the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman before finalising their response?
Torsten Bell
I know that many of our sympathies would be with Miriam. Many Members have constituents who face challenges in the years running up to the state pension age and who are, for whatever reason, unable to work.
The hon. Lady has rather made the point that I just set out, though. She talks about losses of £50,000 or £60,000, which I also see in letters from constituents, but that does not relate to the issue of communication of the state pension age. What she is referring to—the increase and acceleration in the state pension age—was put in place by a Liberal Democrat Government, and not a single Liberal Democrat MP voted against it. It is important to be clear about what is and is not part of the PHSO’s investigation. As I say, it is very important that we take these issues seriously. We should not have seen an acceleration of the state pension age where some women were only given five years’ notice, but that was put in place by the coalition Government. We will not be making those mistakes.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Speaker, can I offer my deepest sympathies for your recent injury?
I pay tribute to the WASPI women in my constituency for their tireless campaigning on this issue. Will the Minister outline the difference that his Department and this Labour Government are making to all pensioners in Harlow?
Torsten Bell
Mr Speaker will not be on camera right now since I am speaking, but I can reassure the whole world that he is very much still with us. We all hope that that will be the case for some time to come, but when he does decide to become a pensioner, he will, like all pensioners, have the full support of the Government. We are bringing down waiting lists, which is benefiting pensioners right across the country. The biggest single disgrace facing older generations across the UK today is the state of our NHS, and that is why this Government are investing in bringing down waiting lists month after month after month.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker—I had better add my sympathies for your poor leg to those of the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince).
The Labour party has performed, frankly, a spectacular U-turn on its support for WASPI women, but now it finds itself bogged down in judicial reviews and accusations of incompetence. If the Government cannot even deliver literally nothing for the WASPI women without messing up, what hope is there for them delivering wider welfare reforms?
Torsten Bell
I simply cannot let the hon. Member off on this. It was the Conservatives who made the decisions on accelerating the state pension age and in some cases gave women around five years’ notice or less of the increase. That was a choice made by the Conservative party. This Government are considering a report from the ombudsman that the Conservatives left sitting on their desks and refused to make a decision on—and we are going to make a decision.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
Prior to the Government’s decision not to grant compensation to WASPI women, there was a disturbing lack of engagement with the ombudsman. Since then, the ombudsman has been able to gain access to the paused action plan, but only after leaving their electronic device at the door. Is the Minister comfortable with the way that this trusted civil servant has been treated?
Torsten Bell
The ombudsman is an important part of the systems that we have in place to make sure that the administration of public services is done in the right way. The hon. Member will know that our permanent secretary met the ombudsman before Christmas. A draft of the action plan that he refers to was shared with her in order to provide her with reassurance that progress was being made on it. As he will be aware, the work on the action plan has been stopped because it was an intrinsic part of remedy set out in the case last year. As I have said, the Secretary of State is considering the evidence in the round, and we will report back to the House as soon as a decision is taken.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
There were 2 million working-age personal independence payment claimants before the pandemic. That number is now over 3 million and is set to exceed 4 million by the end of the decade. My review will aim to make sure that PIP is fair and fit for the future.
Mr Mohindra
One of my constituents in Abbots Langley, Darren, suffers from a very complicated congenital heart condition, which, alongside his hyperthyroidism and obstructive sleep apnoea, significantly restricts his ability to perform everyday tasks including work. Despite that, Darren has recently had his entitlement to personal independence payment withdrawn. As Darren now awaits a heart transplant, can the Minister outline what steps his Department will take to ensure that Darren and his family receive the necessary financial support during this stressful time?
Sir Stephen Timms
As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, I have not seen the details of that particular case, but I would be happy to have a look at it if he would like me to. There is, of course, the opportunity for mandatory reconsideration and in due course for appeal, but I would be happy to look at those details.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
When the data is segmented, there is a strong correlation between NHS waiting lists and the number of claimants of personal independence payments, so what steps is the Minister taking to ensure that those people who are unable to work because they are on an NHS waiting list are having their health optimised so that they can engage with employment and be fast-tracked through the system?
Sir Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend will welcome, as I do, the dramatic record fall in waiting lists that has been recently reported, but of course we need to make further progress in reducing waiting lists and we are determined that the assessment for PIP will be fair to everybody. As I have mentioned, the steering group will meet for the first time over two days at the end of this week, and I know that everyone on that group will be focused on ensuring that we can deliver a fair system for those who need it.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Since the right hon. Gentleman became Disability Minister, half a million more people have gone on to PIP, and the sickness benefits bill is heading up to £100 billion a year by the end of this decade. We know that his review is not due to serve up any savings, but there must come a point where even he would say that the country cannot afford this. Does he have any ambition to make welfare savings?
Sir Stephen Timms
We have already made some important changes. For example, we have removed a serious disincentive to work that was created in the universal credit system by the last Government. That has gone, thanks to the changes in the Universal Credit Act 2025, which finished its passage last summer. Those changes will take effect in April. We do have a broken system—the hon. Lady is absolutely right about that—but it is the system that was left behind by the last Government; and, yes, we are determined to fix it.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)
My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we have already taken action. We published the skills White Paper in October, and we are investing £1 billion in skills packages in sectors that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs over the next five years. The Budget also set out more than £1.5 billion investment in employment and skills support over the spending review period, including for the youth guarantee and apprenticeships for young people.
Peter Swallow
I welcome the commitment in the post-16 education and skills White Paper to support the development of skills passports, because supporting young people to develop essential skills such as media and financial literacy, communication and problem solving must be at the heart of our plans to tackle youth unemployment. What conversations has my hon. Friend had with the Education Secretary on developing and capturing skills before 16 as well?
Andrew Western
I confess that my hon. Friend has had more conversations with the Department for Education on this subject than I have, because he met the Secretary of State recently to discuss this. He will be pleased, I am sure, to know that the Department for Work and Pensions, working with UKHospitality, piloted skills passports in the hospitality sector last year, and that the role of my noble Friend the Skills Minister sits directly between the Department for Education and the Department for Work and Pensions specifically so that the sort of joined-up work to which he refers can take place.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
Samee is a charity working in Dorset to support disabled young adults into self-employment. It has celebrated 10 years and supported 2,700 people, and it has what it tells me is the world’s only supported self-employed internship. Young people who have learning disabilities have great skills for self-employment. However, they cannot access the work because they cannot get a unique tax reference because they take more than 12 months to get to the relevant earnings levels. What is the Minister doing to help young people into self-employment so that they can fulfil their destiny?
Andrew Western
The hon. Member raises an important point. Can I begin by commending that charity in her constituency? There is an acknowledgment among the ministerial team that we need to look particularly at the support available for people looking to move into self-employment, and I would be happy to meet her to discuss the work of the charity further.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
I thank my hon. Friend for his question on this important issue for the Government. Action to support families includes raising the national living wage, expanding access to free school meals and tripling investment in breakfast clubs. Removing the two-child limit in universal credit will benefit 1.5 million children across Great Britain, including over 2,500 children in Bolton West. We have also implemented the fair repayment rate for deductions from universal credit and announced a new £1 billion a year package to reform crisis support.
Phil Brickell
Almost 4,000 people with jobs in my Bolton West constituency still need universal credit to cope with the cost of living. Heating, water and food bills have been stubbornly high. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that families in my constituency get the support they need to pay the bills?
Dame Diana Johnson
We recognise that too many homes in England struggle to afford heating, and tackling fuel poverty is a Government priority. On 21 January, we published a new fuel poverty strategy, alongside the warm homes plan, to better protect fuel-poor households by 2030. At Budget 2025, we cut energy bills by an average of £150 and expanded the warm home discount, providing £150 rebate to a further 2.7 million low-income households.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
Food and energy costs remain high, and a significant number of families are struggling—more than they ever have before—to try to make ends meet. Has the Minister given any consideration to matching the SNP’s Scottish child payment to ensure that more families with children can be kept out of poverty?
Dame Diana Johnson
As I said, we lifted the two-child limit in the child poverty strategy. We know that will lift about 450,000 children out of poverty. Combined with all the other measures that we have set out, including on free school meals and so on, we think that about 550,000 children will be lifted out of poverty. That is against the backdrop of the 900,000 children who went into poverty during the time of the Conservative Governments from 2010 onwards. Of course, we speak all the time to the Scottish Government, and we will continue to have conversations about how we can deal with child poverty.
Daniel Francis (Bexleyheath and Crayford) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Pat McFadden)
It is important that the welfare state is there to support disabled people. Too often in the past, disabled people have been signed off and written off. The state has paid benefits, but has not done enough to help disabled people into work, so we are now expanding employment support for the long-term sick and disabled through, among other things, the Connect to Work programme, which will deliver £1 billion for this purpose in supported employment over the next three years. We are also supporting the “Keep Britain Working” report by Sir Charlie Mayfield, which is aimed at keeping people in work through co-operation with employers.
Daniel Francis
Too many young people with education, health and care plans are being kept on them until they are 25 years old due to the complexities involved in offering them the specialist support required to place them into apprenticeships or work placements. Will the Secretary of State therefore provide an update on the work being undertaken across Government Departments to support these young people into career paths so that they can commence their working lives?
Pat McFadden
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. Ever since he came into this House, including in his maiden speech, he has made a powerful case on behalf of carers and children with disabilities. He makes the critical point that we should not give up on anyone. He is right that not all the conditions that are identified will be permanent and not all conditions should be seen as barriers to work, and that we should do everything we can to help disabled people into work.
Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)
Obviously, the ability to use public transport is vital to allow disabled people or others who are less mobile to access work. Inverurie station in my constituency has just been removed from the Access for All programme, which provides mobility aids in stations—in this case, a lift will now not be installed. I completely appreciate that Access for All is not a responsibility of DWP, but access and allowing disabled people to get to work is. What conversations has the DWP had with the Department for Transport regarding the removal of Access for All funding, and does the Department share my concern that disabled people and those who are less mobile in my constituency will now have less ability to get to work on public transport?
Pat McFadden
The hon. Lady is absolutely right that mobility and public transport are essential in helping people to get to work. On the specifics of her question, the best thing that I can do is to get the Department for Transport to write to her with a proper response.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
My two co-chairs, Sharon Brennan and Dr Clenton Farquharson, were appointed in October. We have appointed a firm to facilitate the co-production of the review, and, drawing on an open expression of interest, we have appointed a steering group of 12, which will come together for the first time this week.
Mr Perkins
It is clear that the number of people with conditions that make them eligible for personal independence payment support has in recent years expanded far beyond what was initially intended, and that reform is needed. It is also clear from conversations with my constituents that many disabled people desperately need that support. What reassurance can my right hon. Friend give us that, after his review, we will have a system that considers the individual, rather than the check-box approach that has brought the personal independence payment regime into such disrepute?
Sir Stephen Timms
The steering group that we have appointed is made up overwhelmingly of disabled people, many of whom currently claim PIP or have done so in the past, so the perspective that my hon. Friend rightly asks about will be at the heart of the review. The review is co-produced, and effective co-production needs transparency and openness—the co-chairs and I are publishing monthly letters. I hope that he and everyone who follows this with interest will see the progress we are making and the determination we are expressing.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
Could one of the Ministers please explain to me and the people of Ashfield why the UK has one of the highest rates of disability in Europe?
Sir Stephen Timms
I am not sure which figures the hon. Gentleman is drawing attention to. There certainly has been an increase in the incidence of disability. The incidence of benefit claiming has been greater than the increase in the incidence of disability, though. That is one reason that we are undertaking this review. We must ensure that the system is fair, because PIP is a vital benefit for many, and that it is fit for the future.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent and Rhymney) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Pat McFadden)
Businesses are a really important partner in supporting workers’ health. This is not an issue just for government. I have seen excellent examples of employers doing this, including when I visited British Airways at Heathrow in November to mark the launch of the final report of the “Keep Britain Working” review. Sir Charlie Mayfield, who wrote that report, made a number of recommendations, including the launch of a vanguard scheme, in which over 100 employers are now taking part. They are playing a leading role in developing best practice when it comes to workplace health and keeping people in work for longer, even if their health declines over time.
Nick Smith
I am delighted that we have a trailblazer pilot in my constituency. In The Times at the weekend, Alan Milburn emphasised the importance of boosting young people’s life chances. Will the Secretary of State outline how data from the pilot will strengthen delivery to keep people healthy at work?
Pat McFadden
I opened the Neath opportunity hub in south Wales in October, and I announced further funding of £10 million for the trailblazer covering that area. Alan Milburn is doing important work in reporting on the whole issue of young people in activity and work. The thing that unites these efforts is the belief that work is good for you, and that we do not want to see young people graduating from education into a life on benefits. That work brings together current activity and the future changes that we will need to make.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
As I have said, the review will be co-produced with disabled people to put lived experience at its heart. It will engage widely to bring together the full range of voices, including those of people with arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions.
Jim Shannon
I wish you well, Mr Speaker, and I hope you are being spoiled by the staff around you, and obviously at home as well. You deserve it.
I thank the Minister for that positive answer. As he will appreciate, people living with arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions make up one of the largest groups of PIP claimants, and should the previous PIP proposals have continued, more than 77% of claimants living with arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions would have lost their claims. The Minister is a good man. Would he please agree to a roundtable with me, Arthritis UK, and people living with arthritis, organised at his convenience, so that he can hear directly from those impacted?
Sir Stephen Timms
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting suggestion, and I will be happy to have the roundtable he has called for.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Pat McFadden)
Last week I met Sir Charlie Mayfield, author of the “Keep Britain Working” report, to discuss progress. He reported that more than 100 employers are now onboard to act as vanguards, including British Airways, Sainsbury’s, Holland and Barrett, and a number of smaller employers. The aim is to develop a healthy life cycle of work throughout people’s careers. We are also setting up the health information and data unit that Sir Charlie recommended in his report.
Debbie Abrahams
As my right hon. Friend knows, Sir Charlie made a number of recommendations, including providing evidence of returns on investments that would incentivise more businesses to take part in preventive measures to ensure that their workers remain healthy and in work. Given the excellent network of academic centres across the UK, how will the proposed workplace health intelligence unit harness their expertise, and ensure that we are reducing health inequalities that also dampen productivity and economic growth?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend raises a number of issues. As I said, we are setting up the unit that Sir Charlie recommended, and I very much hope that it will work with academic expertise across the country. Her initial point about this being a win-win for employers is important, because if an employer lets someone go, they lose that experience and have to go through the effort of hiring somebody new and training them up. It is a worthwhile experience to try to help someone stay in work if they have a decline in their health over a period of time. That is good for the employee, and for the employer.
Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
Jobcentre Plus offers tailored, flexible advice and support to help individuals get into work and overcome any barriers to employment. Work coaches offer all claimants a comprehensive menu of help, including referral to skills provision and job search support. That can include referral to local ESOL provision.
Antonia Bance
I thank the Minister for her answer. I recently visited Tipton Jobcentre Plus, and I pay tribute to the great work of the staff based there in what is a really tough jobs market. They told me that they would value the ability to refer jobseekers to an intensive ESOL course, with the expectation that the jobseeker attends every weekday for a number of months, to tackle the key barrier to sustainable employment for many, which is a lack of English skills for work. Will the Minister consider engaging with our combined authority to pilot an intensive, mandatory ESOL intervention, to get locals into work and raise incomes in my area?
Dame Diana Johnson
I thank my hon. Friend for her interest and her visit to Tipton Jobcentre Plus, and for her kind words about the staff there. Jobcentre Plus in Tipton has been reviewing local ESOL availability. It is welcoming work with the combined authority to look at expanding provision, to ensure that demand is met and so that more claimants can move into work.
Baggy Shanker (Derby South) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Pat McFadden)
Since the new year we have had the first expressions of interest from firms that want to participate in the youth guarantee scheme. We have announced our intention to change benefit entitlement for people in mental health hospitals who have been convicted of serious violent crimes. We have announced reforms to the disability confident scheme to encourage more employers to make their workplaces suitable for disabled employees, and we have introduced a Bill to lift the two-child limit, which will have its Second Reading in the House next week.
Baggy Shanker
Whether it is at Kia, Alstom or others, apprentices in Derby are thriving at our large manufacturing companies, but we also want our small and medium-sized businesses to take on more apprentices. Will the Government set out what is being done to help smaller businesses to take on more apprentices?
Pat McFadden
I congratulate my hon. Friend and everyone involved in Team Derby on their excellent training and employment record. Around 40% of all apprenticeship starts are in small and medium-sized employers and they will benefit from the £725 million in funding that we announced at the Budget, which includes fully funding SME apprenticeships for eligible people aged under 25. As he will be aware, employers are not required to pay anything towards employee national insurance for those apprenticeships.
Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
Under this Labour Government the number of people on benefits is soaring, with nearly a million young people not in education, employment or training, and over 700,000 university graduates are now out of work and on benefits. Many young people are putting in hundreds of job applications and getting hundreds of rejections. This Government are killing their jobs and their dreams by taxing job-creating businesses into oblivion. What does the Secretary of State have to say to those young people?
Pat McFadden
What I have to say to those young people is that the rise in graduate inactivity happened under the last Government. Economic inactivity is down by 450,000 since the last election. There is a critical problem—the hon. Lady is right—in NEET numbers, which have been rising for four years. The difference is that we are doing something about that through the youth guarantee, which has £820 million behind it, and by changing her record on apprenticeships, which saw a 40% fall in youth apprenticeship starts over 10 years.
Helen Whately
Young people hearing that answer will not be reassured, but that is no surprise—what else can the Secretary of State say? The Prime Minister is too busy blocking rivals for his job, while a generation of young people pay the price for his weakness, and so are taxpayers, who are footing a ballooning benefits bill. Now is not the time for another review, scheme or slogan; what young people want is the chance to get a decent job and to get on in life. Surely he agrees that it is time to scrap the job-killing red tape in the Employment Rights Bill and cut taxes for businesses, so that they can give young people the chance to get off welfare and into work.
Pat McFadden
People want to stand for my party, but people want to leave the hon. Lady’s, and they are doing that day by day. We want to give hope to young people. That is why we have put the youth guarantee in place and we are changing the apprenticeship system: she could have done those two things while she was in office, while the NEET numbers were rising year on year, but she utterly failed to do so.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)
I meet my colleagues in the Health and Social Care Department regularly, particularly because of the important work that the joint work and health directorate is doing to get people into work and to support people with health conditions in work, including those with chronic mental health conditions. Our employment advisers in talking therapies specifically target people with mental health conditions.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
The Sayce review investigated the carers’ allowance scandal and identified that almost 87,000 carers were affected. The Government are planning to write off the debts of 26,000 carers, but does that mean that the Minister believes that 60,000 carers are guilty of fraud?
The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)
I think the hon. Gentleman would agree that Liz Sayce did a superb job. We commissioned her review straight after the general election, and we have accepted all but two of the recommendations that she made in her report. We are working through the detail of how to implement those recommendations, and we will set out the proposals and the details as soon as we are able to do so. We are also working with carer organisations on communications with the carers affected to ensure that they are right. I look forward to giving the hon. Gentleman more details as soon as they are available.
Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)
Pat McFadden
The youth guarantee scheme will be delivered across Great Britain. That includes the jobs guarantee scheme, which I mentioned earlier. From the spring, we will provide more than 1,000 fully subsidised jobs in six areas across the UK, including central and east Scotland, ahead of the national roll-out, which will come later this year.
Ian Roome (North Devon) (LD)
Sir Stephen Timms
I am sorry to hear of the hon. Gentleman’s experience. We are in the most difficult part of the transition, as people who were previously on employment and support allowance move over to universal credit. We have introduced an enhanced support journey to try to simplify it, and I am keeping a very close eye on how it is going. If he sends me the details of that case, I will certainly look at them.
Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)
Pat McFadden
Let me congratulate my hon. Friend on the fantastic work that he has done in campaigning for the investments in and around his constituency. Major infrastructure investments such as Sizewell should be an opportunity for local employment and training and for increasing the skills of local people, and we want our youth guarantee and the changes we are making in the apprenticeship system to support those aims.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)
I am very sorry to hear about the case that the hon. Gentleman raises. If there is evidence of false claims made in applications, I would clearly be very grateful if he would share that information with me directly. I will be sure to come back on him—[Interruption.] I will come back to him on that to ensure that it is fully investigated. If we are coming back on anybody, it will hopefully be the gentleman to whom he has referred.
Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)
Dame Diana Johnson
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the meeting that we had on this very subject just a few months ago and for raising the issue of how important it is to get people back into work. There are lots of good examples of GPs who are doing that around the country, and I look forward to seeing what more we can do to work with him and other GPs to ensure that we get as many people as possible back into work who are not in work at the moment due to ill health.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
Sir Stephen Timms
We are certainly addressing the backlog, but if the hon. Lady would like to send me the details of those two cases, I will certainly investigate.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
My constituent Stephen Sherwood has complex needs and learning difficulties. He could not understand changes to universal credit, needed guidance that never came, and so lost financial support that he badly needed. Stephen and his mum, Nicola, rightly want to know whether the DWP involves people with complex needs and learning difficulties in the design of system changes, and whether the Government will do more to ensure that such people have these changes explained to them in ways that they can understand.
Sir Stephen Timms
My hon. Friend raises a very good point. As I have said, the process of migration that we are going through is the most difficult part, as people move from employment and support allowance to universal credit. We have introduced an enhanced support journey to assist people such as my hon. Friend’s constituent who are going through this process, but I look forward to meeting him in a couple of weeks’ time to discuss lessons from this particular case.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Torsten Bell)
It has been confirmed that those whose income is only the basic level of the basic state pension or the new state pension will not be required to pay tax next year, because the level of personal allowance has been set above the level of the new state pension. What the Chancellor said at the Budget was that in future years we will make sure that no pensioner will be required to fill in a self-assessment form, or indeed a simple self-assessment form, for any tax that is due because the new state pension level is above that of the personal allowance.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
A constituent of mine disclosed full details of her change in circumstances to the Department, but although the Department admitted it was its mistake—it had received that information and had repeatedly failed to update its records—it still sent her a very threatening letter. Although I fully support the need to protect the public purse, would the appropriate Minister agree to meet me to discuss how the Department could improve its updating procedures, reduce the occurrence of overpayments, and treat claimants more considerately when they have received overpayments through no fault of their own?
Sir Stephen Timms
I would be very happy to meet my hon. Friend for that discussion.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
People who come to this country and make it their home are welcome to work and pay their taxes. However, Ministers may have seen reports over the weekend of foreign career criminals who have been spared prison now claiming universal credit. Taxpayers are going to be outraged by this fact, so what action will the Minister take to ensure that only people who are entitled to receive universal credit do so, and that career criminals do not?
Andrew Western
The hon. Gentleman raises a very serious issue. Payment accuracy and ensuring that only those who are eligible to claim benefits do so are incredibly important for confidence in the system. I have not seen the specifics of the case to which he refers, but where we become aware that such errors have been made, we seek to claim that money back. We have taken further powers through the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025 to take action against the sorts of serious and organised criminals he refers to, and I am pleased to say that that Act received Royal Assent last month.
Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
What discussions has the Minister had on removing universal credit from convicted killers who are currently serving a sentence in a psychiatric hospital?
Pat McFadden
I have had a number of discussions, including with victims’ families. It is important to stress that if someone is sentenced to a psychiatric hospital, their care and maintenance is paid for by the state in any case. We therefore propose a change to the previous system that will stop the build-up of—in some cases—large sums of money in continued benefit payments.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
My constituent Andrew co-founded Adzuna, a job search website built on artificial intelligence. Its research shows that existing AI tools could improve the DWP’s service and create 250,000 more jobs per year. However, it is reported that the new rebuild of the service is not going to include those AI tools. Can the Secretary of State give the House reassurance that we are going to incorporate those new tools into the rebuild of the service so that we get that employment boost?
Andrew Western
The hon. Gentleman will forgive me if, for commercial reasons, I do not confirm that Adzuna’s specific tool or any other would be part of the work we are taking forward. I can tell him that we will be bringing forward a new AI tool in the coming months that will include not only “find a job” options, but CV support, interview training and various other cutting-edge tools that will support people up and down the country into work, utilising the power of AI.
Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
The UK shared prosperity fund currently supports about 20% of Renfrewshire council’s employability budget. Given that that funding is due to come to an end, can my right hon. Friend outline what steps he will take to support employability services in Renfrewshire going forward?
Pat McFadden
My hon. Friend will have heard me refer to the youth guarantee being a GB-wide scheme, so it will help people in Scotland. She will agree with me when I point out that the Scottish Government have had the most generous financial settlement since devolution was introduced, and I would hope that some of that would go towards the kind of priority that she outlines.
Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
My constituent has been trying for more than five months to get a response from the DWP about his UC claim. Having now taken up the case, I too am experiencing unacceptable delays—it is now 15 weeks and counting, when the supposed turnaround is 15 days. Can the Minister please say what action he is taking to ensure that the DWP responds to constituents and to MPs within reasonable timescales?
Andrew Western
May I begin by apologising to the hon. Lady for the experience that she and her constituent have encountered? She will be pleased to know that I recently met our newly appointed complaints lead and the independent case examiner, who is raising concerns about the trends she is seeing. We are putting in place a range of interventions that take us forward in a positive way to improve our complaints handling process, and I will be happy to share more detail with her directly.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Trussell Trust are campaigning for an essentials guarantee that would ensure that benefits cover the necessities for living. Does the Minister agree that the welfare state should be a universal safety net, not a trapdoor?
Pat McFadden
I very much agree that the welfare state should be there to help people to change their circumstances, not just to keep them in their circumstances. I am pleased to report that we have now put in place the crisis and resilience fund, which will help people in the most desperate circumstances, and we have guaranteed its funding for the next three years.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
My constituent Harry has a learning disability, and he is so brilliant that he has not one but two jobs. His mum, Helen, is his appointee, and she is not allowed to access his Access to Work paperwork online. This means she has to print out 24 bits of paper, get it manually signed and pay to post it. That is crackers in 2026. Will the Minister undertake to look at Harry’s case and ensure that appointees, such as Helen, do not find it too hard to access Access to Work, so that we can keep brilliant people like Harry in work?
Sir Stephen Timms
The hon. Lady makes a good point, and it is one of the reasons we are reforming Access to Work. We consulted on reform in the Green Paper last year, and I think she is right that we need a less bureaucratic system for access, not least for appointees.
Mr Richard Quigley (Isle of Wight West) (Lab)
I wish you a speedy recovery, Mr Speaker—as I understand it, the other fellow came off much worse.
On the Isle of Wight, our NHS trust takes students who would otherwise have ended up NEET—not in education, employment or training—and puts them through a pre-apprenticeship scheme that gives them not only the skills but, more importantly, the confidence needed to start an apprenticeship and then go into work. I encourage the Secretary of State to visit the Isle of Wight to see the great work that the trust does. Will he encourage other employers to do the same thing?
Pat McFadden
I will certainly visit the Isle of Wight if I can—diary permitting. The issue he raises about confidence is crucial. When I speak to our work coaches, time and again they say that building the confidence of young people to get out there, to apply for things and to go into new and unfamiliar circumstances is a critical part of their work.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
My constituent Sam has been failed by the Child Maintenance Service. Her ex-partner hid a load of his income. She knows that because the CMS sent her the evidence but then denied it. Any reference to onward referrals is denied, and she is stuck in the bureaucracy. This is an unacceptable situation. She says that by the time the back payment comes through for her children, she will be passing it straight through to her grandchildren. It is a total disgrace. Women should not be treated like this; they should not be subjected to this kind of failing bureaucracy. Will Ministers look into the matter and into Sam’s case?
Andrew Western
I will have a look at the general issue, and if the hon. Member could share details of Sam’s case with me directly, I would be happy to look at it for him.
Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if she will make a statement on the Government’s plans for the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)
I hope that you make a swift recovery, Mr Speaker—having injured my ankle just before Christmas, I know how painful it can be.
On 22 May, the Diego Garcia treaty was signed and laid before the House. As the Defence Secretary told the House on the day of signature, the treaty secures the strategically important UK-US military base on the island of Diego Garcia. The base, as I have said in the House many times, is essential to the security of the United Kingdom and our key allies, including the United States. It is essential to keeping British people safe. It is also one of our most significant contributions to the transatlantic defence and security partnership, because it enables rapid deployment of operations and forces across the middle east, east Africa and south Asia, helping to combat some of the most challenging threats, including threats from terrorism and hostile states. Its unique strategic location creates real military advantage across the Indo-Pacific. The facility has also helped the collection of data used to support counter-terrorism operations against, for instance, high-value Islamic State targets in recent years.
As we have made clear many times in the House, the UK will never compromise on our national security, and, as we have been repeatedly making clear, the agreement that we have struck is vital for protecting our national security, guaranteeing the long-term future of a base that is vital for both the UK and the United States, which had been under threat, as the Opposition fully understood and on which they were briefed. The deal secures the operations of the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia for generations. It was publicly welcomed by the United States, Australia and all other Five Eyes partners, as well as key international partners, including India, Japan and South Korea.
Just last week, the House spent two hours debating the Lords amendments to the Bill. The Opposition will know, of course, that the programming of business in the other place is a matter for the other place and not for us. However, the Lords’ consideration of Commons amendments has been delayed because the Opposition tabled a wrecking amendment hours before the other place rose—[Interruption]—I think this just shows the measure of them, Mr Speaker—and a day before a scheduled debate. This is irresponsible and reckless behaviour from the official Opposition in the second House, using programming tactics to frustrate the implementation of a treaty on a critical national security matter.
I have to say that stands in stark contrast to the reasoned and constructive criticisms, questions and suggestions from Members in other parties, and indeed from Cross Benchers. We have engaged with those in good faith at every stage, and we will continue to do so. This is on the official Opposition, because their amendment is not only unnecessary; it is toying with our national security. It is only right that we take time to consider the next steps on programming, because we remain confident that this treaty is the best way forward.
The Lords will consider the Commons amendments in due course, and that will be announced in the usual way. The Government are committed to the deal that protects the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia. Some have sought to sabotage the process through procedural motions and parliamentary stunts. We, instead, are focused on delivering this Bill to protect our national security.
Priti Patel
Labour’s Chagos surrender humiliation continues. Today the Government were hoping to force through their surrender Bill in the House of Lords—giving away territory, handing over £35 billion to a foreign Government allied to China, and betraying the Chagossians. But after the Conservatives pointed out how their surrender would violate our existing international obligations and challenged the Government, the Government pulled the Bill from the House of Lords Order Paper to avoid being defeated.
In its rush to appease left-wing lawyer friends, Labour overlooked the 1966 treaty between the UK and the US. I have a copy in front of me for the Minister to read. It states that the British Indian Ocean Territory
“shall remain under the United Kingdom’s sovereignty.”
Does the Minister accept that the Bill and the treaty with Mauritius violate the 1966 treaty with the US? Following the US President saying that the UK is giving away the Chagos Islands
“FOR NO REASON WHATSOVER…There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness…The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY”,
can the Minister tell us what discussions have taken place with the US Administration in the last few days and whether they have communicated that they are now reviewing the deal?
Britain’s weak Prime Minister seemed to suggest in the House last week that he was being bullied by the President, which is quite a personal statement. Has the Prime Minister had a direct discussion with the President about Chagos in the last week, and can the Minister confirm that any changes to our 1966 treaty with the US will undergo parliamentary scrutiny under the 21-day Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 process, with time given for debates and votes? Does he accept that it would be logical for this House to consider amendments to the 1996 treaty with the US before proceeding with the Bill? Can the Minister confirm that upon appointment as the British Indian Ocean Territory envoy and before becoming National Security Adviser, Jonathan Powell, a friend of China, accelerated the negotiations with Mauritius to surrender the Chagos Islands? It is time Labour saw sense, scrapped this treaty and stood up for Britain.
Stephen Doughty
I did think that perhaps the right hon. Lady might have something more, but the tone, the braying and the noise reflect a simple political stunt from the Conservatives, which is deeply regretful when we are talking about such important matters of national security.
The right hon. Lady asks specifically about the US-UK exchange of notes. I am genuinely surprised about that, because we have been clear throughout that before the UK can ratify the treaty, we will need to do the following: pass primary and secondary legislation; update the UK-US agreement—the exchange of notes; and put in place arrangements on the environment, maritime security and migration.
Perhaps the Conservatives have only just clocked on to the need to update the UK-US agreement, but the Minister in the other place answered the noble Lord Callanan’s question on 22 December:
“Talks are ongoing to update the UK-US Exchange of Letters on the operation of the Diego Garcia Base.”
We have been clear about that throughout, so presenting this as some sort of gotcha and saying that we have not looked at the law is absolute nonsense. Frankly, it is deeply, deeply irresponsible.
We have made excellent progress towards finalising an updated UK-US agreement. For the record—because the Conservatives will not have looked at any of the history of this—the UK-US agreement was updated in 1972 and 1976, twice in 1987, and in 1999, so this is a regular process. We have had to update it, for a range of reasons, in the past. We were always clear about the need to put in place the necessary domestic and international legal processes to deal with this matter. The idea that this is something new, or some sort of gotcha, is simply for the birds.
The right hon. Lady asks about the contact with the United States. We remain engaged with the United States on a daily basis on matters relating to our national security. We will continue to engage with it on this important matter and on the importance of the deal to secure US and UK interests, and allay any concerns, as we have done throughout this process. There is nothing new in that, and it is absolutely right that we do so.
The right hon. Lady’s claims about China were simply rubbish. I am really surprised that the Conservatives continue to play these shocking party political games.
Dan Carden (Liverpool Walton) (Lab)
I am sorry that I am the only Labour Back Bencher who wants to speak. I have huge respect for my hon. Friend, and I fear that I am not going to say anything he particularly likes. I have followed this matter as closely as possible, and I have gone along with the Government up to this point, but it has been against my instincts. I still cannot understand exactly what we are doing here. International agreements do not protect us against our enemies or our allies; sovereignty does. I genuinely think that the people we represent will be asking, “Why can the Prime Minister not step forward, assert sovereignty over these islands, and make it clear that we have the military defence to defend them?”
Stephen Doughty
My hon. Friend has perhaps not been in for some of the previous debates on this, but I have set out why on a number of occasions. [Interruption.] Again, there is a lot of noise from the Conservatives, but they knew the problem here. They knew the risk to the operations of the base, which is why they engaged in 11 rounds of negotiations. I say again that the operations of this base were under threat, and we are not willing to play roulette with our national security. We therefore put in place the necessary steps to protect—and this is the crucial thing—the operations of that base, and our ability to carry them out fully in the way they are today, from the threats to it that existed. They put our national security—
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Member asks what the threats are. I have set those out on many occasions in this House. What is more, we have secured better protections in this deal than the Conservatives attempted to negotiate, including the buffer zone and the protections in relation to foreign forces on the outer islands. The priority for us has been securing our national security and the operation of this base for us and our allies.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
The Liberal Democrats have argued consistently that the Chagossians’ right to self-determination should be honoured, so even at this eleventh hour I ask the Government to reconsider their obstinate refusal to give Chagossians a voice over the homeland from which they were shamefully and violently removed. Will the Minister support the Liberal Democrat amendment in the other place that seeks to secure binding guarantees from the Government of Mauritius? The Government have also failed to address the concerns shared across this House about the vast sums of public money due to be sent to the Government of Mauritius over the lifetime of this agreement. We should not sign 99 cheques today that Mauritius can cash over the next century, so will the Minister support the Liberal Democrat amendment in the other place to give Parliament annual scrutiny of the payments made to Mauritius? In the light of the shifting US position, I encourage the Minister to consider soberly the approach the Government are taking, and I urge him to accept the Liberal Democrat amendment in the other place for a pause while the US position is clarified.
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues in the other place have given serious and considered reflections on this Bill a number of times. We have discussed them privately and responded to them in the other place, and I will certainly listen very closely to what he has said on a number of issues. Those include continuing to update both Houses on the cost issues and other matters, although I am sure he agrees that some of the wild figures we have heard quoted are simply not accurate or based in any kind of fact.
The hon. Gentleman raises the issue of the Chagossians. He knows that I and others have engaged with Chagossian communities on a number of occasions, and a wide range of views have of course been expressed by Chagossian communities. He knows that a referendum would not have resolved this long-standing issue between the UK and Mauritius, which required state-to-state negotiations. Indeed, the courts here, noting the conclusion of the International Court of Justice in the 2019 advisory opinion, have proceeded on the basis that the relevant right to self-determination in the context of BIOT was that of Mauritians rather than of Chagossians, and that remains the fact.
I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman says about Chagossian communities. He knows my commitment to them, to listening to the range of views and to trying to do the right thing, including acknowledging the deep wrongs of the past. We will continue to engage with him and his colleagues, and I would be very happy to meet him to discuss the amendments in the other place.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
The Minister is keeping up a brave face in public, but when he goes back to his colleagues he will have to tell them that the only contribution from his own Back Benches was to disagree with the Government’s position, and to do so bravely and articulately.
Does the Minister accept that the reason that this Bill may not go through is the work of the Conservative Opposition in both Houses of Parliament and the words of the leader of the Reform party in Mr Trump’s ear? Does that not show what can be achieved when two parties make common cause in a very worthwhile aim to achieve a vital objective?
Stephen Doughty
That comment speaks for itself, but I must say that I am absolutely astonished. Perhaps the right hon. Member is next on the defection list.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
Oh, grow up, you silly little man!
Stephen Doughty
Those are absolutely extraordinary comments. We have made very clear how this deal supports our national security interests and those of the US—
Mr Speaker
Order. I think the right hon. Member will want to withdraw that comment.
Stephen Doughty
Again, I think the tone of Opposition Members tells everybody—it tells the public—exactly what is going on here, which is political game playing. There were hundreds of votes the other day for ensuring that the Bill went through, because it has the consent of this House, and it is deeply irresponsible for Opposition Lords to be playing reckless games with our national security in the other place.
Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness) (Reform)
I will tell the Minister what is deeply irresponsible, and that is to give away our national sovereignty and damage our national security interests. That is what is deeply irresponsible, and thank heavens the US Administration have now realised that they were deliberately misled by our National Security Adviser and the Foreign Office—[Interruption.] Mr Speaker is listening intently. The National Security Adviser deliberately misled the American Administration, and they are angry. They are furious at what has gone on, and that is why they have changed their tune. Will the Minister confirm that if the Americans will not sign the update to this agreement, it is dead and buried? And who will resign?
Stephen Doughty
I am not going to take any lessons in national security from the fake patriots over there on the Opposition Benches and a party whose leader in Wales took bribes from Russia to promote narratives from the Kremlin. I think Conservative Members ought to be very careful about who they associate with.
Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
The Minister, who is normally a reasonable fellow, always makes the point that the last Conservative Government started the negotiations. Does he now understand that, first, we were unable to conclude them and that, secondly, we would never have agreed or concluded the very one-sided deal that he and his colleagues have so naively and mistakenly agreed?
Stephen Doughty
Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would like to publish what costs the then Government were willing to pay for this deal.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
In answer to a recent written question, a Defence Minister confirmed that
“all decisions on whether to approve foreign nations’ use of military bases in the UK for operational purposes considers the legal basis and policy rationale for any proposed activity.”
Can the Minister confirm that this commitment on the use of military bases in the UK by allies such as the US also applies to the military base at Diego Garcia?
Stephen Doughty
I am afraid that I might need to write to the hon. Gentleman with the detail on that very specific point, but I can assure him that our operation of military bases, whether alone or with allies, is always in accordance with international law. That is why we have followed the process that we have in updating the different pieces of legislation and other agreements that need to be updated.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
When did the Minister first learn that the United States could effectively veto this agreement with Mauritius?
Stephen Doughty
I do not really understand the premise of the question. We have always been clear that we would work closely with our key defence and security ally the United States in securing the base on Diego Garcia. We have set out on a number of occasions the processes by which we would need to bring this treaty into force. There is simply no gotcha moment here. This has been clear, and it was made clear to those in the other place, but perhaps Members have not been reading the answers to the questions.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Is it not clear that the Minister, who is normally very benign, is now rather tetchy? If he was so sure of what he says, why did he not make a statement rather than be dragged to the Floor of the House by the Opposition? When the previous Foreign Secretary made the clear statement that, if the US says no, this deal is off, was he referring to the 1966 arrangements or was he just doing it off the cuff?
Stephen Doughty
We have always been clear that we would work closely with the United States to put in place the agreements to protect our national security and the operations on Diego Garcia. That is exactly what we have done. That is exactly what this Bill and this deal secures. I have set out clearly the importance of updating the exchange of notes. That has been clear throughout and it was made clear in the other place before Christmas. It has been made clear on a number of occasions. Really, there is nothing new here.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind)
Does the Minister acknowledge that, ever since the brutal removal of Chagossians from their homes in the 1970s and 1980s, their one unifying factor has been their determination and desire to return? Will he also confirm that international law indicates that the Chagos islands—both the archipelago and Diego Garcia—should be, under decolonisation statute, handed over to Mauritius, and that the only way of guaranteeing the right of return of Chagos islanders is for the House to accept the treaty that the Government have negotiated, which is supported by the Chagos Refugees Group, largely based in Mauritius and the Seychelles, and some of the Chagos islanders who live in this country. [Interruption.] Of course there is debate—nothing wrong with that—but this guarantees a right of return.
Stephen Doughty
We have been clear about that on a number of occasions. The right hon. Gentleman sets out very many important aspects of the history of this matter, and importantly puts on record the views of a range of other Chagossian groups who speak in support of the treaty and in support of the deal, primarily because it gives them the best chance to be able to resettle on the outer islands. We continue to support them on that measure, and we will continue to engage with all Chagossian communities—even, of course, those who disagree with the deal—to ensure that their needs and concerns are heard both in this country and internationally. That is also why we are capitalising the Chagossian trust fund.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I think it is unprecedented at such an event for only one Government Back Bencher to speak, and the hon. Member for Liverpool Walton (Dan Carden) very bravely spoke against the deal. It is very important that the sovereignty of these islands remains British. That was highlighted in the Labour manifesto, which stated:
“Defending our security also means protecting the British Overseas Territories…Labour will always defend their sovereignty and right to self-determination.”
May I suggest a gentle down ramp for the Minister, for whom I have a lot of admiration, which is simply to just not find the time in the other place to progress things and allow Prorogation to gently wash this particular piece of proposed legislation out to sea?
Stephen Doughty
We have been clear throughout that the national security of our country comes first—and the national security of our allies and partners—which is why the previous Government were engaging to do a deal. They recognised the threat to the operations of the base. We concluded that deal. We have a deal that secures the future operations on Diego Garcia well into the next century. That is the most important thing in this whole process.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Unusually, the Minister has resorted to bluster today, accusing those of us who are opposed to the treaty of being “irresponsible” and “toying with” the security of the country. Does he not accept that it is the Government who are toying with the security of this country by ignoring the views of the Americans who use the Diego Garcia base, the fears of the Chagossians and the drain on public finances? Are the Government not using their majority and their Members as pawns to push through a deal that they know is wrong, unfair and dangerous for the country?
Stephen Doughty
I should clarify that I was referring not to the right hon. Gentleman, but to the irresponsible procedural game playing by Opposition peers in the other place. Many people, including those who oppose the Bill, have raised serious, considered comments on and criticisms of the Bill which we have tried to engage with in good faith. I do not recognise his comments about the cost. This is a priceless national security asset, and the deal compares well with what other countries pay for their bases, such as France’s base in Djibouti. This is a crucial deal for the United Kingdom, the United States and our allies. We will never compromise on national security and on protecting this country from terrorism and hostile states. That is absolutely crucial. That is why we are doing this deal.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
May I first express my respect for the Minister’s ability to consistently defend the indefensible? An absolute masterclass! Is it not the case that the President of the United States now has our Prime Minister completely over a barrel after his incautious and unhelpful remarks over Greenland? Would it not have been better, along the lines of “The Art of the Deal”, to have dealt with this before the Government signed the surrender treaty, and not after?
Stephen Doughty
The right hon. Gentleman makes a link with the discussions on Greenland in recent weeks. We have been absolutely clear that we will always work with the United States on the treaty: we will always allay any concerns they have, and we have engaged with them every single day throughout the process. The deal was welcomed by Secretary Rubio, the US Administration, Secretary Hegseth and across the United States system, and very much so because—I will make this point, Mr Speaker—we secured a deal that, crucially, secures the operations that we and the United States conduct at the base, and that has additional protections that the previous Government did not get into place.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)
When the historians write about this period of British history, those who have engineered this betrayal of British sovereignty over the King’s islands, along with the complete betrayal of the loyal British-Chagossian people, will not come out of it too well. I ask the Minister, even at this late stage, to review this shameful policy and give the Chagossian people—whom he did not even mention in his reply to the shadow Foreign Secretary—the same right of self-determination that we afford to all other British overseas territories. Why are the Chagossians treated differently to everybody else?
Stephen Doughty
With the greatest of respect, as the hon. Member well knows, I have regularly referred to Chagossian communities, and I have engaged with and met them on many occasions—even in opposition, before I became a Minister. I have deep respect for them, including those members of the communities who disagree with me. I simply cannot take anything seriously from the hon. Member, when he has joined a party that had such links to Russian money coming into its leader in Wales.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
Last time I checked, there were 404 Labour MPs. Why does the Minister think that his Whips could not come up with a single Back Bencher to come to the Chamber and support his position today?
Stephen Doughty
Because they see this for what it is, which is simply party political game playing. Games are being played with our national security in the other place in a way that is deeply reckless and irresponsible.
Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)
The Minister did not answer the question that the shadow Foreign Secretary asked, but it is inconceivable that Foreign Office Ministers will not have had discussions with their American counterparts about this issue over the last week. Can the Minister tell us whether it is still the Government’s position that US opposition to the treaty is purely about Greenland?
Stephen Doughty
As I have said many times, we continue to engage with the United States every day, as we have throughout the process, and that will continue.
Dr Luke Evans (Hinckley and Bosworth) (Con)
It is a surprise to see the Minister so ratty and full of bluster, so I am going to ask him a technical question that I would appreciate his answer to. We have talked about the 1966 UK-US exchange of notes; the question is whether the Government can go ahead with the Chagos deal without the US. Where do the Government stand? Does the deal have to have the US’s blessing, or can the Government do it without that blessing, and with no change or negotiation of the 1966 contract?
Stephen Doughty
Again, I am slightly baffled by the question, because I answered it right at the beginning when the shadow Foreign Secretary asked me. I will read out my answer again. I said that we had been consistently clear that before the UK can ratify the treaty, we will need to do the following: pass primary and secondary legislation; update the UK-US agreement—the exchange of notes; and put in place arrangements on the environment, maritime security and migration. Indeed, that was very much the tenor of the answer that was given to Lord Callanan in the other place.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
Last week we had a discussion about the cost of this deal, and I asked the Minister whether he would confirm the figure of £34.7 billion from the Government Actuary’s Department. He did not give me a direct answer, but later in the debate he confirmed that it was a nominal amount, not adjusted for inflation or the social time preference rate. With that in mind, will the Minister give the House the most accurate assessment he can of the true figure for the total cost of the deal, adjusted for inflation and the social time preference rate?
Stephen Doughty
The hon. Member asks an important question. The Government were clear about the forecast costs when they signed the deal, which were that the average cost per year was £101 million and the net present value was £3.4 billion. As I made clear the other day, forecast costs are, of course, forecasts; we expect any number to change over time, in particular to reflect things such as the Office for Budget Responsibility forecast inflation rate, which was updated in November 2025. I mentioned that the Treasury was updating the methodology for the social time preference rate. We are not going to keep recalculating every day, but at the time when the treaty was published we were very clear and gave a lot of information; we have given answers on this issue on many occasions and will continue to keep the House updated in the usual way.
David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)
The former Foreign Secretary said very explicitly last year that if the United States does not like this deal, it will not go ahead. The US does not like this deal; it has been very explicit on that. Can the Minister tell us whether the now Deputy Prime Minister was telling the truth when he made those comments?
Stephen Doughty
We have been very clear that the agreement we have struck is vital for protecting our national security and guaranteeing the long-term future of this vital base for both the United Kingdom and the United States, which had been under threat. I have referenced the many comments from across the United States Administration. We continue to engage with the United States every day, making clear the very important parts of the deal that protect its security and ours, and we will continue to have such conversations.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
I hold in my hand the explanatory notes that accompany the Bill. There are extensive sections on historical background and legal background. Nowhere within those sections is there any reference to the 1966 treaty. Why is that? I have two specific questions for the Minister. First, does he accept that the 1966 treaty—or notes, as he calls it—is extant? Secondly, is it capable of being altered unilaterally?
Stephen Doughty
Of course it is extant, Mr Speaker. It is an arrangement between ourselves and the United States. It has been updated on a number of occasions, which I have listed. As I have said, we have been clear that before the UK can ratify the treaty, we will need to do the following: pass primary and secondary legislation, update the UK-US agreement, and put in place arrangements on the environment, maritime security and migration. I am staggered that some on the Opposition Benches have only just clocked this; we have been aware of it and we engage with the United States every single day. That was made clear even before Christmas to the noble Lord Callanan in response to the question he asked my noble Friend Baroness Chapman. Again, this deal secures the base for the operations of ourselves and the United States, and we will continue to engage with the United States on a daily basis on it.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his answers. He and I share concerns on the issue on human rights, and I want to ask a question about that. As the chairperson of the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief, I am very aware of the human rights concerns that exist, including on the repression of personal expression, and reports of concerns for the rights of children and minorities. This leads me to again ask the Government to reconsider their strategy, not simply because our national security is at risk, the partnership with our closest allies is being strained and Chagossian citizens are expressing their opposition, but owing to the fact that we are handing over these people to be ruled under a cloud. Will the Minister confirm that the Government have fully considered the human rights concerns involving the Mauritian Government and are content to continue despite those worrying reports?
Stephen Doughty
As always, I have deep respect for the issues the hon. Gentleman raises in this place, particularly when it comes to individuals’ human rights and liberties. We have engaged extensively with the Chagossian communities and have heard a range of views. There are a number of groups that are very strongly in favour of this deal and some that are opposed to it. I respect that; there will always be disagreements on this issue. We have worked very closely to ensure that their needs are at the heart of this deal, whether that is through the trust fund or the clarificatory statements we have been able to secure from the Mauritian Government on the way the trust fund will operate to support Chagossian communities here. The hon. Gentleman can absolutely be assured that I remain seized of these issues, as do other Ministers, and they will continue to form a part of our engagement as the deal goes forward.
Police Reform White Paper
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Before we start, it would be remiss of me not to say to the Home Secretary that although we have a statement now, I watched this all unfold yesterday and over the past few days. Whether it is the FBI or the merging of police forces, it really needs to be brought to the House before it is taken to the media. I say once again to the Home Secretary, who I know is very diligent in the job, that these are not my rules; they are the Prime Minister’s rules. I do not need the Prime Minister ignoring his own rules.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Shabana Mahmood)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on police reform.
A little less than 200 years ago, speaking at this very Dispatch Box, Sir Robert Peel declared that:
“the time is come, when…we may fairly pronounce that the country has outgrown her police institutions”.—[Official Report, 28 February 1828; Vol. 18, c. 795.]
Those words could just as well have been spoken today.
Policing is not broken, as some might have us believe. Last year, the police made over three quarters of a million arrests—5% more than the year before. Some of the most serious crimes are now falling, with knife crime down and murder in the capital at its lowest recorded level. However, across the country things feel very different. Communities are facing an epidemic of everyday crime that all too often seems to go unpunished—and criminals know it. Shop theft has risen by 72% since 2010, and phone theft is up 58%. At the same time, in a rapidly changing world, the nature of crime is changing. Criminals—be they drug smugglers, people traffickers or child sexual abusers—are operating online and across borders, with greater sophistication than ever before.
The world has changed dramatically since policing was last fundamentally reformed over 60 years ago. Policing remains the last great unreformed public service. Today, as this Government publish a new policing White Paper, I set out reforms that are long overdue. They define a new model for policing in this country, with local policing that protects our communities and national policing that protects us all.
Since taking office, we have already restored a focus on neighbourhood policing that the last Conservative Government eroded. They pulled bobbies off the beat, and now over half of the public report that they never see police on patrol in their local area. It was a foolish error, because neighbourhood policing works. Across the world, the evidence shows that visible patrols in high-crime areas work. The last Labour Government put more officers on the streets, and confidence in policing hit record levels. The Tories cut them, and confidence fell.
This Government are righting that wrong, with a target of 13,000 more neighbourhood officers by the end of the Parliament, and we have already put 2,400 back on to the beat. We have also introduced the neighbourhood guarantee, so that every community has a named, contactable officer. I also intend to end the distortive “officer maintenance grant” that was introduced by the last Conservative Government, who had to replace the 20,000 police officers lost on their watch. The results were perverse: uniformed officers hired but stuck behind desks, with 12,000 men and women in uniform now working in support roles, including—absurdly—some 250 warranted officers working in human resources. I intend to end that by introducing a neighbourhood policing ringfence, which will ensure that forces are putting uniformed officers where the public want and need them: out in the community, fighting crime on our streets.
However, we must do more. Today, policing happens in the wrong places. We have local forces responsible for national policing, which distracts them from policing their communities. At the same time, we have forces of various shapes and sizes, and quality varies widely force by force. This Government’s reforms will ensure that we have the right policing happening in the right place. That starts with the creation of a new national police service.
At first, the force will set standards and lift administrative tasks off local forces. In time, it will draw in all national crime-fighting responsibilities, including counter-terrorism policing, serious organised crime, and fraud. This will ensure that local forces are no longer distracted by national responsibilities, while at the same time creating an elite national force that is expert at fighting the ever-more sophisticated criminals who are operating nationwide, across our borders, and online.
Alongside the new national force, we will replace the patchwork of 43 local forces that has remained almost unchanged since the Police Act 1964. That model has been straining for decades, and today it is simply not fit for purpose. Our 43 forces are of varying sizes: some have just 1,000 officers, others over 8,000, and the Metropolitan police is 30 times larger than our smallest forces. As a result, some forces are not equipped to handle complex investigations or respond to major incidents.
Meanwhile, the duplication across force headquarters means that money is wasted, drawing resource away from frontline policing. We will introduce a smaller number of regional forces responsible for specialist investigations, including murder, serious sexual offences and public order. Within these forces, we will introduce smaller local policing areas. These will be focused exclusively on local policing, tackling the burglaries, shoplifting and antisocial behaviour that too often go unpunished today. It is vital that we set these new forces up in the right way, so I will soon launch a review to determine the precise number and nature of the new forces. Its work will be completed this summer. Taken together, these reforms will put the right policing in the right place: an elite national force will tackle nationwide crime; regional forces will conduct specialist investigations; and local policing will tackle the epidemic of everyday crime.
Our structures are outdated, and so is our adoption of the tools and technology that could make our policing more effective and more efficient. Criminals are operating in increasingly sophisticated ways, but in policing, in all honesty, our response is mixed. While some forces surge ahead, with the results to show for it, others are fighting crime in a digital age with analogue methods. We will ensure that every force is adopting the latest technology, led out of the new national police service. This will include the largest-ever roll-out of live facial recognition technologies, across England and Wales. We know that this approach works. In London, in just two years, the Metropolitan police has made 1,700 arrests, taking robbers, domestic abusers and rapists off our streets.
When the future arrives, there are always doubters. A hundred years ago, fingerprinting was decried as curtailing our civil liberties, but today we could not imagine policing without it. I have no doubt that the same will prove true of facial recognition technology in the years to come. At the same time, we will launch police.AI, investing a record £115 million in AI and automation to make policing more effective and efficient, stripping admin away to ensure that officer time can be devoted to the human factor that only a police officer can provide.
Common standards apply both to the technology we use and the quality and performance of our officers. We must, and we will, set and maintain the highest standards. We have already introduced new vetting requirements enabling forces to dismiss those who fail vetting checks, alongside a range of measures to lift policing standards. We will introduce a licence to practice for police officers, recognising the professionalism, dedication and duty that comes with the uniform. We must be willing to set clear standards and the performance that we expect within forces, and to hold policing leaders to account for their delivery. Under the last Conservative Government, there was a retreat from the historical role held by Home Secretaries and the Home Office since the days of Peel. That was an error, and this Government will reverse it.
As the old Peelian maxim has it, the police are the public and the public are the police. I consider it essential that the people, through Parliament, can determine what they expect from their forces, so this Government will restore targets for police forces and set minimum standards that forces must abide by. Force performance will be transparent and public, and where performance falls, we will take action. We will create new turnaround teams to go into a force where performance has fallen, and in the most extreme examples of a failure of leadership, I will restore the Home Secretary’s power to fire a chief constable. This vital power was relinquished by the last Conservative Government, who handed it to police and crime commissioners—a position that I consider a failed experiment, despite the best efforts of many excellent PCCs across the country. We will now draw that experiment to an end. Local accountability and governance will remain essential, however, and will continue to be provided by mayoralties or local crime and policing boards.
Taken together, these are, without question, major reforms: a transformation in the structures of our forces, the standards within them, and the means by which they are held to account by the public. These are the most significant changes to how policing works in this country in around 200 years. The world has changed immeasurably since then, but policing has not. We have excellent and brave police officers across the country, and effective and inspiring leaders across many of our forces, but they are operating within an outdated structure, making the job of policing our streets and protecting our country harder than it should be.
I began by quoting Peel’s declaration that
“the country has outgrown her police institutions”.
He went on to argue that the
“safest course will be found to be the introduction of a new mode of protection.” —[Official Report, 28 February 1828; Vol. 18, c. 795.]
Now, as then, it is time we had the bravery to pursue a new mode of protection and a new model of policing, with the right policing in the right place. That means local forces protecting their communities and national policing that protects us all. That is what this Government will deliver, and I commend this statement to the House.
Mr Speaker
You did run slightly over, by over a minute, so I will give a little bit of leeway to the Opposition Front Benchers. I call the shadow Home Secretary.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement—especially after her busy weekend chairing the national executive committee, which excluded Andy Burnham from returning to Parliament. Anyway, the Home Secretary’s statement—[Interruption.] There seems to be some concern from the Benches behind her on that.
The Home Secretary’s statement is striking for what it does not say, because there was no mention—not one word—of her plans for total police officer numbers. The reason for that is simple: total police officer numbers are falling under this Labour Government, as figures due for release later this week will confirm. The last recruitment intake before the election was in March 2024, and there were 149,769 officers in post—the highest number in this country’s history. By the same time the following year, under Labour officer numbers had fallen by over a thousand, and in the current financial year, numbers are falling even further, with the Met alone saying that it will lose a staggering 1,500 officers this financial year.
On officer numbers, the Government are engaged in a con trick. They are transferring officers away from crime investigation, 999 response and other teams into neighbourhood teams, so they can say neighbourhood numbers are going modestly up. But total police officer numbers are falling, so there will be fewer 999 response and investigation officers, response times will be slower and investigations will not be as effective. The Home Secretary can set targets and make announcements, but the fact is she is presiding over falling total police numbers and the public will be less safe as a result.
The Home Secretary has said that she will change the structure of policing. Briefings over the weekend said the reorganisation will be complete in—I had to double check this—2034, nearly a decade away. But we have a crime crisis today. Shoplifting and phone theft are surging under this Government, with shoplifting now at its highest level ever. Knife crime in London is up by 80% under Mayor Sadiq Khan. Women are being let down, too, with sex crimes up by 9%, rape up by 6%, stalking up by 5% and harassment up by 6% under this Labour Government. That requires action today, not in 2034.
The Home Secretary’s plan includes mandating the merger of police forces. Briefings over the weekend suggest a reduction from 43 down to 10 or 12, so a single police force might cover an area from Dover to Milton Keynes or from Penzance to Swindon. Such huge forces will be remote from the communities they serve, and resources will be drawn away from villages and towns towards large cities. The biggest force in the country is the Met, and yet it has the worst crime clear-up rate of any force; it fails to solve 95% of reported crimes. That goes to show that large scale does not automatically deliver better results, and therefore we will oppose the mandated merger of county forces into remote regional mega-forces.
Police forces are warning that Labour’s early prisoner release scheme means more crime and more demands on policing. Most criminals will now be released after serving just one third of their prison sentence, and even rapists will serve only half of theirs. To make things even worse, Labour plans to abolish prison sentences of under one year, so even the most prolific shoplifters will never face jail. That is a recipe for disaster, cooked up by the Home Secretary in her previous role.
We can agree on some things, because the Home Secretary has copied them from us. I am glad that she is continuing the roll-out of artificial intelligence and live facial recognition started under the previous Government —we fully support that. It is right for Home Secretaries to have greater powers to intervene; we announced that policy at our conference last year, and of course we support it. She now says that she will abolish non-crime hate incidents. We need to see the details, but might she explain why Labour voted against that measure when we tabled it as an amendment just last year?
The simple fact is this: total police officer numbers are falling under this Home Secretary’s watch. As a result, 999 response times and crime investigations will suffer. Shoplifting, phone-snatching and sex offences are all rising under this Government. Regional mega-forces will make things worse, not better. Her grand plans will not even be fully implemented until 2034, but action is needed today. These announcements will not make our streets safer this year or next year, and the public will see that rapidly.
Shabana Mahmood
Dear me! I will take no lectures on policing from the Conservatives. They had 14 years in government and delivered no meaningful change beyond decimating neighbourhood policing, introducing the failed experiment of police and crime commissioners, and sweeping away meaningful targets to hold our police forces to account.
The shadow Home Secretary complains about non-crime hate incidents. Pray tell, who was in government when they were brought in? He talks about the powers of the Home Secretary. Which Government got rid of them? It was the Conservatives—and not once in all their time in opposition since the general election have they had the gumption to apologise from the Dispatch Box for their appalling track record on policing. Conservative policies saw police numbers slashed by 20,000. They very hastily tried to reverse that measure by bringing back another 20,000 officers, but they did so in a distorted way that meant that 12,000 of those warranted police officers were doing desk jobs. I ask him to read the detail of the White Paper and reconsider whether he wants to stand against everything in it. He cannot possibly believe it a good idea for warranted police officers to do desk jobs; he cannot possibly think it fine for 250 of those officers to be in human resources and 200 in admin support. I cannot believe that even he, with all his lack of attention to detail, thinks that that is a good idea.
I urge the shadow Home Secretary and his Back Benchers to reconsider whether they will stand against the policies unveiled in the White Paper. I urge him to look again carefully at regional police forces. He will have looked at the White Paper, so he knows full well that the regional forces will have local police areas that can concentrate on policing local communities right down to the neighbourhood level. The only reason I am bringing in this new model of policing is to protect neighbourhood policing, which was decimated on the Conservative party’s watch. If he wants to stand against local police areas focused on local communities, and against regional forces dedicated to specialist investigation to ensure that rape and murder cases benefit from exactly the same high standards of service across the country, more fool him. Those measures will result in a better policing model for everyone across our country.
The shadow Home Secretary raises the example of the Met. One thing that Louise Casey found in her 2023 report was that the Met’s national responsibility for counter-terrorism policing—it does counter-terror for everyone across the UK—distracts from its policing of London. These reforms will mean that counter-terror policing, and all other national policing requirements, will sit with the National Police Service, so that the Met and every other force in the country can focus on policing their local areas. I cannot believe that he wants to stand against reforms that deliver better local policing, but that appears to be where the Conservatives are at.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the announcement by the Home Secretary. In London, we have long known that neighbourhood policing is vital. Only yesterday I was in Dalston, where there has been a lot of antisocial behaviour, and people have noticed the extra police on the streets. There has, though, been an issue of abstraction in London, where officers often have to backfill blue light officers or police national demonstrations. How will the Home Secretary plan this process to ensure that that does not happen, and that those teams are dedicated to neighbourhoods?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is right to say that too many of our police forces are distracted from being able to police their local communities because they are dealing with national level issues, including national issues relating to public order. All those functions will ultimately sit within the new National Police Service, but in the interim I will appoint a special command to deal with public order policing in particular, to ensure consistency of approach across the country.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
I call Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
After a busy weekend policing Labour leadership rows, the Home Secretary is today in the House to announce reforms to policing. I think we all agree that we hope she is more successful with the latter than she was with the former.
This Government came to power with a pledge to increase police numbers, but instead of 13,000 more neighbourhood police, the latest stats tell us that we have 4,000 fewer frontline police. Numbers are down, and so is public trust. The police are stretched, and too many crimes are going unchecked. After years of Conservative chaos, people are crying out for a visible police presence in their communities. That is why we welcome the Home Secretary’s commitment to focus on restoring proper community policing; we hope that is more than simple words. As well as getting more police on our streets, the Home Secretary must also address the horrifying decline in police counters and stations, which began under the Conservative but sadly continues under Labour in London today. Will she commit to ensuring a police counter in every community that needs one?
Policing must be fit for the modern era. It must be able to tackle organised crime, which too often presents itself in our communities through mobile phone theft, drug dealing, car crime and bike theft. Can the Home Secretary reassure the House that the new national force will be properly resourced and integrated with local forces, so that counter-terrorism and intelligence work are not undermined? As local forces are abolished and merged, we must not see vital links lost to local communities. For example, Gloucestershire police is one of the smallest forces, with urban and rural policing teams. If its leadership is placed under the control of a Bristol-based force, how will people in Cheltenham, Tewkesbury and the Cotswolds be reassured of that local focus?
Is placing the power to hire and fire chief constables in the hands of the Home Secretary the right approach? Does it not further politicise policing, particularly with the prospect of the right hon. and learned Member for Fareham and Waterlooville (Suella Braverman) as a future Home Secretary in a Farage-led coalition of chaos between the Tories and Reform?
Rural communities have long been neglected. Will the Home Secretary commit to placing dedicated rural crime teams in every force?
Finally, the Home Secretary mentioned facial recognition. Will she ensure that proper safeguards are put in place to ensure that the technology is not biased, and that those from ethnic minorities can be reassured that they will not be wrongfully criminalised?
Shabana Mahmood
I thank the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for his support, I believe, for at least some of the reforms, particularly those on neighbourhood policing. He is absolutely right: neighbourhood policing is critical and will be bedrock of the new policing model unveiled in the White Paper. We have already made progress on increasing the number of neighbourhood police officers. There are already 2,400 additional officers, and that number will be 3,000 by the end of March, with at least 1,750 over the next financial year; we will continue to make progress on neighbourhood police officers.
The hon. Member also mentioned police numbers. As is clear in the White Paper and from my statement, what matters is what those officers are doing. I hope that he and his Liberal Democrat colleagues will agree that nobody wants warranted police officers to be sat behind desks working in HR and admin support. We want police officers out policing our communities, going after criminals, and providing the reassurance that only visible policing can provide. He will know that decisions on police counters and other measures are for individual forces, but I hope that he will recognise that we have delivered on our commitment to have a named contactable officer in every neighbourhood, which I believe goes some way to reassuring local communities.
The hon. Gentleman made a good point about counter-terror policing and the National Crime Agency. I assure him and the whole House that those two organisations will only move into the National Police Service when it is fully ready. We will not compromise on the operational capabilities of either of those organisations. I will work closely with the leadership of both to make sure that the switch into the National Police Service only happens in a way that does not compromise the operational effectiveness of either counter-terror policing or the National Crime Agency.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that these reforms are fully funded to the end of the Parliament. He also made a point about regional forces. Again, I urge him to absorb the detail of the White Paper and I look forward to discussing these issues with him in more detail. Within the regional force structures, there will be local policing areas, right down to the neighbourhood level. That will ensure that whether people live in a rural area or in an urban one, like me, they get the local policing that they need and deserve. That is the absolute foundation of all these reforms, so that regional forces can concentrate on the things that can be done at scale, like specialist investigations and public order policing, and local police areas can police right down to the neighbourhood level and deal with the everyday crimes that are blighting communities all over the country, exactly as he says. That will apply equally and just as forcefully for rural communities as it will for those in towns and cities across the country.
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that although I believe that live facial recognition is incredibly important technology, we will ensure that its roll-out is in line with the sort of regulations that we would expect to make sure that it does not have a distorted effect. We are consulting on that right now. In the future, the National Police Service will ensure that the adoption of technologies across policing takes place quickly and in line with the standards that we would all expect.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy (Clapham and Brixton Hill) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s announcement about the deployment of 13,000 more neighbourhood officers. That will be incredibly welcome in my constituency, where we have a serious antisocial behaviour problem. However, residents in my borough of Lambeth overall have a historical issue with levels of trust in the police, largely due to racial profiling. Will the Home Secretary reassure me and my constituents that reforms to policing, including any measures that grant more powers to the police, will seek to address the issues of police mistrust and racial bias in policing?
Shabana Mahmood
Let me reassure my hon. Friend that we will ensure that the roll-out of all policing powers, including the use of technology, is in line with the race action plan, which we support, and that any measures are stress-tested to ensure that they serve all communities equally. It is our position that the police must always police without fear or favour, so that every community can be confident that they are getting the right quality of policing and nobody is being unfairly targeted.
Sir Roger Gale (Herne Bay and Sandwich) (Con)
Kent is one of the largest counties in the country. It faces significant geographic challenges. We have the channel tunnel; Dover, the largest port of entry into the United Kingdom; Manston airport, which is likely to reopen; and, of course, the small matter of illegal migration across the channel. I cannot see how a policing area that I understand will stretch from Banbury in Oxfordshire to Herne Bay on the North sea coast and Sandwich on the channel coast, will be policed effectively and locally, as it currently is. I am, I think, one of the only Members of this House who has held a warrant as a serving police officer—[Interruption.] I did say “one of the only”, not “the only one”. I understand only too well the need for policing to keep pace with the same tools that are used by the criminals, but will the Home Secretary tell the House whether or not this plan has the confidence of the constabulary?
Shabana Mahmood
I thank the right hon. Member for his contribution and for his service, as well as that of other hon. Members who have served in our police service. I reassure him that, as will be clear when I introduce legislation later in the year, the plan for regional forces will include an absolute focus on local police areas. Local policing for local communities will be tailored to many of the needs that he has pointed out, but at a regional level we will have the necessary economies of scale and the capacity to deal with specialist investigations, while ensuring that the quality of those investigations does not depend on which part of the country they happen to be in. When the detail is out, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to support the proposals, given that they will focus carefully on local policing areas specifically in order to deal with some of the issues he has raised.
The exact number of regional forces and the geography that they will span will be a matter for the reviewer—I hope to announce who that will be very soon—with a view to reporting in the summer so that we can crack on with rolling out these reforms.
I have been delighted and a little surprised by the sheer number of policing leaders who have come out in support of these proposals, including those who represent organisations that will see change as a result of the reforms. The sheer range of people who have supported the White Paper shows that these reforms are the right ones for policing in our country.
Jo White (Bassetlaw) (Lab)
I very much welcome these proposals. The NCA is hugely under-resourced, and bringing these elements together will hopefully give it the funding required to do its job properly. The amount of duplication of effort that occurs and the lack of information sharing result in huge inefficiencies. It is struggling with the pace of change in technology, especially because of end-to-end encryption, and it is struggling to hire and retain staff with the technical skills that it requires—people who have those skills are eagerly snapped up by the private sector. It does not have the funding to make the technical investment needed to keep up with the pace of change.
As a result of the structure and separated command and control of the regional organised crime units, the NCA and the Met, they make decisions and prioritise independently and without deconfliction, in the procurement of tools and data, for example. That means that the same technologies can be acquired multiple times to benefit only a single area. Does the Secretary of State agree that this White Paper will tackle those challenges head-on?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is right. The National Police Service will draw in the national responsibilities of both counter-terror policing and the National Crime Agency. Those two organisations collaborate very effectively, and I pay tribute to their leadership and the way in which they operate alongside one another, but they duplicate and build similar capabilities. Instead of having those capabilities built alongside and within two organisations, it makes sense to bring them into one organisation and to prevent that duplication of capabilities and functions. That is one of the main benefits of the reform.
On the sorts of people whom these organisations go after, we know that we are one of the few major countries in the world that does not combine counter-terror policing and serious organised crime. International criminals often cross boundaries and indulge in all sorts of different types of work, including terrorism financing and serious organised crime. The reforms will lead to a very effective service and build on the excellent work already done by officers in counter-terror policing and the NCA.
Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)
The Home Secretary quoted Sir Robert Peel at the top of her speech, saying that he was “speaking at this very Dispatch Box”. She clearly has not realised that those Dispatch Boxes were donated by New Zealand after the second world war. Even if she was talking more figuratively, this whole Chamber was destroyed in 1834 after Peel said those words. The accuracy that she sacrificed for rhetoric continued throughout her speech. Following discussions that I have had with the chief constables of Surrey and Hampshire, who are against these proposals, may I ask a question? If chief constables across the country, such as those in Surrey and Hampshire, are against her proposals when her review concludes, will she scrap the proposals—or is this a review in name only?
Shabana Mahmood
I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s greater knowledge of House of Commons trivia; I am sure that he has been an excellent member of every pub quiz team that he has ever been a part of.
The review will look at how we deliver regional forces, so it will mean a significant reduction in the number of forces. However, it will advise on the correct number of regional forces and how we should go about implementing that policy.
Gerald Jones (Merthyr Tydfil and Aberdare) (Lab)
The Home Secretary’s proposals will allow for a new focus on community policing and engagement, which was proven to work under the last Labour Government. By far the biggest issue that I come across is the lack of feedback to victims of crime. With the proposals that she has announced and with technology improving all the time, will she commit to looking at that to see whether it can be improved for residents and constituents, as well as improving trust and accountability in policing?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I think we could make a lot of progress if we could ensure that the victims’ code was implemented consistently across the country, and I know the Justice Secretary also wishes to make sure there is greater adherence to all the requirements of the code. In the end, policing is a public service; it is there for members of the public, and to give victims of crime confidence that their case will be dealt with fairly and as quickly as possible and that criminals are brought to justice. That is exactly why we are making these reforms.
Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)
As a former police officer, I have watched the roll-out of Police Scotland with some sadness because, despite best efforts, it has not delivered in Scotland what the Home Secretary hopes to achieve with her amalgamations. Communities feel that neighbourhood policing is further away from them, and that they do not have the hoped for visibility and local accountability. I hope that she is taking some lessons from Scotland.
The Home Secretary has also been making points about the number of police officers who are working in desk jobs. She surely recognises that a number of those individuals are working in those areas because they are on light or restricted duties, and we always need to have roles available for those people. We have focused too much on police officer numbers and not enough on the back-office functions and the expertise of police staff. Will this White Paper address the overall resourcing model for policing?
Shabana Mahmood
One of the real issues with the Police Scotland reforms was that they were completed within one year. I have made a deliberate decision to phase in these proposals and measures over a number of years—towards the end of this Parliament and into the next. I make no apology for that proposed timeline, because I believe we must go carefully; these are big changes, and it is important that they are rolled out effectively and in a way that maintains the confidence of the public, as well as all those who work in our police services. I think we have already learned the lessons of what has happened in Scotland. Of course, the other big difference between the measures I have introduced today and what happened with Police Scotland is that we have focused from the outset on neighbourhood policing. That has been the absolute bedrock of all the proposals I have made, which is not quite the same as what happened over in Scotland, although specialist capabilities and specialist investigations have certainly improved.
Turning to desk jobs, the most important thing is that we have warranted police officers who are policing our streets. Of course there is often a need for some officers not to be out; there is a need for support staff as well, and we have to strike the right balance between those who are in frontline policing and those who are doing back-office roles in our police service. We will have a workforce strategy as part of this White Paper, but we need always to keep in mind that we are talking about a police service that delivers for the public, so what we really care about are outcomes and what those officers are doing—how they are policing our streets and providing much-needed reassurance to all of our communities.
Alex Sobel (Leeds Central and Headingley) (Lab/Co-op)
I am really pleased that the Home Secretary is retaining the role of democratically elected metro mayors in the oversight of police forces. My specific question is about police AI. We know that AI training models have bias, particularly around race, so how are we going to ensure that these AI models will not contain that bias? Also, all of the major AI companies are foreign-owned. How are we going to ensure that our national security is protected, and that this data is not taken and used against the United Kingdom by foreign Governments?
Shabana Mahmood
I reassure my hon. Friend that at the moment we have strong measures in place for how data is used in our police service. In future, all of that capability will sit with the National Police Service, which will set the standards. They will be very high standards with a high degree of transparency, so that we are always stress-testing our use of AI and technology to ensure that it is used effectively for policing, but not in a way that contravenes our collective values.
David Davis (Goole and Pocklington) (Con)
To follow on from the previous question, the Home Secretary has strongly supported digital facial ID and artificial intelligence. As her colleague, the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel), has said, both of those technologies show significant error rates, particularly when it comes to racial minorities. Innocent people fear this, particularly after the Post Office scandal, which showed that courts believe computers rather than people, resulting in miscarriages of justice.
I have three questions for the Home Secretary. First, what does she regard an acceptable error rate for these technologies? Secondly, does she support the provision of compensation for people who are misidentified by such technology? Thirdly, she has talked about regulations; will she put all of these reforms on a statutory basis, based on primary legislation that passes through this House?
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. Before I call the Home Secretary, I remind Members that a lot of people are on their feet to ask a question, and I want to finish this statement at around 5.30 pm. Will you answer one of those questions, Home Secretary?
Shabana Mahmood
I think that is me being told to go faster. Let me assure the right hon. Member for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) that we are consulting on the safeguards for the use of AI in technology and live facial recognition. I assure him that I will always make sure that robust safeguards are in place, and I am sure that we will debate these issues in the House many times over the months to come.
Lewis Atkinson (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. My constituents expect the everyday policing response to improve, but they know the value of more specialist public order capabilities, because in August 2024 the brave officers of Northumbria police put on their public order gear to protect our citizens against disgraceful violent conduct in our city centre. Can the Home Secretary say a little more about how she envisages public order responsibilities sitting between the national body that she outlines and regional forces? Can she say a little about the funding streams for that?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend raises an important point. Learning the lessons of what happened in 2024 is why we have already decided to bring in a national command role specifically for public order policing. He raises other issues, particularly on funding. All these reforms are fully funded to the end of the Parliament, but the specific funding streams are a matter for future funding settlements. He will know that we are publishing the funding settlement for the coming financial year on Wednesday.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
I congratulate the Home Secretary on having attracted dozens of her Back Benchers to support her, when the Foreign Affairs Minister responding to the urgent question just before could not find a single one to support him on the dreadful Chagos deal.
Can the Home Secretary tell us a bit more about how the new structure will be governed? I understand the idea about the national police commissioner at the very top, but what sort of executive key people will there be lower down to ensure that relevance is maintained in rural areas, as opposed to the different needs of urban areas?
Shabana Mahmood
The White Paper envisages a whole change to the accountability mechanisms for policing at every level, whether that is for the National Police Service or right down to regional forces and local police areas. The right hon. Gentleman will know that I am bringing back powers to the Home Secretary. We have also published a performance framework today that will bring transparency to how police forces are functioning. A new national commissioner will be in charge of the NPS and all the other structures will sit underneath that. I assure him that at every level there will be a high expectation of high performance and of accountability, both to local policing and crime boards and to the Home Secretary directly.
Matt Bishop (Forest of Dean) (Lab)
As a former police officer of three police forces in this country, I can categorically and honestly say that the many reforms presented in the White Paper are welcomed by my former colleagues and by me. Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats had the chance to bring these reforms forward. They tried many times, and they failed many times to bring them forward. What makes us different from the previous Governments? I put on record my full confidence in the current Home Secretary to get this done once and for all.
Shabana Mahmood
I appreciate my hon. Friend’s support for these proposals and for our ability as a Government to get them done, and I appreciate the support of the other officers of the rank and file with whom I know he is still in touch.. These major reforms will take time to deliver. I have been encouraged by the support received from policing leaders and rank and file police officers all over the country, including from those whose organisations will change and sit within the National Police Service. I say to Opposition Members: if they care about neighbourhood policing and local policing for local communities, these are the reforms for them, and they should support them.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
Over the weekend, the Home Secretary was trailing this proposal as a British FBI. While it might indeed be their FBI, British it most definitely is not, as it applies only to England and Wales. In Scotland, we are immensely proud of our culture and ethos of policing by consent and the fact that we have the lowest crime rates in the whole of the UK. The last thing we want is this creeping Americanisation. Can she say today—clearly and concisely—that this proposal will not apply to Scotland and no attempt will be made to foist it on us?
Shabana Mahmood
I do regret the hon. Gentleman’s inability to move beyond party politics. As he will know—in fact, the Minister for Policing and Crime, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon West (Sarah Jones), has engaged with the Scottish Government today—the National Police Service will be UK-wide, but its powers and remit will vary between England and Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland. In England and Wales it will have full operational powers and will be able to carry out its law enforcement activities, but in Scotland and Northern Ireland it will carry out operations only with the agreement of the legally designated authority, which is the position today.
Rachel Hopkins (Luton South and South Bedfordshire) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Can she confirm that, as she consults on the new police force structures, local accountability, community engagement and place-based policing will remain central to the Government’s approach?
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
It will not take much of a Hansard search for Members to see that many years ago I asked Baroness May, who was then Home Secretary, to do something very similar to this, but the devil will always be in the detail. As you know, Madam Deputy Speaker, West and South Yorkshire are far more densely populated than North Yorkshire, which is now a big chunk of my constituency. May I ask the Home Secretary who will be involved in the consultation on the smaller policing areas, and how much credence those people will be given—because this very much has to come down to local level and local councils—and may I also ask what scrutiny we, as local Members of Parliament, will be able to give that consultation? Ultimately, that is what it will all hinge on.
Shabana Mahmood
I know that the right hon. Gentleman takes a keen interest in these affairs, and I will happily discuss some of the details of these proposals with him. I will announce the appointment of a reviewer in due course, and it will be for the reviewer and the supporting panel to set out how they intend to conduct the review, including the consultation. However, I absolutely take the right hon. Gentleman’s point that these reforms will work if they have the buy-in and if they make sense based on geography. They will reflect that, and I will ensure that when I receive the reviewer’s report, that is the same lens through which I will look at the proposals.
Jonathan Hinder (Pendle and Clitheroe) (Lab)
Policing needs a stronger national centre, modern IT systems that actually work and can talk to each other, and much better mental health support for officers who are exposed to so much trauma. These reforms could deliver that, so I welcome those elements. However, I am sceptical about the licence to practise and the value that it might add, although I approach it with an open mind. Although I believe in having different routes into policing, I am sceptical about direct entry at inspector rank specifically, given that it is such a crucial operational rank—and one that I myself have held. This has, after all, been tried unsuccessfully by the previous Government.
If policing reform is to be a success, it will be down to the implementation on the frontline—that is what really matters to the public—so the voices of those on the frontline must be a key part, and that cannot be possible through the rotten Police Federation, which only today was found to have unlawfully suspended elected officers for speaking up. Will the Home Secretary guarantee that she will take the voices of the frontline into account before making final decisions, and will she meet me to discuss the proposals?
Shabana Mahmood
I will absolutely take into account the views of the rank and file, and I will be happy to meet my hon. Friend. As for the Police Federation, the White Paper makes it clear that we are not happy with the status quo. The Policing Minister has met its representatives directly, and they know that if they do not improve quickly enough, I will not hesitate to bring forward further reforms to ensure that our rank and file police officers are better represented. My hon. Friend also mentioned direct entry. As he will know, Lord Blunkett is currently leading an independent commission on police leadership, and I will look at the proposals that he puts forward. The White Paper signals our interest in this model of direct entry, but, as has been noted, the devil is always in the detail and it is all about how these reforms are implemented. I hope that my hon. Friend and others will continue to keep an open mind as we develop our proposals further.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
The White Paper states, on page 24:
“To build trust and increase accessibility, officers will also maintain a visible presence in local hubs, schools and community spaces”.
May I ask the Home Secretary how that vision marries with the fact that in London, under the Met’s “tough choices” programme, we are about to see the closure of the Twickenham police station front counter? We have already lost our specialist schools team and we have lost our specialist parks police, including those in Bushy Park in my constituency. Does this not show that the Home Secretary can make as many reforms to structures as she likes, but if they are not resourced properly, our constituents will not see the community policing that she is promising?
Shabana Mahmood
What the hon. Lady’s constituents will see is the increase in neighbourhood police officers—we will have 3,000 in place by the end of March—and a named, contactable officer in every neighbourhood. The neighbourhood policing guarantee is the absolute bedrock for ensuring that communities, wherever they are—in London or other parts of the country—always have visible policing in their neighbourhoods.
Mr Alex Barros-Curtis (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement, and I pay tribute to all those who serve to keep us safe. In respect of the impact that this will have on Wales, can she assure me that she will consult all local partners—MPs, police forces, local government and the Welsh Government—in order to determine what local scrutiny of governance looks like in Wales as part of these reforms?
Shabana Mahmood
Let me assure my hon. Friend that the Policing Minister met representatives of the Welsh Government today, and we will continue those conversations. The independent review will take into account existing devolution and local governance arrangements, and I will happily ensure that he and others who are interested in this are kept updated as the review rolls out.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
My constituents are already concerned that Avon and Somerset constabulary is dominated by Bristol and that far too few resources are devoted to Somerset’s smaller towns and villages. How will the Home Secretary ensure that her new, larger regional forces police our rural communities properly?
Shabana Mahmood
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that there will be local policing areas within the new regional forces, with neighbourhood policing as the absolute bedrock of those local policing areas. I would not be bringing forward these reforms if I was not absolutely certain that we are absolutely protecting local policing in the set-up of the new model for policing, so that every area gets the type of policing it needs and deserves.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
Last Friday I held a community meeting with Cumbria’s police, fire and crime commissioner, David Allen. Since his election just 20 months ago, he has been focused on taking those officers who were forced into the back room under the last Government and putting them back on the frontline. Can the Home Secretary please reassure me, and our police, fire and crime commissioner, that the reforms she has outlined today will continue to strengthen frontline policing, particularly in rural areas such as Cumbria?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend makes an incredibly powerful point. I can provide her with that reassurance, and the Policing Minister spoke to her police, fire and crime commissioner today.
Martin Vickers (Brigg and Immingham) (Con)
The Humberside force that polices my Brigg and Immingham constituency covers four local authorities and two separate mayoral authorities. Exactly what proportion of police funding is likely to come from the police precept, and how will it be divided up?
Shabana Mahmood
Those will be matters for the independent reviewer to advise on. They will look not only at the correct number of regional forces for England and Wales, but at the method of rolling out those police forces. I am sure we will be able to discuss those when the review reports in the summer.
Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)
As a former police officer, I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. Under its current chief constable, Greater Manchester police has seen a resurgence and has become a highly performing police force that serves a growing and economically successful city region. That is in part because of a highly effective working partnership between Greater Manchester local authorities and the mayoral combined authority. Can the Home Secretary provide an assurance that the current structure, which is clearly working well, will not be altered?
Shabana Mahmood
It will be for the review to recommend what the new structure of the regional forces should look like, but let me pay tribute to the work of Greater Manchester police and the chief constable in particular. Greater Manchester is a very good example of a large force that is not burdened by significant national services. It is therefore able to concentrate on policing its local communities, and to do so very effectively. [Interruption.] The shadow Home Secretary chunters from a sedentary position, but he could do with learning a few lessons from Greater Manchester.
Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)
In Greater Manchester we love a bit of drama. We have the longest-running soap opera in the world—“Coronation Street”—we have some nail-biting derby matches, and over the weekend there was some pretty high-octane speculation about whether the current person responsible for policing in the city region might be allowed to apply for another job. Where we do not want more drama, though, is in policing our communities. Could the Home Secretary share her thinking about how to preserve what works well in Greater Manchester—where the police force is coterminous with the mayoral authority and the 10 local authorities within it, enabling good, strong partnership working—so that my Hazel Grove constituents get the policing they deserve?
Shabana Mahmood
Let me reassure the hon. Lady that I am very much “No Drama Shabana”. I have already paid fulsome tribute to Greater Manchester police, and I think some excellent work is taking place in that part of the world. I am sure that the reviewer, once appointed, will take into account good examples of local policing within a larger force structure, and I am sure there are many lessons to learn from Manchester.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her action. One local farmer described to me the crime he has been experiencing, with gates cut open, crops damaged, and quad bikes and 4x4s stolen. Because he lives close to the Bedfordshire border, the criminals just flee over the border, and Thames Valley police finds it very difficult to follow that up. Can she say how these reforms will improve the police presence and their response times in rural areas, and in particular how they will solve the problem of police forces not collaborating across borders?
Shabana Mahmood
The absolute bedrock of these reforms is local policing through the local police areas, which will be part of our proposed regional forces, with neighbourhood policing embedded within them. My hon. Friend will know that legislative changes are coming in to deal with some of the issues she raised about quad bikes specifically. The intention of all these reforms is to ensure that whether people live in a rural area or an urban city, as I do, they get an exceptional standard of service at both the neighbourhood level and the regional level, with national policing through the new National Police Service that will keep us all safe.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
We all want to see more effective and efficient policing, but I am not quite sure whether this White Paper will deliver it. Clearly, the devil will be in the detail. The Home Secretary will know that West Mercia police, covering Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, is a high-performing police force. Can she reassure my constituents that she understands the difference between, for example, West Midlands urban policing—she obviously oversees it, but she also lives in that jurisdiction—and the rural and semi-rural policing of forces such as West Mercia police? In my experience, regional counter-terrorism policing works very well in the West Midlands, which oversees that for West Mercia police as well, and so does the National Crime Agency under its excellent leadership.
Finally on the reforms, can I ask the Home Secretary to review the effectiveness and efficiency of the 101 service, and as the Official Secrets Act covers some police officers, but not all, is this not an opportunity to ensure that all police officers are covered by a duty of confidentiality and secrecy?
Shabana Mahmood
I respect the right hon. Gentleman’s views, but it is precisely because I understand the difference, which he raises, between areas such as those he represents and those I represent that I am bringing in this new model for policing. I believe this is the right model to ensure that it does not much matter where people are in the country—whether Shropshire or inner-city Birmingham —because they will always have excellent, high-quality neighbourhood policing, with a local force entirely committed to policing their local area day in, day out, and dealing with all the crimes that we know are tearing at the fabric of our communities; a regional force, which can do the specialist investigations at scale, so that they do not get a different standard of service depending on which part of the country they are in; and a National Police Service that I believe will bring in the NCA and counter-terrorism policing in a way that will make sure we are all kept safe. We are the only major country that does not have those two functionalities together, and I think it is the right change to make.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
To ask a nice short question, with a nice short answer, I call Mohammad Yasin.
Mohammad Yasin (Bedford) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I welcome the Government’s reform agenda in support of our mission for safer streets. In Bedfordshire, Operations Boson and Costello—tackling guns, gangs and organised drugs crime—have driven major arrests and a 15% fall in antisocial behaviour in Bedford town centre, backed by £7.3 million in special grants. Will the Home Secretary commit to maintaining these grants or to integrating them into core police funding to ensure that effective, evidence-based, local crime reduction programmes continue to protect our communities?
Shabana Mahmood
We will say more about specific funding in the coming days, so I will not be tempted to say any more about that now. The White Paper makes it clear that, as we roll out a new structure with regional forces, we will take the opportunity to review the police funding formula.
Sir Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
It must be right to look at this White Paper with an open mind, and I commend the Home Secretary’s willingness to listen. I will make two points for her to consider. First, in Royal Sutton Coldfield we are most concerned that neighbourhood policing—community policing—should be accountable, dependable, reliable and accessible. We know that all policing is, above all, local. Secondly, will she bear in mind that strong leadership is the key to policing? We need to find ways of bringing in fresh blood at senior levels. Will she make it easier for that to happen? In particular, there should be a way of encouraging senior officers in the armed forces to look at transferring to senior positions within the police.
Shabana Mahmood
The right hon. Gentleman is a Birmingham neighbour of mine; I always take what he has to say seriously. I agree with him on everything he said about neighbourhood policing and its responsiveness to the local communities that it serves. The Blunkett review will shortly report. It has been looking at leadership in policing, and I am sure that those recommendations will touch on some of the issues that the right hon. Gentleman raised.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
The litany of failures under the Conservatives of Staffordshire police is too long to mention in the short time that I have for this question. The Home Secretary mentioned local accountability being done through mayors and police and crime boards. Where we will have mayors in areas smaller than those of the likely police forces, can she say more about how she anticipates that accountability working? Can she also say what accountability there will be for local policing areas? In Stoke-on-Trent, we have a really good police service that works well with local partners, but that accountability could be lost if it is moved to big, regional figureheads.
Shabana Mahmood
Let me assure my hon. Friend that accountability at both national and local level is critical to these reforms. Once the review has reported on what the shape of those new regional forces should be, we will be able to say more on the exact relationship between areas where there is a crossover of mayoralties, as well as for local policing and crime boards. It is absolutely the intention that, at every level, there will be obvious accountability for local responsiveness and performance. That goes right up to the national level, where the Home Secretary will have new powers going forward.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—specifically, my role as the co-chair of the Justice Unions Parliamentary Group.
The White Paper recognises that changes to policing governance and crime prevention in Wales will have to reflect the existence of more than a quarter of a century of devolution. Meanwhile, three independent commissions have recommended that justice and policing be devolved to Wales. Considering that around 56% of our police funding in Wales already comes from devolved sources, does the Home Secretary not agree that this package of radical changes is exactly the right time for the devolution of policing to Wales?
Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)
I warmly welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. I would like to highlight two Government initiatives—Clear, Hold, Build and Operation Machinize—with our hard-working police force that are making a real difference in Ipswich. I can see parallels with some of the proposals that the Home Secretary has laid out for local policing. Although we received a welcome multimillion pound uplift in police funding, we have been majorly short-changed over the years, as one of the worst funded local authorities for more than a decade. Can the Home Secretary assure me that these changes will result in extra resources that we desperately need to continue the good progress that we have made in Ipswich and Suffolk?
Shabana Mahmood
We will say more about the funding settlement for the coming year in just a few days’ time, but my hon. Friend will know—and I hope he will welcome —that every force, wherever they are in the country, will see a real-terms increase in funding. We propose to deal with the wider questions about the police funding formula once we have the review and we know what the recommendations are for regional forces going forward. That will be the appropriate time to review the police funding formula, which we will do.
Steve Darling (Torbay) (LD)
The basic command unit that includes Torbay does not have services such as firearms officers or roads officers. Will the Home Secretary give clear guidance that all basic command units should include such disciplines?
Shabana Mahmood
Going forward, in the new model, it will be obvious where those disciplines sit, whether that is in the National Police Service or within regional forces, right down to the neighbourhood level. The intention of the new model is to ensure that, wherever someone is in the country, they get an excellent quality of service, including all the capabilities that are needed to keep our communities safe.
Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)
I welcome the statement and the improvements to policing that I am already seeing in Exeter thanks to a 13% increase in funding, with 171 officers newly on the streets across Devon and Cornwall. As the Secretary of State consults on police force structures, can she confirm that strong local policing and operational leadership will remain core to the service and that we remain committed to improving standards—important across Devon and Cornwall—both of which are key to public confidence in policing?
Shabana Mahmood
I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. Responsibility for high standards across the whole service will in future sit with the National Police Service, but in the meantime I am working closely with police leaders everywhere to ensure our standards are as strong as they can be, so that no matter where you are in the country, you get the quality of service that you deserve.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
On this Government’s watch, in the west midlands we now face a £41 million black hole, which we are told will lead to a reduction in policing numbers. Under these new reforms, how will the Home Secretary ensure we see a net increase in the west midlands, particularly in my constituency?
Shabana Mahmood
Under this Government, we have increased funding to forces by close to £2 billion since being elected, and the funding settlement for 2026-27 is an increase of £796 million based on the year before. It is this Government who are funding police.
Harpreet Uppal (Huddersfield) (Lab)
I welcome in particular the commitment to visible and neighbourhood policing. Many towns across the country continue to face challenges with organised crime and county lines networks. How will the reforms help to tackle that systematically? May I ask the Home Secretary about the future role of violence reduction units, which are really important in providing new focused prevention work?
Shabana Mahmood
I will say more about specific funding decisions in the coming days, but let me reassure my hon. Friend that we absolutely recognise the role that violence reduction units play in dealing with knife crime in particular. Let me also reassure her that local police areas within regional forces will ensure that every community, wherever it is, gets the high standard of service that everyone deserves.
Sarah Bool (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
My concern is about the regional and local levels. In South Northamptonshire, my villages already really struggle to get attention because it always goes to Northampton, Kettering and Corby. The regional system may make that worse, so how will the local areas actually work in practice? If they stick to existing sizes, I will have 96 parishes who still will not get attention, unless we exclude the major towns. Has the Home Secretary given thought to that?
Shabana Mahmood
It is precisely because I have given thought to the problems the hon. Lady raises that I brought the reforms forward in the first place. Within our regional forces we will have local police areas, which will be very clear when I bring forward legislation to this House, with the specific remit of policing their local communities.
Tristan Osborne (Chatham and Aylesford) (Lab)
The recent National Audit Office report into police productivity highlights inconsistency in the operational and financial resilience of police forces, which suffered after the criminal inaction of the Conservative party. Will the Home Secretary set out how the National Police Service will enhance collaboration, while maintaining neighbourhood policing, including in my Kent villages and communities?
Shabana Mahmood
The National Police Service will take over many of the administrative functions that are currently done 43 different ways by chief constables across the country, including lifting the burden of procurement. That will now be done once through the National Police Service, saving time, preventing duplication and increasing the effectiveness of policing. Taken together, the reforms meet the challenges set out not just in that NAO report, but, I am sure, in many reports over the years. This new model of policing will deliver for local people, wherever they are, with a national service that can make sure we wipe out duplication and make the savings we need so that we can reinvest them in the frontline.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
Will the Home Secretary give us some clarity on the bespoke legal framework on police AI, please? Will its scope be commendably narrow, getting police use of facial recognition under control while clearly outlawing other uses, which would match the EU’s AI Act, or will it be too narrow, leaving other public authorities, such as potentially the Border Force, local authorities and the private sector, in the ungoverned wild west of uses that we see now?
Shabana Mahmood
We are very much focused just on policing and we are consulting on those matters as we speak.
Dave Robertson (Lichfield) (Lab)
In my part of the world, people who get in touch with me about crime raise four major issues: car crime, county lines, antisocial behaviour and retail crime. The first two are often caused by criminal networks that extend beyond Staffordshire, and into the west midlands and further beyond. Will the Home Secretary confirm that the reforms are aimed at ensuring there is a regional response to those cross-border crimes, allowing local police to focus on antisocial behaviour and retail crime?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is 100% right—that is exactly the intention of the reforms, and it is how we will ensure that we have a new model for policing that can serve every community and deal effectively with every type of crime.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
There are a lot of things to welcome in this statement, but police licence to practise is probably not one of them. I say this because other trades and professions that have licencing, annual appraisal, or periodic revalidation have found that it simply becomes a time-sapping industry. I am sure that is not the Home Secretary’s plan for the police, particularly since my constituents want our police to be on the frontline and dealing with online fraud, not ticking boxes.
Shabana Mahmood
Let me assure the right hon. Gentleman that we will work closely with the police as we develop the new licence to practise. We will obviously want to strike the right balance between ensuring that our officers are up to date on training and investing in their skills, but not creating a bureaucracy that then gets in the way. At the moment, we already have quite a bureaucracy when it comes to training. It is right that we move forward to a more professional model by having this licence, but we will consult and work with policing as we roll it out.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
Those responsible for organised crime, fraud and terrorism do not operate within the boundaries of local police forces, so I welcome a joined-up, national approach to those types of crime. However, residents in Derby also want more visible policing in our city centre and local communities, and that is what we have been working to deliver. Can the Home Secretary tell us more about how the reforms will empower local forces to respond more effectively to everyday crime and antisocial behaviour?
Shabana Mahmood
Dealing with everyday crime and antisocial behaviour is the reason for the reforms. The new regional forces will undertake specialist investigations, ensuring that we have the same standards of service all over the country. Within them, from local police areas, right down to policing at the neighbourhood level, we will ensure we can deal with exactly the types of crime that my hon. Friend raised, which we know are rising in number. It is critical that we deal with them, and that is the absolute bedrock of our neighbourhood policing pledge, where we are ensuring that every neighbourhood in every community is policed properly, effectively, and in a way that reassures the public.
Greg Smith (Mid Buckinghamshire) (Con)
Thames Valley is already a large police force, where our superb police officers and staff struggle to balance resources effectively, even with local command units now across rural areas like my own and the bigger cities, such as Oxford and Milton Keynes. Given that it is such a large force—and that right now it finds itself with a budget settlement £9 million lower than expected—and given the commitment from the Home Office only to fund 40% of new recruits, what confidence can we have that the Government will adequately fund bigger forces?
Shabana Mahmood
The reforms in the White Paper are fully funded. Let me reassure the hon. Member that every force in the country will see a real-terms increase in its funding in the new police settlement. The hon. Member raises the challenges seen by Thames Valley police and across the country, but the reason we are rolling out this model of policing is to have a better balance between neighbourhood policing, local police areas, regional forces and the new National Police Service.
Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, which I hope will deliver a more joined-up approach to tackling some of the most serious crimes. However, we know that the police still have significant work to do in rebuilding public trust. Will the Home Secretary outline how the reforms will help raise standards, increase numbers and strengthen public confidence in our police?
Shabana Mahmood
I reassure my hon. Friend that we have already made changes on vetting, learning lessons from some of the cases where things have gone wrong. It is our expectation that the police will provide a very high standard of service, and we will invest in staff to ensure that they deliver the standards expected by all our communities, building public trust not costing public confidence in policing. It is absolutely the intention of the reforms to ensure that we have a police service that we can all be proud of.
Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)
I am concerned that a merger of Surrey police with neighbouring forces will divert resources away from communities in Surrey. On a busy Saturday night, Reigate will inevitably lose out to Reading. What reassurance can the Secretary of State provide to my constituents?
Shabana Mahmood
I do not accept that areas will miss out under the new model of policing, because ensuring that we have a model that can deliver for every type of community and deal with every type of crime is exactly the point of the reforms.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
I welcome this statement. In Bracknell Forest, our neighbourhood policing teams have been listening to residents’ concerns over e-bikes and off-road bikes, and have taken targeted action to clamp down on this kind of antisocial behaviour, although it is not perfect and there is still more to do. Does the Home Secretary agree that neighbourhood-level policing, driven by community concerns, should be the new model of policing?
Shabana Mahmood
I 100% agree with my hon. Friend. I welcome the good work that has already taken place in his area, although I know there is more to do. The changes that we are bringing in will improve our ability to meet the challenges faced by his community and communities across the country.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I welcome the commitment to police funding reform. Dorset is the second worst funded police force in the country and has a much higher proportion of local funding, with 50% funded by the precept. Dorset MPs and the police and crime commissioner wrote to the Home Secretary in November, and we want to push for a reply. What assurances can we be given that seasonality will be factored into the new funding formula?
Shabana Mahmood
I will ensure that the hon. Lady gets an answer to the letter she sent along with colleagues. Once we have completed the review into the new shape of regional forces, we will announce plans on the review of the police funding formula.
Yuan Yang (Earley and Woodley) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for the Government’s focus on funding for neighbourhood police patrols, which has enabled Thames Valley police to form a new anti-shoplifting unit in Reading. Retail crime is still far too frequent and blatant in our shops. Will the Secretary of State or her Ministers come to visit the newly opened Reading police station in my constituency and meet our local shop staff and police officers to help them to tackle the scourge of shoplifting?
Shabana Mahmood
Just a few days ago, I was out meeting neighbourhood police officers who deal with retail crime in Lambeth; I am sure that either the Minister for Policing or I will avail ourselves of a visit to Reading as well.
Robin Swann (South Antrim) (UUP)
The Police Service of Northern Ireland is currently excluded from the counter-terrorism policing grant of about £1 billion a year, which is accessible to GB forces. Now that counter-terrorism is being looked after by the National Police Service, will the Police Service of Northern Ireland be able to access some of that funding?
Shabana Mahmood
Again, the Policing Minister met representatives from the Northern Ireland Government. The legal basis for how counter-terror policing works will not change under the new National Police Service, but I will look at what the hon. Gentleman says about funding specifically.
Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)
Communities in Kent are pleased to see that funding for police next year will be 20% higher than in the final year of the previous Government, with a target for 43 new neighbourhood police officers across the county to police our streets and rebuild community policing after years of neglect. Does the Home Secretary agree it is crucial that the White Paper rebuilds trust between communities and police not just in Kent but across the country, so that the public can have confidence that a police person will be there when they need them?
Shabana Mahmood
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a powerful point: in the end, policing is a public service. It is essential that we maintain public confidence in our policing and that we are also sure that the standard of service we get from our police is the same no matter where we are in the country.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
I have raised in the House a number of times the police allocation formula and how it impacts Cambridgeshire, which is the fourth worst funded force in the country. Could the Home Secretary outline how the formula will be changed to reflect the division of tasks between the National Police Service and regional forces? I heard what she said about rural crime and neighbourhood policing. The rural crime action team in Cambridgeshire, although incredibly under-resourced, is very effective. This seems like a fantastic opportunity to try to restructure rural crime action teams to tackle hare coursing and machinery theft, rather than neighbourhood policing in rural areas. Lastly, on pay, local police officers have raised concerns with me around things like the application of overtime and the adjustment bank, and of course the south-east allowance for forces in Cambridgeshire.
Shabana Mahmood
Once the review’s work on recommendations for the number of new regional forces has completed in the summer, I will set out further proposals on how the police funding formula needs to be reviewed and updated to reflect the changes in the new model of policing. I can reassure the hon. Gentleman on that point, and I am sure we will debate these issues many times in the House over the coming months and years. On rural crime and overtime, I can offer him a meeting with the Policing Minister to go through the detail of those issues.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
I offer a cautious welcome to the proposals. Reorganisations and mergers are only effective if they create a more efficient system that reinvests savings into the frontline. Under the Tories, Hartlepool saw cuts to the frontline, including to our custody suite. Does the Home Secretary agree that the proposals will only be successful if such cuts are reversed?
Shabana Mahmood
I can reassure my hon. Friend that the only reason I am bringing forward these proposals is to improve our police service across every part of the country, with neighbourhood policing as the absolute bedrock. We will have local police areas, regional police forces and a National Police Service, so that we can deal with every type of community and every type of crime effectively in this country. We want confidence in our policing to be high no matter where people live. My hon. Friend cautiously welcomed the proposals, but I hope that he will consider the detail and support their delivery over the months and years to come.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
Reducing the number of police forces to 12 mega-forces risks rural forces once more being neglected and under-resourced. Since 2023, the cost of rural crime has tripled year on year, while Avon and Somerset’s rural crime team is vastly under-resourced, leaving communities throughout Glastonbury and Somerton feeling frustrated and vulnerable at a time when organised crime in Somerset is surging. Will the Home Secretary commit to a countryside copper guarantee and install a dedicated rural crime team in every force to ensure that all rural crimes are treated with the seriousness that they deserve?
Shabana Mahmood
I think we have done better than that with our neighbourhood policing pledge. Every area will get neighbourhood police officers, and that includes having a named, contactable officer in every neighbourhood in the country. That means that whether someone lives in a rural or urban area, they will get the same standard of service. I would hope that the hon. Lady would welcome that.
The hon. Lady gives the number of 12 for the regional forces. She will know that there will be a review—I will announce an independent reviewer in due course—which will report in the summer on what the correct number of regional forces should be. I ask that she waits until the review recommends the number of forces, and I look forward to discussing these matters with her then.
David Pinto-Duschinsky (Hendon) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement. I know from my time working at the Home Office that, for some time now, the structure of policing has not been fit for the future. The threat that crime poses has evolved; our police must do so too. The Home Secretary’s reforms will help to deal with the most sophisticated crimes, but could she explain to my constituents how they will be a win for tackling local crime and support operations like “clear, hold, build” in Colindale, which has massively reduced crime in that area?
Shabana Mahmood
The new model for policing will ensure that wherever people live in the country, whatever community they are part of, they will have a high standard of service. The new model will ensure in future the police are capable of dealing with every type of crime, whether that is going after terrorists and serious and organised crime through the National Police Service; dealing with specialist investigations to bring murderers, rapists and other serious offenders to justice; or dealing with the local issues that my hon. Friend raised through local police areas.
Calum Miller (Bicester and Woodstock) (LD)
I would like to invite the Home Secretary to talk rubbish with me for a moment. Organised waste crime has been described by the former chief executive of the Environment Agency as “the new narcotics”. A recent BBC investigation found that there are more than 500 illegal waste sites operating across the UK, including super-sites like that next to the River Cherwell in my constituency. Rural communities bear the brunt of this crime, yet the Environment Agency’s joint waste crime unit cannot cope with the scale of this criminality. Given that this is serious and organised crime, will the Secretary of State ask the new National Police Service to take responsibility for tackling major waste crime and organised illegal dumping?
Shabana Mahmood
As a Birmingham MP, I can very much relate to the hon. Member’s concerns about waste, fly-tipping and the possible involvement of organised crime. To the extent that it involves serious and organised crime, some of that will of course fall within the remit of the National Police Service going forward. These are important issues, and I would be happy to arrange for either myself or the Policing Minister to meet the hon. Gentleman.
Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
I particularly welcome the measures to ensure that warranted police officers go where we need them: on to our streets and into our communities. Can I draw particular attention to the intention to scrap the failed police uplift model—a policy that is about as Boris Johnson as it gets? Although it did recruit officers, they often ended up sat behind desks performing roles more suited to experienced police staff. Does the Home Secretary agree that scrapping police uplift will ensure that officers are more likely to be out fighting crime than sat behind desks?
Shabana Mahmood
Numbers matter, of course, but what matters more is what those officers are doing, and that is exactly what these reforms are about.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
One resident from Uplyme on the border of Dorset and Devon wrote to me about a burglary that she had experienced. She reported it to Dorset police, who told her that it was for the police in Devon to pick up and that her case would be passed on to Devon, but days later she had heard nothing more. Can the Home Secretary assure us that the mergers she has described today will mean that cases, and indeed residents, will no longer be bounced between neighbouring police forces?
Shabana Mahmood
Yes. The point of the new model for policing is to make sure that victims of crime get a good standard of service for whatever type of crime they have been victims of, no matter where they are in the country.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement and welcome the reforms that she has set out. I was pleased to see a mention of direct entry—although, as I say that, I realise that my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) might never pass to me in football again. Can she set out in more detail how this might look in a modern police force like Harlow’s?
Shabana Mahmood
The White Paper signals our interest in the direct entry model for increasing the range of people working within our police service. Lord Blunkett will be reporting shortly on his review of policing leadership, and I am sure that those recommendations will deal with many of the issues that my hon. Friend has raised. I look forward to receiving them and implementing them in due course.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
The Home Secretary has been reasonably clear today that the National Police Service would be UK-wide, dealing with counter-terrorism, organised crime and fraud, but she then said that there could be an opt-out—or maybe it is an opt-in—in respect of regions like Northern Ireland. Will she explain that? Who would exercise that opt-out? Would it be the Police Service of Northern Ireland? Would it be the Northern Ireland Executive? Where would that leave us in respect of the National Crime Agency, which is ultimately to be absorbed into this National Police Service? Could it continue to exist in Northern Ireland if there was not the opt-in, which would be essential?
Shabana Mahmood
The Policing Minister has met representatives of the Northern Ireland Government today, and I will happily meet the hon. and learned Gentleman and other hon. Members from Northern Ireland to make our proposals clear. The remit of the National Police Service will be UK-wide, but its powers and the remit specifically between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland will vary depending on the arrangements that we already have in place. I will happily discuss this with him in detail.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and I very much welcome the UK-wide National Police Service. The papers over the weekend referred to a “British FBI”, and I am reminded that national and international crime gangs are involved in terrorism, drug smuggling, people trafficking and child sexual abuse. They traverse all the regional borders of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and in Northern Ireland we also have the border with the Republic of Ireland. Can the Secretary of State please confirm that Northern Ireland will be fully included in that police force and that it will not be an England and Wales-only force, as that would in no way increase domestic security?
Shabana Mahmood
In Scotland and Northern Ireland, the National Police Service will be able to carry out operations only with the agreement of the legally designated authority. That reflects the current arrangements for serious and organised crime and counter-terror policing in both Scotland and Northern Ireland. I will be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman on any other points of detail.
Armed Forces Bill
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
It is a rare privilege to open this debate. This is only the second ever Labour Armed Forces Bill, yet the provenance of this legislation reaches all the way back to the Bill of Rights, and more than three centuries on, granting authority to maintain our armed forces remains one of the most important—if not the most important—formal constitutional responsibilities of Members of this House.
This is a substantial Bill—a reflection of just how much the world has changed over the past five years. It is more dangerous and much less certain, and this new era of threat demands a new era for defence. That is why our Government have committed an extra £5 billion to defence spending this year and committed to the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the end of the cold war, switching funding directly from overseas aid. It is why we are proposing, through this Bill, to increase our warfighting readiness and homeland security, and why we are putting the men and women in our armed forces at the heart of defence plans.
In the coming years, we will ask more of our service personnel, and it is only right that they expect more of their Government. The Bill takes significant steps to improve service life and strengthen the bond between society and our forces. At the general election, we pledged to renew the nation’s contract with those who serve, and I am proud to say that we are delivering on that promise: the largest pay increase for our armed forces in more than two decades, expanded wraparound childcare support, an independent Armed Forces Commissioner and a funded plan for a safe, decent home for every forces family. Through this legislation, we continue the work of renewing that commitment, with better housing, better services and better protections for those who serve.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that we have a good turnout in the House tonight to debate the Armed Forces Bill, which affects the quality of life and the service of the brave people who keep us safe? Yet again when we debate this vital subject, not a single Reform Member of Parliament is in the Chamber. Is it not wrong that these people wrap themselves in the flag, but never come along to defend the people who actually protect that flag?
John Healey
There is a general support for the right hon. Gentleman’s comments on both sides of the House. This Armed Forces Bill, as I will go on to say, commands all-party support, and it is a shame that we have not got all parties in this House to demonstrate that.
The bond between the British people and those sworn to defend them is a proud part of our nation’s security. The purpose of the armed forces covenant is to strengthen that bond. The policy and principles underpinning the covenant were first set out in a Command Paper in 2008 under the last Labour Government, and to this day—this relates to the right hon. Gentleman’s point—the covenant maintains strong cross-party support across this House and across the UK.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
I, too, welcome the armed forces covenant and the legal duty that it will place on devolved nations. Of course, while Wales has 5% of the population, we contribute 7% to Army strength. Could the Secretary of State tell me, therefore, whether any extra new money will be coming to Wales to support the covenant, particularly in the NHS, which is of course so beneficial to veterans?
John Healey
I welcome the leader of Plaid in this House welcoming the Bill and her support for the forces. She is right that the record of the Welsh nation in supporting our armed forces and recruiting some of the best of our armed forces is long and proud. She also knows that the Barnett formula has already delivered a record increase in NHS spending in Wales, and I will go on to speak about the role of the devolved nations in the implementation of the covenant.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
Just on devolved issues, will the Secretary of State explain why the armed forces covenant is being extended to local authorities everywhere except Northern Ireland? Why are the councils in Northern Ireland not also included in the Bill? Why are they excluded?
John Healey
Just as the Armed Forces Act 2001 required a degree of discussion, agreement and devolution to the devolved Governments, including in Northern Ireland, so too will this Bill. Our officials are in deep discussion with Northern Ireland Office officials. The Minister for the Armed Forces has written to Ministers in the devolved Administrations, and I am confident that, following the passage of the Bill, we will have arrangements in place allowing the proud armed forces covenant to be fully implemented in legislation at every level of government: the UK national Government, devolved Governments and local authorities across the UK.
Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Further to the previous intervention, the covenant is predicated on veterans not being disadvantaged by their service, as the Secretary of State will know. However, Northern Ireland veterans will be subject to records that do not apply to civilian terrorists. Will he confirm that there will be no disadvantage to Northern Ireland veterans, and that the covenant will apply to them as originally intended?
John Healey
The right hon. Gentleman knows that he is speaking about the legislative provisions of a different Bill that is before the House. We will deal with that and strengthen protections for veterans. Successive Governments have failed because it has been too difficult, but, with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland leading the way, we will finally have a settlement that allows the full implementation of the Good Friday agreement.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State will know that one job I did before coming to this place was to work at a homelessness charity. It was particularly difficult to see homeless veterans coming to me in need of support. In my constituency, we have nearly 2,000 veterans. Will he outline what additional support the Government will give to home our veterans, and how we will support them with mental health issues, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder?
John Healey
My hon. Friend is right. The short answer is that there is record funding to support the mental health and wellbeing of veterans; there are record levels of support for veterans’ groups, with a new wave of Valour centres shortly to be announced by the Minister for Veterans and People; and there is, of course, a commitment to ensure that no veteran loses out on their right to social housing because of the local connection test, which was in place until this Government removed it after the election.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May I take the Secretary of State back to the earlier exchange about Northern Ireland veterans? I have some good news and some bad news for him. The good news is that I strongly suspect that, at the end of all the raked-up trials held against Northern Ireland veterans, none will be convicted. The bad news is that that is not the purpose of doing all this; the purpose is to put them through a nightmarish ordeal that allows republican terrorists to rewrite history. He should not be quite so satisfied with the state of the Government’s legislation regarding Northern Ireland veterans. It is a disgrace, and it is tearing up something that was working and that could have worked, according to four professors of law who gave testimony to a previous Defence Committee.
John Healey
I know about the right hon. Gentleman’s good news and bad news. We will return to that discussion when we return to Committee stage of the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. When we do so, we will have in place strengthened protections for veterans, and that will be a result of the detailed discussions that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces, military leaders, the Prime Minister and I have had in recent weeks with representatives of the forces and special forces, and with former military chiefs, who have a point of view on this—
Mr Francois
The Secretary of State mentions such a wide spread, but when we debated the remedial order last Wednesday, over 100 Labour MPs abstained, including the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary, the Armed Forces Minister and two thirds of the Cabinet. If it is such a good idea, why did the Secretary of State not come here and vote for it?
John Healey
Quite honestly, I was unable to be in the House at the time. That is an important piece of legislation because it paves the way for the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill. It removes the immunity that the right hon. Gentleman’s Government tried to put in place for terrorists. They removed the right of 200 families whose loved ones were killed by terrorists in the troubles to get the same access to truth, information and a degree of justice. Now, if the House will permit me, I will return to the Armed Forces Bill, which is the legislation before us this afternoon.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on doing so much to bring housing back under control and to upgrade it, as well as on the roll-out of Valour centres—the Links charity in Llanelli has put in an excellent application. I also welcome the fact that the Bill will strengthen the armed forces covenant by ensuring that it covers all public services. There is good will across the country, in devolved Governments and in councils, but how will we ensure that, right across all public services, including those that are devolved in Wales, the covenant actually delivers for veterans? We want them to have the very best of services in all circumstances.
John Healey
My hon. Friend is entirely right. We will do that in two ways. First, we are already doing it in discussions with other Departments and with the devolved Administrations, as well as by working with councils where we can. Secondly, we will do it by issuing guidance and sharing best practice, and we will encourage the development of the rest to meet the very best, so that we reduce the degree of postcode lottery and patchwork support for veterans across the UK.
John Healey
I will give way first to my hon. Friend and then to the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann), and then I will move on.
Gareth Thomas
My right hon. Friend is making an extremely good speech. He will recognise that one way in which we have the backs of current military personnel, as well as of veterans, is by offering, through the Joining Forces partnership, access to a credit union for military personnel. Will he assure me that nothing in the Bill will prevent the further promotion of the benefits of credit union membership to even more military personnel, and will he or a Minister meet me to explore how we might promote the Joining Forces partnership even further?
John Healey
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who has been a ceaseless campaigner for co-operative and credit union provision throughout his career in this House. I will certainly ensure that he meets the Minister for the Armed Forces, who is in charge of the Bill. If my hon. Friend permits me, I will take this as an early indication of his interest in serving on the Bill Committee, where he could press his arguments on the value of credit unions to members of the armed forces and veterans.
Robin Swann
The Secretary of State talks about a patchwork quilt and a postcode lottery. Operation Restore supports military veterans with their physical and mental health, but Northern Ireland-resident veterans do not have the same access in devolved institutions—the likes of the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt orthopaedic hospital. Will the legislation enable Northern Ireland-resident veterans to access the services that are accessible to English veterans?
John Healey
As the hon. Gentleman knows, a large number of the services on which our forces veterans depend come under the jurisdiction of the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Northern Ireland Government and the councils in that area. They have a strong and doughty champion in the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner, with whom the hon. Gentleman works closely. I encourage him to make his arguments not just in the House, but back in Northern Ireland with exactly the bodies that have responsibility for the provision of services that matter so much to veterans.
To come back to the question of cross-party support, not just in the House but across the UK, 14,000 companies and other organisations are signatories to the covenant, and almost every council in every part of the UK has an armed forces champion to promote the interests and the adoption of the covenant. In opposition, we supported the previous Government when they brought the covenant partly into law through the 2001 Act. With this Bill, we complete the job. We are extending the armed forces covenant across central Government, devolved Governments and at local level, fulfilling a promise that we made in our manifesto. It means that social care, employment support and other public services will be legally required to consider the unique circumstances faced by forces personnel and their families and by veterans.
The Government have ensured that NHS England now operates a single point of contact via integrated care boards. The service pupil premium supports 76,000 pupils, and the local connection test has been removed so that no veteran can be disqualified from social housing in their local area because they have been living elsewhere in the armed forces. But we know that the covenant can do more, and with this Bill it will do more.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
I am pleased to hear the Secretary of State’s comments about social care, but an awful lot of care in this country is provided by family carers, who can often be serving personnel or the children of serving personnel. Does he consider that the Bill as currently drafted does everything possible to support unpaid carers who face a greater postcode lottery as they move round the country as a result of their service?
John Healey
The Bill should ensure that if forces families are in such a situation as unpaid carers there is no penalty or disqualification for having an armed forces connection and experience. When they are looking for support from local services, those services will in future have to take into account the unique experience and circumstances that those families and individuals face.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State refers to the local connection test. Will he acknowledge that the removal of that test was initiated by the previous Government? That is not the impression he gave in his initial remarks, although it is certainly the case. Secondly, is it his intention to allocate service housing going forward on the basis primarily of rank or primarily on need?
John Healey
On the local connection test, as with a lot of things, the previous Government talked a lot but we have got on and done a lot of those things, and the Bill takes that intent and determination several steps further.
Let me move on to housing, because behind many of the men and women who serve our country are husbands, wives, partners and children, who support them in their service, and who bear the weight of their absence during deployments. For those families, the nation has a moral duty to provide safe and decent housing. As recent Governments failed, satisfaction with military family homes fell in 2023 to its lowest level on record. I, and many other Members of the House have seen why: damp, mould, broken boilers, ill-fitting doors and windows, even a hole in the wall of a children’s bedroom. None of us would tolerate our families living in such conditions, and neither should those in our armed forces. It is a betrayal of service, and the crisis in defence housing tracks back directly to perhaps one of the worst ever privatisation deals.
Under the terms of the Annington sale in 1996, the taxpayer picked up all costs for maintenance, repairs and rent, but all the benefits of development opportunities or increases in property value were surrendered to a private equity fund. When I was appointed Defence Secretary 18 months ago, that deal was costing the taxpayer over £600,000 a day. Just six months after the election, our Government reversed that, bringing more than 36,000 military family homes back into public ownership so that we can now plan and invest in the future. Twelve months after the election, we delivered our consumer charter, guaranteeing what should never have been in question: higher move-in standards, quicker repairs, a named housing officer for every family, and renovations of the very worst homes, 1,000 of which were completed ahead of schedule before Christmas. Our charter also tore up rules that should never have been written, so that forces families now have freedom to decorate their own homes, and keep pets without seeking permission.
In November we published our defence housing strategy, and our plan for the wholesale renewal of service family estate, backed by a landmark 10-year investment programme, totalling over £9 billion. All told, nine in 10 of all forces family homes will be upgraded, renewed or rebuilt. Less than three months after the defence housing strategy was published, the Bill delivers a central recommendation of that strategy: the creation of a specialist arm’s length organisation, the Defence Housing Service. With the plan, the investment and now the Defence Housing Service, we will end the scandal of service families living in substandard housing, and we will deliver the homes the country needs. When Labour said at the election that we would stand on the side of our armed forces, this is what we meant.
All those who serve our country rightly expect to be able to do so with the fullest respect, and they must certainly be able to do so free from any fear or abuse. Last year we commissioned and published the UK’s first military-wide survey into sexual harassment. We did that to provide for the first time a no-holds-barred baseline to confront the problem fully. The results were sobering, concluding that two thirds of our servicewomen and one third of our servicemen experience some form of sexualised behaviour. Let me be clear: such behaviour has no place in our armed forces, just as it has no place in any workplace—not now, not ever.
The previous Government took steps to improve victim and witness care. We can see some of the benefits of those steps, but it is also clear that more must be done. We have established a new, single tri-service complaints team to take the most serious complaints out of the single-service chain of command for the first time. We have launched a pioneering new prevention programme in Catterick and Plymouth, working directly with young recruits on our bases, to prevent unacceptable behaviours. Through the Bill we go further to strengthen protections for our service personnel, and ensure that perpetrators have nowhere to hide.
Together, provisions in the Bill will make available in the service justice system a comprehensive range of protection orders, including for sexual harm, domestic abuse and stalking. It will strengthen supervision of offenders on release from prison, and ensure that service restraining orders are enforceable in the criminal justice system once a defendant has left the armed forces. It will place a duty on the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice, setting out the services that victims can expect to receive in the service justice system, and it will allow victims to choose whether they wish to have their case heard in a civil or military court, although the formal decision will be taken by the prosecutor.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am greatly encouraged—I think we all are—by what the Secretary of State has said about victims. I am conscious that sometimes we have young people—perhaps aged 16, 17 or 18—joining the forces and finding themselves under pressure, away from home and from their parents, and they might be vulnerable to start with. It is important that a structure is in place where they can make a complaint, and that that complaint will be heard, not lost somewhere in the system of those above them, whether they are officers, sergeants or corporals. Is looking after those vulnerable people who need help at the beginning, and access to people who understand their circumstances, part of this process?
John Healey
Like the hon. Gentleman I am deeply proud that our armed forces will take 16-year-olds and give them skills and discipline, and change the course of their career and future life. If they suffer any of the abuse and harassment that I am talking about, the tri-service complaints team will take that out of the single chain of command. Cross-party support has allowed us to legislate as a House for an independent Armed Forces Commissioner, who has the power to deal with complaints and to launch inquiries if they pick up a pattern of problems, so safeguards and protections are in place. I hope that will give more confidence to young people who are looking at a future career in the armed forces, as well as to their families, who want to see them launched well in their lives.
Make no mistake: these are substantial reforms, reflecting both the seriousness of the problem and our resolve to root it out. These measures are a result of the Ministry of Defence being part of a cross-Government violence against women and girls strategy for the first time ever, and Ministers and chiefs being united and determined for the first time to play a part in this Government’s central mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?
Helen Maguire
I commend the progress made in the Bill on violence against women and girls. Is the Secretary of State aware that there may be a gap in relation to Royal Navy ships? Commanding officers can administer justice for disciplinary offences and some criminal conduct offences through the summary hearing process, where they investigate the allegation and determine whether the accused is guilty. They are potentially carrying out very serious investigations, which could be into things like serious sexual assaults, in the absence of a warrant card holder. Will the Secretary of State confirm whether that issue is being addressed? Will he explore the possibility of having investigation-trained military police on those ships, which are often at sea for more than six months?
John Healey
The hon. Lady has made a detailed point very clearly—perhaps it is another bid to be a member of the Bill Committee. It is exactly the sort of issue that should be examined in detail at that point in the passage of the Bill.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I am sure that you would be the first to endorse the fact that the first duty of any Government is to keep their citizens safe. In our age, drones are rapidly changing the nature of war and homeland defence. It is essential that we have the power and authority to protect defence sites from any current or future threats. In October, I promised to introduce new legal powers to bring down unidentified drones over UK military bases. The Bill will create a regime that will allow defence personnel to better detect, deter and defeat drones that pose a threat to defence property and activities.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?
John Healey
I will not. I am conscious of the number of hon. Members who want to speak, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will want to make a contribution.
The reforms are designed to be both flexible and future-proof, allowing defence to adapt to the ever changing and increasing threats. If the strategic defence review were boiled down to one core objective, it would be to raise the level of warfighting readiness in order to strengthen our deterrence.
Crucial to achieving a sustainable, efficient and rapid potential transition to war will be our reserve forces. In 2024, more than one in five troops training Ukrainian forces on Operation Interflex—the British-led multinational military operation supporting the Ukraine armed forces—were reservists. They are an integral part of the operation and, very often, of the deployment and exercising of our forces. The Bill will make it easier to mobilise personnel earlier, ahead of the outbreak of war. It will align the time for which recall applies across all three services to 18 years, and it will increase the maximum age at which reservists can be recalled, from 55 to 65.
At the moment, we have cyber-operators, trainers, medics and translators who are being shown the door to the military only because of an arbitrary age limit. They are men and women who will continue their profession in civilian life for many years after they are forced out of the military. That makes no sense for the reservists or for our nation’s security, so through the Bill we must act to build a major boost to our readiness to fight during this era of increasing threat.
I will end by recalling our manifesto at the election, which said:
“At the heart of our security are the men and women who serve and risk their lives for this country.”
The Bill gives legislative force to that Labour principle, with better housing, better services and better protections to those who serve. We pledged to renew the nation’s contract with those who serve. Through this Bill, we are delivering exactly that, backing those who sacrifice so much, making Britain safer, delivering for defence and delivering for Britain. I commend the Bill to the House.
James Cartlidge (South Suffolk) (Con)
It is a privilege to open for the Opposition on Second Reading of the Armed Forces Bill, given the global circumstances in which we find ourselves, and the sense that the ability of our armed forces to stand up to renewed threats has not been at issue to this degree for many years.
Before turning to the Bill, I want to take this opportunity to place on record my thanks, and those of the Opposition, to a particularly special group of people: those members of the British armed forces who served in Afghanistan, in the cause of freedom and in the wake of the horrific 9/11 attack on our closest ally, the United States of America. The 9/11 attack was not just an attack against the US mainland; it was also an attack on ourselves, and not only because of the 67 British lives that were lost when the twin towers were hit, but because our western way of life seemed to be under direct attack.
So I am glad that President Trump followed his wholly inaccurate and misjudged remarks about the service of our personnel in Afghanistan with praise for our military, but their contribution should never have been in doubt. Given the immense pain that his words will have caused the loved ones of those who were lost in Afghanistan, we send a message to those families today that theirs was far from a loss in vain; it was a just cause, where British soldiers played as much a part as anyone else, and one for which we will be forever grateful.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for those words. Will he associate himself with the Canadian, Danish, French, Australian and New Zealand armed forces, and those from many other countries around the world, who served alongside us in that NATO operation? They stood by us, even though article 5 does not apply to Australia or New Zealand, and lost troops in combat, yet I did not hear an apology for them.
James Cartlidge
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his service in Afghanistan, and that of other colleagues present in the Chamber. He is absolutely right. When we debated the President’s remarks about Greenland, I made the point on the media round that Denmark had the highest per capita losses in Afghanistan, and the other nations all suffered. We all fought together because it was a common cause.
Chris Vince
As the shadow Secretary of State knows, I always try to find cross-party consensus. Will he join me in praising Private Robert Foster, who was from Harlow and who lost his life in Afghanistan? Members from across the House had constituents who lost their lives serving this country, and we should all be incredibly proud of them.
James Cartlidge
I echo what the hon. Gentleman says. I pay tribute to his constituent and to all those who sacrificed so much in that campaign.
Jim Shannon
I thank the shadow Minister for what he has said, but let us be honest that President Trump should never have made that statement, no matter what. My constituent Channing Day gave her life in Helmand province, and I think of Colin Thompson, who was invalided out of the Army because of an injury on the frontline in Helmand. They are just two out of many. Does the hon. Gentleman not feel, as I feel for my families, hurt by what President Trump said? President Trump has apologised, but he should never have said it in the first place.
James Cartlidge
The hon. Gentleman hits the nail on the head, and I need add nothing further. We all agree and we pay tribute to all those who served in Afghanistan.
Moving on to the Bill, given its necessity to ensure that we have functioning armed forces, we will not seek to divide the House. Indeed, on national security, we should always strive for consensus where possible, as has particularly been the case on Ukraine. We have presented a united Parliament to our adversaries, which should be a source of national pride. However, as with any major piece of legislation, there will be many issues of detail that we will want to tease out in detailed scrutiny in Committee.
While we inevitably have concerns about the underlying issue of defence funding, there are many aspects of the Bill that we support in principle. In particular, I welcome the Government’s commitment to strengthening the armed forces covenant. Having been the party that first introduced the covenant, it will be of no surprise that we support moves to strengthen both its purpose and delivery. That said, when it comes to our veterans, we remain resolute in our total opposition to the Government’s policy in respect of those who served in Operation Banner to protect all of us from terrorism. The House surely cannot ignore the fact that as we debate this Bill, which is designed to strengthen our armed forces, Labour continues in parallel with its plan to repeal our legacy Act—the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023—and threaten a new era of vexatious claims against former soldiers. It is fair to say that my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) will say more about that in his winding-up speech.
On the Bill’s proposals relating to the service justice system, there is recognition on both sides of the House that we have massive lessons to learn. Work to improve the system began under the previous Government, as the Secretary of State recognised. After publication of the Atherton report, which identified cultural failings in the forces, the then Secretary of State, Ben Wallace, took steps to enforce changes so that we could better protect women in the armed forces. In 2022 we introduced a series of new policies—for example, clamping down on unacceptable sexual behaviour by introducing a zero-tolerance approach and banning instructor-trainee relationships of any sort. We also established the defence serious crimes unit. As a result of the changes we made, more people have been empowered to come forward, and service personnel who have breached those policies have been discharged or convicted as a direct result.
I particularly welcome the steps in the Bill to ensure that the service justice system protects victims of the most serious offences from further harm. The reality is that implementing cultural change in any large organisation does not happen overnight, but we will work with the Government in the forthcoming sittings on the detail of their proposals to ensure that we find a better way to deliver justice in the armed forces.
Let me move on to the proposed changes to the reserve forces. I pay tribute to all those serving as reservists, including, as was pointed out, those on Operation Interflex—they are a critical part of our fighting strength. That said, given the heightened threat level that we face today, we can surely all recognise that nations geographically closer to the Russian threat, such as Finland, draw a major part of their overall military strength and, thereby, conventional deterrence from possessing a large and active reserve.
As such, it is important that we understand more of the detail about the Government’s plans to increase the number of active reservists by 20%. That is stated in the strategic defence review, but with a vague timeline—
“most likely in the 2030s”.
We can all see that there is a big difference between 2031 and 2039, and that the threat we face is nearer. In his winding-up speech, can the Minister for the Armed Forces tell us if that will be in the next Parliament or the one after that?
We also welcome proposals to make reservist life more flexible, particularly incentivising regulars to stay in the reserves as they explore new careers. In fact, that is exactly what was suggested in the Haythornthwaite review, which was commissioned under the previous Government and delivered by my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison). It made the important recommendation for so-called zig-zag careers, enabling far greater flexibility between reserve and regular service. We welcome that and will look at it further.
Let me move on to the Bill’s proposals for armed forces accommodation. Buying back the defence estate was my top strategic priority as Minister for Defence Procurement.
James Cartlidge
The hon. Lady says from a sedentary position that I did not do it. The deal was done in 1996. Who was in government between 1997 and 2010 and did nothing about this issue?
Let me speak openly. When I got the job, I went to visit defence accommodation. As I have said many times, I was ashamed, but I said, “I am going to do something about this.” My former colleague Jeremy Quin, who was the Minister before me, had brought test cases, but there was no work, and nothing had happened under successive Governments. I started the work with the Treasury and with people across Government. That deal, which took a heck of a lot of negotiation, was under negotiation with the Annington group when the general election came.
Dr Murrison
The truth is that there was a level of serendipity in this matter of which the current Government are the beneficiary, and that is the High Court decision on Annington Homes. My hon. Friend is being characteristically modest, because I clearly remember that he initiated this work while he was at the MOD. I am very pleased to hear that the current Government are taking it forward, which is absolutely right, but we need to lay on record the provenance of all this work and who its author is. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for that.
James Cartlidge
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. We must never forget the reason for the deal in the first place.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
Will the shadow Secretary of State give way?
James Cartlidge
I will take one more intervention, and then I will make some progress.
Peter Swallow
Is the shadow Secretary of State’s defence for the shambles and the shame of military homes that he finally acted as Defence Secretary where his predecessors had sat on their hands? Is that really his defence of the Tory disgrace of our military homes?
James Cartlidge
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for promoting me in posterity. All I can say is that when I came to the job, I was not impressed with the state of armed forces accommodation. Let us not pretend that it suddenly took that shape; in the 13 years when Labour was previously in power, it made no attempt to buy back the defence estate. I return to the point that that is why we did the deal in the first place. We all agree that those who serve our country must never be given substandard homes. The Annington deal has enabled the prospect of what could be the most exciting estate regeneration project for generations. This is the chance to deliver homes for heroes.
We had to buy the estate back, and I enabled that. That being said, delivering such an opportunity requires leadership. The reason why my first policy announcement as shadow Defence Secretary in June last year was the creation of an armed forces housing association, which created a body that could do just that—both manage the estate and deliver a comprehensive rebuild, as the best housing associations have been able to do over the years.
James Cartlidge
From a sedentary position, the Secretary of State says, “Giving it away.” It is very odd when a member of the Labour party thinks that setting up a co-operative is somehow a privatisation.
The body that the Government will create in this Bill to deliver that transformation is the Defence Housing Service. Although we welcome its ambition to improve the supply and quality of defence housing, inevitably we will want to see that its structure means that it is able to deliver as many of the outcomes that we wanted from our own policy as possible.
Specifically, one of the reasons why my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford first proposed an armed forces housing association in 2020 was to give armed forces families proper representations on its board. Will the Defence Housing Service ensure a similar, meaningful voice for service families? Given that a priority for our housing association model was to extend home ownership throughout the ranks, not least because housing associations have access to a wider suite of home ownership products, what role will the Defence Housing Service play in delivering greater home ownership among service families?
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
I know that Members across the House supported Liberal Democrat plans to introduce a decent homes standard for service family accommodation, and I am very grateful to the Government for bringing that in through recent legislation from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. However, single living accommodation is still really poor. Constituents in North Shropshire report rat infestations and being unable to sleep at night. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that single living accommodation also needs to be looked at as a priority?
James Cartlidge
When I was a Minister, the hon. Lady was always raising that point. She has been a passionate defender of her constituents on this matter, and I respect her for that. When we talk about single living accommodation, as opposed to service family accommodation, it is fair to say that there is a different funding structure—it goes through the frontline commands. My own experience is that that can be challenging, as they have their own budget challenges. Hopefully, by taking forward this model we will see clearer lines of finance into housing, but at the end of the day we need to have both SLA and SFA up to a high standard. The hon. Lady is absolutely right.
Let me turn to the Bill’s proposals on drones. We obviously welcome the proposals to give the military greater powers of interception in relation to drones, but we want them to go further. For example, why have the Government not taken the opportunity to put into law measures that provide easier access to testing ranges for our brilliant defence small and medium-sized enterprises? After all, they have delivered some of the best drones used in Ukraine.
Is this not part of the problem? When it comes to procurement, we live in a parallel universe where the Government have delivered—quite rightly, and as we did—drones, munitions and equipment at scale to Ukraine, but at the same time procurement for our armed forces has been almost frozen since the election. There is a reason why the Government’s plans to increase the reserves may not happen for a decade. There is a reason why any defence company will share its immense frustration at the lack of orders coming out of the MOD, whether for drones or for other capabilities. That is because the Government have prioritised a bigger welfare bill over the scale of increase in defence spending that our armed forces require.
When it comes to defence spending, the Government like to wrap themselves in the comfort blanket of arguments about the past, even when they are wrong. At Prime Minister’s questions on two occasions in recent weeks, the Prime Minister has repeatedly misrepresented what Ben Wallace actually said about defence spending. His point was not that defence spending fell under the Conservatives, but that it fell under all Governments following the end of the cold war and the so-called peace dividend. To be partisan about that observation is to hide from the truth that we all have to face up to: that the world has completely changed.
I am incredibly proud of what we did in government to stand by Ukraine before most other nations acted, but, irrespective of what happened before, it must be obvious that we need to spend far more on defence and far more than the Government are planning.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
James Cartlidge
Wait a minute. That is why Labour is making in-year savings of £2.6 billion at the MOD and has a black hole of £28 billion—because the extra cash it is planning for defence is simply not enough.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
James Cartlidge
I will give way to the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) first.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I apologise for interrupting. I fully understand that the shadow Secretary of State wants the Government to spend more on defence, and I think we all share that aspiration, but he must welcome the increase in spending that we have committed to—the biggest increase since the cold war ended.
James Cartlidge
The hon. Gentleman does not have to apologise for interrupting. He offered to intervene, and I accepted; that is how this place works, and his intervention was entirely fair. To be frank, yes, spending is increasing, but it is not increasing anything like enough in relation to how much costs are going up. When I first became shadow Secretary of State and was calling for 2.5%, I said that that would only stabilise things—I was very open about that. I did not say that it would lead to a much bigger force and all the other things we would like to see, but we can all see what has happened. President Trump has been very clear that he wants to see NATO members spending much more and much more rapidly. We all know what the reality is: the United States is going to be doing less, focusing on its priorities. We need to do more, which means much higher spending.
Mr Bailey
In the spirit of honesty and accepting past failures, the equipment plan that you presented this Government with had a gap in it of £7 billion to £29 billion in the MOD’s view, or £16 billion in the view of the National Audit Office. Do you accept that you handed over a hospital pass?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. The hon. Gentleman should not be directing his comments at me.
James Cartlidge
I am very grateful to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, but when Putin invaded Ukraine, something pretty extraordinary happened: inflation went through the roof right around the world. The whole world was trying to buy defence equipment, and it still is. Guess what? That means a higher inflation rate in defence.
James Cartlidge
I am responding to the hon. and gallant Gentleman’s first intervention. Anyone coming into government should have had some sense that there was going to be inflationary pressure in the system. That is not the only reason that there is a £28 billion black hole, but it is a key factor.
Sir Julian Lewis
It is all well and good to say that defence spending has increased since it was realised that the peace dividend is inappropriate for a post-Ukraine invasion situation, but the fact is that during the 1980s, when we were in the grip of the cold war, we were not talking about spending 5% in 10 years’ time or 3.5% in four years’ time; we were spending between 4.5% and 5% of GDP every single year.
James Cartlidge
My right hon. Friend is right. The last time anyone in this country spent 5% on defence was in 1985, when President Gorbachev entered the Kremlin; spending has pretty much been down since then, under every Government. That is the point I was making.
On the current targets, Labour’s vague “promise” is to go to 3% in the next Parliament. We believe the task is far more urgent, and would go to 3% by the end of this Parliament. As a reminder of the importance of 3%—this is critical—when Labour published the SDR last June, its independent authors stated on the same day that the promise of 3%
“established the affordability of our recommendations”.
As such, with no certainty over when Labour will get to 3%, is this not why the defence investment plan—which was promised for last autumn—still has not been delivered? In his wind-up speech, can the Minister for the Armed Forces tell us whether the DIP will be published before the spring? I think that is the meteorological spring, by the way.
There is much to welcome in this Bill, but it will not succeed if defence does not have the resources needed to deliver the SDR. We look forward to debating the Bill in detail and doing whatever is possible to make it workable, but for their part, the Government need to do their bit by finally delivering the step change in defence spending that our armed forces need if they are to do the job we ask of them.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Before I call the Chair of the Defence Committee, Members might like to be aware that there are a lot of colleagues wishing to speak this evening. I am not planning to put a time limit on—yet.
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
First, on behalf of our House of Commons Defence Committee, I thank the Secretary of State for the memorandum his Department provided to us and for last week’s briefing, organised by the Ministry of Defence Bill team. I also put on record our deep gratitude to the British armed forces for keeping us safe and secure—it is a sad fact that our world is becoming a more dangerous place, and I cannot praise enough the brave men and women who face down that danger every day to protect our nation. This is a wide-ranging Bill, and unfortunately, time does not allow me to address all its aspects in detail. I draw the House’s attention to my Committee’s letter to the Minister for the Armed Forces last week, in which we give more detailed observations on the Bill.
Clause 2 of the Bill expands the armed forces covenant, following the Government’s manifesto pledge to put the covenant “fully into law”. The Defence Committee held an inquiry into the covenant last spring, in which we recommended that the covenant be extended to all Government Departments and to the devolved Administrations and that its scope be extended beyond housing, education and health into other areas of life where service personnel can experience disadvantage, such as employment and social care.
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the armed forces covenant is so important across all our local authority services? If so, does he share my surprise that no colleagues from the turquoise brigade on the Opposition Benches can even be bothered to come into the Chamber and listen to this evening’s debate?
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend is 100% correct. At such times, it is to be expected that all parties attend the debate—that point has been eloquently made by my hon. Friend. If Reform Members are serious about defence, they should attend defence debates and questions on a regular basis.
Clause 2’s strengthening of the covenant is welcome.
Mr Francois
On that point, there are rumours that Reform is going to announce a shadow Cabinet. Constitutionally, there is only one shadow Cabinet, which belongs to the Opposition—even the Lib Dems do not have one. Instead, we are going to call it the drinks cabinet, because Nigel likes a drink, and so does Lee. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that drinks cabinet should have a defence spokesman in it?
Mr Dhesi
The shadow Defence Minister is right on both counts. There is only one Opposition, His Majesty’s loyal Opposition—obviously, that is the Conservative party at present—and while I certainly would not use the term “drinks cabinet”, the shadow Defence Minister makes a very valid point.
The Secretary of State will remember that in our report, we cautioned that those who are expected to deliver the covenant must be involved in co-designing the new duty, and must be appropriately resourced to deliver it; otherwise, there is a real risk of diluting their existing commitments. I would be grateful if the Secretary of State or Ministers reassured the House on that point. The Secretary of State will also be aware that our inquiry concluded that updating the covenant in law is
“only part of the change that needs to occur.”
During the course of our work, we found that adherence to the existing covenant legal duty is very patchy. Too often, organisations that are subject to that duty do not understand it or, worse yet, disregard it. Understandably, this leads to disillusionment among the forces community, so in his winding-up speech, can the Minister for the Armed Forces please update the House on the Ministry of Defence’s plans to improve implementation?
Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, which I commend to the wider public beyond this House. In my own area, the local council and many voluntary sector organisations have done a very impressive job of adhering to the armed forces covenant, and are willing to do more. I thank Reading borough council and organisations such as The Forgotten British Gurkha charity. Does my hon. Friend believe there is a role for the organisations that are leading on this issue to share best practice, in order to help raise the equality of adoption of the new measures?
Mr Dhesi
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words, and I am very pleased to hear that his Reading Central constituents, the council and other organisations are stepping up to the plate. Best practice should indeed be shared more widely to ensure better implementation across our country.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
On that point, I declare my support for Horsham district council’s work. It confirmed to me last year that it is examining the cost of exempting military compensation payments from all locally means-tested benefits. Does the hon. Member agree that in the spirit of the armed forces covenant, military compensation payments should be exempted from means-tested benefits nationally?
Mr Dhesi
The hon. Member for Horsham makes a strong point. It is something that my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) and I, along with other Members, have discussed in the all-party parliamentary group on the armed forces community. I hope that Ministers are listening and will take remedial action. Will the Minister for the Armed Forces also commit to sharing the draft guidance with the House as soon as possible? It will be issued to organisations subject to the updated duty.
Mr Calvin Bailey
The Chair of the Select Committee is making a powerful speech. Part of the challenge with the provisions on the armed forces covenant is that delivery requires other Departments to engage and to deliver their responsibilities. Does he agree that this work needs to be loaded on to those other Secretaries of State by all those Members present today?
Mr Dhesi
I thank my fellow member of the Defence Committee. Indeed, he raises a point that we have forcefully made within our Defence Committee deliberations. I am sure that Ministers will be aware and will take appropriate action.
Turning to the service justice system measures, it is welcome to see that the Government have used the Bill to focus on better protection for victims of serious offences. Ministers know full well how much of a priority that is for our Committee. Victims of appalling crimes, such as domestic violence and sexual offences, have been continually failed by the system, and the measures in this Bill can make a positive difference for them. However, we would have liked to see the Government go further and implement our predecessor Committee’s recommendation that cases of rape and sexual assault are automatically heard in civilian courts. That was also the recommendation of the Lyons review in 2018, so will the Minister for the Armed Forces, when he responds to the debate, explain why the Government have decided not to take that approach?
Some of the most significant measures in the Bill relate to the role of the reserves. As the strategic defence review recognises, huge talent is available in our reserves, and defence does not make as much use of that talent as it could. We are pleased that the Bill attempts to change that. However, while the intentions of its measures are clear, their effect is less so. It is not clear how many additional reservists the Government expect those measures to generate, so it is difficult to know whether the Bill will make a meaningful improvement to our defence readiness, which we all know is extremely important, given the geopolitics we face.
Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is talking positively about the amazing contribution of our reservists, and I add to that the amazing contribution of our cadets in the Shipley constituency. We have air cadets and Army cadets in Shipley and Bingley. Will he join me in welcoming the proposals to bring together and unify the reserve forces and cadets associations into a single non-departmental public body? Will he also join me in urging the Minister to ensure that that new body continues to value the role of volunteer input from cadets?
Mr Dhesi
I am sure Ministers will have heard the excellent point that my hon. Friend makes forcefully. The Government need to properly model the impact of these changes and share their findings with the House. We also need to know the fitness criteria. I know the Minister for the Armed Forces is very fit, given his recent endeavours, including on Mount Everest, but how will the fitness criteria be applied to individuals subject to the new higher recall age of 65?
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
As it stands, if someone transitions from the regular forces and goes into the reserves, they have to have a separate medical test, even if they are already serving. Does the hon. Member agree that that area perhaps needs some work?
Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)
On the proposal to extend the age limit under which reservists can be called back, a small number of them might have attained the extremely high levels of physical fitness of the Minister for the Armed Forces and be suitable for a wide range of roles, but some could be called back for back-office tasks such as analysing intelligence or training people, where the levels of fitness required are far lower than for any kind of combat role. Does my hon. Friend accept that that would release younger people who are currently in those roles to take up roles nearer the frontline?
Mr Dhesi
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. Some individuals, especially in the media and on social media, have facetiously referred to it as “Dad’s Army”, but there is a role, especially behind the scenes, that older reserves can undertake for the defence of our country.
Mr Dhesi
My hon. Friend has forcefully made that point, which reinforces what I just said. Some individuals may seek to be facetious about this, but our reserves are our pride. Regardless of their age, their talents need to be included as we defend our nation in future.
I am pleased to see the Government taking action in clause 3 to address the state of service accommodation. The Defence Committee was pleased that the Government accepted the conclusions of our hard-hitting report on service accommodation, and we hope that the new Defence Housing Service will be able to lead the renewal that is needed. It will be important that the new body can act independently in the interests of the forces community and that it is subject to detailed parliamentary scrutiny in this House.
Furthermore, I must draw the House’s attention to clauses 38 and 39, which will remove the existing statutory requirements for Parliament to approve the size of the armed forces. Parliamentary control of the size of the armed forces is a vital and long-standing constitutional principle that dates back to the Bill of Rights in the 17th century. I feel that we must be extremely cautious before proceeding with measures that would diminish that control. The Government say that these changes are necessary to allow more flexibility in how the regular and reserve forces are used. Indeed, my Committee is sympathetic to that aim. However, it is not clear why it requires the removal of the statutory guarantee of parliamentary control. The Government need to justify why the measure is necessary and consider whether there are other ways of achieving their goals that would uphold the rights of our Parliament.
In conclusion—you will be pleased to hear that I am drawing to a conclusion, Madam Deputy Speaker—there is much to welcome in this Bill that will improve service life. I hope that the Government will be able to address the issues that the Defence Committee has raised and, by doing so, build strong cross-party support for the Bill as it continues its passage through the House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. May I remind Members to be careful, good-tempered and moderate in their language in debate? If anyone needs any instruction, pages 496 and 497 of “Erskine May” are very helpful.
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
Our British armed forces represent the very best of us—courage, selflessness, and an unwavering commitment to protect our freedoms and our way of life—and they deserve nothing less than our unwavering commitment in return.
The Liberal Democrats welcome significant elements of the Bill. The full enshrinement of the armed forces covenant in law, extending it across central Government, devolved Administrations and local authorities, aligns with our long-standing policy to strengthen the covenant by placing a legal duty on Government Departments. For too long, the covenant has been a promise without proper teeth. The Bill gives it the force of law that it has always deserved, and we look forward to supporting that as the legislation progresses.
We welcome the establishment of the Defence Housing Service and the £9 billion defence housing strategy. Our service personnel and their families should not have to endure substandard accommodation while serving their country. The commitment to upgrade nine in 10 military homes is progress, although I must stress that it is the bare minimum that we owe those people who put themselves in harm’s way for us.
That said, what will matter is pace, transparency and accountability. Given the Ministry of Defence’s long and unhappy track record of wasting public money on failed programmes, the House deserves clarity on how this strategy will be delivered in practice. I hope that the Minister, in summing up the debate, will respond to the following questions. Who precisely will oversee the new body, what will be its relationship with the Department, and where will ultimate accountability lie if targets are missed or standards slip? Without clear governance and rigorous scrutiny, there is a real risk that warm words and large sums of money will once again fail to translate into decent homes for service families.
The reforms of the service justice system are long overdue, particularly the strengthened protections for victims of domestic abuse, sexual violence and harassment. Every person who serves in uniform deserves to do so in safety and dignity. However, the Bill comes against a backdrop of multiple deeply troubling scandals involving abuse within our armed forces, particularly the treatment of women. I do not doubt the commitment of any of the Ministers to combating it, but it is striking that the Bill contains no specific or targeted measures to address the systemic cultural failures that have allowed such abuse to persist. Without a clear attempt to confront these issues head-on, there is a risk that structural reform will fall short of meaningful change.
Helen Maguire
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill requires the provision of further clarification and detail in regard to service justice? If an offence is committed overseas on a base or during an operation, will a person have a choice between a civilian and a military court hearing? If an offence is discovered after six months, will it still be possible to investigate it, and if so, will it be investigated by military police or not?
James MacCleary
Those are important details, which I hope the Minister will take up in his closing remarks. Justice must be seen to be served wherever our service personnel are in the world.
The measures in the Bill to support victims and strengthen protective orders are steps in the right direction, but they must be accompanied by a genuine commitment to accountability and cultural reform in our services.
We must also be honest about what the Government are not doing. This is a technical renewal Bill, whereas what our armed forces need is a comprehensive fair deal; that matters profoundly for Britain’s security and our place in the world. The Bill is silent on the recruitment and retention crisis facing our armed forces. It says nothing about reversing the devastating troop cuts that have hollowed out the Army. It offers no plan to rebuild regular troop numbers back to above 100,000—a goal that the Liberal Democrats are committed to achieving.
Ben Obese-Jecty
Following that pledge, will the hon. Gentleman outline what the additional 30,000 troops would be roled as?
James MacCleary
I think the question here is more about mass in the armed forces, and deployability.
James MacCleary
For deployment overseas, so that we can achieve the objectives that we want to achieve. The Conservatives cut troop numbers during the last Government. It is understandable that you are embarrassed —that they are embarrassed—about that, but—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I have heard two uses of the word “you”. It is not about me.
James MacCleary
It is understandable that the Opposition are embarrassed about that. We need to get our troop numbers back up to a critical mass that will allow us to carry out our duties overseas.
The Government’s decision to increase the upper age limit for reserves and cadets to 65 warrants serious scrutiny. Ministers must explain whether the change will genuinely enhance operational effectiveness, skills and readiness, or whether it is simply a mechanism to inflate headline recruitment numbers without addressing the underlying retention and capability challenges facing our reserve forces.
That brings me to the important issue of defence spending, which, of course, underlies all of this. The Liberal Democrats support increasing defence spending in every year of this Parliament, and we will explain how to do it. We are calling for a clear, credible pathway to reaching 3% of GDP on defence by 2030 at the latest, backed by cross-party talks to secure long-term consensus. As part of that plan, we have proposed the introduction of time-limited defence bonds—capped, fixed-term, and legally tied to capital investment—to raise up to £20 billion over the next two years. That would allow the Government to accelerate investment in the capabilities set out in the strategic defence review, strengthen deterrence now rather than later, and send a clear signal to our allies and adversaries alike that Britain is serious about its security.
James Cartlidge
I heard the announcement made by the leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party about the bonds. Of course, that would still be borrowing the money. It would be added to the national debt, and it would have to be repaid. The question is, where exactly would the money come from? Would it mean cutting spending or putting up taxes?
James MacCleary
These are bonds issued to the public and to funds in the normal way, as all these vehicles are. They would be for people to invest in, so this would not involve cutting anything. It would be short-term borrowing that would fall within the Government’s existing fiscal rules, as we explained at the weekend. This is a serious proposal to increase defence spending in the short term, unlike the proposals from the Opposition, which, I understand, are for welfare cuts—a long-term measure that would fall on the most vulnerable in society.
James Cartlidge
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. It is very generous of him. Is he saying that those bonds would not have to be repaid?
James MacCleary
Of course they would have to be repaid, and we have laid out this policy very clearly.
James MacCleary
I am happy to send the hon. Member a briefing if that would be helpful to his deliberations, but of course the money would have to be repaid. These are two-to-three-year bonds that would generate an immediate injection of cash to buy the kit that our armed forces need.
In an increasingly dangerous world, standing still is not a neutral act, and warm words without funding will not keep our country safe. That is why I was relieved to see reports over the weekend that the Government are seeking to restart negotiations over UK access to the EU’s Security Action for Europe fund, which I hope speaks to a belated and dawning realisation that President Trump is increasingly posing a threat to Britain’s security and values. At the same time, I urge the European Union to approach these discussions with pragmatism, to come to the negotiating table in good faith, and to recognise that the UK is an essential security partner. This is not the moment for political point scoring, for putting domestic protectionism ahead of continental safety, or for setting the bar so high that shared European security is the casualty.
A fair deal for our armed forces community means more than just equipment and strategy; it means treating service personnel and their families with the dignity and respect that they deserve in every aspect of their lives. The Liberal Democrats are calling for a fair deal commission for service personnel, veterans and families to review conditions comprehensively and recommend improvements in pay, housing, diversity and transition services. We would allow families of armed forces personnel access to military medical and dental facilities, and improve mental health support for the whole armed forces community. We would waive visa application fees for indefinite leave for members of the armed forces on discharge and their families, and we would ensure that military compensation for illness or injury did not count towards means-testing for benefits.
These are not fringe issues; they go to the heart of the covenant between the nation and those who serve. If we ask people to be ready to give their lives for this country, we owe them more than warm words. We owe them action. In respect of housing specifically, while we welcome the Defence Housing Service, we need to go further. We would require the Ministry of Defence to provide housing above minimum standards, and to give service personnel stronger legal rights to repair and maintenance. Our recent campaigning secured a Government commitment to assess family military homes according to the decent homes standard. That is progress, but it must be implemented properly and swiftly.
We also support the recommendations of the Atherton report on women in the armed forces, and will work to establish better structures to guard against discrimination and harassment. The armed forces must be places where talent thrives, regardless of gender, and where everyone can serve with dignity.
We owe it to our armed forces to provide certainty, which makes the continued delay of the long-promised defence investment plan all the more concerning. That plan must be brought forward without further delay. We cannot continue a boom-and-bust cycle of defence reviews that leaves industry in limbo, undermines long-term investment, and allows vital skills and supply chains to wither away through uncertainty.
The Liberal Democrats look forward to engaging constructively with this Bill, and to scrutinising its provisions carefully as it proceeds through its remaining stages. We will not stand in the way of improvements that matter to service personnel and their families, but we will continue to press for more, because our armed forces deserve more and Britain’s security demands more. We will continue to call for reversing troop cuts, increasing defence spending to at least 3% of GDP, tackling the recruitment crisis and ensuring a comprehensive, fair deal for the armed forces community.
Britain’s armed forces are the finest in the world. They represent our values, defend our interests, and stand ready to protect us and our allies. They deserve a Government who back them with resources, strategy and unwavering support. The Liberal Democrats will always champion that cause, and we will always stand shoulder to shoulder with those who serve.
Michelle Scrogham (Barrow and Furness) (Lab)
As Members on both sides of the House have said over many years, this Bill is unlike most others that come before us. It is not simply a piece of Government business; it is the foundation on which our armed forces rest. It is renewed every five years and carries with it a deep responsibility.
I am proud to stand here in support of this Bill, and to reflect the priorities of my constituents in Barrow and Furness, a community whose identity and prosperity are bound with the defence of this nation. In Barrow and Furness, thousands of highly skilled workers design and build the submarines that keep our nation safe. Families move in and out as part of service life, and veterans settle and make their homes. For Barrow, defence is a lived experience, so when this House considers how we support those who serve, people in my community are listening closely.
The Bill comes before us at a time of profound global uncertainty. The security environment has changed dramatically since the last Armed Forces Act was debated, in 2021. We face new global threats and constant cyber-attacks, and those who might wish to harm us are testing our levels of defence and resilience on a daily basis. In this context, the provisions to strengthen the strategic reserve are vital. Expanding the pool of former personnel who can be called on in times of national need recognises the enormous value of their skills and experience. Many veterans possess specialist capabilities in engineering, intelligence, logistics and cyber that cannot easily be replaced. It is right that this country should draw on their expertise in a crisis.
There is another aspect of this Bill that I welcome wholeheartedly: the decision to put the armed forces covenant fully into law. This was a clear manifesto commitment of the Labour party, and I am proud that this Government are delivering it. Unfortunately, the Defence Committee, on which I sit, found that many people in the armed forces community are not aware of the covenant or do not have a clear understanding of what it means for them. That must change.
For too long, the covenant relied on good will alone. Too often, service families and veterans have found themselves at a disadvantage, and have struggled to access housing, healthcare, education or employment because of the unique demands of their military life. Putting the covenant on a statutory footing is not about special treatment; it is about preventing unfair treatment and ensuring that those who serve are not penalised for doing so. In Barrow and Furness, I see why that matters every week. I meet veterans navigating complex systems, and I meet partners trying to rebuild careers after repeated relocations. This Bill offers something that they have long deserved: practical, enforceable recognition from the state.
I welcome the establishment of the new defence housing service. Good-quality accommodation for service personnel is fundamental to morale and family wellbeing. Too many of our armed forces families have been let down over the years by poor housing and inadequate maintenance. An end to the Tories’ disastrous 1996 privatisation of military housing, which cost the taxpayer billions, is long overdue.
Labour has always believed in strong defence. We are the party of NATO and understand that our nation’s security is the first duty of any Government. We have increased spending on defence to its highest level since the cold war and will increase it further in the coming years, but we also know that strength must go hand in hand with fairness. Supporting our armed forces means more than words; it means decent homes, proper healthcare, fair treatment in civilian life and real opportunities for veterans. This Bill makes progress on all those fronts.
The direction is the right one. We are modernising our armed forces, strengthening support for those who serve, and delivering on the promises made to them. For communities like mine in Barrow and Furness, that matters deeply. I welcome this legislation, and I look forward to working constructively with Ministers as it moves through Parliament.
Our Government were elected with a clear commitment to renew the nation’s contract with the men and women who serve in our armed forces, and with the ranks of veterans who have put their lives on the line for the UK. The message to our armed forces is clear: this Government are on your side.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge) (Con)
It is a great privilege to speak in this debate. Unusually, I pay tribute to the Minister for Veterans and People, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Louise Sandher-Jones), who could be sporting the same colours as me. As a fellow veteran from the finest corps in the country, she will no doubt have many contributions of her own to make.
Today is Australia Day and India’s Republic Day. Given that we are talking about the armed forces, it is worth remembering that over the last 100 years it has been very unusual for us to have gone to war without very close allies by our side. In fact, the two largest volunteer armies in the world were the Indian army in the first world war and the Indian army in the second world war.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
The right hon. Gentleman gives me a very good prompt, because this morning I was at the war memorial in Bournemouth, where two new plaques were unveiled for the 12 Indian soldiers who died at No. 8A Indian general hospital, which is now Bournemouth town hall. The plaques mark their contribution to Britain’s fight in world war one and honour their sacrifice. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the sacrifices of our allies, particularly our Indian allies, have too often been forgotten. Will he join me in commending Ramesh Lal, who has been pivotal in making those plaques happen?
Tom Tugendhat
I absolutely will. I am very grateful for the fact that those soldiers are remembered in Bournemouth, just as they should be remembered across the country.
I crave a personal indulgence and remember Tim Robertson from the Australian special air forces regiment, whom I fought alongside in Iraq. Sadly, he was killed a couple of years ago while fighting fires in northern Queensland. Many veterans serve in many distinguished ways after they leave the service—some even on the Government Front Bench.
We are at a moment when the world has changed. Many of us have just been watching the events in Davos, and three speeches really stood out. The first—the obvious one—is the one that the President of the United States gave, which set out a vision that led many of us to question where this world is going. There were two other speeches, however, that were rather important and, in a way, much more fundamental to the way that we should see Britain and our armed forces. The first was by the Prime Minister of Canada, who set out a very clear warning to us all that the comfort that we had got used to, and the arrangements in which we had luxuriated, are no longer valid for this era. We can talk about spending 2.5% of GDP on defence, and we can talk about spending 3% after the next election, but these are luxury beliefs. They are not realistic and do not account for a changed world.
The third speech, which in many ways was the most challenging, was from the Chancellor of Germany, who correctly pointed out that Europe—he included us in that—has simply not been prepared for the challenges that we face. The Germans have answered that by raising €100 billion, as the Secretary of State knows. We are not in a position to raise money in the same way that Germany does, because our debt has been higher, but the truth is that we are still facing the same threats as Germany—we are just facing them in a different way. We are facing them in the North sea and the Baltic. We are facing them in the Irish sea and the Atlantic, where we see Russian and Chinese vessels scraping our cables and destroying our communications, or trying to do so. We see the ways in which they are attacking our energy infrastructure. They are trying to hit our hospitals through cyber, and to undermine the security of this state in many different ways.
Those three speeches should set the context for this debate. One warned us that our allies may no longer be there for us, the second alerted us to the fact that the comfort is over, and the third was absolutely clear that our contributions must rise. That is where we come to this Bill and these commitments.
I appreciate what the Secretary of State has said, and what my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) has countered with. I do not wish to criticise the Secretary of State for the fact that the defence budget has increased—I recognise that and welcome it—but it is not enough to increase it to the level we would like. It is necessary to increase it to the level that we need, because that is one element of the Budget that we do not choose. It is chosen for us by the threats we face: it is chosen for us by the posture of the Russian and Chinese forces we face.
It is certainly true that we have seen some extraordinary news out of Beijing in the last 48 hours, with generals having disappeared, presumably down a salt mine, as they have fallen out of favour with the chairman of the Chinese Communist party’s military committee. It is also certainly true that the Russians are embedded in the most gruesome and horrific war in Ukraine, where they are murdering more of their own people than they are of the enemy, although they are doing their best to kill as many Ukrainian civilians as they can. None the less, it is true that those armies, navies and forces are attacking us, and we need to be ready to face them.
I would like to look at how this Bill provides a response to that. We have quite rightly heard about the emphasis on the reserve, and on the way in which medical teams, interpreters and others have contributed. I would like to pay tribute to the military leadership for the way in which it has looked to change how the armed forces work with reservists with careers or skills that are very hard to get through traditional military routes. In particular, I am thinking of cyber, because we are looking for something very different. I have huge respect for the Minister for the Armed Forces, a friend with whom I served on far too many adventures overseas, for the fact that he can do 30 pull-ups, but how fast can he hack into a Russian terminal? I am not sure it is in his skills set. These are different skills, and we need to look to the reserve to provide such skills.
That is where I look to our young people in this country. I do not know how many Members in the House have read the recent Centre for Social Justice report on the number of graduates claiming welfare at the moment. Apparently, it is 700,000. That is a huge number of young people who have an enormous amount to offer our community, our country and our allies, but who are being parked in a system that does not include them. To come back to what the armed forces are for, they are not just for the defence of the realm against foreign threats; they are for the cohesion of the realm at home, too. They are for bringing us together, making us understand who we are as Brits and making us proud of who we may be as Northern Irish, Welsh, English or Scottish. They are about understanding that we are stronger together and that we are part of a greater whole. Having 700,000 young people parked on welfare is a pretty big indictment of the failure not just of Government, but of our understanding of our own place in this country. I am not saying that the armed forces are the answer to all of that, but they are surely a contributory factor that we need to be looking at.
To turn to another area, over the last few years we have had long conversations about defence resources for Ukraine. We have heard about the shell shortages and the need for armour and next-generation light anti-tank weapons, but what is the real need in Ukraine? It is the need for technology that changes the game. When one talks to a Ukrainian general, or in fact to a more junior officer such as a Ukrainian colonel, one finds that the conversation is not about armour, as it so often is in the UK, or even about submarines—built so brilliantly in the constituency of the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham). It is about drones and the technology that powers them. I say drones and technology because they are actually separate. The plastic, the rotors and the body—the design—last about nine months on the Ukrainian frontline and the power unit lasts about four weeks, but the technology that allows a drone to defeat the armour, get through the jamming and strike the enemy lasts between seven and 14 days.
That technology is where we need to be advancing fast, but for all our talk of sovereignty, the truth is that only two nations have a sovereign artificial intelligence capability, and that does not include us. They are the United States and China. At the moment, we have only one choice, which is to use the US approach, and that is clearly the right answer for today, but is it the right answer for tomorrow? That is the question we need to be asking ourselves. We need to be asking ourselves where we can develop that technology and how we can secure—for our own defence, within our own timeframe and within our own resources—the ability to understand a battlefield, shape events and determine the technology that will actually defeat our enemies. That is a huge challenge, and I appreciate that this Bill is not meant to answer all those questions, but this surely has to be the question that the armed forces are asking now.
I will close by merely saying that, yes, it is of course true that the numbers are inadequate, and it is certainly striking that in the last few weeks the Iranian regime has murdered roughly the same number of people as are serving in our Royal Navy today, but it is also striking that we are still—and, sadly, increasingly—dependent on foreign technology and not able to meet our own needs, which is where the armed forces and the armed forces equipment deal need to be looking next.
Jack Abbott (Ipswich) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a privilege to speak in this debate on the Armed Forces Bill. Every five years, Parliament is asked to renew its consent for the maintenance of our armed forces in peacetime. That constitutional requirement, dating back to the Bill of Rights in 1688, is more than a procedural necessity; it is about Parliament renewing the contract between the nation and those who serve it. This Bill reflects the changing nature of warfare, the evolving needs of our service personnel and their families, and our duty—collective and enduring—to ensure that those who defend our country are supported not only in uniform, but throughout their lives.
As the Member of Parliament for Ipswich, I represent a town and a county deeply entwined with the story of our national defence. Suffolk’s contribution to the armed forces is profound and long-standing. From Bawdsey on our coast, where the world’s first operational radar station became a decisive force in the battle of Britain, to the air bases that have hosted generations of service personnel, our county has quietly but decisively shaped Britain’s security and, indeed, our history. The innovations developed in Suffolk saved lives, shortened the war and changed the course of our history.
That legacy reminds us of the fundamental truth that our national security is rooted in people, places and communities, and this Bill recognises that by placing people, service personnel and their families at its heart. At this point, I would like to reflect on President Trump’s comments last week. Ipswich’s Aaron McClure, of 1st Battalion, the Royal Anglian Regiment, died alongside two colleagues on active service in Afghanistan. He was just 19 years old. His mother, Lorraine, was right when she said that President Trump’s comments were an insult to his legacy and that of his colleagues.
Turning to the armed forces covenant, the Bill fulfils a clear manifesto commitment by fully enshrining the covenant in law. It extends the covenant’s legal duty beyond local authorities and public bodies to include central Government Departments and the devolved Administrations, and it broadens the range of policy areas to which due regard must be given. This matters deeply. The covenant is a promise from the nation that those who serve or have served and their families will be treated with fairness and respect, and will face no disadvantage because of their service. For far too long, that promise has been honoured inconsistently: veterans have struggled to access healthcare, families have faced disruption in their education, and housing standards have far too often fallen short of what is acceptable. By strengthening this legal duty, the Bill moves the covenant from an aspiration to accountability, it embeds fairness in decision making, and it ensures that public bodies right across our country take responsibility for delivering it.
That legal framework is vital, but legislation alone is not enough. Covenant delivery also depends on strong community institutions. In Ipswich, one such institution is Combat2Coffee, a community interest company, founded by ex-soldier Nigel Seaman, that has become a national model of veteran-led support. Combat2Coffee exists to improve the mental health and wellbeing of the armed forces community and their families. It does so through something deceptively simple: connection. Through coffee mornings, outreach, volunteering and employment pathways, it rebuilds the sense of belonging that many veterans lose when they leave uniform. In 2025 alone, Combat2Coffee supported more than 200 veterans through outreach activities, with more than 2,000 people attending armed forces community coffee mornings. Earlier this year, the organisation’s volunteers were awarded the King’s award for voluntary service, which is the highest honour a voluntary group can receive. That recognition reflects not only the scale of their impact, but the depth of their understanding that mental health is not a niche issue but a continuum, and that early community-based support saves lives.
During Armed Forces Week, I was proud to attend Combat2Coffee’s “Bigger Breakfast” in Ipswich, alongside the Armed Forces Minister and the former Ipswich Town and England captain, Terry Butcher. Terry has long been a passionate advocate for veterans’ wellbeing, informed by his own family’s experience, and his support for this work underlines why strong, compassionate mental health provision for veterans truly matters. Hundreds of serving personnel, veterans and cadets came together not for speeches or ceremonies, but to talk, connect and support one another. My hon. and gallant friend the Armed Forces Minister is a highly decorated individual, but should he so wish, I am sure he would have the title of chief barista.
Housing is also critical. The establishment of the Defence Housing Service through the Bill is long overdue. For decades, defence housing has suffered from under-investment, fragmented responsibility and a “fix on fail” culture that has eroded trust among service families. Last year’s defence housing strategy represents the biggest change in military housing in half a century. The Bill gives that strategy institutional form. The new Defence Housing Service will be responsible for improving quality, increasing availability, regenerating defence land and, crucially, placing a service ethos at the centre of housing provision. For families posted in Suffolk, that will mean homes that meet modern standards, transparent complaints processes and a system that recognises that housing is not a perk but an operational necessity.
David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)
Like many Members across the House, I am on the armed forces parliamentary scheme, and I get to meet some incredible people through training, including people who are serving. They are totally committed and ready to serve this country when they may need to. Does my hon. Friend agree that this provision for decent housing is the least that we can do to thank them?
Jack Abbott
My hon. Friend is completely right. What I was just about to say encapsulates what my hon. Friend says: stability at home underpins readiness, retention and morale.
Readiness itself is another core theme of the Bill. In an increasingly uncertain world, with evolving threats, rapid technological change and heightened global instability, the measures relating to reserve forces reflect the reality of modern defence—that experience matters, that flexibility is essential, and that the boundary between regular and reserve service must be more permeable. By increasing the maximum age of recall, enabling seamless transfers between regular and reserve forces, and granting the Secretary of State power to authorise recall for warlike operations, the Bill strengthens our ability to respond to emerging threats while respecting the voluntary nature of reserve service through appropriate opt-outs.
The provisions on uncrewed devices are similarly necessary. The threat posed by hostile drone activity around defence sites is real and growing, so granting defence personnel the power to use approved equipment to detect, prevent and defeat drone-related offences is not an expansion of power for its own sake, but a proportionate response to a changing and growing threat environment.
From the radar pioneers at Bawdsey to the volunteers roasting coffee for Combat2Coffee in Ipswich and across Suffolk, our local contribution to the armed forces reminds us that defence is not simply confined to bases or battlefields; it lives in innovation, in service and in community. For those reasons, on behalf of the many serving personnel, veterans and families in Ipswich and right across Suffolk, I am proud to support the Bill.
Ian Roome (North Devon) (LD)
It is a privilege to speak on the Armed Forces Bill, which will shape the direction of this country’s armed forces for the next half-decade.
The war in Ukraine should be a wake-up call to all of us, and the world has not looked so dangerous since the end of the cold war. The strategic defence review talks about a whole-of-society approach to making Britain more resilient. The Bill makes no firm commitments on troop numbers or combat, but it does begin to fix some glaring 21st-century gaps in our readiness to defend this country. I have spoken with senior officers who worry that we are poorly prepared to fix the recruitment crisis, stop cyber-attacks or prevent sabotage here in the UK. Some threats will not arrive over the horizon, because they are here already. Giving our forces the tools and authority that they need to protect key infrastructure against drone attacks, as specified in clause 4, to organise reserves and recall, and to support the next generation of recruits, will be critical.
For me, protecting our armed forces personnel is closest to my heart, and that is why it is so important that the Bill enshrines the armed forces covenant into law across Government, and why the new Defence Housing Service needs to be a success. More than three quarters of our armed forces live in service accommodation. I have done it myself, but I was still horrified by the findings of the service accommodation report published by the Defence Select Committee in December 2024, which detailed everything from rodent infestations to damp, mould and crumbling facilities. The Bill lays the groundwork for the Ministry of Defence to begin to fix that disaster.
I am pleased that the Government have agreed with the Liberal Democrat position that the decent homes standard should be applied to all forces accommodation, and the Bill gives the Defence Housing Service wide-ranging powers to do more. It is the very least that we owe to those in uniform. I hope that when the Secretary of State reports on the progress of the Defence Housing Service from the Dispatch Box, as specified in schedule 1, he will never again have to say that we let our armed forces down so badly.
The Bill clarifies the role of the new Armed Forces Commissioner and gives courts martial the authority to support those who may be suffering from mental health disorders. The requirement in clause 17 for commanding officers to report welfare allegations that have not yet been flagged, even outside their own chain of command, is another important addition that, in my opinion, is decades overdue.
The Bill also introduces measures to bring the powers of the tri-service military police up to date. It creates a stronger framework to stamp out sexual assault, stalking and other offences committed in uniform and by civilians subject to service discipline. I know that the terrible case of Artillery Gunner Jaysley Beck will have been at the forefront of everyone’s minds when the Bill was drafted. I hope that she, and many like her, will be our first thought when those clauses are studied in Committee.
The stakes are suddenly very high. This Bill needs to be our best work. We must safeguard every one of our armed forces personnel more than at any point in the last 30 years. They will keep this country safe, and the House owes them our unwavering support in return.
Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a privilege to speak in this debate. For me, the Bill is personal. My great-grandfather fought in France during the first world war and my grandfather served in Burma during the second world war, both for the British Indian Army, and my uncle served in the Indian army. Across generations and across continents, the same truth runs through my family history: service is not abstract. It is sacrifice. It is long absences, lifelong injuries and families carrying the weight at home. And it reminds us that Britain’s story has always been shaped not just on these islands, but by those from across the Commonwealth who stood up in our darkest hours.
That is why how we treat those who serve and those who have served matters so deeply. Birmingham is home to nearly 18,000 veterans and my constituency is proud of its connection to the armed forces community. At the Queen Elizabeth hospital Birmingham sits the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, where military and civilian clinicians work side by side, delivering world-class care to those injured in service to this country. It is a place where duty meets compassion, where Britain’s promise to its armed forces must mean something real. I know the Minister for the Armed Forces, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), my constituency neighbour, who served this country in uniform, understands that reality not from briefing notes but from lived experience. His service, and that of Members across this House on all sides who have worn the uniform, deserves our respect.
The armed forces covenant is built on a simple principle: that those who serve should face no disadvantage, and that special consideration is owed where sacrifice has been greatest. But for too long, that promise has not been fully kept. In the spirit of Ernest Bevin, a strong Britain honours its armed forces not with words, but with lasting responsibility. The Bill matters because it extends the covenant across Government not as a slogan, but as a duty; a duty that recognises the physical and mental toll of service, the instability of constant moves, and the reality that too many veterans still struggle with housing, healthcare and support long after they leave the forces. In Birmingham, organisations such as the Royal British Legion, Help for Heroes and Fisher House, and countless local volunteers already embody that covenant every single day, supporting families at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine and providing care when the system falls short. The Bill backs them up with action.
Housing is where the failure has been clearest. Too many veterans have been left in poor quality accommodation or pushed into homelessness. The “Veterans’ Survey 2022” found that one in 400 veterans reported being homeless, sleeping rough or living in a refuge. That is not just wrong; it is a breach of trust. I welcome the Government’s action: investing £9 billion into forces homes over the next decade; renewing 2,500 existing homes in the west midlands; and building 100,000 homes on surplus defence land, with priority for service families and veterans. That is what listening looks like. That is what governing looks like.
This is not just about bricks and mortar; it is about dignity. It is about whether a veteran can get to hospital; whether a family can stay together during treatment; whether victims of abuse, rape and violence get support; and whether service really ends at the barracks gate or the country keeps its word. The Bill sends a clear message: Britain will not turn its back on those who stood up for her. It honours the past, supports the present and strengthens the future. I am proud to support it.
Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The Defence Secretary opened the debate by talking about the Bill taking significant steps to improve service lives, but the reality is that the rhetoric is not matched by the record.
Let me take as an example the significant section of the Bill that is devoted to reservists. There are measures that I have no objection to: it allows the recall of those in their early 60s; it aligns the provision across the three services; and it has a new, lower threshold to recall based on warlike conditions, although it does not explain to employers what “warlike” constitutes so that they can know on what basis their staff might be called up. But the reality is that under this Government the number of reservists has actually fallen. It was over 32,000 in October 2023 and under 32,000 in October 2024. The number of training days has also fallen, from 1.3 million in 2023-24 to 1.17 million in 2024-25. The Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns) said that our reservists “are critical” and “absolutely central”:
“Without them we cannot generate mass, we cannot meet the plethora of defence tasks”.
If that is his view—and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) spoke about increased risks and the action being taken by other countries—then why is the number of reservists not increasing significantly?
There might be those on the Government Benches who say, “Well, perhaps our record so far hasn’t been great, but don’t worry—the strategic defence and security review promises a 20% increase in our reservists, so perhaps it will improve in future.” First, that starts from a very low base of 32,000, so a 20% increase is around 6,500. Let us put that in context. Even the French—the French, Madam Deputy Speaker!—are more than doubling their number of reservists, and from a higher starting point. They are going from 46,000 to over 100,000 in the next decade. Many other countries have already taken action. The US has half its army and over a third of its air force in its guard or reserve units. Scandinavian and Baltic countries have also taken action. If we want to see what other countries are doing, we can look at the action the Germans are taking, as my right hon. Friend talked about, or at Poland’s defence spending
We have a very weak target of 20% on a low threshold. What is worse is that the funding commitment to that is almost non-existent. The strategic defence and security review has no hard deadline, and it has the caveat
“when funds allow, most likely in the 2030s.”
Some might say, “Well, isn’t that just my view?” It is actually the view of the cross-party Public Accounts Committee. There are 10 Labour Members on that Committee. It is worth pointing out what that cross-party Committee said just a few months ago, in September:
“The Strategic Defence Review (SDR) sets out the Department’s ambition to significantly expand the reserves’ role, including a 20% increase in numbers from the current 32,000 reserves when funding allows, most likely in the 2030s. However, the Department does not currently have funding or a detailed plan for how it will achieve this expansion.”
That is a report from a Committee with a majority of Labour Members of Parliament.
Let us be honest: it is not just on the issue of reservists that there is no action and little transparency on the funding. To give another example, we do not even have the defence investment plan published—it was promised last year. Given what my right hon. Friend said about the funding steps being taken by other countries, let us put that in context. How much money are we talking about? Spending on reserve pay last year, 2024-25, amounted to £135.3 million, with a further £32 million for bounty payments. The Department’s budget is over £60 billion. A 20% increase in pay and bounty payments would be £33.6 million. We have Government Front Benchers saying that this is critical, central and urgent, but we cannot find low tens of millions until the 2030s.
Luke Akehurst
It is an honour to serve under the right hon. Gentleman on the Finance Committee, where we look at slightly smaller-scale issues on spending. He appears to be questioning the Government’s political commitment to find the funding necessary for defence. Does he accept that the downpayment on that political will was the very tough political decision of the Government to take an axe to international development funding, something close to the hearts of many Labour Back Benchers, to provide additional funding for the MOD? If a Labour Government are prepared to take a step with that political courage, he should be in no doubt that, as the years go forward, we will find the funding that is essential to deal with the future defence threats we face.
Steve Barclay
The hon. Gentleman is one of the most astute commentators on the Finance Committee, so I always genuinely listen to what he says. However, the point I am making is on the urgency to address this now and the relative modesty of the sums we are talking about to significantly increase the reserves. We are talking about tens of millions in a budget of over £60 billion. Therefore, if the rhetoric that this is central to our national security is meant, why is the action being delayed? To the hon. Gentleman’s point on funding, as a Former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I know that pages 141 and 142 of the Red Book deal with the resource departmental expenditure limit, which I think is at £1.1 billion this year in cash terms, and the capital departmental expenditure limit is at £0.4 billion—so there is more money. From that £1.5 billion, if I was back in the Treasury I would be asking why tens of millions cannot be prioritised for this, if it is indeed a priority?
If we do not want to look at the MOD budget, we could look at the £27 million the civil service spends on diversity and inclusion officers, or some other areas, such as the over £100 million a year those on the Government Benches voted to spend as part of the Chagos islands giveaway. My point is that these are relatively small sums, which give us scale in terms of our ability to respond at pace.
Ministers are right to say that the reserves are critical, but their record is one in which they have failed to act, and there is no timescale to address those points. Just last month, the Minister told journalists that the UK is “rapidly developing” plans to prepare the country for war, and he warned that:
“the shadow of war is knocking on Europe’s door once more”.
How is that aligned with the approach of the Government in terms of failing to scale reserves, and in allowing their numbers to stagnate or even fall?
I have a specific question to ask the Minister with regard to the article 3 commitment under NATO, on our ability to defend the UK. Will he confirm that for the duration of this Parliament the current level of manpower available in our reserves is sufficient to meet article 3 and cover all our critical national infrastructure, and that in reaching that judgment, he is not double counting reservists—such as those who are police officers, doctors, nurses or work in our NHS—who could be counted as essential in those tasks as part of our article 3 requirements?
Dr Arthur
The right hon. Member is being generous with his time, but I feel that he is giving a glass-half-empty speech. He will know that overall recruitment to the armed forces has increased substantially. The latest figures, published in December, are 13% up, and the number of people leaving the forces is dropping. We heard from the hon. Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) that when he was Defence Minister he argued inside Cabinet for more money to go to defence. As the right hon. Gentleman was in the Cabinet at the same time, was he joining in those calls?
Steve Barclay
When I was in the Cabinet we were also responding to a global pandemic and to the energy inflation as a result of Ukraine. What I am highlighting is that we have an Armed Forces Bill under the hon. Gentleman’s Government in which the Minister is saying that reservists are critical. I am simply pointing to their record and their future plans.
I am conscious of time, so I will move on to housing, which is covered in clause 3. Colleagues will know that just last April The Guardian reported the Prime Minister as telling the Cabinet that he wanted to stop outsourcing decisions to quangos, so it will come as no surprise to colleagues across the House that the Bill sets up yet another quango. In fact, the last Armed Forces Bill took a year to pass, so this quango will not be in place until more than halfway through the Parliament, on an issue which Ministers themselves could be making decisions on. The Prime Minister is telling his Cabinet one thing, and the Bill is doing the exact opposite.
More importantly, the hon. Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) spoke about how Ministers will have oversight of the new body in terms of the targets. I am afraid I have some news for him: I struggle to find any targets in the Bill. I asked the House of Commons Library what the targets were for this Parliament on housing, and the answer came back that there were none. There are no targets, and yet housing is apparently a huge priority. One could perhaps take comfort at least from whom the Government have put in charge of the housing improvements, as they have appointed a new permanent secretary, but the cross-party Public Accounts Committee published a report just last week—I have not had to go through the archives—in which its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for North Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown), says:
“I have served on the Public Accounts Committee for twelve years. In all that time a 98% failure rate in a public sector initiative amounts to the most catastrophic fiasco that I have ever seen on the Committee”.
The report itself says:
“The Department designed the schemes in a way that exposes it to both poor quality work and fraud…There was virtually no attention from senior officials and the Department did not know whether the scheme as a whole was or was not working for at least two years”.
It therefore seems a surprise that just three months ago, the Defence Ministers appointed the permanent secretary of that Department to be the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Defence, in charge of its flagship programmes, including a housing programme. I ask the Minister, had he read the National Audit Office report when the permanent secretary was appointed?
I have a specific question for the Minister regarding clauses 28 and 29. Can he confirm whether any review has been conducted of Army discipline since the general election? If so, was it published, and if it was not, why not and will it be published before Committee stage? In his summing up, can the Minister explain how a Bill that speaks so much about the importance of the military covenant is consistent with removing protections from our Northern Ireland veterans?
On the issue of veterans, the Minister announced Operation Valour last May. The Department took six months before it put out a job advert, and it has still not appointed or announced anyone in that post. Can the Minister advise the House why it has taken nine months to appoint someone and when that appointment will be made? Finally, where are the incentives in the Bill? Where are the incentives for employers to recruit reservists —where are the tax incentives and the join-up across Departments?
Alex Baker (Aldershot) (Lab)
I am proud to speak in support of the Armed Forces Bill on Second Reading, and I do so as the Member of Parliament for Aldershot, the home of the British Army. In my constituency, service is not an abstract concept. It is lived, every day, by families who accept unique pressures on their time, their family life, their careers, their children’s education and their health. Our duty in return is clear: fairness, respect, and practical support that works in real life.
I will begin with housing. The last Government left defence housing in an absolute mess, with satisfaction levels for service family accommodation hitting the lowest level on record. I hugely welcome the creation of the new Defence Housing Service and the direction of travel the Bill sets. My patch will be one of the biggest recipients of these changes, as there are more than 1,800 service family homes in Aldershot. That is thousands of families who should never have had to put up with the basics being a battle.
For too long, I have had conversation after conversation with service personnel and their spouses about housing that is not fit for purpose, and a repairs system that feels like a maze. People have described the nightmare of trying to get even straightforward repairs done, and the frustration of being treated like the problem rather than the customer. Again and again, families say to me that they miss the days when there was an estate manager on site who could fix problems quickly and take responsibility. I am delighted to see the Bill deliver that, restoring a service that is accountable, visible and on the side of forces families.
Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)
I agree with everything that the hon. Member has said about service family accommodation, but the investment in single living accommodation is unlikely to keep up. As we have heard, that is the responsibility of frontline commands that are unlikely to prioritise it. Does she think that there could be the unintended consequence that people want to move out of the block and even enter relationships in order to move into the much better quality service family accommodation?
Alex Baker
That is a fair point. I know that the Defence Committee will be holding Ministers to account on single living accommodation as much as we are on SFA. They both need to improve very quickly.
The second and central point that I want to focus on is the covenant. It is absolutely right that it is strengthened and put on a clear legal footing. The covenant is the nation’s promise that those who serve and their families should not be disadvantaged because of service life. If that principle means anything, it must apply consistently across the whole of Government and the whole of the United Kingdom.
The Defence Committee has heard powerful evidence of how inconsistent the covenant can be in practice and how families often feel they are left to fight their corner alone. I will give just one example. We heard evidence from someone serving who moved from Scotland to the south of England while waiting for an NHS specialist appointment. They had been told that their place on the waiting list would transfer under the covenant, but instead they were put to the end of the queue, with the local trust stating that it did not recognise or follow the covenant. That is just one story among hundreds.
The Committee heard that significant proportions of serving personnel feel disadvantaged when trying to access healthcare, education and housing, and that challenge is not limited to service personnel themselves. We also heard how service life affects spouses and partners, from difficulties transferring professional roles to families being denied remote working arrangements when posted abroad.
The most worrying conclusion the Defence Committee reached was not simply that disadvantage exists, but that there is no clear single shared understanding of what the covenant actually means on the ground, either among providers or within parts of our armed forces community itself. That gap in understanding is exactly where good intentions go to die.
While I strongly support putting the covenant into law, I urge the Government to go a few steps further. If we are creating a stronger legal covenant, we should take the opportunity to set out a clear, positive, public commitment: what the armed forces community can expect, what “no disadvantage” actually means in practice, and what will be delivered consistently across the UK. It should include clear standards, practical guidance for those delivering services and proper mechanisms for accountability and learning so that best practice is shared and poor practice is tackled quickly. Legislation alone will not fix inconsistency if the people responsible for implementation do not know what is being asked of them or if families cannot see a straightforward route to challenge decisions that plainly ignore the covenant.
Lastly, we should set out a clear vision for how the armed forces covenant is made real in communities across the UK. This really relates to our commitment to a total society approach to defence, particularly within the strategic defence review. That is why I am campaigning for Aldershot to be officially recognised as an armed forces covenant town. I want to create a national movement of covenant towns, cities and villages committed to delivering the covenant consistently across local services and organisations. I am working with the Royal British Legion on what that looks like. Towns like Aldershot, where civilian and military life are inseparable, already understand what it means in practice. By establishing places like ours as covenant towns, cities and villages, we can kick-start a national effort to ensure that respect and fairness for the armed forces community are not just a box-ticking exercise, but embedded in the beating heart of our communities.
In Aldershot and Farnborough, families do not ask for special treatment. They ask for fair treatment and for a system that recognises the reality of service life. This Bill, with a renewed approach to housing and a stronger covenant, is a major step in the right direction. I welcome and support it and will keep pushing to ensure that its promise is felt by forces families not just in speeches this evening, but in their everyday lives.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I intend to introduce a five-minute time limit after the next speaker.
Dave Doogan (Angus and Perthshire Glens) (SNP)
The SNP is broadly supportive of the contents of the Bill. It is an important Armed Forces Bill; it is hard to remember another Armed Forces Bill that stepped into such a yawning breach between the armed forces capabilities that we have and the armed forces capabilities that we need. Notwithstanding the fact that clauses 5, 9, 48 and 49 and schedule 2 and elements of schedule 3 will not have effect in Scotland, much of that which is in the Bill is long-overdue legislation that begins to address the systemic problems of the recruitment, training and upkeep of our armed forces, what we expect our armed forces to do and the conditions in which we expect them to live.
I will restrict my remarks to the measures that address the important elements of housing, sexual harm and the numbers within our armed forces. I will not labour the point, except to say that the provisions for sexual harm prevention orders and sexual risk orders in clause 5 are still sadly very much required. We must have confidence that our young people who decide to join the armed forces can do so knowing that while it may or may not prove to be the career or job for them, they can sign up, train, qualify and serve in the knowledge that they will not be predated upon by either their peers or their superiors. Clause 5 will not directly apply in Scotland, but will of course benefit from legislative consent motions in order that a similar effect will be established there for the safety and security of our uniformed personnel.
The Bill needs to address the recruitment crisis in our armed forces, so it remains a concern that the Government are seeking in the Bill to ensure less parliamentary scrutiny over the size of the armed forces instead of facilitating more. The most recent targets were set in 2021. Currently, the UK armed forces overall are 6% below target at almost 9,000 personnel short—a loss of 11,128 personnel across the UK since 2014. In April 2014, there were 11,100 regular armed forces in Scotland; in April 2021, that had gone down to 10,440. In 2014, the UK Government committed to increasing the number of Scotland-based personnel to 12,500—I would be interested if the Minister could advise what the figure is now.
The UK has a relatively small per-capita standing army by European standards, so it was disappointing that the SDR merely recommended no further reductions in the size of the regular forces, instead of showing the patently required ambition to grow in order to ensure that our armed forces are able to maintain the defence and resilience of the homeland and our commitments to NATO.
I support the taking back into public ownership of service accommodation and the ending of the appalling commercial contracts, which have been well documented in countless debates in this place. I also welcome the Government’s establishment of the Defence Housing Service. However, in March 2025, the MOD could not confirm via written parliamentary questions how much would be spent on maintaining and improving SLA, with the amount ranging from £445 million to £619 million. I wonder whether the Minister can narrow that figure down for the House this evening.
Moreover, those figures have not been broken down to differentiate between Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. As such, there is no confirmation of how much will be spent on SLA for personnel serving in Scotland. The House of Commons Library confirmed in 2024 that the MOD managed 47,700 properties, 91.5% of which were in England and Wales, with 6.6% in Scotland. How will these much needed and urgent improvements be marshalled across each establishment and each nation?
With that, Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish the Minister every success with the Bill.
Luke Akehurst (North Durham) (Lab)
I pay tribute to the hon. and gallant Members across the House who have brought to the debate personal experience of serving this country in the armed forces. I particularly thank the right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) for his insightful speech, in which he talked about some of the threats we face.
It was mentioned earlier in the debate that there are no Members present from the Reform party. I think that their apparent lack of interest in defence matters could partly be because, while most of us across the rest of the House have sleepless nights worrying about the threat to the United Kingdom and its allies from Russia, Reform Members do not actually accept that that threat exists; they are on a spectrum that ranges from thinking it is all Ukraine’s fault that it was ever the subject of two invasions and the threat of a third, through to their Welsh leader actually accepting money from the people whose military threat we are trying to counter.
For many families across North Durham, the contract between the state and the brave men and women who serve in our armed forces is a key issue—one that they sent me here to focus on. One in every 10 households I speak to in North Durham has a veteran or serving member of the armed forces. When I am campaigning on people’s doorsteps, I often play “spot the cap badge”, as many homes have different badges just inside the door as mementos, and if I manage to recognise it, it helps to strike up a conversation.
Across my constituency are people who have served in all three services and many different units, but North Durham has a particularly strong connection with the Durham Light Infantry—also known as the DLI or Faithful Durhams—and its successor regiments following amalgamation. I pay particular tribute to the Durham Light Infantry Association for its role in my constituency.
For my constituents, having proper housing, social care, justice and other support for veterans is not just about making a pledge; they must be a reality for them and their loved ones in order to get on with life. Since being elected, I have tried to use my role in this place as a platform to stand up for our armed forces and veterans and call for greater investment in defending our country. In an increasingly turbulent world, the importance of the invaluable efforts of our servicemen and women is clearer than it has been at any time since the end of the cold war.
I am proud that we have a Labour Government who are showing through this Bill that we are on the side of our armed forces. I was elected on a manifesto that promised to renew the nation’s contract with those who serve through better housing, services and protections for our forces and their families. The Bill will do exactly that. It will also renew, as is done on a five-year basis, the existence of standing armed forces—a tradition that has gone on since 1688. I am sure Members will be unsurprised to hear that I am happy for this country to have standing armed forces. As others have said, I hope that the standing armed forces will grow and that we will attain the kind of mass that we need to deal with the threats we face.
The Bill forms a key part of a wider picture of a Labour Government who are delivering on the defence of this nation. I spoke about the tough political choices that we are making to obtain the funding that is needed for that, but landmark deals have also been secured to protect British jobs and help keep the world safer from hostile actors. We secured an £8 billion deal with Turkey on Eurofighter, which I spoke about in a Westminster Hall debate late last year, and we have seen the selection of the UK’s Type 26 frigates by Norway. Incidentally, I consider Norway to be one of our key strategic partners in defending the north Atlantic bastion.
As parliamentarians, we all have a duty to deliver a renewed covenant with our armed forces. We must do that for the brave men and women in North Durham who were willing to put their lives on the line throughout history and do so even now for the good of the rest of our constituents up and down the country. We must do it for the current generation in active service, who are safeguarding the nation from threats, wherever they come from. We must do it for the entire population, who rightly expect that their Government will do all that they can to keep them safe from any risk of conflict and bloodshed.
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
I will use my time in this debate to highlight an injustice that strikes at the very heart of the armed forces covenant: the injustice suffered by a legendary Eastbournian, Staff Sergeant Pauline Cole.
Pauline served our country during the Aden emergency in 1967, and she wrote about her experiences in her book “Army Girl: The Untold Story”. She developed skin damage and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of her military service. After tribunals rightfully awarded her compensation for those lifelong conditions, she should have been able to live with greater financial security in her retirement. Instead, the opposite happened. Military compensation is treated as income when calculating pension credit, so most of what Pauline won at tribunal was effectively taken away by the Department for Work and Pensions. Her pension credit fell from £77 a week to just £11 a week. Pauline was financially punished for being injured in the service of her country.
This is not just Pauline’s story; the Royal British Legion estimates that over 50,000 war disablement pensioners of retirement age face the same perverse outcome. What makes it worse and even more outrageous is that civil compensation is not treated as income for pension credit; only military compensation is penalised in this way. It is also outrageous in the light of the fact that LGBT+ veterans who received compensation following the Etherton review were explicitly, and rightly, told that their payments would not affect their benefits. We have to ask: why are injured veterans under the war pension scheme treated differently, and why does our system force our poorest veterans to use compensation awarded for pain, injury and lost quality of life to cover basic living costs?
I was proud to use my first ever question to the Prime Minister in this place to raise this injustice at the highest level, and I was proud to leverage a meeting with the Pensions Minister to discuss it further. There were many, many warm words but no action. I promised Pauline that I would do my very best to fight this injustice on her behalf. With huge sadness, Pauline died on 30 November last year, without seeing the justice that she was so determined to secure. At her funeral earlier this month, I restated to her sons Les and Simon Haffenden and to all her loved ones gathered there my promise to continue to fight tooth and nail for Pauline and veterans like her. To that end, this week marks my tabling of my armed forces compensation scheme and war pension scheme report Bill—Pauline’s law—as a step toward correcting the injustice permanently.
As this Government’s Armed Forces Bill progresses through Parliament, the Minister has an incredible opportunity—a duty, in my view—to act through his own legislation to correct this gross injustice. I urge the Government to amend the Bill to ensure that no veteran’s pension credit, or indeed any benefit, is reduced because they received compensation for serving their country.
I would love to work in a cross-party way on this issue. I know that the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) is passionate about this issue, as are the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (John Milne) and many others. Indeed, it was mentioned by our spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (James MacCleary).
We owe our veterans nothing less than the dignity, security and fairness that they were promised when they signed up to serve. Pauline deserved better, our veterans deserve better, and this House must do better.
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
Bedworth in my constituency hosts the largest armistice parade in Britain. It is truly the town that never forgets. Today I want to pay tribute to all the veterans across North Warwickshire and Bedworth, especially those who lost their lives in Afghanistan, including Sergeant Simon Valentine.
When I speak to people across my constituency, they tell me that they are proud of their armed forces. Just last week I met a constituent on a visit to Parliament who proudly told me about his time serving in the RAF. At a time of growing international turbulence, we need more people who look to our armed forces with national pride and who can see a future for themselves in our armed forces.
For too long, those opportunities were undermined by years of under-investment by the Conservatives. In 1996, the Conservative party privatised military housing. This decision cost taxpayers billions and left too many service personnel and their families living in substandard conditions. Between 2018 and 2023, military families lodged almost 53,000 complaints about their housing. By 2023, satisfaction with service family accommodation had fallen to the lowest level on record, with only one in five service personnel satisfied with the repairs and maintenance carried out. This Labour Government have started to turn the tide. We have brought 36,000 forces family homes back into public ownership, saving over £200 million a year in rent payments. These savings are already being invested in fixing and improving military housing, but we need to do so much more.
In the run-up to the election in 2024, we promised to extend the armed forces covenant to every area of Government. Through this Bill, we are delivering on that promise. The armed forces covenant promises to deliver fairness for serving personnel, veterans, families and the bereaved, and for the first time, this Government will extend the covenant across social care, employment support and other public services, placing a legal duty on them to consider the unique circumstances faced by forces personnel and their families. It will deliver better support for tens of thousands of service personnel and veterans across the country. As part of improving that help, I am proud to have supported Op Valour, which is extending more support for veterans and their families in my constituency.
All those who serve our country must be able to do so with dignity and respect. They deserve confidence in a service justice system that stands with them and that supports victims and delivers justice. That is why the Government are ensuring that the service justice system can better protect those who experience the most serious offences. It will give the military police enhanced powers to investigate wrongdoing, provide service courts with stronger tools to hold perpetrators to account and, crucially, improve the experience of victims as they navigate the justice process. I am proud to stand behind this Government’s mission to halve violence against women and girls, and this Bill will help us in that mission, because it includes a comprehensive set of measures to protect those at risk of violent behaviour, domestic abuse, stalking and sexual abuse and harassment.
I also want to see this legislation protecting our armed forces in their role combating terrorism at home and abroad. The first duty of any Government is to keep their citizens safe. Today, the threats we face are growing closer and closer to home. We have seen Russia’s illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine, and we have seen the rules-based international order fracture and strain. In response, we have to strengthen our armed forces and ensure that we are prepared for an era of ever increasing threat.
Finally we have a Government who are standing side by side with our armed forces through real, tangible measures, backing our armed forces, supporting their families, treating them with dignity and respect, giving them choices and ensuring that our nation’s security is fit for the future.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate. I want to thank the Minister and the Government for all they do. I mean that genuinely, because the Bill before us has lots of good things on which we should be encouraged to support the Minister. I am also pleased to see the Minister for the Armed Forces, the hon. and gallant Member for Birmingham Selly Oak (Al Carns), in his place. I look forward to his comments at the end.
I want to declare an interest as a former member of the Ulster Defence Regiment for three years and a member of the Territorial Army for the Royal Artillery for 11 and a half years. As a former serviceman, I know very well the impact of being well funded, because that means being well supported, emotionally and practically, and that applies never more so than this week when our brave troops have been disparaged as they have been. It is imperative that this House refutes and repudiates that smear on the brave young men and women who gave their all. I mentioned that in an intervention, and I say it again for the record.
I think of Corporal Channing Day from 3 Medical Regiment, who was killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday 24 October 2012 while on patrol in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province. She was a 25-year-old Comber girl, my constituent, who paid the ultimate sacrifice and gave her life while helping others. She was not somewhere in the background, to quote President Trump. She was on the frontline, and her mum and dad, Rosemary and Leslie, still grieve for her today. She and others in the armed forces were the best in the world, and their brothers and sisters in arms continue to uphold their legacy and sacrifice and the motto that she served under in the Medical Corps: “Faithful in adversity”. We need to be faithful in adversity for her and for all the others who have served. The Bill before us today reminds us of our duty to be faithful to them and I therefore support it.
I work closely with the veterans champion for Ards and North Down borough council, Alderman Trevor Cummings, who over the years has highlighted the disparity in the application of this duty in certain areas. It is my desire, and indeed that of the Royal British Legion and Help for Heroes, that this disparity is stamped out and that the application of obligations is accepted and implemented UK-wide, so my ask of the Minister will be in my next comment. As we all know, in Northern Ireland the treatment of our armed forces greatly varies across the Province. This was demonstrated in the abuse received by British Legion supporters at a Tesco store in Newry just last year. It is little wonder that veterans feel unsupported in certain areas when local charity fundraisers are treated in this manner.
There is a real requirement for this legislation to apply foundationally across the United Kingdom. As Help for Heroes has stated, this Bill has the potential to strengthen legal protections where public bodies fail to consider properly the needs of the armed forces community in policy, funding and service decisions. My ask of the Minister is for improved consistency and fairness across the United Kingdom, so that when things happen in Northern Ireland that should not be happening, recognition will be for all. We also need to reinforce accountability and delivery at national and local levels, and it is our job to ensure that the Bill does just that.
I am aware that our Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner, David Johnstone—the Secretary of State referred to him earlier—is working on models to improve the treatment of Northern Ireland veterans at governmental level, acknowledging the unique position that Northern Ireland finds herself in. I believe that the Bill will aid him in trying to ensure that every governmental Department abides by our obligations from this House and not by its own personal desires.
That also leads me to ask the Minister to outline whether the Bill will ensure that the Northern Ireland Veterans Commissioner is on an equal footing with the rest of the United Kingdom Commissioners. It is currently a non-statutory appointment, which means that the post lacks the formal legal powers and duties that statutory commissioners in other parts of the United Kingdom may possess. I hope the Minister does not mind my asking that question directly, and I would like to have an answer, please.
I further support Help for Heroes in its three asks of the Bill. The first is that the duty should apply to all relevant public bodies. For consistency and accountability, the legislation and subsequent regulations should ensure that the duty applies across the full delivery system of all four nations. The second is that statutory guidance must be clear and enforceable by clearly setting out expectations, responsibilities and minimum standards, underpinned by formal monitoring and reporting arrangements. Thirdly, veterans should have clear routes to redress where the duty is not met, and Parliament should be able to scrutinise delivery effectively. A robust evidence and accountability framework is essential.
Time has beaten me, Madam Deputy Speaker, but what a time this is to remember just how much we have to be thankful to our armed forces for. They are the best in the world, and their training, courage and fortitude are the stuff of legend. They deserve the certainty that this nation, this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, will do right by them and their families while they serve and when they retire, no matter where they retire to.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
Portsmouth North knows the value of service. We are a proud naval city, home to serving personnel, reservists, veterans and their families, and to the many charities and individuals who support them. We are a city whose identity is inseparable from the Royal Navy. More than 9,000 veterans of all services live in Portsmouth. Thousands more serve at His Majesty’s Royal Naval Base, Portsmouth, and many families in my constituency move where duty sends them, putting down roots again and again in the service of this nation. That is why the Armed Forces Bill matters so deeply to Portsmouth North. The Bill renews the nation’s contract with those who serve. It delivers better homes, stronger protections, fairer support for veterans and serving personnel and greater readiness at a time of global threat.
Let me start with housing, because for far too long forces families were badly let down. Under the Conservatives, satisfaction with service family accommodation collapsed to record lows as families lived with damp, mould and unsafe conditions. This Bill draws a clear line under that failure. Indeed, I am proud to see that this work has already begun under this Government, with real change to be seen in houses in areas such as Hilsea. I thank the Minister and the Secretary of State for visiting and seeing this change.
But we are going to do more, by establishing a publicly owned Defence Housing Service and backing it with a fully costed £9 million defence housing strategy. Change under Labour is real. This investment will directly improve service family accommodation in Portsmouth, which will improve retention and provide stability and quality of life for those who serve and live in our almost 700 local homes. That is also only possible because we ended the disastrous privatisation of military housing and brought 36,000 forces family homes back into public ownership, saving £200 million a year—money we are now reinvesting for our service personnel.
I am proud that the Bill delivers on a solemn promise that we made at the general election: for the first time, the armed forces covenant will be extended across every part of government. Central Government, local authorities and public bodies will be legally required to consider the unique circumstances of service life. For Portsmouth North, where thousands of veterans and service personnel rely on local healthcare, housing, employment and support, that will end the postcode lottery and deliver fairness for those who are serving and those who have already given up so much. I ask the Minister to tell me in his summing up how clear statutory guidance with practical examples will support consistent delivery on the ground and give confidence to those responsible for making the covenant work. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Alex Baker) and join her campaign by making Portsmouth the national covenant city, alongside Aldershot’s covenant town.
Those who serve our country must be able to do so with dignity and respect. This Bill strengthens the service justice system, improves support for victims and ensures that serious offences are dealt with swiftly and properly. It also delivers new protections against sexual violence, domestic abuse, stalking and harassment in line with our mission to halve violence against women and girls. Supporting victims and raising standards does not weaken our armed forces; it strengthens them.
In conclusion, the Bill exposes a clear divide between those who back our armed forces and those who prefer slogans to substance. The Tories talk tough on defence, but their record is one of abysmal failure. Their 14 years in government left morale at record lows, forces housing in a shameful state, our services decimated, and the no-detriment service of our service personnel unrecognised, unknown and, for many, invisible. But there is another group I must mention: Reform UK. Reform Members speak loudly outside this Chamber about patriotism and respect for the armed forces. Yet when this House debates housing, welfare and legal protection for those who serve and have served, they are conspicuous by their absence. On debates marking D-day, VJ Day and moments of enormous significance to my naval city and to veterans across the country, Reform Members are shamefully not here.
Rachel Taylor
Does my hon. Friend agree that given that Reform is in control of more than 10 county councils up and down the country, which will be responsible for implementing the armed forces covenant in areas such as education and social welfare, the inability of its Members to show up today is shameful?
Amanda Martin
Absolutely, which is why I ask the Minister how we can ensure that the covenant is statutory across all our local authorities.
Patriotism is not a slogan or social media post. It is showing up, voting for better homes for forces families, backing the armed forces covenant, strengthening the protections for those who serve, and listening and supporting individual constituents as an MP and collectively as Government. Help for Heroes, the Royal Navy and Royal Marines Charity and the Naval Children’s Charity have all welcomed the direction of the Bill and stand ready to support its implementation so that lived experience continues to shape delivery.
This is a Bill for homes fit for heroes and for fairness for thousands of veterans in Portsmouth and for those serving. I am proud to say that two special naval personnel are in the Gallery today: my son and his girlfriend. I want to give them and all others who serve and have served dignity, respect, support and readiness in an increasingly dangerous world. Since being elected, I have stood up proudly for my armed forces community, alongside a city that has always stood up for our armed forces. Today this Bill ensures that Government will do the same.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I am absolutely honoured to follow the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin). I am pleased to see this Bill seek to fill the gaps in the armed forces covenant. I should declare a personal interest as my husband Paul is a Royal Navy veteran, my daughter Abbi is a current Army reservist, I am a member of the armed forces parliamentary scheme, and my husband is the armed forces champion at Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council. My husband’s last day of service was the day before we got married—denying me those amazing wedding photographs. The primary reason he decided to come out before we married was because, at that time, the support for families was weak. He told me that he did not want to receive a “Dear John” letter or miss the birth of his children. The armed forces covenant was supposed to fix that, but I have heard from service families that that is not yet the case.
One of the clearest examples of where families feel let down is in education. Although our schools are required to prioritise the children of military personnel in their admissions, and they do, so many children with special educational needs fall through the net. The process is supposed to take a matter of months, as we know, but it often takes closer to a year, and many children find themselves moved from one local authority to another part way through, leading to a need to repeat assessments and to lengthening delays. We know that specialist school places are as rare as unicorn manure, and I have heard that many families feel they cannot move with their serving member as they cannot afford to risk that change. I hope that the Minister will work carefully alongside the Department for Education on this.
Peter Swallow
What the hon. Member is saying is so important—more important than party politics. Fundamentally, as we work to fix the special educational needs and disabilities system, we must bear in mind the unique circumstances of those who serve our country. I thank her for raising that important point.
Vikki Slade
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I have met service children as I have visited my schools, and I always pay special attention to the service they are giving through their parents being away.
It is not just in education; we know that dentistry is in crisis, and Dorset has often been mentioned as a dental desert. While serving personnel can access excellent GP and dentist services on their bases, that does not extend to their spouses and children. Most NHS dentists are closed to new patients in my area, so families arriving in the county face the prospect of losing their dentist. Is the Minister considering extending service dentists to support the wider armed forces family? How will he work with the Department of Health and Social Care to amend NHS contracts, because dentists are private businesses within the system and are therefore not, as I understand it, within the scope of the armed forces covenant? We must ensure that these children are not disadvantaged by regular moves around the country.
That brings me to the quality of accommodation, which has a significant effect on wellbeing. I welcome the Defence Housing Service and the commitment to upgrade 90% of military family homes, but when we turn to single-person and training facilities, the housing problems are immense. Through my involvement with the armed forces pension scheme, I have visited numerous establishments—Royal Navy, Royal Marine and Army—and I am constantly shocked by the experiences shared with us of no running water, cold showers and toilets that do not flush. I recognise that our incredible military will be living in far more basic circumstances when on manoeuvres, but it is simply not acceptable for their day-to-day lives. What plans does the Minister have for the upgrade of single-person accommodation and training establishments that are not covered? I am concerned that if that provision comes fromindividual budgets, commanding officers will be expected to choose between the equipment that keeps our military safe and safe military accommodation.
Another aspect of the Bill that raises interesting questions is the extension of the special reserve. Although some former members of the armed forces would be more than happy to go back and do their bit, others do not feel that way. One local resident told me that he has done his fair share and does not see why he should be called up again up to the age of 65. I know that my husband would be happy to go back, but I suspect, given his recent attempts to get fit, that he is very unlikely to reach the threshold. What assessment has the Department undertaken of how many in that cohort will be physically able to serve, and what else might they be able to do to serve their country?
Rachel Taylor
Might I recommend that the hon. Lady’s husband regularly run parkrun with the Minister? It may get him up to a level of fitness nearing the Minister’s.
Vikki Slade
I have just discovered that the Minister’s children live in my constituency, so I may well take him up on that offer.
To come back to a more sober point, against that backdrop, it is important to remember why all this matters—the Minister knows who I am going to speak about. In the light of the President Trump’s disgraceful comments last week, I put on record my thanks to all those who choose to serve; to their families, whose lives are turned upside down; and in particular to people such as my constituent Toby Gutteridge, a royal marine and member of the special forces from Poole. He survived a catastrophic injury in Afghanistan that left him paralysed from the neck down. Despite being permanently reliant on a ventilator, he has gone on to achieve academic qualifications—including a first-class honours degree from Bournemouth University—formed a charity called Bravery, and inspired others through his public speaking. For anyone in doubt about the sacrifices our troops made or their immense bravery, I recommend his book, “Never Will I Die”, which I understand is set to be turned into a film about his life and service.
Toby’s story is a reminder of the resilience at the heart of our armed forces community, and underlines why we must ensure that the facilities, care and equipment that support service personnel match their dedication. I look forward to supporting the Government as the Bill progresses, and will seek ways for us to improve it wherever we can.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
It is a privilege to speak in support of the Bill, which renews not just the legal basis of our armed forces but our nation’s contract with those who defend it. In my constituency, the armed forces are our
neighbours and our friends. From the families who live on the Dreghorn military estate to those based at the Colinton and Dreghorn barracks, we see them daily around the barracks, picking up their kids at school, and buying food at the supermarket. When the weather is bad, they deliver groceries to the community’s older people. Today, this Labour Government are telling them: “We have your back.”
For too long, the standard of military housing has been a national scandal, as we have heard. We cannot expect people who would gladly risk their lives to protect this country to live in accommodation that is damp, mouldy or cold. That is why I am incredibly proud to welcome our £9 billion military housing strategy—the biggest settlement in a generation. It will lead to the renewal of more than 3,000 military homes in Scotland alone. Most importantly for my constituents, up to 415 homes in Edinburgh South West could—and, I hope, will—benefit from that landmark investment. This is not just about bricks and mortar; it is about dignity. The provision is backed by action on household budgets, too, with more than 10,000 military personnel in Scotland getting the biggest pay uplift in two decades. We are putting money in their pockets and a decent roof over their heads.
Let me turn to veterans, of whom there are tens of thousands across Scotland. The armed forces covenant has for too long, been a “best effort” rather than a guarantee. I join others in paying tribute to the many people across the UK who were concerned by the American President’s comments last week. Many constituents got in touch with me to say that they were offended. They will remember that, back in 2009, the 3rd Battalion, the Rifles, deployed to Afghanistan as part of a 1,400-strong battle group. When the battalion returned to Colinton, 30 personnel had lost their lives—the biggest loss of life in a single battle group in 60 years. Thousands of people lined the streets as the battalion marched the streets from the barracks down to Colinton parish church. We have heard calls for Aldershot to be made a covenant town, and for Portsmouth to be made a covenant city, so I think that Colinton should be a covenant village, given its support for the armed forces—not just then, but always.
At the general election, we promised to extend the covenant to every area of Government, and the Bill delivers on that promise. For the first time, this Labour Government are extending the covenant’s legal duty across all areas of central Government, and we are working with devolved Governments and local authorities to make it happen in their areas, too. That means that social care, employment support and other public services will be legally required to consider the unique circumstances faced by forces personnel and their families, particularly in respect of schools.
Unfortunately, while the Labour Government use the force of law to protect our veterans, there is concern in Scotland that the SNP Government in Holyrood has been cutting dedicated veterans’ support since 2023. We need only consider NHS Lothian, in which Veterans First Point, which provides support for veterans, has been cut. Many people are concerned about that, including members of the Scottish Government Cabinet with whom I have discussed it. It feels as if the Scottish Government are managing decline and scaling back support, but I hope that we will set an example for them today.
The investments from the UK Government come at a time when the stakes could not be higher. We face the most serious set of geopolitical threats for at least a generation, and Scotland will be a key part of the home front in the largest sustained increase in defence spending since the cold war. When I speak to members of the armed forces in Edinburgh South West, they look at what is happening and the geopolitical situation with tremendous professionalism. By fixing housing and boosting pay, we are enshrining the covenant in law and ensuring that people at the heart of our defence are ready for the challenges ahead.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
Let me begin by associating myself with the remarks of several hon. Members in repudiating the outrageous slur on our armed forces by the President of the United States in respect of service in Afghanistan. Our soldiers were not shirkers, they were heroes. One of them was young Private Phillip Gillespie from Galgorm in my constituency, who for his service lost a leg and is permanently disabled as a result. He typifies many who gave so much in that regard.
Most of my remarks will relate to the armed forces covenant. I have heard it said more than once in this debate that the Labour party’s manifesto pledged that the armed forces covenant would be applied to every area of government. It is a good pledge, but sadly the Bill does not deliver it. Within the Bill, there is a notable and deliberate exception, which is the 11 local councils in Northern Ireland. Clause 2 sets forth what a “local authority” means. For England it is county councils, district councils, boroughs and so on. For Wales it is
“the council of a county or county borough”,
and for Scotland it is
“a council constituted under…the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994.”
For Northern Ireland the Bill states:
“In relation to Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Housing Executive.”
Where are the 11 district councils of Northern Ireland, and why are they excluded from the ambit of the Bill? Why is the armed forces covenant not to be applied to them? Is it because some of those councils, unhappily, are dominated by Sinn Féin? Are the Government running scared of offending Sinn Féin with the armed forces covenant, remembering of course, that Sinn Féin is the party of the IRA and those who took out so many of our gallant citizens and servicemen in Northern Ireland?
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
Far be it from me to speak in the Minister’s place, but surely the hon. and learned Gentleman has answered his own question. In forcing local authorities that are controlled by Sinn Féin to give due regard to veterans would we not be giving away the identity of those veterans to Sinn Féin controlled councils that may pass them on to unsavoury friends?
Jim Allister
Not all councils, happily, are controlled by Sinn Féin. There are 11 councils, many of which are not. Perhaps through the First Minister’s office—I do not know, but perhaps at its behest—the councils have been excluded. I am disappointed that the Government’s manifesto has been disapplied when it comes to Northern Ireland, where the covenant has been abysmally implemented.
I turn to the “Armed Forces Covenant annual report 2025” and go to almost any page. I read:
“Healthcare services for veterans in England”
or “in Wales” or “in Scotland”, but nothing for Northern Ireland. I go to education and read about the
“service pupil premium in England”
or the Welsh Government education service for children. But there is nothing for Northern Ireland. I turn to homelessness, and there is a section on “Homelessness in Wales”, and “Homelessness in Scotland”, but nothing on Northern Ireland. There is “Resettlement in Scotland” —all that is there, underscoring that the armed forces covenant has not been adequately applied in my part of the United Kingdom. And now the Government are exempting the whole level of local government from the implementation of the covenant. That is not just disturbing—it is quite appalling.
Why should a veteran who lives in my constituency not have the same protections, opportunities and guarantees as a veteran who lives in the constituency of any Member from Great Britain? There can be no justification for that, and yet that is the import of the Bill. I trust that the Government will make good that default and will ensure that that loophole is closed.
We are in a bizarre situation in Northern Ireland because of the implication of EU regulations, including those concerning ozone-depleting substances. Believe it or not, that means that Chinook, Dakota and Merlin helicopters, and many more, might land in Northern Ireland, but they cannot be based in Northern Ireland because it offends an obscure EU law—that is what happens when you hand away the sovereignty over part of your own territory. I say to the Secretary of State that it is time that was rectified as well.
Maybe that is why our military presence is fast diminishing. A recent answer to me showed that there were five Royal Navy personnel, 70 RAF personnel and only 1,230 Army personnel stationed in Northern Ireland. Why? We were meant to go back to peacetime levels under the Belfast agreement, but we have not. Are this Government running down military presence in Northern Ireland?
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
As a Back-Bench Member of Parliament, I understand that it is rare to see a ten-minute rule Bill progress all the way into law. That is why I was so pleased when I learned that the Armed Forces Bill has incorporated the proposal from my Bill to bring Royal Fleet Auxiliary personnel within the remit of the new Armed Forces Commissioner. When the Armed Forces Commissioner Act 2025 received Royal Assent at the end of last year, it created for the first time an independent statutory voice for service personnel, reporting directly to Parliament. However, the RFA did not get that protection, despite the vital role that its crews play in supporting our armed forces.
Falmouth is home to the Bay-class RFA ships, and I have spent time with their crews in Falmouth docks. RFA personnel are not armed combatants, but they are deployed in warzones and they face danger, and there is no doubt that they are absolutely vital to the UK’s defence, security and maritime power. They have been deployed all over the world on anti-narcotics missions, following earthquakes, providing support during the Ebola crisis, and recently in operations apprehending shadow vessels and protecting our subsea cables. Crews face challenging conditions, including an ageing fleet and staff shortages. Personnel regularly have long sea tours, with less time off per day worked than any other sector. This Government have been working with the RFA and its unions closely on improving terms and conditions, and I hope that will be concluded speedily.
Mr Francois
As the Minister who oversaw Operation Gritrock, when RFA Argus was deployed to Freetown as part of Britain’s relief effort to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone, may I endorse everything that the hon. Lady has said and pay a personal tribute to the wonderful work that the RFA did to help combat that wicked virus?
Jayne Kirkham
I thank the right hon. Gentleman. I remember the ship sailing from Falmouth and coming back.
Clause 30 of the Armed Forces Bill now delivers what I argued for and formally brings RFA personnel within the scope of the Armed Forces Commissioner. The reform does not change the RFA’s legal status or distinct identity, which is very important, but it finally gives the men and women who sustain our Royal Navy and Royal Marines an independent route to raise concerns about bullying, unsafe conditions, discrimination or misconduct.
Schedule 4 sets out in detail the new powers and responsibilities of the Commissioner in relation to the RFA. These include promoting welfare, improving public understanding of the RFA’s challenges and investigating systemic issues, such as staffing, crew fatigue and safety. It also gives the Commissioner the authority to enter RFA premises, request evidence and issue recommendations that the Secretary of State has to consider. It is worthy of the contribution that the RFA makes, and I am glad to have helped in a tiny way to secure it. The contract with those who serve should not end at the gates of a naval base or the stern of an auxiliary ship. RFA personnel serve this country with dedication and often without recognition, and it is right that our policy reflects their contribution.
I welcome the wider reforms in the Armed Forces Bill, which will benefit thousands of service personnel and more than 30,000 veterans across Cornwall, many of them in Truro and Falmouth. The Bill extends the covenant across all levels of Government so that no one falls through the gaps, and it strengthens the service justice system to ensure fair treatment and proper accountability. It also provides for the publicly owned Defence Housing Service, which will benefit 12,334 homes in the south-west, many of which are in my constituency.
The provisions in the Bill are accompanied by initiatives such as the fantastic Operation Valour, and there is a bid for my constituency to become a hub. Cornwall has the second highest number of veterans of any local authority area, so we believe that it would make a lot of sense to have that provision there.
The right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) made a point about young people. The Government announced an armed forces gap year plan over Christmas to give Britain’s young people under the age of 21 a taste of the extraordinary skills and training on offer across the Army, the Royal Navy and the RAF. It is a really important scheme.
I had very little experience of the military before I met my ex-husband. Everybody knows about the potential risks, but there are huge positives and opportunities that many are not aware of. People can do all sorts of things in the forces—they can learn to be a pilot, a medic, an engineer or even a champion snowboarder—and they gain connections that last a lifetime. My Navy friends are like family to my son, and I consider myself very lucky to have been part of a forces family.
Cornwall has a proud military heritage. Many families have someone who served or is still serving. They make extraordinary sacrifices to keep this country safe, and they deserve safe homes, fair treatment and a system that understands the unique demands of military life. I am pleased that the RFA is included in the Bill and that I have played a tiny part in shaping it. I am also pleased that those who keep our armed forces moving around will now be properly recognised and protected. As a Government, we promised to renew the nation’s contract with those who serve, and we are delivering on that.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
I genuinely welcome this Bill. As an Army Cadet Force instructor, I also welcome the new unified organisation for cadet forces.
Somerset has a higher-than-average proportion of veterans and those in the armed forces community, including in Taunton and Wellington. At Norton Manor camp in Taunton and Wellington, we have 17 trees that were planted to represent the Royal Marines from 40 Commando who lost their lives in Afghanistan. Let me add to the comments earlier that the fact that President Trump was so dismissive of that service and those lives is contemptible.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
It seems to have been indicated a couple of times during this debate that President Trump has apologised. As far as I can tell, he has not apologised at any point for his disgraceful comments. Will the hon. Gentleman join me in encouraging President Trump from this place to do so publicly and quickly?
Gideon Amos
I certainly encourage President Trump to apologise. I invite him to listen to the relatives of those who died in Afghanistan, whom I talk with and listen to at remembrance services in Norton Fitzwarren, near 40 Commando camp, on a regular basis. Perhaps he would then understand the sacrifice that people made for freedom—the freedom for which Americans and Europeans died and were injured. His remarks are utterly contemptuous, and he should be ashamed of them. That shows what an unreliable ally he is to our United Kingdom.
I welcome the additional support for the covenant and for those who will be supported by it in Somerset. Through its guaranteed interview scheme, Somerset council has taken the covenant very seriously and is delivering it, but it will be effective only if the resources are there for the public services to stand behind it, as has been said by the director general of the Royal British Legion. He said it is “vital” that those delivering services are
“resourced with funding and training so that they can fully understand the purpose of the Armed Forces Covenant to ensure this change makes a meaningful difference to the lives of all those in the Armed Forces community”.
Our servicemen and women and our veterans deserve that support.
Our veterans certainly do not deserve to be considered as in any way equivalent to terrorists in Northern Ireland who sought to undermine peace and law and order, so it is right that last week’s vote overturned the provisions of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023 that gave immunity to terrorists. We need protections that will stand up in court, unlike the failed legacy Act, and I urge the Government to seriously consider the Liberal Democrat amendments to the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), which would put in place far stronger protections for our veterans than are currently in the Bill.
Returning to the Armed Forces Bill, as the Lib Dem housing spokesperson, I was pleased to table an amendment to the Renters’ Rights Bill to ensure that service family accommodation meets the decent homes standard. That amendment was ultimately adopted in section 101 of what is now the Renters’ Rights Act 2025, but timelines matter. Given past promises, the importance of meeting that standard is set out in the defence housing strategy:
“Promises have been made time and again…All homes would meet the Decent Homes Standard. That didn’t happen.”
That was under the Conservatives; let us hope that in this new era, this Government’s promises are not empty.
The new duty in the Renters’ Rights Act requires the MOD to report to Parliament on progress towards achieving the decent homes standard for service family accommodation, but the first report does not need to be made until March 2027, and the defence housing strategy contains no targets for how long it will take for service family accommodation to meet the decent homes standard. I urge the Government to give a timeline for this important commitment to our service families—our original amendment would have instituted a duty to upgrade immediately. As other hon. Members have said, we also need timelines on single living accommodation.
The Bill’s new defence housing body comes as part of a £9 billion, 10-year strategy. That is very welcome—it sounds very good—but how much of that £9 billion will be spent on civilian housing, and how much of it will be spent on service family accommodation? These questions matter. For example, the 2025 armed forces continuous attitude survey found that nearly one in three respondents described armed forces accommodation in negative terms, and nearly two thirds of respondents listed the impact on family and personal life of service accommodation as one of the top reasons influencing them to leave the armed forces. One respondent said that
“lack of assistance has significantly contributed to my decision to leave military service.”
In summary, we need to see real targets for when the decent homes standard will be met for service families and when single living accommodation will be upgraded in an organised way.
Mr Calvin Bailey
One of the critical points of the armed forces covenant is that it extends across Government to all Government Departments, and it particularly requires our local councils to play their part and intervene. Based on the points that the hon. Gentleman has just made, can he provide some guidance on how his council will ensure that the covenant is delivered?
Gideon Amos
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. As I said at the beginning of my speech, I am pleased that Somerset council is leading on things such as the guaranteed interview scheme and the research it has done recently on how the delivery of NHS services to veterans matches up. There is a whole set of recommendations that I refer him to, and I am delighted that my colleagues at Somerset council are playing such a leading role in delivering the covenant. I believe we are already a covenant county—a covenant village, a covenant town and a covenant county.
We need a firm commitment, not just to deliver on the covenant but to get troop numbers back up to more than 100,000. To make that happen, the Liberal Democrats would create a £10,000 signing bonus and a £20,000 re-enlisting bonus. We also need to see the defence investment plan, so that companies such as Leonardo in Somerset maintain our vital helicopter manufacturing capacity in this country.
Mr Bailey
On that point, Somerset is a very important county for defence—Leonardo has a strong history of building helicopters there. Being able to bring about the investment that Leonardo requires is a key part of the defence investment plan. Will the hon. Gentleman give his views on the defence, security and resilience bank, which might be a method of bringing forward that investment without putting it on to the Government’s already indebted balance sheet?
Gideon Amos
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution about the investment bank. I welcome any commitment that will secure the ability of the UK to manufacture helicopters at Yeovil in Somerset. That is vital not only for the medium lift helicopter, but for unmanned, uncrewed helicopters. Losing that facility would be devastating for the United Kingdom defence industry, as well as for the community around Somerset and the 3,000 jobs involved. It is vital that the defence investment plan comes as soon as possible.
Unless we fix housing, we will be undermining recruitment and retention.
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
In my constituency of Morecambe and Lunesdale, 5.5% of residents are veterans. That is higher than the north-west average and much higher than the national average of 3.8%. In fact, one in 10 households in my constituency contains a veteran. That is why our promise at the general election to extend the armed forces covenant to every area of Government was so important to me. Through this Armed Forces Bill, we are delivering on that commitment.
My constituents served in Afghanistan, the Balkans and Northern Ireland. One veteran who I first met in 2023 helped to liberate Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, defending democracy, protecting the vulnerable, defending our country and, of course, standing shoulder to shoulder with our allies. This is a fitting time to recognise the 457 British troops who died in Afghanistan and to have in our thoughts those still living with the injuries and the memories from that conflict, including our Minister for the Armed Forces, who served five tours in Afghanistan, and our Minister for Veterans and People, who also served in Afghanistan, as did other Members of the House.
The armed forces covenant is the promise between our nation and those who put themselves in harm’s way to protect it.
Mr Brash
Like my hon. Friend, I have many veterans in my constituency, and when I speak to them, they often talk about how lip service is paid to the armed forces covenant. Does she therefore agree that we must ensure that when it is extended to every public sector organisation, they are held to account in delivering it?
Lizzi Collinge
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. No longer can we just have warm words and lip service; we need action, because this contract says something very simple: “If you’re prepared to serve your country, your country must serve you properly in return.” For too long, our country has failed to honour that commitment. The latest armed forces continuous attitude survey revealed that only a quarter of our service personnel believe that they are valued by society. Let us think about that for a moment: only one in four of the men and women who wear our uniform believe that their country truly recognises what they give. That is a sign of a profound political failure over the past two decades.
My constituents in Morecambe and Lunesdale know the value of our armed forces. In 2025, 30,000 people attended Armed Forces Day in Morecambe. This year, we are having Armed Forces Day over three days, and I am sure that any Front-Bench Member would be welcome to come. Local organisations such as Healthier Heroes, the Rawthey Project, Morecambe FC Community Foundation and Bay Vets all do fantastic work supporting veterans in our area.
The armed forces covenant is also our nation’s commitment to fairness for those who serve, for our veterans, for their families and for the bereaved. That is not just in combat, but in housing, in hospitals, in jobcentres and in homes across the country. The renewal of that contract has to start with the Government. It has to be built into our law, the decisions we take here and the funding that we give. There is no better place to start than in housing, because for too long service families have been left in damp, cold and mouldy homes. That is a betrayal of their service.
Labour has therefore ended the failed privatisation of military housing, saving more than £200 million a year, and we are reinvesting that in fixing homes. This Bill creates the publicly owned Defence Housing Service, renewing nine in 10 armed forces homes and delivering the biggest upgrade to military accommodation in more than 50 years. Of course, fairness for those who serve cannot just stop at housing. The Bill extends the armed forces covenant across government, making public services legally bound to consider the unique needs of service personnel and their families. That was a manifesto commitment from this Labour Government, and we are delivering it. The Bill also strengthens the service justice system, giving service police and courts greater powers and putting victims first, with new protections against sexual violence and abuse. I recognise the first steps made by the previous Government in that regard.
Peter Swallow
It is so important, is it not, that we recognise, when setting out to tackle violence against women and girls, that that must extend across all of society. It cannot be right for those who are bravely serving in our armed forces to be victims of sexual violence in their workplace while they are doing the most important job there can be—defending our nation.
Lizzi Collinge
I absolutely agree. Our mission as a Government is to halve violence against women and girls, and that, of course, must include the women who serve in the armed forces. No one should be unsafe when serving our country. No one should be subjected to violence and abuse.
In this more dangerous world, the Bill expands our reserve forces and improves mobilisation. The voluntary increase in the recall age, for instance, will ensure that vital experience is not lost, and we know that many reservists have been asking for that. Recruitment and retention reforms are already working: recruitment is up, outflows are down, and the number of applications across the service is rising. That, of course, sits within a wider reset. For 14 years the Conservatives hollowed out our armed forces, putting plans in place without funding and overseeing record lows in military morale. They may talk about supporting the armed forces, but in government they did not put their money where their mouth was. And what do we see on other Benches? The Reform Members have not even bothered to show up today. Perhaps they are too busy making Cameo videos, or forgetting to declare hundreds of thousands of pounds of extra income and gifts. Their plastic patriotism shows no real desire or ability to make things better, just a continual desire to do our country down while listening to big money and foreign Governments, not our country and our people.
Labour, however, is making great strides to turn around the failed Conservative legacy, and is committing itself to the biggest sustained expenditure on defence since the end of the cold war. We know that we need to strengthen our armed forces in order to deal with the uncertain world that we are seeing, with its shifting geopolitics. The defence industrial strategy will ensure that the increased spending goes towards British jobs in British businesses in British towns, and I am also proud of the pay increase that we gave our armed forces.
Too often, when we speak about military heroics and service, our stories are confined to the past, but our armed forces are serving us right now, across the world. They are helping Ukraine to defend herself against Russian aggression, and, in doing so, providing a bulwark against those who would weaken democracy as a whole. They are strengthening Britain’s ties in the Indo-Pacific with the carrier strike group led by HMS Prince of Wales. They are serving in NATO missions, contributing to UN peacekeeping, de-escalating tensions in the middle east, and, of course, protecting our shores at home. To meet their dedication and commitment, the Government must deliver our side of the contract, and that is what this Bill does.
Mr Jonathan Brash (Hartlepool) (Lab)
Let me start by referring to an email that I received today from a Hartlepool veteran whose name is Ian. In it, he told me that he had put his life on the line in the Falklands, in Northern Ireland, in the Persian gulf, in Afghanistan and in Iraq, and that he was disgusted by the comments of President Trump. Indeed, he wrote:
“An apology from Trump to the UK publicly should be forthcoming”.
Let me put on record again that the United States President has not apologised for the disgraceful things that he said about our service personnel and the service personnel of our allies. Let me also pay tribute to the leadership, in recent days, of our Armed Forces Minister, who I know has brought a great deal of comfort to veterans who have been very distressed by what they have heard on the news.
Lizzi Collinge
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is really important that those on the Labour Benches include hon. and gallant Members who can give us a real taste of what life in the armed forces is like? For civvies like me, it is all fine and well to be making decisions, but we need to listen to people who have served or who are serving.
Mr Brash
I absolutely agree that the Labour Benches are strengthened by having hon. and gallant Members, such as the Armed Forces Minister, to help lead this country. His actions in recent days are in stark contrast to the weasel words from some so-called leaders who refuse to call out the US President in the way that we all should.
I welcome the direction of travel set out in this Bill for our serving personnel, our veterans and their families. After years of neglect and cuts, our armed forces are finally receiving the focus, attention and respect that they deserve. When this Government came into office, they delivered the largest pay increase for our armed forces in 22 years. That matters, not just in pounds and pence but because of the message it sends that this country values their service, sacrifice and commitment. Those pay rises stand alongside wider reforms to improve everyday service life, including action on forces housing and the strengthened armed forces covenant. For the first time, public bodies will be required to properly consider the unique pressures faced by service families when making decisions on housing, healthcare, education and other essential services. This is long overdue.
The reforms are further reinforced by Op Valour, the Government’s plan to deliver joined-up regional support for serving personnel, veterans and their families. Hartlepool is home to some 4,000 veterans. As part of a wider north-east bid, led by the extraordinary team at the East Durham Veterans Trust, we are aiming to secure a Valour support centre in the Middleton Grange shopping centre, at the centre of Hartlepool. This is truly a team effort, with the support of my hon. Friends the Members for Easington (Grahame Morris) and for Stockton North (Chris McDonald); our local NHS; our armed forces liaison group; the development corporation, which has provided the space rent free; our armed forces champion, Councillor Chris Wallace; and our council, which under the leadership of Councillor Pamela Hargreaves is providing free car parking for any veteran who uses the centre. Hartlepool is united in support of our veterans.
The main reason I wanted to speak in today’s debate is so that I could discuss the Bill’s proposed reforms to the service justice system, particularly those relating to victims of service offences. These provisions are vital, but they must be shaped by the lived experience of those the system has failed. The case of my constituent Richard Lee shows just how badly things can go wrong. In 1981, Richard’s two-year-old daughter Katrice disappeared while their family were stationed in Germany. For more than 44 years, the family have lived not only with the pain of that loss, but with the compounded trauma of how they were treated by the Royal Military Police. They were not treated as victims; they were treated as a nuisance.
In 2012, the Royal Military Police issued a written apology, but not to the family, and they acknowledged the failings of the investigation. Yet those failings have never been fully explained, and neither has there ever been the transparency and accountability that the family deserves. Even more distressingly, a former investigating officer publicly admitted those failures last year on “The Patch” on BBC Radio 4, stating that there had not been “enough searching” and that the Royal Military Police
“had not considered that someone would abduct a child.”
Yet again, that admission was not made to the family themselves.
When I was elected, I arranged for Richard to meet the then Veterans Minister, who is now the Armed Forces Minister, and the Victims Minister. It was a remarkable moment, and I pay tribute to my colleagues for their compassion, decency and openness in that meeting. We jointly agreed that a visit would take place to the defence serious crimes unit in Portsmouth to discuss the case further. The visit was arranged by the Royal Military Police, but they failed to invite the Ministers. Once again, Richard and his family felt let down, and I hope the visit can now go ahead as promised.
Richard and his family are victims. The system admits that it failed them, yet more than four decades on, they are still seeking justice, still seeking answers and still seeking basic respect. That is why the provisions in this Bill that relate to victims of service offences matter so much. A statutory victims code for the service justice system could be a major step forward, but only if it is built around the voices of the victims themselves.
Mr Calvin Bailey (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I welcome this Bill as an opportunity to renew our nation’s contract with those who serve and to provide further protections for our personnel and their families. As a veteran who endured the consequences of the 2010 strategic defence review, I am proud to be part of putting this right. Due to time, I will focus on just two aspects: the extension of the armed forces covenant duty and the reforms being made to our reserves.
Under this Bill, the covenant will apply to all Government Departments and policy areas vital to service life. From my work as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on the armed forces community and on the Defence Committee, I know that the covenant’s application has far too often been patchy, leaving people disadvantaged by service life. One clear example is its limited application to the Home Office and to UK Visas and Immigration. About 8,000 members of our armed forces are non-UK personnel—more than one in 20 of all trained regulars—yet too many still face needless barriers to building a stable life in the UK. This Government’s commitment to removing visa fees for non-UK personnel who have served four years or more is welcome, but we can and should go further.
Under the current indefinite leave to remain process, applicants can be left unable to work while their cases are processed, creating real financial hardship at the point of transition and exit from the service. That was the case for Sergeant Richie Lumsden, who, after 20 years of service to this country, found himself worrying about keeping a roof over his head simply because he came from Trinidad. With the MOD increasing the proportion of non-UK service personnel to 12%, more people will be affected unless we act. The Home Office needs to think differently, including about an opt-in system that properly reflects service. If we do not make the path fairer for our Commonwealth service personnel, they will stop coming here, which would be a failure of both fairness and foresight.
Reserve forces are critical to our strategic depth. Reservists serve under NATO command structures and are integral to how we fight wars. However, for too long the reserve offer has been disjointed and inflexible. The reforms in this Bill—increasing the upper age limit to 65, harmonising recall liability and allowing veterans to opt in—are sensible changes that reflect modern working lives.
Richard Foord
The hon. Member comes at this not only from having served, but from now serving on the Defence Committee. On that point about the age limit for recall liability, does he know whether any modelling has been done on what impact it might have on recruitment?
Mr Bailey
I do not know, but perhaps the Minister could expand on that in his response. However, I do have experience of people such as Flight Lieutenant Mark Raymond, who served under me on the airdrop team that delivered lifesaving aid to the Yazidi people. He was eventually retired at the age of 64, but only after having to apply for annual extensions each year after turning 60. That was not because his capability had diminished, but because the system would not allow otherwise. It was probably also because the Conservatives deleted the C-130, which was a very bad mistake. Reservists and planners have long argued for a more individualised approach to service, recognising experiences and skill rather than forcing people out at an arbitrary age. When war comes, it does not discriminate, and it will require the contribution of the whole of society, so our armed forces must be structured to draw on all the talent we have.
I welcome the fact that this Bill makes it easier for people to move between regular service careers and the reserves. A zig-zag model of service reflects modern careers and helps us retain invaluable experience, rather than losing it altogether. This Bill provides a platform for an armed forces model fit for the future, and one that rewards service, supports families and ensures that the covenant is real across Government. Our service people deserve nothing less, and I commend this Bill to the House.
I hope some of the issues I have spoken about, particularly those about the support of other Departments and the changes those Departments must take on board, are acknowledged by all Members in the House this evening, and that they champion them, and go out and do the work necessary to highlight such cases, particularly the examples I have mentioned. I look forward to hearing how extensions under medical capacity could benefit our service families, particularly for dental health, and how this support can be extended into parts of our nation where service numbers are high but the local populations are low.
Alex Baker
My hon. Friend talked about a total society approach to defence, related to the strategic defence review. Does he agree that we need a total Government approach to defence if we are to deliver on both the strategic defence review and these covenant commitments?
Mr Bailey
I thank my hon. Friend, who represents the covenant town of Aldershot, for her powerful intervention. She is entirely right; it is imperative to recognise that it is nations that fight wars, not the military. In my constituency of Leyton and Wanstead, I look with great admiration at those who service the trains that run into Europe. Those trains will take our tanks and troops, in the moment of crisis, all the way up to Estonia, but that requires the Department for Business and Trade to recognise that necessary contribution, and invest in and understand the permanent structured co-operation—PESCO—offer from the European Union.
The right hon. Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) made an incredibly important and powerful point earlier. The military and our defence forces do not just protect us abroad, but help to galvanise us and draw us together as communities, giving people meaningful work and a meaningful existence. If we do that, we will be stronger not only at home but abroad, we will make a meaningful contribution to the EU and to NATO security, and we will be able to meet our commitments far and wide, from the GIUK gap to Estonia and up into Finland. For those reasons, I am incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to speak today, and I commend the Bill to the House.
Peter Swallow (Bracknell) (Lab)
As the MP for Sandhurst, which is in my constituency, I am incredibly proud to represent the home of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and I am proud to speak today on a Bill that delivers on our commitment to our armed forces. The Bill fully enshrines the expanded armed forces covenant into law, increases protections for those who serve, including from sexual and violent behaviour, and establishes a publicly owned Defence Housing Service, which is backed by a £9 billion strategy to end the shameful record of the Conservative party and make sure that our service people and their families have the homes they deserve. In the south-east alone, we will see more than 14,000 military homes renewed, including in my constituency.
The Bill looks outward as well as inward. It rises to the gravity of the threats that we face as a nation today. In order to protect us, our service people must be supported, housed decently and listened to. They must also be equipped to meet the challenges before them. I am pleased that the Bill contains ambitious measures to grow and sustain our nation’s readiness in these turbulent times. The Bill will enhance our ability to mobilise rapidly by expanding our reserve pool, through increasing the maximum age limit for recall to the reserve forces, and giving my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the power to authorise recall in a conflict scenario. I especially welcome that these measures are a direct response to the strategic defence review’s call for transformation in the way that our defence and security is organised and delivered.
Lizzi Collinge
In Morecambe and Lunesdale we have some absolutely fantastic cadet corps. The lord lieutenant of Lancashire is looking at how to extend these cadet corps into cyber-security, which is really exciting. Does my hon. Friend agree that those cadets are vital to the future of our armed forces?
Peter Swallow
Absolutely. As well as our reservists, there is a huge role for cadets to play. I am so proud that the Government are committed to expanding the cadets by 30% by 2030, including by ensuring that there are more opportunities for cadets to learn science, technology, engineering and maths skills, as I am hearing they are in my hon. Friend’s constituency.
Mr Bailey
At the other end of the scale, we have seen a significant expansion of the service life that we can offer members of the armed forces. Flight Lieutenant Phil “Popeye” Powell was a special forces pilot for nearly 30 years. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that people like Popeye should be given as much time in the service to practise their craft?
Peter Swallow
Absolutely. Many serving in my constituency are right at the start of their careers, but I recognise that the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst would not function were it not for the many armed forces personnel who spend a significant portion of their careers dedicated to training the next generation of Army leaders. I pay tribute to them for all they do.
I hope the powers in the Bill are never needed, but we owe it to our brave armed forces to be prepared for any eventuality. We cannot pretend that we are not living in a more dangerous world than even a few years ago, with war returning to Europe following Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. The spheres in which warfare can play out are no longer limited to the physical, and by that I mean in the sky, the sea and the land. It is a fact that our information and online spheres are constantly under attack by those who would wish to see us weakened. We must go further and faster to robustly defend our society and security in all quarters.
New and developing technology is changing the nature of the threats we face constantly. It is right that measures are taken to protect security at our military bases by permitting the use of approved equipment to prevent or detect drones being used near these sensitive sites. I welcome the moves that the Government have taken to ensure that we have a modern, world-class cyber and specialist operations command, because threats to our British values, our democracy and our way of life are increasingly cyber-threats.
A nation’s defence is only as strong as those who serve to uphold it. The Bill bolsters our armed forces, and it gives personnel and their families the support they deserve, just as they support our most vital national interests every day. This is a Bill from a Government who take their responsibility to our security and to our service people seriously. I am proud to back the Bill.
Danny Beales (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Lab)
I am pleased to speak in this evening’s debate on the Armed Forces Bill, which shows that this Labour Government put our forces and veterans and their families first.
In the light of recent international events and increasing global instability, we have an almost daily reminder, when we turn on our televisions screens, that our brave men and women are the first port of call and our last line of defence in times of conflict and instability, so it is entirely right that as we increase our investment in equipment and defence facilities, we also invest in our No. 1 military asset: our defence personnel. We should also be clear, in the light of the recent reprehensible comments from President Trump, that UK and other NATO country military personnel have always been there when called upon. They are the best and bravest among us, and they continue to put their lives on the line for our collective security in the west. I am proud of them and I know this House is proud of them. The Bill is part of our re-commitment to them not just in words, but in action.
Uxbridge and South Ruislip has a proud and long military history and connection. It was a key base from which we fought and won the battle of Britain, and today it is part of our present and future armed forces capabilities. It is home to RAF Northolt and the nearby Northwood Headquarters military base, and it has a significant military community.
I welcome the creation of a new, publicly owned Defence Housing Service, backed by a £9 billion armed forces housing strategy to build, renew and repair thousands of military homes. In Uxbridge and South Ruislip we have 518 military family homes, which is the fifth-largest military housing stock of any UK constituency. Having spoken to many families over recent years, and having seen at first hand the conditions they have to live in, I find it shocking that their experience of military housing often falls far below what we in this House would all expect for our own homes. Damp, mould, disrepair, cracks in walls big enough to put your hands in—it is truly shameful. I am therefore particularly pleased that through this Bill the Government are delivering on their commitment to reverse decades of under-investment and to end the scandal of poor-quality military housing.
Although there is light at the end of the tunnel for military families living in forces accommodation, it is deeply shameful that we ever got to this place. The Conservatives left defence housing in an absolute mess. In 2023, satisfaction with service family accommodation hit a record low, with one in five service personnel satisfied with repairs and maintenance. Only now, under a Labour Government and with a deal negotiated in the first six months of office, have nearly 36 forces family homes been bought back into public ownership and we are rightly improving their condition. As a result, nine in 10 military homes will be modernised and upgraded with new higher standards, lifting the living standards of hundreds of families in my constituency.
We saw that change start to bear fruit towards the end of last year, and I was pleased to welcome the Secretary of State to view 100 properties being modernised in my constituency, with new doors, windows, decoration, kitchens and other improvements. It was an absolute privilege to see that work take effect. I hope that the new housing service will have a broader remit than just bricks and mortar; I hope it will also be about investing in the places where these homes exist, in play facilities for children and in utilities, such as fibre-optic broadband, which are often missing in our defence personnel housing.
I welcome the Bill and the improvement to existing homes, as well as the commitment to better use under-utilised land to generate capital receipts to reinvest and provide much-needed homes for local people. I hope the Minister will confirm that the new housing that is delivered will also be given as first preference to military and former military personnel. Our cadets, reservists, and armed forces personnel and their families are absolutely vital to our national security. I strongly support the progress of the Bill, so that we honour our commitment to them that they will have the pay, conditions, homes and equipment that they need to continue to perform their vital role.
Pam Cox (Colchester) (Lab)
Like so many Members who have spoken in this debate—and I have heard every contribution—I wish to pay tribute to those who serve, to veterans, and to their family members. Those who serve do an extraordinary job, and they do so at our direction and on our behalf. It is therefore our moral duty, which we are reaffirming tonight, to ensure that we give them everything they need to do that job safely and to the best of their remarkable ability. That includes everything from equipment, to training to housing.
We have heard a lot about housing in this debate, but I am going to say one more thing. I am delighted that the Government are bringing forward the biggest overhaul of military housing in a generation, and I look forward to working on that with various teams in my Colchester constituency and the garrison there.
The work of our armed forces is extraordinary for another, very singular reason, which is that it requires the laying down of life. The Parachute Regiment is based in Colchester, with links to other garrisons across the country. During the Afghan conflict, 37 members of the Parachute Regiment gave their lives, and many more were injured. Their selfless sacrifice deserves the upmost respect from us in this country, and from all our allies, including the United States.
I close by commending the Bill to the House, and by commending an outstanding Front Bench Defence team, who brought the Bill forward and are doing so much to lead our country in this way.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow my fellow Essex MP, the hon. Member for Colchester (Pam Cox), not least as she has the privilege of representing Merville barracks, which I have visited a number of times down the years and which is the home of our elite unit, the 16 Air Assault Brigade. I have to be careful in saying that, because I have a former royal marine, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat), sitting on the Benches behind me.
I thank the Minister for the helpful briefing on the Bill that he arranged for me at the Ministry of Defence last week. I am prepared to admit to the House that there was a slight communications mix-up. When I was originally invited into the Department, I left my phone in my office, thinking I was going into a briefing about events in Iran. I was both surprised and delighted when I was ushered into one of the historical rooms at the MOD to be pleasantly confronted by the entire team of officials responsible for the Bill. I am grateful to them for their subsequent briefing, which was extremely helpful.
The Armed Forces Bill is a very necessary piece of legislation that has to be passed by Parliament at least every five years. By tradition, this quinquennial Bill is relatively non-controversial. In that spirit, as the shadow Defence Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), said, just as we did with the Armed Forces Commissioner Act 2025, the Opposition see our role as that of a critical friend to the Bill by engaging in debate with an aim to improving it where possible—although we do, of course, reserve the right to hold the Government to account on a variety of matters. I may take the liberty of returning to two such matters in particular.
Although the Bill’s 55 clauses and seven schedules cover a variety of topics, with everything from drones—a particular hot button for the Minister, and indeed for my line manager—to powers of commanding officers, the Bill mainly encompasses four principal areas: reserves in clauses 31 to 37; defence housing and other property in a lengthy clause 3; the armed forces covenant in an equally lengthy clause 2; and potential changes to the service justice system, which is covered in several clauses, but principally clauses 5 to 16 and 20 to 26. I should like to say a little about each of those areas in turn.
Before I do, though, I place on the record that in this debate on the Armed Forces Bill—a very important piece of legislation regarding the future and welfare of His Majesty’s armed forces—not a single Reform MP has been present in the Chamber, let alone made a speech. If these people want to wrap themselves in the flag, they should at least take the trouble to turn up to support those who actually defend it, both in this country and around the globe. Reform Members have been too busy today spreading misinformation about my party’s attitude to Northern Ireland veterans—another reason, I suspect, that they did not want to come into the Chamber and face the music.
Tom Tugendhat
The shadow Minister will remember that one of the first things I did on leaving the Army in 2013 was to write a policy paper for Policy Exchange titled “The Fog of Law” on lawfare—that legal intervention on the battlefield that causes confusion and leads so many down a terrible path, of which Northern Ireland is one example, although there are many others. He will remember that our party has been on this for years, trying to clear the obstacles that have been created by various different constructs such as the Human Rights Act 1998 and the European convention on human rights. I am sure he will now be one of the champions, along with the Leader of the Opposition, on finding a proper solution to answer that. Will he agree that this is how real government is done—by doing the hard work over many years to find the real answers that apply, and not simply by shouting at others?
Mr Francois
My right hon. Friend is right. There is an old saying in politics that the world is run by those who turn up. Well, Reform did not turn up.
On the reserves, I should first declare an interest. I served as a Territorial Army infantry officer in the 1980s in the 5th Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment, a NATO-roled battalion that formed part of the 49th Infantry Brigade, which in turn was part of the 2nd Infantry Division, whose core mission was essentially to reinforce what was then the British Army of the Rhine, or BAOR, in the event of world war three. Including service in the Officers’ Training Corps prior to joining 5 Royal Anglian, I did some seven years in total. I was on Exercise Lionheart in 1984 as an officer cadet and also exercised in Cyprus and West Berlin as a junior officer.
Nevertheless, I was at no time deployed on active service and so, unlike the Minister, I have no medals at all, because I never did anything that merited one. Despite that, I am still proud to carry the late Queen’s Commission, and I like to believe that had the balloon gone up, our battalion would have done our best to defend the bridge over the Leine river, which was our wartime task.
Peter Swallow
Can I just say, as much as we have occasionally sparred across the Chamber, what the right hon. Member just said speaks volumes for the role that our reservists play up and down the country? Whether or not they are deployed or get medals, so many ordinary men and women step forward to say that they would serve this country if push came to shove—and I say that as somebody who has not done it myself, and I hold my hands up to that. That is so important, so I want to pay tribute to what the right hon. Member said and to all our reservists.
Mr Francois
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind intervention. It is true that we have sparred in this Chamber—famously, on one occasion—but I utterly agree with the spirit of his intervention, which I am sure carries the support of the entire House tonight.
There are a number of measures in the Bill to improve reserve service, which was mentioned by multiple Members, including the hon. Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow), my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), and the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome). The measures cover the potential transition to war and the regularising of call-up liabilities across all three services. We think that the proposals largely make sense—though I have to confess that I recently turned 60, and seeing that the Minister wants to extend the call-up liability to 65, I had best dust off my old set of webbing at the back of the garage somewhere just in case.
Mr Francois
I want to make a bit of progress, but perhaps later if I have time.
Turning to housing, I should declare a different interest, as this was an area I cared about very much when I served as an MOD Minister. When I left ministerial office in 2016, the then Prime Minister Theresa May commissioned me and a small team to write a report about military recruitment, including terms of service such as service housing. We eventually entitled it “Filling the Ranks”, and it was submitted to the Prime Minister, with a copy to the Defence Secretary, in 2017. The report made 20 recommendations for improving recruitment, ranging from better advertising and further expansion of cadet units through to taking a more realistic approach to minor medical ailments such as mild eczema and temporary childhood asthma. Nineteen of the recommendations were accepted and actioned, to varying degrees, but unfortunately the one that was not was to consider sacking Capita—or according to Private Eye “Crapita”. Unfortunately, I never managed to persuade our Ministers to do that, despite the company’s truly awful record on Army recruitment.
The peer review of “Filling the Ranks” was positive. However, as we were making visits to military establishments and interviewing everyone from privates to very senior officers, including on many of the issues contained in the Bill, in nearly every case within 15 minutes of talking about recruitment, we found ourselves involved in a related conversation about retention. In simple terms, we learned very quickly that there was no point widening the aperture of the recruitment tap if we could not put a retention plug in the sink.
We were, therefore, delighted to be recommissioned to undertake a second report specifically into retention, which we subsequently entitled “Stick or Twist?”, as we thought that that encapsulated the serviceman’s dilemma, and which was eventually submitted to the new Prime Minister—one Boris Johnson—in February 2020, a month before the country went into lockdown. This report touched on a number of facets of the armed forces covenant, which are also part of the Bill. I have copies of both reports here with me.
Quite a few of the recommendations in “Stick or Twist?” were adopted, and the then Defence Secretary Ben Wallace used it to persuade the Treasury to provide some extra tens of millions of pounds to improve childcare facilities at a number of bases around the country. It was worth doing the report if only for that. I should like to pay tribute to the small team that helped me to compile the two reports: Colonel—now Brigadier—Simon Goldstein, himself a former distinguished reservist; and my two researchers Mrs Sophie Doward-Jones and Mr Rory Boden, who worked tirelessly to produce two documents written in a Select Committee style, with all the work that that entails, for the attention of the Prime Minister and Defence Secretary.
Again, however, the most controversial suggestion in “Stick or Twist?” was not adopted. It was a proposal to form a forces housing association and thus bring in expertise from the registered social landlord sector to better manage service families accommodation—SFA. Frankly, at the time this was simply too much for the vested interests in the MOD’s Defence Infrastructure Organisation to accept. Nevertheless, I was delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge), the shadow Defence Secretary, announced a few months ago our intention to introduce such a body if we return to government. The Armed Forces Bill has much to say on this topic—as indeed have many Members this evening—especially in clause 3, which heralds the creation of a defence housing service. This is conceptually similar in some ways to what was first recommended in “Stick or Twist?” six years ago, but with some important differences. I genuinely look forward to debating the respective merits of the two approaches with the Minister in Committee.
The Bill also touches on the issue of the armed forces covenant, which is a matter that we have discussed in this House on many occasions. In essence, the intention is to spread the authority of the covenant to cover other Government Departments, including Education and the NHS. We have a number of suggestions for how this process might be improved—for instance, in special needs education, which we hope to explore in Committee. I would like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) for what she said about the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham. I had the privilege of visiting the military unit there on two occasions—once in the company of His Royal Highness, the then Prince of Wales, now His Majesty the King—and I echo everything she said about the excellence of that department at that hospital in caring for those who have served their country.
The Bill goes into some detail about potential improvements in the service justice system. This touches in part on a number of quite sensitive areas, not least those highlighted by my former Defence Committee colleague Sarah Atherton in what became known as the Atherton report. We shall again attempt to explore the merits and details of those proposals in Committee.
Before I conclude, I want to refer to the remarks of President Trump about the brave soldiers who fought alongside the United States and other allies in Afghanistan. Would that he had not said such things, especially as our troops also fought with the Americans in Iraq and in the caves of Bora Bora in 2001 after the United States invoked article 5 after 9/11—the only nation ever to do that. We traditionally avoid discussing royal matters in this House, but if it is true that President Trump’s volte face on this was in some way due to royal intervention, all I can say is: God save the King.
We should endeavour to take a broadly positive attitude to the Bill, but I must caution that there are two areas where the traditional consensus might struggle. First, the Government claim to be fully committed to the two principles of the armed forces covenant—namely, that no members of the wider armed forces family, be they regulars, reservists, veterans or their loved ones, should suffer any disadvantage as a result of their military service, and that special treatment may in some cases be appropriate, especially for the wounded or bereaved. All that rings hollow, however, when we see what the Government are currently doing to our brave Northern Ireland veterans—a matter we were debating in the House just last Wednesday evening over Labour’s remedial order to undermine the Conservative legacy Act, which protects our veterans. Over 100 Labour MPs failed to back that order on the night, including, interestingly, the Prime Minister himself, who abstained, as did over half the Cabinet, including the Defence Secretary and even the Armed Forces Minister. The Government have performed 13 U-turns in the past few months alone, and we very much hope for a 14th U-turn over two-tier justice and facilitating lawfare, especially against our own vital special forces, allowing our brave Northern Ireland veterans to live out their lives in peace instead.
Mr Francois
No.
Secondly, with regard to readiness, as the international skies darken, we fail to see how we can improve our deterrence posture through the Government’s imposing £2.6 billion of in-year spending cuts in the MOD’s operating budget this year, thus reducing training exercises, sea days and flying hours, all in the name of short-term cash control. The Government constantly claim that they are increasing defence spending while concurrently slashing our own armed forces’ operational spending and also stalling on the defence investment plan, which we were faithfully promised last autumn. Similarly, we have been promised a defence readiness Bill, which is not ready yet. It is like a serious defence strategy turning into “Waiting for Godot”.
With those two important provisos, we welcome the Bill. I genuinely look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply, including on why he abstained last Wednesday.
The Minister for the Armed Forces (Al Carns)
It is a true honour to close the debate. I thank hon. Members across the House who have spoken well in support of our brave servicemen and women, upholding Parliament’s proud cross-party tradition of expressing our profound gratitude to those serving in the UK’s armed forces. It is not lost on me who is not here today.
I appreciate that some in this Chamber have raised questions about the measures in the Bill or about defence in general, so let me address some of the questions. The hon. Members for South Suffolk (James Cartlidge) and for Taunton and Wellington (Gideon Amos) and the right hon. Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) rightly mentioned our service in Afghanistan, as did many others in the House. It is not lost on me that when 9/11 took place, it is the only time when article 5 has been called. The US relied on us collectively not just for a military response, but for an inter-agency response to build the functions and capability to deal with terrorism, which is so successfully dealt with today. It is also not lost on me that per capita, the Georgians, the Danish and the Estonians lost a significant amount of souls in that conflict. I often say that those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it, and I think we saw an example of that.
The hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) highlighted issues with the covenant, but also highlighted accommodation and the move towards the next phases of any review. The single living accommodation strategy is well under way. On that note, I pay tribute to Natalie Elphicke and the whole team, who put an in amazing effort on the defence housing strategy, which has resulted in some of the findings, in particular the creation of the Defence Housing Service, which will alleviate for the Defence Infrastructure Organisation some of the pressure of looking after housing and professionalise the service as we move forward. I also support the hon. Member in her support for Toby Gutteridge, an individual I know well and who needs our support as he continues with his standard of life.
I welcome Opposition Members’ comments on Ukraine. This is a bipartisan issue—it is an idea bigger than ourselves. We welcome and thank them for their support on Ukraine in the early days, which we took on and have continued after the change in Government.
My hon. Friends the Members for Slough (Mr Dhesi), for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin), for Barrow and Furness (Michelle Scrogham) and for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) all highlighted issues with the covenant, as did many others. The reality is that it is moving from three areas of Government all the way to 14. It will be significant, but it will take time to put it in place. We have to accept that at the moment, the execution of the covenant results in a postcode lottery across the United Kingdom, but there is a requirement of adherence to the legal duty. There will be a communication and education plan to ensure that everyone knows the standards we need to live by. There will be statutory guidance, training and briefings. Indeed, some of the other projects like Operation Valour that we are rolling out will help us police the delivery of the covenant across those councils.
I have been a long-standing fan of the reserves, and I have to admit that I have a conflict of interest: I am a reservist. The Army, Navy and Air Force always respond to crisis, but the reality is that economies, industries and societies win conflicts. We can all learn the lesson from Ukraine that reservists often fill the ranks more the longer a conflict goes on. I will come later to comments about how reservists are being funded and how we will improve that process to ensure that the nation is ready should a crisis befall us.
I turn to the fitness application. I have met individuals who have destroyed a hundred tanks and individuals who have killed hundreds of Russians who could not pass a fitness test in their life. The reality is the changing character of conflict requires different skills. That is why things like cyber direct entry and different skills are just as applicable as being able to run or do pull-ups and push-ups. We have already got rid of 100 outdated medical requirements on the medical test. There is a long way to go on that, and I would like to see us open it up as we move forward, and we will see some of that in the Bill as it progresses.
I welcome the support from the hon. Member for Lewes (James MacCleary) on housing. The scrutiny and governance of that will absolutely be controlled by our Secretary of State. Within the covenant, the ability for us to produce an annual report to ensure that we are reporting to Government on the standards of adherence to the covenant and legal duty will be pushed every year. He mentioned a cultural change in the service justice system, which is far broader than what is in the Bill and is required. It is worth noting that Raising our Standards, the violence against women and girls taskforce, the zero tolerance policy and our tri-service complaints process are just some of the things that we are progressing outside legislation. The Bill goes further within legislation. Individually and collectively, the measures will be significant.
The right hon. and gallant Member for Tonbridge (Tom Tugendhat) mentioned several speeches in Davos. There are two quotes that I think it worth repeating here:
“A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable”,
and we must not
monetise…relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty.”
Those two quotes from Davos are worth remembering. We have an idea far bigger than the dollar sign, the euro or the pound, which is a moral obligation towards decency, transparency, the right to self-determination and, of course, democracy.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Jack Abbott) for his tribute to the armed forces and in particular for mentioning Combat2Coffee and its indomitable member Terry Butcher, who pushes so hard to support the armed forces. More importantly, I would like the Combat2Coffee shop in the Ministry of Defence to be replicated in all Government Departments—perhaps we can take that on as a separate little task.
I thank the hon. Member for North Devon (Ian Roome) for his support for the Defence Housing Service. The House will be delighted to know that family satisfaction with defence housing has gone up to the highest level since 2021. There is a long way to go, but we are heading in the right direction. Similarly, recruitment is up 13%, and outflow is down 8%.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill) for her constant support for all varieties of veterans across her constituency, and for being the MP of a constituency neighbouring mine. When people question whether we were on the frontline in Afghanistan or in any other conflict, I suggest one visit: to Birmingham’s Selly Oak hospital. The nurses, doctors and carers are second to none, and they have seen stuff that would shock us all. If there were any need for better validation of who has been on the frontline and who has not, Selly Oak hospital is the place to go.
The right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) highlighted that the rhetoric is not matched by the record on reservists. I would say that, in some cases, his narrative is not matched with his experience. All the facts are useful, but unless he connects them together, he does not necessarily have the understanding. Some of his comments were absolutely on the money, but one of the biggest problems with the reserves is to do not with finances but with the complete and utter mess of bureaucracy when trying to join the reserves.
Steve Barclay
Does the Minister not accept that the number of reservists and the number of training days have both fallen on his watch, and that the sums of money to significantly increase them is modest relative to the £60 billion-plus that the MOD spends?
Al Carns
In the strategic defence review, we have committed to an increase of 20%. First, reserve spending went up in 2023-24 from £189.9 million to £202.4 million, so what the right hon. Gentleman says is factually incorrect. Secondly, on personnel statistics, in the last quarter our trained strength in the reserves has risen from 28,000 to 29,000. I think we need collectively to check our statistics.
The right hon. Gentleman will know that to stand here and tell the world about our ability to respond to article 3 would be slightly misguided. He mentioned the creation of quangos, but if he had read the Bill fully he would recognise that the reserve forces and cadets associations are going from 13 to one so-called quangos, with an increase of one in the Defence Housing Service, which is absolutely required to deliver an effective housing service. He will also know that Op Valour means more money for veterans than ever before. Tranche 1 of the funding has now been closed, and recruitment is fully under way. If he would like to talk through why the recruitment has been paused in the past, I am more than happy to talk about that offline, but I want to ensure that the right person is in the right job, so that the programme is a success.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Alex Baker) for her passionate and unrelenting support, which is not lost on me—it is second to none and super impressive. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Luke Akehurst) has such a resounding history in the armed forces—it really is impressive. I know that supporting everyone in that constituency is a passion of his.
Will the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Josh Babarinde) please write to me about the issue with Pauline? I would like to look at it in detail, as I know would my hon. Friend the Minister for Veterans and People. My hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire and Bedworth (Rachel Taylor) welcomed the support for Op Valour. Her support for the Bill as it progresses is useful, and she always champions our armed forces constituents.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) was, as always, articulate and to the point. I have spoken to Ministers in Northern Ireland and to the armed forces Veterans’ Commissioner, and while the covenant is applicable to the whole United Kingdom, we must consider how it is executed within the devolved Administrations. I am willing to work with the hon. Gentleman and a collective group of Northern Ireland MPs to ensure that we implement it as best as we possibly can, while accepting that there are nuances with security and how it needs to be implemented as a whole.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister—that is a superb response. The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister), my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast East (Gavin Robinson), David Johnstone, and the hon. Member for South Antrim (Robin Swann) are the people with whom, if possible, we would have that meeting, and constructively work together to do better for our veterans in Northern Ireland.
Al Carns
The hon. Member has my word that I will continue to engage with him and move that forward.
I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) that there is no Navy without the Royal Fleet Auxiliary—it is as simple as that—so well done for pushing that ten-minute rule Bill and including in it delivering support to the RFA that is truly needed. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) for her support for the armed forces. It is consistent and super powerful, and I appreciate it. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) for his kind words and, importantly, his impressive support for veterans and the roll-out of Op Valour.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr Bailey) has continually supported the covenant and the armed forces as a whole, and the impact on immigration is something we need to look forward to as the covenant rolls out more broadly. I agree that the removal of the C-130 was a bad thing. The continual support of my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Peter Swallow) for the cadet forces and the armed forces community is second to none and really impressive.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Danny Beales) for his support for the armed forces community and, in particular, for housing, which has been impressive throughout. Indeed, we saw the first few houses in the roll-out of 1,000 houses getting renewed—the Secretary of State and I were there to see the good, the bad and the ugly, and it was great to see that we had landed on the good with so many houses for armed forces personnel in his constituency. Finally, the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Pam Cox) for parachute battalion 16 Air Assault Brigade, and in representing serving families and veterans, is second to none.
From my perspective, it is quite simple: the Armed Forces Bill is moving forward in four key areas. First, for defence housing, we are creating the Defence Housing Service, moving it away from the Defence Infrastructure Organisation, increasing capacity and upskilling professionalism as we look at defence housing as a whole. For the reserves, it is about extending service from 55 to 65 for those individuals in specific roles who can still add value to the military up to that age. It is also about making the transfer more seamless, and standardising the recall from six years to 18 years consistently across the Army, Navy and Air Force.
The Bill is about better support, with the covenant moving from three to 14 Departments and policy areas. It is about us renewing the contract with those who serve. Finally, the Bill is about better protections. It is about sexual risk orders, domestic abuse protections and orders, and stalking protection orders. Indeed, it boils down to the ability of victims to have choice. Since the Lyons review in 2018-19, we have changed defence significantly when it comes to how we look at serious crime. We created the serious crime unit under the previous Government, and it has gone from a fledgling organisation to one with a fully upskilled and up-gunned ability to deal with the most serious crimes. It is deeply impressive, so if anybody has any concerns about how we are dealing with the most serious issues across defence, they should please come and see me, the Secretary of State or the Minister for Veterans and People, and organise a visit. We will happily deliver that to ensure that hon. Members can go and visit it.
In summary, this Bill garners support from Members from all parts of the House. There are some issues that we will debate repeatedly over the next several months, but I think that we will get to a really good place that supports our serving armed forces across the Navy, the Army and the Air Force, our reservists, our service families, our veterans and our whole armed forces community, including all the charities that support them as well.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Armed Forces Bill: Programme
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Armed Forces Bill:
Select Committee
(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Select Committee.
(2) The Select Committee shall report the Bill to the House on or before 30 April 2026.
Committee of the whole House, Consideration and Third reading
(3) On report from the Select Committee, the Bill shall be re-committed to a Committee of the whole House.
(4) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House on recommittal, any proceedings on Consideration and proceedings on Third Reading shall be taken in accordance with the following provisions of this Order.
(5) Proceedings in Committee of the whole House and any proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which proceedings in Committee of the whole House are commenced.
(6) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
Programming committee
(7) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings in Committee of the whole House, to any proceedings on Consideration or to proceedings on Third Reading.
Other proceedings
(8) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Stephen Morgan.)
Question agreed to.
Armed Forces Bill: Money
King’s recommendation signified.
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Armed Forces Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:
(a) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by a Minister of the Crown or the Defence Council, and
(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under or by virtue of any other Act out of money so provided.—(Stephen Morgan.)
Question agreed to.
Business without Debate
NHS Urgent Care: Staffordshire
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to lead this debate on NHS urgent care in my brilliant county of Staffordshire, and particularly on what that means for my constituents in the towns and villages of Cannock Chase. I start by paying immense tribute to the dedicated staff who work in our NHS and in social care. From district nurses and general practice, through to care homes and A&E departments, the passion and expertise that they bring enriches and saves lives.
When I was elected, I knew that there were many local issues that I would need to get to grips with quickly, but among many priorities, I knew that I had to campaign on urgent healthcare first. It is a subject that my constituents have raised with me frequently, on doorsteps, in emails, at surgeries and in conversations with local clinicians. It goes right to the heart of whether people feel confident that our NHS will be there for them when they need it, and that our area is well served.
Before being elected to serve Cannock Chase, I worked in the NHS, not in a clinical role but in communications, and that experience has very much stayed with me. It means that I approach debates like this with a great deal of respect for the people working in the system, and with an understanding of just how complex it is. I know how difficult decisions can be, how stretched staff are and how long it can take to move from strategy to delivery, but I also know that delay and uncertainty have consequences for patients, staff morale and public trust.
For my constituents, uncertainty around access to urgent care has become an all too familiar experience. The minor injuries unit at Cannock Chase hospital was temporarily closed in March 2020, so that staff could be redeployed to the covid wards at New Cross hospital. At the time that decision was entirely understandable and widely supported locally. The NHS was facing an unprecedented emergency and staff stepped up in extraordinary ways to protect lives.
At the same time, it was said that the closure was temporary and that the Royal Wolverhampton NHS trust planned to reopen the MIU once pandemic-related workforce pressures eased, but, nearly six years on, that temporary closure feels anything but temporary. In fact, two years after the closure, in March 2022, there was significant fanfare around the possibility of a reopening that summer. Many residents understandably took that as a sign of progress, but ultimately nothing came of it.
After more than two years of radio silence, in August 2024 the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent integrated care board announced a wholesale review of urgent care services across the county, in the light of new national standards for urgent treatment centres. Although the proposals are to upgrade urgent care facilities in other hospitals in Stafford, Burton-upon-Trent, Lichfield, Tamworth and Stoke-on-Trent to meet those UTC standards, they included the permanent closure of Cannock’s minor injuries unit, which would effectively end the remaining hope among my constituents and others in neighbouring constituencies that urgent care will come back to our area. The reasons given included a belief that need from the Cannock Chase area was already being met by other nearby hospitals and, above all, a refusal from the Royal Wolverhampton NHS trust to support urgent care provision at Cannock Chase hospital. A comment made to me by a member of the ICB’s staff was, “They just aren’t interested”.
The way that these proposals were communicated locally was very poor, and I have been very frank with the ICB about that. The reaction of the people who saw the ICB’s document was understandably one of huge concern, particularly among older residents, people with chronic conditions and those who cannot drive. The ICB planned only one public engagement event in my constituency, which was in the afternoon on a weekday, and even that attracted far more people than it had planned for. Although many did not get to hear about the event, the room was still packed, and very frank views were given. At my request, the ICB held a second event, which was on an evening, and I am told that that was well attended too.
We were told that the ICB expected to take its final proposals to health scrutiny at Staffordshire county council in the spring of last year, with a full public consultation in the summer if the committee deemed it necessary, yet months passed without any update, adding to the uncertainty and frustration locally. Let me be clear that I am not standing here to criticise the ICB for the sake of it; I meet it regularly, and at those meetings we have serious, detailed discussions about patient flow, demand, workforce and outcomes.
I understand that good decision making in the NHS takes time, but I believe that prolonged uncertainty comes at a cost. Every month that passes without clarity leaves patients unsure where to go when they need care, staff unsure what the future holds for their workplace, and communities feeling that decisions are being made far away, rather than with an understanding of local reality.
John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)
I note what my hon. Friend says about his integrated care board. I have very positive meetings with my ICB, but a similar situation is affecting the town of Rugby, which I represent. The urgent treatment centre is nurse-led, and we very much want there to be a doctor-led treatment centre. A review is under way, but my constituents and I are simply not aware of its end date. That causes the kind of concern around services that you talk about—
Josh Newbury
I saw a post from my hon. Friend on Facebook earlier today about this very matter. I know that he is fighting very hard on that on behalf of his constituents. I hope that my integrated care board listens to the concerns of my constituents, and I hope that that is reflected in Coventry and Warwickshire and that he can get some progress on a doctor-led unit.
For the past six years, people in Cannock Chase have had to travel to Stafford, Lichfield, Walsall or Wolverhampton for care that they would once have accessed locally. That is not simply an inconvenience; it undermines the objectives of urgent care reform, increases pressure on neighbouring hospitals and pushes more people into A&E. That is exactly the opposite of what the urgent care review is supposed to achieve.
Most worrying of all are those who are not seeking care at all. Not everybody can drive and not everyone has access to reliable public transport, particularly in places such as Staffordshire. When patients are faced with long, complicated journeys for what should be straightforward local treatment, many simply put it off; conditions then worsen, complications develop and people ultimately end up needing an ambulance for something that could have been treated earlier, more cheaply and closer to home.
At the engagement events and in conversations with me since, constituents have told me that the MIU was a lifeline when they did not need A&E but their GP felt they needed to go to hospital. Cannock Chase hospital is very close to a bus station, and most people locally can catch a single bus to reach it; in contrast, travelling by bus to MIUs in Lichfield, Stafford, Walsall or Wolverhampton can be difficult, often involving multiple changes and long journey times. As a result, many of my constituents are paying for taxis instead, which is a significant financial burden.
The issue becomes even clearer when we look at the demographics of my constituency. It has a slightly older population than the national average, with more than 19,500 residents aged 65 and over—around a fifth of our population. Almost half of those older residents—more than 9,300 people—are living with a long-term health condition, a higher proportion than we see nationally. These are the residents who are most likely to need timely urgent care, who are more vulnerable to deterioration if treatment is delayed, and who often face the greatest barriers when services are not available locally. The NHS’s own data shows higher attendances at both surrounding MIUs since ours closed, but not by the total amount of previous activity at Cannock Chase hospital, backing up what residents have been telling us about not always seeking care.
We can also see how these pressures play out in practice at nearby hospitals that many of my constituents rely on when local urgent care is not available. Although Royal Stoke University hospital is not in my constituency, it is a key part of the wider system and serves residents right across our county. In the final quarter of last year alone, that hospital saw more than 33,000 A&E attendances, and over 6,800 patients waited more than 12 hours to be admitted or discharged. That is more than one in five attendances—double the national average—placing the hospital among the most pressured in the country.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Royal Stoke hospital is in my constituency, and one of the things its staff tell me is that if it were not for the Haywood walk-in unit up in Stoke-on-Trent, Leek Moorland hospital or Stafford MIU, the A&E would simply fall over. Naturally, people in Staffordshire gravitate to the A&E when they want help, and the fact that my hon. Friend’s constituency is without an urgent treatment centre has a ripple effect across the county. Will he join me in asking the Minister to say when she winds up whether she has any data demonstrating the impact that the lack of a facility in Cannock is having on neighbouring hospitals, and therefore on the services that are experienced by my constituents and those in constituencies across the county?
Josh Newbury
I thank my hon. Friend and fellow Staffordshire MP for his intervention. He has highlighted a critical point: every part of our NHS can have a knock-on effect on the others, so the system needs to work as a whole. We cannot just focus on individual services; we have to see how it works in the round. That is what the review is trying to do, but of course, many of us feel it is not hitting on what it needs to.
I do not raise these figures to criticise staff, who are working under immense strain, or the Government, who are making strong progress on addressing the pressures I have described. I raise them to underline a simple point: as we have heard, when local urgent care is unavailable, demand does not disappear, it is concentrated elsewhere. Making sure patients get the right care in the right place is critical—too many people end up in A&E not because they need to be there, but because there is nowhere else for them to go. Perhaps in the past, our MIU was not always used for its intended purpose, but even that was often a symptom of failings in community care.
Urgent treatment centres will be a vital part of the fabric of our NHS, sitting between primary care and emergency departments. Not having that service for a population of over 100,000 people is a real challenge, and it weakens the wider system. In the 17 months since the review of urgent care was unveiled, I have had many conversations with our ICB about urgent care more broadly, as have GPs, councillors and campaigners. I know that they are putting in place services that make good on the Government’s commitment to shift care from hospitals out into the community. I welcome the introduction of a wound care local enhanced service, which recognises that wound care was previously a key reason for patients to access the MIU, even though their homes are a better place for that care to take place. This shows that sustained conversations about our local health needs and inequalities are starting to translate into results.
I hope that building on this, Cannock Chase can be a forerunner in the roll-out of multidisciplinary neighbourhood teams. The health inequalities we sadly have locally, coupled with the distance to many secondary care services that I have referred to, means that we would benefit hugely from that model of supercharged community care. Better than having to catch a bus to Lichfield or Stafford would be heading to Cannock Chase hospital, but better still would be getting that care at home. That is what I am calling for, and will continue to fight for, on behalf of my constituents.
There are areas where Staffordshire is performing strongly. Urgent community response services are exceeding national targets, winter planning has helped to stabilise hospital stays during periods of peak demand, and vaccination programmes are having an impact on admissions. This is not an argument against reform; it is an argument for consistency and fairness. If urgent care reform is about reducing avoidable A&E attendance, improving patient flow and ensuring equitable access across the system, then Cannock Chase cannot continue to remain an outlier.
Crucially, this is not just about rhetoric. The Government are making huge strides in the NHS nationally, backed by reform, investment and a determination to ensure that people get the right care in the right place at the right time. That is why I welcome the investment already being made in the Chadsmoor medical practice, the Rawnsley surgery and the Red Lion surgery in my constituency. That will make a huge difference to people’s everyday experience of the NHS that they can see and feel. Strengthening primary care does not remove the need for local urgent care—one cannot simply replace the other.
My ask today is simple and constructive. I am not asking the Minister to pre-empt the outcome of the ICB’s review—I know that she cannot do that—and I am certainly not arguing against the reform of urgent care that prompted this review. I am calling for clarity, fairness and alignment between national ambition and local delivery. If we believe in shifting care out of hospitals and into communities, if we believe in reducing avoidable A&E attendance and if we believe in equitable access to urgent care, then Cannock Chase must have that as part of its future.
I hope that 2026 can be the year that sees an expansion of urgent care back into my part of the world, and I urge the Royal Wolverhampton NHS trust to make better use of Cannock Chase hospital, which many residents feel remains underutilised compared with how things were under the former Mid Staffordshire NHS trust. I would welcome the Minister’s assurance that local voices will continue to be properly heard, that decisions will be communicated clearly and promptly, and that the Government will work with the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICB to ensure that communities such as mine are not left without urgent care provision.
Urgent care, at its simplest, is about whether someone with a broken wrist, a deep cut or a worsening infection knows where to go and can actually get there. I look forward to continuing to work constructively with the ICB, the Minister and colleagues across the House to ensure that urgent care in Staffordshire truly works for the communities that we all serve.
The Minister for Secondary Care (Karin Smyth)
It is a pleasure to respond to this debate, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) for securing it and raising in a constructive way the important matter of urgent care in Staffordshire. It is always good to have more proud NHS non-clinical bureaucrats in this place to pursue these issues.
This Government are clear that the patient should expect, as my hon. Friend says, high standards of care. We recognise that that has not always been the case in recent years, with too many people waiting too long to access the help they need, but we are determined to change that. We are taking serious, sustained action to restore timely access to high-quality urgent care across the country. Our urgent and emergency care plan for 2025-26 sets out that clear path to strengthening urgent care outside hospitals, so that patients can access timely, appropriate support without needing to attend A&E unless clinically necessary. We are increasing the number of patients treated closer to home by scaling up our urgent community response teams providing rapid two-hour care, expanding virtual wards to provide hospital-level treatment at home and growing multidisciplinary neighbourhood teams that intervene early and prevent avoidable deterioration.
We will support patients to book into the most appropriate urgent care service for them, whether via 111 or the NHS app, and we are using data from shared patient care records and digital tools to support better triage, to join up services and to anticipate pressures before they arise. That is backed by £2 billion of investment in NHS digital infrastructure. We are also investing £250 million to strengthen same-day emergency care and urgent treatment centre provision, helping systems across the country to avoid unnecessary admissions and supporting the same-day diagnosis, treatment and discharge of patients.
Turning specifically to my hon. Friend’s constituency, I know the work that he has done with his local NHS to ensure that his constituents’ voices are heard. In preparing for this debate, I also met the local NHS to understand better the situation that he describes. It is taking steps to strengthen urgent care capacity and to improve patient pathways, in line with the policy outlines that we have made. I am also aware of the concerns about the closure of the minor injuries unit.
As my hon. Friend said, following the closure during covid the ICB undertook a review of whether the service should be reopened. The review concluded that demand previously met by the Cannock Chase minor injuries unit was being met elsewhere. In that time, the NHS has strengthened the wider urgent care offer for local people. It includes enhanced primary care—my hon. Friend talked about wound care, which is very important to local people—as well as GP out-of-hours services accessed via NHS 111, urgent community response services, and access to urgent treatment centres in other locations. Those arrangements ensure that patients can receive timely and appropriate care.
As my hon. Friend mentioned, neighbourhood integrated teams will be scaled up, delivering more proactive and preventive care in order to intervene earlier and reduce avoidable deterioration. Those teams, as he outlined, are central to shifting care out of hospital and towards community care support. Urgent treatment centres do play a vital role in the wider urgent care system, providing timely assessment and treatment for patients whose needs are urgent but not life-threatening. The system is therefore ensuring that those centres meet national standards, improving consistency and simplifying access for the public, to help divert activity away from type 1 emergency departments and ensure that more patients receive the right level of care closer to home. Let me say in response to my hon. Friend and also his neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell), that it is important for Members in the area to understand that that wider movement of capacity will ensure that they have the necessary information.
I am pleased to report that the system in Staffordshire has become the first in the midlands to establish a 24/7 integrated care co-ordination centre, which provides a single access point for clinicians, co-ordinates urgent community services, and prevents unnecessary A&E attendances. Nearly half the calls to the service are now successfully redirected away from hospital, which helps patients to access help more quickly and eases the pressure on A&E departments. Moreover, capacity has been increased in urgent community response services, virtual wards, same day-emergency care and intermediate care. Urgent community response performance is particularly strong, with more than 78% of referrals seen within two hours—well above the national ambition of 70%. Additional clinical resource has been put in place to meet rising demand and support resilience through the winter.
This work sits alongside strengthened pathways for people whom my hon. Friend described—especially those who may be elderly and experience falls, those who may be frail, those who need end-of-life care, and those in care homes. We need to ensure that those patients in particular receive timely and appropriate support and are confident that the service is there for them in that time of need. Together, these integrated services are helping to manage demand in A&E departments, improve patient flow, and make best use of urgent care capacity across Staffordshire, including in Cannock Chase. As my hon. Friend rightly said, those improvements must be felt by the people of Cannock Chase, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central also pointed out, we need to ensure that demand is well managed and to support people across Staffordshire.
We are planning for the future as well. Our 10-year health plan sets out the long-term vision for urgent and emergency care reform. As I have said, a central priority is to shift care from hospitals into the community, and that will be driven by continuing to expand urgent care through urgent community response, virtual wards, rapid access clinics and better co-ordination through neighbourhood-based care.
Our plan is working: in the past 18 months the Government have invested a record £26 billion in the NHS, delivered more than 5 million additional appointments, cut waiting lists by 312,000, and launched the 10-year health plan to deliver more care in the community. We know that there is more to do, but our investment and modernisation are making a difference, and the NHS is showing clear signs of recovery. Thanks to these steps, this winter ambulances are arriving faster, A&E waits are shorter, and more patients are being treated closer to home.
I pay tribute to NHS staff across Staffordshire and across the country. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, healthcare assistants and support staff continue to show exceptional commitment, often in the most challenging circumstances, and they deserve our thanks and support. We know that the NHS is under pressure, but this Government are taking decisive action through our urgent and emergency care plan, our winter preparations, and our long-term reforms. We are putting the service back on its feet, and ensuring that patients receive timely, high-quality care.
As we make the NHS fit for the future by making the changes we need to move care out of hospital and into communities, and by making the switch from analogue to digital and from sickness to prevention, we have to communicate better with patients and the public, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase has clearly outlined this evening. That includes keeping MPs well informed of the proposals.
Gareth Snell
I want briefly to highlight the fact that one of the perverse things in Staffordshire is that my constituency is serviced by the Royal Stoke hospital, as is Stafford. Its headquarters are within the ICB that funds it. Some of the places that the Minister has mentioned this evening include Cannock, Burton and Tamworth. Their hospitals are smaller and are linked to a much larger acute hospital in a trust that is headquartered outside the ICB. That is a perversity for cross-border invoicing, and it sometimes make us wonder what the incentive is for some of the trusts. Could a group of us MPs meet the Minister to discuss that?
Karin Smyth
When I became a Minister, my hon. Friend was one of the first through the door to share some of the issues in Stoke. In my meeting today, in which I had my map in front of me to point out some of the journey times, his comments were in my mind.
As I said, it is really important that we take local people with us as we move the system on the basis of the best clinical evidence. For me, that includes making sure that MPs are well informed of the proposals and the rationale behind them. As we have heard today, MPs are willing to be very constructive advocates for local systems on behalf of their constituents. I welcome the engagement with Members on this issue, and I am very happy to continue working with my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase, other colleagues in Staffordshire and NHS leaders on how we can further strengthen emergency care services for people in Cannock Chase and, indeed, across Staffordshire.
Question put and agreed to.
Green belt protection
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Key Stage 1 Curriculum
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Dr Roz Savage (South Cotswolds) (LD)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 729440 relating to play in the key stage 1 curriculum.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Barker, and a real privilege to present this important debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. Before I turn to the detail, I want to set out three key points that frame the debate. First, England is now an outlier in the United Kingdom as the only nation with no statutory expectation that play-based learning should continue beyond age five. Scotland and Wales already have legal frameworks and national strategies that embed and protect play into the early primary years; only in England does the statutory requirement for learning through play effectively stop at the end of reception, creating a cliff edge between reception and year 1. Nobody’s brains, let alone four or five-year-old children’s brains, respond well to cliff edges. Such an approach runs counter to everything we know about children’s developmental needs and the evidence on how young children learn.
The second key point is that play-based learning is not the same as enrichment, which usually means activities that sit alongside the core curriculum such as clubs, sport, music, trips or recreational time. Those activities are valuable, but they are by definition additional. Play-based learning is something quite different: a structured, evidence-based way of teaching the core curriculum itself. The Government’s response to the petition appears to misunderstand that distinction and thereby misses the point.
Thirdly, we must distinguish between two different but equally vital kinds of play. There is purposeful, guided play in the classroom as a core teaching method; and free, social, physical play in playgrounds and outdoor spaces. I happen to live next door to a primary school and can vouch for the fact that the latter is a great deal noisier than the former, but it is a joyous and happy noise—the sound of childhood. Both kinds of play are essential and both are currently being squeezed to the detriment of our children.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
In my constituency of Horsham we already see the positives that play-based education can bring, with organisations such as Woods for Learning, which is a forest school catering for children with special educational needs and other children. The effectiveness is clear enough. Would my hon. Friend agree that the time has come to look at bringing that approach into the classroom, too?
Helena Dollimore (Hastings and Rye) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the hon. Member for highlighting the importance of access to play. Something that many children and parents have raised with me in Hastings and Rye is how many playgrounds have closed or fallen into disrepair in my constituency. I have done an audit of all the playgrounds and found that eight have closed since 2015 and more than half need upgrading. Many of them are run by housing associations that neglect their duty to maintain them. Does she agree that we have to do better and ensure that the playgrounds, often in the most needy parts of our constituencies, are properly maintained so that children can enjoy them?
Dr Savage
I absolutely agree. I have encountered similar challenges in my constituency of South Cotswolds when playgrounds are not well maintained, or when developers, having promised to provide them, shove them off into a muddy corner of a field that is entirely inappropriate for children’s play. It is essential for the sake of our children that we make sure that safe, enjoyable and not-too-muddy spaces are provided.
I thank the creator of the petition, Ruth Lue-Quee, who is in the Public Gallery with many others who feel passionately about this issue; Ruth is a former deputy headteacher and now an education consultant. I also thank the more than 106,000 people who signed the petition, including more than 200 people from my South Cotswolds constituency. That scale of support reflects a widespread sense that our education system, as it is currently structured, fails too many children. At the all-party parliamentary group on play last week, I heard even more from education experts on that very point. One experienced schoolteacher told me bluntly that the present model works well for perhaps 10% of pupils, but not for the majority. That is not because teachers lack skill or commitment—they have those in abundance—but because the system is fundamentally misaligned with how a child’s brain works and learns.
On a personal note, I should say that this debate goes to the heart of why I decided to stand for Parliament. The preamble to the Liberal Democrat constitution commits us, as a party, to building a society in which no one is
“enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity”
and in which every person is empowered to develop their potential to the full. The journey towards fulfilled potential begins in childhood. Play is one of the primary ways in which human potential, creativity and confidence are formed; that is why I was keen to put my hand up to introduce this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee.
Let me return to that first key distinction: the difference between enrichment and play-based learning. Enrichment, as I have said, means activities added on around the edges of the school day. Play-based learning, on the other hand, is about how learning itself is designed and delivered. It is a planned, teacher-guided pedagogy in which reading, writing, arithmetic and wider knowledge are learned through exploration, talk, movement, construction, role play and problem solving.
Teachers are not stepping back—far from it. They are actively shaping the environment, setting challenges, modelling language, asking probing questions and intentionally extending children’s thinking while giving them genuine agency over how they engage in an embodied and creative way. Practitioners give powerful evidence of what that looks like in practice. In one platinum-rated primary school that uses a play-first model, the headteacher told me that children must complete all must-do tasks, which are aligned with national expectations, but the children get to choose when and how to do them during extended play-based learning sessions.
The school has academic standards at or above national averages. Attendance is described as “through the roof”: the children cannot wait to get there in the morning and they are a bit reluctant to leave at the end of the day. Behaviour problems fall and children almost cannot wait to participate. Globally, across more than 2,000 schools and 1.8 million children using high-quality play approaches, we see the same pattern emerging: higher engagement, better attendance, fewer behaviour issues—because children are not wired to sit still for hours a day at age five—and much greater professional satisfaction for teachers, who see their students really thriving.
That brings to me to the second distinction: guided play in classrooms and free play in playgrounds. Guided play in the classroom supports cognitive and language development. Children experience what psychologists call “productive struggle”. They plan, manage resources, seek help when they need it, collaborate, persist and reflect. They develop independence, motivation and embodied understanding, not simply compliance and conformity. Free play, especially outdoors and in nature, serves a different but equally vital purpose. It is where children develop physical confidence and learn to negotiate rules, to resolve conflict, to take manageable risks and to build friendships while experiencing a real sense of autonomy. Free play supports mental health, resilience and social intelligence in ways that no formal lesson, no matter how well designed, can fully replicate.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
I have been to see the OPAL—outdoor play and learning—programme at Brookside primary school in East Leake in my constituency. The teachers there are finding that the outdoor play element means that they are spending more time successfully teaching in the classroom because there are fewer issues and disputes to resolve. Does the hon. Lady agree that teachers and schools are pushing for those things both indoor and outdoor, because together they ultimately result in better learning for children?
Dr Savage
I wholeheartedly agree. The evidence is incontrovertible: free play benefits students, teachers and parents.
The two forms of play are complementary, but not interchangeable; a truly child-centred system must value and protect both. Neuroscience helps explain why that matters so profoundly. Play activates almost every region of the developing brain, strengthening connections between emotional, social and cognitive systems. It stimulates dopamine and serotonin, creating what might be called a happy, relaxed, learning-ready brain. Those rich, flexible neural networks support memory, creativity and adaptability. By contrast, chronic stress and over-formalisation create rigid neural pathways that inhibit curiosity and learning, and create more stress that is not conducive to a receptive brain. In simple terms, joyful, playful brains learn better.
The issue is not just about short-term wellbeing; it is about future-readiness in the age of artificial intelligence. The skills that will matter most in the future are not rote recall, but creativity, adaptability, collaboration, emotional intelligence, imagination and the ability to navigate uncertainty. Those are precisely the same attributes that high-quality play develops. If we want children to thrive alongside AI, rather than be diminished by it, we must nurture the uniquely human capacities that play supports.
However, practitioners have told me that teacher training in England contains remarkably little on child development, neuroscience or the pedagogy of play. Many teachers know how play works, but feel constrained by rigid tests and by inspections that prioritise uniform outcomes and control rather than curiosity and agency. That contributes not only to poorer outcomes for children, but to burnout, demoralisation and a recruitment and retention crisis across the teaching profession.
It is also vital to remember that the effects of depriving children are not equally felt. Children in low-income families or those with special educational needs and disabilities are most likely to experience barriers to play while also being the children most likely to benefit from it. If the Government are serious about taking into account the educational needs of each individual child, play must form a vital part of their SEND strategy and curriculum reset. That is why the petitioners are not asking for just warm words; they are asking for statutory recognition for play-based learning and continuous provision to be embedded in the national framework, and for every single school to have a proper strategic plan for play, just as they have plans for literacy, safeguarding or special educational needs.
Finally, I return to the three points with which I began. England is still the only country in the home nations with no statutory expectation that play-based learning should continue beyond age five. That is a policy choice, not an inevitability. Secondly, play-based learning is not enrichment; it is different. It is a core pedagogical approach grounded in evidence about how young children’s brains develop and how deep learning takes place. Thirdly, guided play in classrooms and free play in playgrounds are not luxuries. Together, and complementing each other, they build the cognitive, emotional, social and creative foundations that children need—not only to pass tests, but to flourish as human beings in a rapidly changing world.
I hope that the Minister will respond directly to what the petitioners are asking for: for the Government to recognise play-based learning as core and not peripheral; to address the reception-to-year-1 cliff edge; to strengthen teacher training in child development and play; and to ensure that our curriculum and accountability systems give every child the chance to grow into a confident, curious, resilient and creative adult.
If we want a generation who are able to think, collaborate, imagine and thrive in a world shaped by AI, we must start by taking play seriously. Play is not a distraction from education, but one of its most powerful enablers.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for introducing this debate, and the 106,082 people who signed the petition, of whom 182 are my constituents. I pay tribute to the campaigners, who are here today, for their important work on this topic.
There is a huge body of evidence that demonstrates the paramount importance of play in early childhood. When my two-year-old next door neighbour visited for tea over the Christmas recess, he announced as he stepped through our door, “Where are the toys?” If any of us has any doubt about the paramount importance of play, that is a particular experience that he was looking for on his visit and looks for wherever he goes.
I pay tribute in particular to the work of PEDAL—the centre for research on play in education development and learning—which is a part of the faculty of education at the University of Cambridge. PEDAL is dedicated to amassing evidence on the importance of play and is developing a wealth of resources for practitioners in all aspects of childhood. PEDAL highlights the important role of play in developing relationships and secure attachments for young children, in supporting physical and mental health, good development, learning and communication, and in building good foundational social relationships.
I have had the privilege of visiting many early years settings and primary schools in my constituency and across the country, and I have seen many brilliant examples of play-led learning, particularly in the many schools that that now have forest school programmes that give children the opportunity to go into the outdoors and learn from each other and the natural environment, outside of the formal classroom. The best teachers and early years practitioners make play a part of the curriculum, and work to make all learning fun.
This topic is relevant to aspects of the Education Committee’s current and recent work. We are midway through a big inquiry into the evidence on what makes for good support across the early years. We have undertaken some work to scrutinise the curriculum and assessment review—a topic I will return to—and last year we undertook a major piece of work on SEND, focusing on creating inclusive learning environments for all children and looking at the evidence on the very high number of children who are being failed by a system that is not properly geared to meet their needs. As part of that work, we identified transition points in education as requiring particular attention as the Government consider SEND reform. The transition from the early years foundation stage to key stage 1 is important in that respect.
We are also undertaking work on child poverty. Although play is important in education settings—in formal settings—in early childhood to reduce the attainment gap, access to high-quality play experiences in communities is also vital. My constituency is in the eye of the storm of the housing crisis, with so many families with young children who are not adequately housed and are living in overcrowded, cramped accommodation. For those families in particular, being able to access high-quality play equipment in their local community close to home is vital to their children’s development.
I will briefly pay tribute to a much-loved and much-missed Member of this place, the late right hon. Frank Dobson, who was passionate about play. Under the previous Labour Government, he helped to deliver a step change in investment in play equipment in our communities, and he continued to correspond with me about this topic until he was very near to the end of his life. The erosion of council funding under the Conservative Government for 14 years of course made it harder for councils to keep pace with investment in this space, and in recent years we have seen too many examples of play equipment that has fallen behind best practice and even fallen into disrepair.
I welcome the curriculum assessment review and its focus both on restoring creative subjects to the heart of the curriculum and on reducing the burden of assessment. These are important reforms and they are very welcome. Of course, the curriculum is a framework; it does not dictate individual lesson plans or teaching methods. Consequently, I hope that as the Government continue to develop the guidance around curriculum reform, there will be creative responses to these reforms that give some prominence to play, particularly in key stage 1.
Finally, I will highlight a conversation I had recently—last week, in fact— with the Estonian Education Minister. As we know, Estonia’s education system achieves excellent outcomes. In the early years, it focuses almost entirely on the social and emotional development of children in early childhood as the foundation for more formal learning. The Estonian Education Minister told me, “School is tough in Estonia. We expect children to work really hard. We give them a great deal of content. But they do that on a foundation in the early years that means that they are good co-operators and collaborators with their classmates, that they are good at working in teams, and that they are good at managing their own emotions to engage with learning to the fullest extent.”
This Government have an ambitious programme of reform for education, and a clear commitment both to making childhood better across our country and to investing in the services that support children, particularly in their early years. I hope that as the Government bring forward more detailed guidance to support these reforms and move towards the publication of the schools White Paper, which we expect shortly, the work of the petitioners on the topic of play in the key stage 1 curriculum will be at the forefront of their thinking. Play is important for children’s development, for their engagement in education and for discovering a lifelong love of learning, and the evidence to support that view is very strong.
Several hon. Members rose—
Paula Barker (in the Chair)
Before I call the next speaker, I suggest an informal time limit of four minutes per speaker, because of the popularity of this important debate. I hope that Members will help each other out by keeping speeches to four minutes, please.
Rebecca Smith (South West Devon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mrs Barker, and I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for presenting this petition on behalf of the petitioners.
Hopefully, I will not take four minutes to speak, because I am no expert on this topic. I am here today because 389 of my constituents signed the petition, which means that South West Devon had the fifth-highest response rate in the country. As a Member of Parliament, I always feel that when we are sent that little table telling us how many of our constituents have signed a petition, it is great, where it is possible to do so, to come and represent their views. I have also heard from two or three parents directly about this topic.
In addition, teachers have contacted me, including Cari Dyson. I have to say that if not for Cari, I probably would not be here this afternoon. She is a key stage 1 teacher who uses a play-based approach in her classroom. She told me that this petition
“is not asking for KS1 to reduce essential academic content”.
Instead, it aims to ensure that core knowledge can be taught using
“purposeful learning through play; structured enabling environments; and skilled adult interaction.”
Cari is one of the signatories to the petition who does not agree with the Government response to it, and perhaps she will not agree either with the official Opposition response, but I want to express her views this afternoon. I am certainly very grateful to her for sharing her expertise and experience.
I draw attention to one school in my constituency, which I had the privilege of visiting towards the end of last year. Sparkwell All Saints primary is a very small rural school, and such schools can deliver this programme, which larger inner-city schools might struggle with. I put on record how impressed I was with what Sparkwell All Saints provided. The school starts with the Montessori-style nursery and continues that through into key stage 1. If I had children and I lived in the village, I would be queueing at the door to get my kids into the school, which is delightful to visit. Mr Cole, the headteacher, is inspirational, and the value of the play-based, hands-on teaching method that nurtures children from my constituency is clear to see.
I understand the arguments for play, but we have to ensure that any increased emphasis on it does not hinder the teaching of a rigorous, knowledge-based curriculum, because, at the end of the day, we are preparing children to go through other key stages. However, as a non-expert in the room, I will say that I absolutely see both sides of the coin.
One thing that will come up in the course of this debate—I think it was highlighted by the Chair of the Education Committee, the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes)—is that often the schools that offer play are particularly beneficial for children with additional needs or special educational needs. One question I have for the Minister is: how do we ensure that, when this approach is used in local primary schools, we are creating a fair playing field? We do not want a situation where a few schools deliver an amazing, creative environment for children who might struggle in more academic mainstream schools, but on the other side, negatively impact SEND provision more broadly across the community. I absolutely recognise the value of play, but a school could potentially become known as being particularly good for SEND children and end up with a higher-than-average cohort of children who meet those criteria.
Ultimately, I am completely compelled by what I have heard this afternoon. I hear all the arguments and I have seen the value of play for myself. I am slightly cautious and sceptical, given my past role as a governor in a primary school in a more urban setting that had a more traditional curriculum; none the less, it is important that we have been able to debate this topic this afternoon.
Is it the Government’s view that a one-size-fits-all approach is right, or is it right to have differences in the school system? The new Labour Government want to halt the progress of free schools, which could provide this alternative form of education within the state system, and they are not keen on multi-academy trusts, which perhaps also offer a different way of teaching. I am interested to know the Minister’s thoughts on that one-size-fits-all approach, or whether there should be space in our state education system for different ways of teaching and learning.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Barker. I congratulate the Petitions Committee on focusing on such an important debate, the 216 of my constituents who made the case through the petition, and the teachers and support staff who have very much brought this to my attention. I raise for the record that my sister works in early years, and every night when I go home from this place, she tells me about the importance of play. I have no better counsel than her.
The pedagogies that are integrated into our education system will determine the long-term outcomes of a child’s learning and development. It is only natural for a child to engage in explorative, creative and imaginative play when engaging with language and new concepts. It is play that helps a child to process their learning, reinforce its application and take pleasure in the process—of course, roleplay plays a vital role as well. It is during play that a child also learns wider physical and social skills. They will be connecting the neural pathways in their brains and embedding principles deep in their mind.
Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)
Many constituents have contacted me about this important debate, and as a mum of three children, I have seen for myself just how important play is and how much it has helped them to understand teamwork and problem-solving. It is not just me who says that; UNICEF tells us how much it helps resilience, reduces stress and supports emotional wellbeing. Does the hon. Member agree that there are so many ways that play could be integrated into the key stage 1 curriculum as part of education?
Rachael Maskell
I completely agree with the hon. Member. She made the point so powerfully, not least because of her own experience.
It is really important that we embed play as a fundamental principle in the curriculum. For far too long, play has been seen as a process of reward or enrichment, not as a fundamental part of a child’s learning, but it is vital throughout childhood for that purpose. To deny play as a core learning approach for improving reading, writing or maths is to not understand education. Helping a child find their own creativity will help them find themselves.
Play-based learning is purposeful. Teachers have to really prepare when they integrate play into their work: they have to set the right environment, introduce the right medium, equip the learning space, indoor and out, and integrate that with the interests of the children to optimise the environment and ensure that they really grasp the concepts that they are being taught. As we have heard, England is an outlier in this area, and we have to catch up.
When I visited Carr infant school, I saw the contribution that play made to every part of the curriculum. When the school centred learning on play, its outcomes improved. Burton Green school has created environments where children can explore and engage. Whether it is Osbaldwick, Acomb primary or Westfield community school, so many schools across York have totally embraced the evidence of the importance of play.
The neuroscience very much determines that play is central. My constituent Charlotte Davies regularly reminds me of the importance of motor and sensory integration so that the brain can be trained to help a child’s ability to play. That is often lost as children are forced away from the right pathways for their education. We need to develop the right pedagogies and ensure that we are creating the physical and mental opportunities to learn.
The Government are grappling with the opportunities around developing a proper SEND programme, which we know is important, but if we are going to divert children from just spending time on their screens, creative play, integrated into learning, will make a difference. My plea to the Government is this: follow the evidence, and when it comes to assessments and examinations, let us drop those SATs and ensure instead that we have a proper approach to education.
Several hon. Members rose—
Paula Barker (in the Chair)
Order. I am sorry, but I am going to have to take the limit down to three and a half minutes. It is an informal limit; if we can stick to it, I will not have to impose a formal limit.
Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)
It a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I congratulate the petitioners on securing the debate and my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on her excellent speech introducing it.
We have already heard some great speeches on the benefits of including play in key stage 1 education. We have a wealth of academic evidence on the subject that makes a compelling case—for example, the finding that children’s learning through play produces a 90% retention rate, compared with just 30% through reading and watching. Arguably even more persuasive are the testimonies of parents who stress just how vital play is in their children’s lives and how important it is for play to be properly incorporated into their learning. I want to add that play is fun, and children deserve to have fun in school. Hopefully, it will help them to like and enjoy school, and learn better throughout their school life.
Becky from my constituency is a parent of two young children and a teacher at Ely St John’s community primary school. She contacted me recently to stress the importance of play-based learning in key stage 1. She wrote:
“I am confident that this approach is not only effective but also essential for young children’s learning and well-being.”
She has found already that the children are thriving and that feedback from parents has been very positive. However, she also wrote of her disappointment that she thought hers was the only school in the area able to offer this approach to children. In her opinion, the pressure is coming from the curriculum and from Ofsted.
A further pressing concern, as we have heard, is the Government’s strategy on SEND. The upcoming White Paper is expected to call for greater inclusion in mainstream education, yet part of the reason for the strain on local authorities dealing with SEND has been the lack of resources among mainstream schools already under pressure. As teachers like Becky recognise, without the necessary resources, schools feel the pressure from Ofsted to just stick to the basics of the curriculum.
We want our schools to be inclusive, to recognise and accommodate the differences in how each child learns, and to emphasise the importance of nurturing natural curiosity, creativity and critical thinking. Adopting a play-based learning approach in key stage 1, and giving each child the space to develop and engage with their education on their own terms, is crucial for that. If the Government are willing to listen to those who know that from experience, the schools White Paper could truly be a turning point; if they are not, serious questions for the future of our children, our schools and proper provision of SEND support will remain.
Can the Minister provide details on how the Government are engaging with experts, teachers and parents on play-based learning for key stage 1 children? What consideration is being given to its inclusion in the upcoming schools White Paper?
David Baines (St Helens North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for introducing the debate so comprehensively, and pay tribute to Ruth Lue-Quee and all those in the Public Gallery who have campaigned so hard to make it happen.
Ruth says that right now in England, at the end of foundation stage, when they are just five years old, children hit
“a policy cliff edge and practice becomes inconsistent.”
She says we need
“teacher-planned, curriculum-aligned play-based learning and continuous provision in the classroom. It’s how young children learn best, achieve best and build strong foundations.”
I agree with Ruth. I speak as a dad of two young boys who I know for sure would have benefited hugely from continuous provision in key stage 1; as a former teacher, sure that I would have seen the benefits in my classroom; as the husband of a teaching assistant who knows that it would help the children she supports; and, first and foremost, as the MP for St Helens North, certain that this would help every child in my constituency and across the country.
We all need to be clear what this campaign is and is not about. It is not about the early years, it is not about enrichment or extracurricular activity, and it most definitely is not about lowering standards in any way. It is about bringing England into line with the rest of the UK and closer to countries such as Finland and Singapore. It is about following the evidence. It is about doing what is best for all children, our schools and, as a result, society.
Liam Conlon (Beckenham and Penge) (Lab)
My constituent Julia has been a teacher for more than 20 years. She wrote to me to share the benefits of play-based learning for children’s cognitive, social and emotional development. Given the increasing prevalence of cognitive and language disorders in young children, it is really important that we get this right. Does my hon. Friend agree that, when assessing the benefits of play-based learning, we should carefully consider the experience of teachers, as well as all the academic evidence available?
David Baines
I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. I completely agree that there is a huge body of evidence behind the petition, which I will touch on later, and we need to follow the evidence, especially on something as important as our children’s education.
Sir Ken Robinson, someone I am a big fan of, described play as “a fantastically serious activity”, and he was right. Some schools in England already have continuous provision throughout key stage 1, and they show that it works. People might wonder why we are asking for it to be statutory, if schools can already do it. The answer is that every single child in every single school should be given access to the best possible education. It should not be a postcode lottery. We also know that in high-pressure environments, which schools undoubtedly are, it is optional practice that gets squeezed first. Schools default to what feels safest for accountability and what feels familiar. Statutory expectation protects and encourages what works.
Key stage 1 is what Ruth Lue-Quee calls the “missing middle”. The early years foundation stage is protected in policy and key stage 2 is SATs-driven, but key stage 1 has the least protection for children’s developmental needs, despite being a vital stage in every child’s life. There is a huge body of evidence showing that putting five-year-olds in more formal classroom settings and removing continuous provision from the equation is not in their best interests, so why do we do it? The good news is that we do not have to. The Government have an opportunity here, and the timing could not be better, with the curriculum and assessment review and the schools White Paper coming forward.
I mentioned at the start that I am a dad and have two children. My youngest is nine today, and I am missing his birthday party at home. [Hon. Members: “Aw!”] I know. Part of me wishes I was there, but I am glad to be here to speak for him and his friends. I know that the change we are debating, with a different approach in key stage 1, would have massively benefited my son and his friends. It might be too late for them, but it is not for others.
I have already raised this point with Ministers, and I will carry on making it. I would be grateful if the Minister would commit to further meetings and discussions both with her and with her colleagues. It is our job to figure out how we prepare children for the mid-21st century. We do not know what that will look like, but we can be sure that we will not prepare our children for that future by doing what we have done in the past. The Government have rightly said that we want to give every child the best possible start in life. Learning through play until the age of seven would help with that. I thank Ruth and all others who have supported the campaign; they have my support and they should have the support of everyone in this Chamber.
James McMurdock (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Ind)
I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for her exceptionally detailed and very interesting opening speech.
I have had the tremendous privilege of visiting several schools in my constituency, and I think all Members will agree that there are a few things that warm the heart more than seeing happy children, particularly children who are learning in a safe and pleasant environment. East Tilbury primary school, which has taken part in the Outdoor Play and Learning programme, has really stood out to me. I am proud to share the fact that that delightful school achieved the platinum award, which is the highest level in the programme and is attained by around only 2% of schools nationally. OPAL now works with more than 2,000 schools, so that is no small achievement. Although we do have many educators in the Chamber, for those who are not quite so fond of mental arithmetic, that puts the school in the top 40 out of 2,000, so it really is quite an achievement.
I was struck not just by the surprisingly natural equipment that was being used—trees for climbing, tyres, sand pits and wildlife areas—or the simple ball games, but by the confidence, co-operation and genuine joyfulness that the programme produced in the children. I spent time observing, and playing and speaking with the staff, the pupils and the OPAL representatives, and it was clear to me that high-quality play directly supports wellbeing, social development and readiness to learn, as Members have already stated with some impressive statistics.
Crucially, the programme is not about lowering standards elsewhere or replacing learning with play; it is about using play intelligently to reinforce the core skills of communication, resilience, problem-solving and teamwork, particularly within the early years. I think that is why we can all agree that this is a win-win. As we have seen elsewhere across Europe, play can build the foundation for more advanced learning as children go through the key stages.
Importantly, East Tilbury’s success was driven not by top-down prescription, but by school leadership, staff commitment and community buy-in. That is a valuable lesson for us as policymakers, and I hope the Minister pays particular attention to that point. I urge the Government to focus less on rigid mandates and more on sharing best practice, supporting schools that want to innovate and trusting professionals to decide what works for their pupils. Done well, play is not a distraction from learning, but a foundation for it, and East Tilbury primary school is living proof of that.
Several hon. Members rose—
Paula Barker (in the Chair)
Order. After the next speaker, there will be a formal time limit of three minutes.
Mrs Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage), as well as Ruth and all the campaigners who have turned out in good numbers to bring this important debate on play-based learning to the House.
Growing up in today’s world is difficult for children, and it presents unique challenges for our brilliant early years sector. Too many children start school without the fundamental skills that they need. Often, they are not school ready, toilet trained or able to use a knife and fork; they are unable to focus, pay attention or concentrate; and they do not have the speech and language skills or the ability to play and form friendships. Those are fundamental skills. Without them, far too many children struggle to thrive and flourish, and it can scar the rest of their school years.
Early years provision should embrace how young children learn best. The move from the play-based early years foundation stage into the far more formal structure of key stage 1 can be abrupt for many. Play-based learning is statutory only up to the end of reception. Once children enter key stage 1, there is no requirement in the national curriculum to continue that approach, despite clear evidence that five, six and seven-year-olds still learn best through exploration, collaboration and carefully planned play alongside direct teaching.
This issue matters enormously in communities like mine in Wolverhampton and Willenhall, where schools are working hard to close early attainment gaps and to support children who face disadvantage. While phonics and early attainment results are improving, too many children still arrive at school without the secure foundations they need. If we are to tackle lifelong barriers, we must get the early years of formal schooling right, which is why I welcome the Government’s actions under the leadership of the Secretary of State.
Significant steps in the right direction have been taken to better support early years childcare and education, including the roll-out of Best Start hubs and Families First partnerships. But we have to focus better on school readiness, supporting early speech and language development, and further strengthening early years provision. The Government are taking practical steps to ensure that children are equipped with the skills they need. The initiatives to improve phonics, early literacy and teacher training reflect a clear commitment to building solid foundations for all children, but we must recognise the importance of play and holistic development.
Play is not just a “nice to have”; it is a foundation of language and literacy development, as the National Literacy Trust has highlighted. High-quality play is especially vital for disadvantaged children, helping to close early language gaps and give every child the tools to thrive. Simply put, play is the rocket fuel of learning. I support children’s health and wellbeing and urge the Government to listen to parents and early years professionals and take meaningful steps to embed play and continuous provision within the key stage 1 statutory framework.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
Play is firmly back on the agenda in this Parliament, as symbolised by the new APPG on play. On Wednesday last week, we heard from, among others, Ruth Lue-Quee—My Mummy Teacher—about the importance of this petition.
In England, we rightly pride ourselves on an early years foundation stage that places play-based pedagogy at the heart of learning, but for children, that approach ends abruptly at the school gate of year 1. My constituent Rachel Peck, a key stage 1 teacher and early years practitioner, says:
“The need for play doesn’t suddenly disappear at five. Removing play so early removes the very opportunities children need to develop creativity, collaboration, problem-solving and communication.”
My constituent Louise Jane tells me:
“Children in Key Stage 1 are still so young. Sometimes it feels like the system sees them as numbers and data—when they are so much more than that.”
We know that active play stimulates the release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which supports memory, focus and neuroplasticity. Put simply, we know that movement helps the brain to grow. We also know that play offers challenge and risk, so that children develop self-regulation, emotional resilience and the ability to manage stress—essential social skills that cannot be taught by a child sitting down with a worksheet.
My constituent Rachel Peck says:
“We spend the rest of children’s school lives trying to teach skills that should have been naturally developed through play alongside their peers.”
I agree. Yet when children enter key stage 1, we find that play becomes a reward and its withdrawal a sanction, without realising that it is often the absence of movement and play that drives the behaviours that then get punished. My constituent Kate Bethune, whom I met at one of my surgeries, told me:
“We are crushing children’s natural creativity and curiosity because we are obsessed with compliance and early testing. Many children are simply not developmentally ready to sit still and write for long periods.”
So what do we need? We need to make play-based pedagogy and continuous provision statutory in key stage 1, thereby creating a clear national expectation that play is a developmental need, not an enrichment activity.
I want to thank Veronica Woodward of St Walburga’s, Leanne Dixon from Stourfield junior school, Pauline Sweetman from Stourfield infant school, Vanessa Webster from Epiphany, Michelle Dyer and Imogen Bull from the Avonbourne academies, and Chris Jackson from Avonwood school. Last Friday, Chris hosted us for one of my SEND roundtables, so that we could hear from teachers and headteachers about what future reform should look like. They were convinced that play-based pedagogy is critical for supporting children’s wellbeing and trying to address some of the issues that occur in later life. Just this morning, I was at St James’ school and spoke with the headteacher, Mr Brown, and the assistant head, Mr Parsons, who is also a key stage 1 teacher, and they too agree.
We are in a rare reform window. The decisions that are being made now on curriculum and assessment will shape classrooms for years, and with them children’s confidence, wellbeing and attainment. This is not about choosing play over learning; it is about choosing play because it is learning.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Barker. I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for introducing this important debate.
I know how important this issue is for my constituents from speaking to children, headteachers and parents. Play should not be seen as an enrichment activity; play helps us to learn. The greatest breakthroughs in scientific endeavour, including Einstein’s theory of relativity, came as a result of people being able to think creatively. Physical expressions such as dancing, creating music and making up stories are not childish things to do. For example, there is evidence that listening to music enables children to engage with patterns and sequencing, which are fundamental to the basics of maths.
One of the best parts of this job is going to visit my local schools. Worthington primary school in my constituency has rolled out a free breakfast club. But it was not the breakfast that was fascinating; it was the fact that kids were sitting around playing with Lego—they were just expressing themselves without needing to conform. The headteacher said that that is improving their overall behaviour in classrooms, because they are so much more relaxed going into formal lessons.
One of my local district councillors, who is a former GP and psychotherapist, shared this with me:
“I was sitting in a primary school class as a School Governor some years ago. The topic was ‘materials’ and how they change. The teacher was using ice/water and melted/chilled chocolate to explain the topic. All well and good. In the corner of a classroom one of the hen’s eggs had only just hatched. A child wanted to talk about this exciting change in materials. That, I am sorry to say, was not allowed as it did not concord with the Lesson Plan.”
The campaign for play-based learning is not about increasing playtime; it is about ensuring that learning is delivered in a way that aligns with how children grow, develop, think and ask questions—just as they asked why an egg had hatched but the others had not yet. One of my earliest memories as a parent is visiting a science museum. The hatchery needed to be visited several times a day, and the excitement increased more and more as the day continued. Children will direct us in how they want to learn, and we have to give them that opportunity to express themselves.
Learning through play is not a new idea, but we have been rolling back on its importance. We know that we are now the outlier in the UK: Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have already embedded play-based approaches into their curricula at an early school level. We are falling behind and letting our children down. It is important that we value play by recognising it in the curriculum. It would be useful to hear from the Minister on that specific point, given that play is not an added extra but an important part of component learning for our children.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Barker. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) on her excellent speech—although the “productive struggle” she referred to sounded rather like a slogan from my trade union days. I wholeheartedly support the petition, and I thank all the campaigners behind it for ensuring that we are debating this important subject today.
I have heard from so many parents across North East Hertfordshire that over-formal academic approaches do not suit their children. Our whole society is missing out on the vast untapped potential of children who are never going to thrive in a sedentary environment. The valorisation of that model, and the expectation that all children can be measured against it, teaches many from the youngest age that learning is a struggle to be resented, not an exploration to be enjoyed. Politicians so often speak about the importance of education equipping children with skills that businesses require, but frankly I think it is a lot more important that five, six and seven-year-old kids are happy and healthy.
Fortunately, we do not need to choose between an education that is fun and inclusive, and one that equips pupils with essential knowledge and skills, as has been so powerfully proven by Unplugged Tots, which is run by my brilliant constituent Hannah. Unplugged Tots supports children to be the problem solvers, inventors, engineers, scientists and technologists of tomorrow by equipping them with the skills they will need through accessible, fun, engaging activities that are screen-free. Hannah is proving that we can teach children as young as two and half the foundational skills and critical-thinking abilities for coding through play—and without any screen whatsoever. It is a genuinely inspiring model that I hope the Minister will look at closely, and that could benefit schools across the country.
I will give the final word to Hannah, who says:
“Today’s children are tomorrow’s future and equipping them for this rapidly changing future is essential. If we want to build capable citizens for tomorrow, we must take play in Key Stage 1 seriously…Play supports the whole child, providing an equitable starting point for all children, regardless of background. When play is integral to the curriculum, we raise standards by nurturing confident learners prepared for a rapidly changing world equipped with a lifelong love of learning.”
Jen Craft (Thurrock) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mrs Barker. I extend my congratulations to the campaigners for securing this debate, and particularly to the 442 people in my constituency who signed the petition.
As many Members have pointed out, play-based learning is not about lowering attainment or standards. Indeed, countries that prioritise learning through play, such as Finland, Norway, Sweden, Japan and New Zealand, consistently score highly in international rankings. That is echoed in their attainment levels at 16 and beyond, not just at key stages 1 and 2.
Play-based learning has the ability to be truly inclusive learning. I understand that an inclusive schooling model is being strongly considered in the Government’s upcoming White Paper. A way to achieve that at key stage 1 is by incorporating play-based learning.
Play-based learning supports early language development. The charity Speech and Language UK estimates that the needs of around 2 million children in the UK with a speech and language challenge are not always met. For about 30% of children with a SEND need, speech and language difficulties are the primary cause of that need. Play-based learning allows children with a speech and language challenge to take time to really come to grips with it. It supports their speech and language learning and allows them to develop the skills that will be crucial to them as they continue their journey through education and into employment, and throughout their life. There is a real opportunity to turn things around for those children.
In the context of inclusive schools, play-based learning asks who we really want to see in the classroom. Who are classrooms for? They are not just for children who can sit still, rigidly listen to lessons and learn by rote. They are for all children—for all young minds. Play-based learning encourages curiosity and creativity, and therefore sends a signal to all children that they are welcome in our classrooms and our schools, and that however they learn they will be supported.
I join the many Members who have made powerful statements about why play-based learning should be adopted. I urge the Government to use this moment, when we are looking at how our education system can best deliver for children, families and society, to grasp the nettle and embed play as learning in key stage 1.
Caroline Voaden (South Devon) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for opening the debate with such a well-argued and passionate speech that went to the heart of this debate. I commend Ruth Lue-Quee and all the petitioners for starting the petition, and the 106,082 people who signed it. I also wish the son of the hon. Member for St Helens North (David Baines) a happy birthday.
What is play for? What benefits can it bring to children? And why is it more important than ever that we enable children to learn through play, both inside the classroom and out? Most importantly, perhaps, why should educational play stop at age five in England? Anyone who has spent time watching children play can see that they are learning all the time: their young brains are puzzling over how to do something and they collaborate with friends, finding solutions to whatever challenges they have set themselves, building resilience and learning the art of perseverance.
As someone who has recently welcomed a grandchild into the family, the algorithm has found me, and I now regularly see posts about Montessori play on my feeds. There are brilliant ideas for simple activities in which young children can engage that are fun, that are absorbing and that teach them crucial skills that they will carry with them as they grow. The best bit about it is that children do not know they are learning. They are not being told to sit down, be quiet or work at a set pace. They are enjoying themselves, going at their own speed, working things out as they go and quietly developing their little brains as they play.
We often say in this place that high-quality education is the best possible investment we can make in the future of our country. As the bedrock of everything that follows, the early years are crucial, laying that foundation stone for learning, wellbeing and opportunity. From ages four to seven, significant socio-emotional and physical changes are taking place. For example, at four years old, children start to expand their vocabulary and express their needs through words rather than actions. At five, they start to develop empathy for others and, at six, they begin to experience multiple emotions simultaneously. These are crucial and long-standing developments that shape a child’s character for life, so it is vital that during these formative years children have access for the most appropriate learning methods that nurture their curiosity, creativity and critical thinking—the skills that will help them thrive as adults.
Evidence suggests that during this period of a child’s life, play-based learning can have a positive impact on communication, as well as emotional and physical development, but being outside, getting wet and muddy, sliding around, climbing over things and exploring their world is just as important as sitting inside playing with building bricks or doing puzzles.
Children develop their knowledge and skills in the most meaningful way by doing things that they want to do. The Lego “Play Well Report”, based on nearly 13,000 responses from parents and children, found that 83% of children say they learn better when it “feels like play”. Through play, children have the space and time to make connections in their learning, try things out, make mistakes and learn how to do better next time. Hon. Members from across the House have shared personal experiences, input from teachers and academic evidence that all show the importance of learning from play.
Parents in this country recognise that play helps build the skills that lead to academic success, as well as how important play is to foster creative, sociable and emotionally resilient adults. Critics of play in the classroom often have the misconception that play is only unstructured fun—noisy children mindlessly running around like headless chickens without a care in the world, but as my hon. Friend the Member for South Cotswolds explained, that is not what we are talking about today, as important as it is.
Guided play within the classroom gives children the opportunity to learn and develop in a no-pressure environment, approaching tasks at their own pace and in their own way. The 2023 Ofsted report “International perspectives on early years” agrees with this, highlighting how teaching and play are difficult to separate, with adults likely to be teaching children during play—whether that be free or guided, or unconsciously or consciously.
Other countries have play embedded in their curriculum. In Sweden, the curriculum guidance explicitly states that both free and guided play should be a part of education, and that a child has a right to both these types of play. In Finland, school does not start until age seven, but high-quality early years education is widely available and affordable. Finnish early years programmes focus on children’s holistic development, with an emphasis on play as the primary mode of learning, where teachers act as guides for the child’s exploration.
However, we do not need to look only overseas for inspiration; we can also look at alternative approaches to education here. I recently visited a school in my constituency that follows the play-based Steiner-Waldorf education system. That approach focuses on holistic development through self-directed imaginative play, fostering creativity, social skills and nature connection before age seven. Children are encouraged to engage in uninterrupted free play, nurturing their creativity and allowing them to form and then express their own experiences. Teachers function centrally as role models, teaching not through instruction but through action, which children can then imitate.
Crucially, the Steiner approach includes significant amounts of time spent outdoors, regardless of the weather, to ensure that children connect with nature, improving their physical health and providing them with wonderful educational opportunities. It also helps build that deep connection with nature, which we will need for future generations to care about and promote the protection of our natural world. I commend all the schools in South Devon that prioritise forest school as a way of teaching and nurturing children so well through outdoor play.
I am convinced that there are aspects of the Steiner style of teaching that should be considered more seriously by our mainstream education system, especially for little children in their formative years. It may be dismissed by many as weird hippy nonsense, but it is much more serious than that. We should keep an open mind when approaching how we best educate children during this crucial period of their lives.
The Liberal Democrats believe in broad, balanced and forward-looking early years education that prepares students to excel, both in school and outside the classroom. Play-based education must be a part of that, and should not stop at five years old. Playing is important throughout life, though it might change somewhat as the years progress. As this petition highlights, the Government acknowledge the importance of play in achieving this in their early years foundation stage statutory framework. The framework details how play is essential to children’s development, building their confidence as they learn to explore, relate to others, set their own goals and solve problems. Children learn by leading their own play, by taking part in play, and through learning that is guided by adults.
A child’s fundamental development does not stop when they leave reception, so why do the Government think that play is important only until the age of five? Why is England lagging behind the other nations of the UK? To address those inconsistencies, the Liberal Democrats call on the Government to explore how play-based learning could be effectively implemented within the key stage 1 curriculum in England, including through consultation with teachers and schools. This is not about enrichment, but play-structured learning in the classroom.
I hope the Government will take a good, hard look at how play can best be incorporated into our curriculum, given the extensive benefits it can provide, as hon. Members have laid out so eloquently.
Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Barker, and to take part in this debate on play in the key stage 1 curriculum.
First, I thank the 106,082 signatories of this petition, including the 200 signatories from my constituency. I thank the hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) for her opening remarks, and I also wish the son of the hon. Member for St Helens North (David Baines) a very happy birthday, on behalf of His Majesty’s official Opposition. I am sure that is all he ever wanted.
I praise the contributions from all hon. Members. It has been a thoughtful debate, which covered a whole array of issues. We may not agree on all aspects, I found it very fruitful to consider the different points of view. In particular, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon (Rebecca Smith), who made an excellent contribution, highlighting the need for consistency; I echo her question for the Minister on that point.
Having heard hon. Members at length today, it is quite clear that we all accept that play has an important role in children’s cognitive and social development, particularly in their early years. There is strong evidence to suggest that play is an important factor in a child’s development. It teaches young people resilience, problem solving and social skills, enhances cognitive development and so much more. Dr David Whitebread of the University of Cambridge argues:
“Play in all its rich variety is one of the highest achievements of the human species, alongside language, culture and technology. Indeed, without play, none of these other achievements would be possible.”
That is why the early years foundation stage statutory framework includes play in delivering learning and development. The official Opposition support that framework, which sets out this responsibility for early years education providers. As a father of two young children, I recognise the importance of play. I know that key stage 1 is a crucial time in a child’s learning and development, when children are set up for future academic success based on the foundation of knowledge and learning skills they receive when they first start school.
It is thanks to the knowledge-rich curriculum, underpinned by phonics, introduced by the last Government under the excellent leadership of Lord Gove and Sir Nick Gibb, that primary school children in England are now the best readers in the western world, with 80% of six-year-olds now reaching the expected reading standard, compared with only 58% in 2012. Millions more children are in good or outstanding schools, with tougher exams, better teaching standards, a rigorous curriculum and thousands of new academies.
I say that because, having heard the debate, it is important to be clear about what we are discussing. While play should certainly be part of that delivery, we believe that schools are best placed to decide how the curriculum is delivered to their pupils, and it is important that precious time in the classroom is not missed out on. I know that many hon. Members have pointed out that that is not what they are talking about, but there must be clarity about how play is delivered, because we all agree that we are preparing our children for the future.
That desire for freedom is why the official Opposition strongly oppose parts of the Government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that restrict academy freedoms and seek to impose a one-size-fits-all approach on our education system. Why does the Education Secretary think that centralising decision making in Whitehall is more effective than empowering school leaders? The transfer of power from headteachers to unelected officials at the Department will be deeply damaging for children, and will see their education suffer as a result. It is not just the Conservatives who believe this. It was Sir Tony Blair whose Government championed the initial academisation of schools. I know he is greatly concerned about this, because it is a reversal of 30 years of consensus around academic achievement and development.
Although we also welcome the curriculum review, I have worries. It was a relief that the Government chose not to follow the example of their counterparts in Labour-run Wales by dropping phonics from the curriculum. However, as the Opposition have stated at the Dispatch Box, if everything is a priority, nothing is. If the Government want more play, they need to make clear which part of the curriculum has to be pushed to the side, and will stand to suffer, as a result. If the Government truly want to give children the freedom to learn and grow through play, they should confirm that they are committed to ensuring that the core skills of reading, writing and numeracy, which children need to succeed, will be part of that.
If more play is needed for children, there is another way of achieving that. I would like to talk about the use of screens by children. According to Ofcom, 25% of children—
Paula Barker (in the Chair)
Order. May I bring the shadow Minister back to the issue of play, please?
Saqib Bhatti
Absolutely, Mrs Barker. The point that I was going to make was that if children are not using social media, that will free up more time for play. That is why that issue is really important. We all want to achieve the same things: more resilience and more capability. Hopefully the Minister will confirm whether the Government agree with us that the use of screens at such a young age can have a detrimental effect, and confirm whether they will progress with the evidence.
I accept that many parents are simply trying to do their best, and they want to have the best opportunities for their children. That is why I implore the Government to take a deep, hard look at the official Opposition’s approach to the use of screens and social media, and to the use of phones in schools. We have called for the use of phones in schools to be officially banned to allow for greater standards in schools. We are worried about the fact that children now spend more time online. Just last week I read reports that some young people try to swipe, and even tap, on books because they use digital devices.
Saqib Bhatti
I made that very clear. We support the education statutory framework as it is, but I think that the questions around social media and the use of phones are really pertinent. That is what parents are writing to us, as Members of Parliament—
Paula Barker (in the Chair)
Order. I ask the shadow Minister to bring his remarks back to the petition, please.
Saqib Bhatti
I thank all hon. Members who have contributed to the debate, and those people who signed the petition. The Opposition recognise the importance of play, which is why we challenge the Government to give further clarity on the development of the curriculum review, and what will be part of it. If everything is a priority, nothing is, so what will be part of that debate? I also challenge the Government to give more clarity about the freedom of schools, as asked for by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Olivia Bailey)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank all hon. Members who have attended and contributed to this important debate, and thank all those who signed and engaged with the petition, particularly those who are in the Public Gallery to listen to the debate. I know from conversations with the Minister for School Standards, my hon. Friend the Member for Queen’s Park and Maida Vale (Georgia Gould), who has responsibility for this area but is unfortunately unable to attend this debate due to a prior commitment, that this subject has drawn much attention and support from many constituents.
My primary goal as an Education Minister is to give every child the best possible start in life. I have had the pleasure of visiting primary schools and early years providers across the country, including many wonderful examples in my constituency of Reading West and Mid Berkshire such as Theale Church of England primary school, and Calcot junior school, whose pupils are coming to Parliament later this week. It was clear on all my visits how important play is to younger children’s wellbeing and development. Some of my best days in my job as Minister for Early Education have included being attacked by plastic dinosaurs and racking up my dry cleaning bill in muddy outdoor play areas. It has been a privilege to listen to hon. Members’ thoughtful contributions and hear about the excellent work being done in their constituencies.
The hon. Member for South Cotswolds (Dr Savage) started off the debate wonderfully by reminding us that the best sound in the world is that of children playing at break time and lunch time—I wholeheartedly agree. She also drew on a theme that was important throughout the debate: the distinction between play-based learning and enrichment. The Government accept that distinction.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Helena Dollimore) has been running a fantastic campaign in her constituency against the closure of playgrounds. The Government are determined to do something about such closures, and we committed £18 million to that very issue in the Budget. Other Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), touched on that issue.
We have had fantastic contributions, which I enjoyed listening to, from my hon. Friends the Members for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes) and for Thurrock (Jen Craft), the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock) and my hon. Friend the Member for St Helens North (David Baines) on the importance of play. Of course I add my birthday wishes to my hon. Friend’s son; I hope he gets a chance to have a good play with his new toys.
There have also been important contributions on play and screen time and on school readiness from my hon. Friends the Members for North East Hertfordshire (Chris Hinchliff), for York Central (Rachael Maskell) and for Wolverhampton North East (Mrs Brackenridge). On the question of ensuring that screens are not displacing play, the Government are determined: we will bring forward the first ever guidance for parents on screen time in early years, take tough action to ensure that there are no phones in any schools so children are not disrupted from play or learning, and work with parents and families to find the right balance so that children at school or nursery are doing what they should be doing: playing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock touched on the importance of play for early language development. That is very much part of this Government’s plans for school readiness as we strive to ensure that record numbers of children are ready for school. My hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood remembered the great Frank Dobson—a huge advocate for play—and I thank her for bringing his memory to the debate.
England’s early years foundation stage statutory framework recognises the importance of play, setting out that play, both indoors and outdoors, is essential for children’s development, including physical development, communication and language. I agree with colleagues that the impact of play on children’s development and wellbeing does not stop when they reach school age. We will help schools to decide how best to support children’s transition from the early years foundation stage into key stage 1. Some schools continue elements of the pedagogical approach of the EYFS, including play, into year 1 to enable a gradual transition.
Ultimately, however, we believe that teachers are best placed to apply their professional judgment and creativity to meet the pupils’ needs in this area. It is important that teachers have the flexibility to adapt their approach to best support each pupil to obtain the knowledge, skills and understanding that they should do during their education. We re-emphasised that principle in our response to the curriculum and assessment review last November, and that is why it would not be right for us to legislate to make play and continuous provision statutory in the key stage 1 curriculum.
That does not for a second mean that we expect children in year 1 to spend all day every day sat inside, and it certainly does not mean that play is no longer on the agenda. The Government have committed £18 million to upgrade 200 playgrounds across the country, we are amending the national planning policy framework to protect play spaces and my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care have published the first national guidance on commissioning and delivering health play services. In education, we are also acting to provide children with opportunities outside the classroom. I recognise the important distinction that colleagues have made, but enrichment is also important in schools. We will set out a new core enrichment offer that every school and college should provide for every pupil, delivering access to civic engagement, arts and culture, nature, outdoor and adventure, sport and physical activities, and wider life skills.
Our free breakfast clubs are also a brilliant opportunity for schools to incorporate more play into each day, offering 30 minutes in the morning where children can explore a range of activities, whether kicking a football around or building a Lego masterpiece, in a supportive and calm environment. Across the country, I have seen breakfast clubs where schools are using this Labour Government’s investment to help children explore their imagination and creativity. Of course, breakfast clubs also help to drive improvements in behaviour, attendance and attainment, and provide families with more affordable childcare choices.
I will briefly mention our curriculum reforms. This Government recognise that our children are stepping into a world of huge opportunity, but also of immense change and challenge. We want our new national curriculum to arm them to thrive, building skills that have been spoken about in this debate, such as communication, creativity and social and emotional skills, which can be developed through play and a wide range of enrichment activities.
In conclusion, this Government are serious about the importance of play in childhood, and across Government Departments we are investing in the infrastructure of play and in a transformed early years system. Although we do not agree with the specific suggestion outlined in the petition that play and continuous provision should be mandated as part of the national curriculum at key stage 1, we trust teachers to make the best choices for their students. We thank everyone for coming today and for their thoughtful—
Olivia Bailey
My hon. Friend has got me right at the end of my speech, but I will give way to her.
Rachael Maskell
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Will she go back to the Department and ask people there to engross themselves in the evidence, which overwhelmingly shows the importance of integrating play with learning, and to ensure that we take an evidence-based approach to policy making?
Olivia Bailey
I thank my hon. Friend for her last-minute intervention and I can reassure her that we in the Department are immersed and engrossed in the evidence. Our view is that play can be a very important way of helping children to learn. However, we do not think that it is right to mandate it at key stage 1, because we believe that it is important for teachers to have flexibility themselves. Nevertheless, as my hon. Friend knows—and as her sister, a fantastic superhero working in early years, will know—play is embedded as part of the EYFS curriculum.
Mrs Barker, I will leave it there.
Dr Savage
I again thank the amazing petitioners and all my colleagues who have contributed to this important debate.
I echo the request already made, that the Minister go back to her Department to reconsider this issue. I feel passionately about it; I have spoken with many educators over the last few weeks in preparation for this debate and they have educated me, deeply impressing on me the critical value of play within the curriculum as a pedagogical method. Wales and Scotland are already aware of that, as are many countries in Scandinavia, and the evidence suggests that they are raising children who are happier and more engaged in their lessons and are doing extremely well. This feels like a critical moment for the debate; with AI so high on the political agenda, we really need to nurture those skills of creativity, confidence and imagination—all those essentially human things that AI cannot produce.
The Minister spoke about giving teachers the flexibility to introduce more play to the curriculum if they think it is appropriate, but play should not be a postcode lottery. It should be a right for children in schools across the entire country. I urge and beseech the Minister, please, to take these passionate requests from Westminster Hall today back to her Department.
James McMurdock
I am very grateful to the hon. Member for giving way at this last moment. Does she agree with me that these debates are called debates for a reason, and that where there is an overwhelming outcome to a debate—one way or the other—we expect the Minister, regardless of who they are or what party they are a member of, to take that outcome away and implement it quite directly and quite heavily, wherever possible and wherever appropriate? Does she agree that in debates such as this one we expect a relevant outcome and not just an exercise in hearing our own voices?
Dr Savage
I thank the hon. Gentleman for reiterating that point. I hope that I speak for the entire Chamber when I urge the Minister, one final time, to convey this message to the rest of her Department.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 729440 relating to play in the key stage 1 curriculum.
Animal Rescue Centres
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 718660 relating to the licensing and regulation of animal rescue centres.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank the petitioner Paul Watkinson and his colleague Niki Roe for their hard work in gathering almost 110,000 signatures for this petition, which is a fantastic achievement. The petition, which is entitled “Introduce Licensing and Regulation for Dog and Cat Rescues to Protect Welfare”, states:
“Many UK animal rescues operate without clear legal oversight, creating opportunities for unethical practices. Some rescues have been linked to supporting irresponsible breeding, neglecting animals, or misusing public donations.
Without enforceable standards, there is a risk that animals suffer in poor conditions, and public trust is undermined. We call on the Government to introduce mandatory licensing and regular inspections to ensure rescues operate transparently and uphold high welfare standards. Regulation is essential to prevent cruelty, improve accountability, and ensure all rescued animals receive proper care.
By introducing clear legal requirements, the Government can safeguard animal welfare, protect public confidence in rescues, and prevent organizations from operating irresponsibly.”
However, it is important to acknowledge that most animal rescues do great work.
Many activities associated with animals must already be licensed under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018, including selling pets, providing boarding for cats and dogs, hiring out horses, dog breeding and keeping or training animals for exhibition. It is clearly not unusual for animal activities to be licensed, so the petitioner and many others believe that rescue and rehoming centres should be the next step.
In England, there is currently no statutory code for rescue centres; there are only voluntary frameworks. They include the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals code of practice for animal welfare establishments and the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes standards, to which the Government’s response refers. However, Scotland has already introduced a licensing system for dog and cat rescues under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Regulations 2021. Similarly, Wales has had a code of practice for animal welfare establishments since 2020. Its consultation on licensing animal welfare establishments found that 82% of respondents were in favour of licensing; the Welsh Government announced in June 2025 that they would prioritise taking forth the proposals of the consultation. England now has a great opportunity to join the rest of Great Britain and catch up with licensing these organisations.
There are many establishments that are not meeting standards but have good intentions. Well-meaning individuals can find themselves out of their depth and have no structure or training to know what is best. Once organisations are known to be local rescues, they can be inundated with animals left on their doorstep. A lack of knowledge and training is putting animals at risk, along with staff exhausted by malpractice and people who choose to adopt from the rescue. It is important for the law to draw a distinction between being a cat lady and being an unofficial rescue that is overcrowded with animals. Unfortunately, there are also cases of people running rescue homes with financial and malicious motivations. The worst scenarios include very dangerous practices, including rogue traders masquerading to the public as something they are not.
Nobody wants to close small organisations, so it is important that smaller dog and cat rescues be supported through a transition and that cats and dogs be moved to other rescues where it is completely necessary. Rescuers should have the opportunity to move through legislation and structure and be supported with grants, for example from the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes. Work is already going on between small organisations and the bigger charities: larger groups can advise and support the smaller organisations. That would continue as we transitioned to a licensing model.
Under the current laws, anyone can set up a rescue. I think we would all agree that is not acceptable. The fact that there are no standards or training can lead to the illegal import of animals, the outbreak of disease and poor hygiene standards. Without regulation, those dangerous practices will only continue. Nor have we any data on how widespread they may be, as without legislation there is no formal tracking of dog and cat rescue homes across the country.
We know that the current system is not working, as we know of many sorry cases in which it has failed. When I met staff from the Blue Cross, they told me about the many animals that they had found being kept in inappropriate circumstances for long periods. For example, one dog had lived in a blank kennel for eight years with no kind of enrichment. The rescue thought that the dog was simply sedate, but really he had just given up on life. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 is not sufficient: it keeps an animal alive, with a safe environment, diet and housing, but it does not address the specific issues that arise in rescue shelters, such as the spread of disease.
Dog and cat rescues should ensure that pets are safe and suitable to go back into the public domain, and that they have a good quality of life over long periods. The Animal Welfare Act states that local authorities
“may prosecute proceedings for any offence under this Act”,
But that relies on individuals whistleblowing on offending organisations. That can allow suffering to carry on far too long.
There are already many examples on which legislation could be based—Scotland’s legislation, the Welsh code of practice, the RSPCA standards and the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes standards. The foundations are already there. The sector is aligned on the need for action, as I am sure the upcoming consultation will show.
Tom Hayes (Bournemouth East) (Lab)
I thank the 145 signatories to the petition from Bournemouth East; I also thank Staffie and Stray Rescue, Waggy Tails Rescue Dorset and Margaret Green Animal Rescue, alongside Cats Protection and the RSPCA, for all that they do in my constituency. My hon. Friend mentions the Government’s recently announced plan to consult on the issue. Does she agree that we need a publicly accessible national database of animal welfare establishments? That is the only way in which the rescue and rehoming centres that ensure that abandoned or lost animals have a safe place and a second chance can truly be supported.
Irene Campbell
I agree that that would be a good step forward. It is also important to strike an appropriate balance when setting regulations. If regulations are too exacting, people may begin to shop rather than adopt, possibly importing from abroad. Another common issue is that dog and cat homes often end up taking in other species—so-called exotic pets or wild animals, for example—that they may not be qualified to take in. In future, it may be worth looking at regulating all forms of animal rescue centre to prevent the abuse of all species. The enforcement of any future animal welfare legislation is key, because otherwise new licensing will not be effective. It is important that the local authorities that will inspect the organisations be upskilled and capable of dealing with new, rigorous systems.
Although the petition closed in October 2025, the Government responded in July 2025, advising that all animal rescue organisations have to meet existing protections under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and that individuals contact the local authority if an organisation is not meeting them. Their response also advised that members of the public can check whether a rescue centre is a member of the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes, which has standards for rehoming, neutering and training, among many other matters.
It is important to consider that the Government’s new animal welfare strategy, which was launched in December 2025, addresses the topic of dog and cat rescues. I am happy to see the actions outlined in the strategy, including the commitment to launch a consultation on licensing rescue and rehoming organisations and developing the evidence base on welfare issues.
Rescue animals are some of the most vulnerable animals. It is important that as lawmakers we do our best to fully protect them. Being a registered rescue should not be voluntary, and the Government are right to take steps to address the issue. It is important that when we set goals such as these, we have a clear road map. I look forward to the Minister’s response and am keen to hear the timelines associated with the consultation.
Several hon. Members rose—
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (in the Chair)
Order. I remind hon. Members that they should bob if they wish to catch my eye, and that if they wish to be called to speak they must have been present at the start of the debate. It may help Members and those viewing the proceedings to know that I shall call the Front-Bench spokespeople by 7 pm. Not many people are in for this debate, so I am sure that all the points that Members want to make can be explored.
James McMurdock (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank everybody involved with the petition, whether they put their name to it or got it off the ground.
Just outside my constituency of South Basildon and East Thurrock, there was an incident in which the remains of 37 dogs were found, along with 20 other living dogs, in varying states of ill health. It should go without saying that this was a deeply distressing incident locally and for everyone who became aware of it. Rightly, it shocked residents, generated significant local concern and led to more than 1,000 of my constituents signing this petition. Animals suffered, and that must never be minimised.
What troubled many people locally was not simply what happened, but the response. Basildon council confirmed to my office that no licensing breaches had occurred—not because conditions were acceptable, but because animal rescue and rehoming centres do not currently require any licensing at all. That immediately raises a serious question: was this a failure of the law, or a failure of the use of laws that already exist?
Under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, there is already a clear legal duty on any person responsible for animals to ensure their welfare, including through proper care, a suitable environment, protection from suffering and timely veterinary treatment. The Act provides powers for enforcement, improvement notices and prosecution where standards fall short. Local authorities also retain powers on environmental health and on statutory nuisance and partnerships with police and animal welfare bodies, where conditions pose a risk to animals or the public.
The Environmental Protection Act 1990, the public health Acts, the Housing Act 2004—if the animal welfare unit is a domestic premises—and the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 are all additional existing laws that are in effect and which could be used in scenarios in which we believe that animals are being mistreated. Yet, in this case, concerns were reportedly raised months before any meaningful action was taken. That points not just to a legislative gap, but to questions around resources, clarity of responsibility and enforcement confidence.
I am instinctively cautious about expanding licensing regimes. The animal rescue sector is overwhelmingly run by people motivated by compassion, often operating on shoestring budgets and good will alone. Heavy-handed regulation risks driving good actors out of the sector, reducing rehoming capacity and ultimately harming the very animals that we seek to protect. That is why the right starting point is to ask, “Are existing powers under the Animal Welfare Act being used consistently? Do councils have sufficient clarity and resources to act early? Are we confident that additional regulation would prevent harm rather than simply adding bureaucracy?”
I welcome the Government’s commitment to consult on the issue. I urge that the consultation focus as much on enforcement effectiveness and unintended consequences as on new statutory schemes. Regulation alone is not a guarantee of better outcomes if it is not properly resourced or proportionate. We must be careful not to do more harm than good, particularly in a sector that depends on trust, volunteerism and public confidence. Animal welfare matters deeply to my constituents—that is evident from the 1,000 people in my constituency who put their names to the petition—but so does getting this right. I genuinely want to strike that balance, and that is why I put this speech together in the way I did. I thank everyone for hearing these words.
Ruth Jones (Newport West and Islwyn) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for introducing the debate. I was privileged recently to meet the lead petitioners—Paul Watkinson and Niki Roe of Jack’s Giant Journey, who are in the Public Gallery today—to discuss the issues that dog rescue centres face. I also thank the 175 constituents from Newport West and Islwyn who signed the petition.
Although animal welfare is a devolved issue, Scotland is currently the only constituent nation of the UK in which animal rescues and shelters are licensed. There is much to be learned from that experience as Welsh and UK Government Ministers develop proposals for licensing regimes in Wales and England respectively.
I greatly welcome the Welsh Labour Government’s commitments to introduce regulations for animal rescues, sanctuaries and rehoming centres, following clear support in consultation in 2024. The measures will go a long way toward protecting animals and ensuring effective minimum standards for those sadly much-needed institutions. I look forward to taking those commitments to doorsteps across Casnewydd Islwyn ahead of May’s Senedd elections. I encourage the Minister, when taking proposals forward in England, to look at the responses to the Welsh Government’s 2024 consultation and to talk with Welsh Government colleagues about the work that they have already done in developing a licensing scheme. Let us learn from one another as we work together to level up animal protections across the UK.
Currently in England and in Wales, anyone, regardless of competence, premises, finances or track record, can set up a rescue and take in animals and charge fees, and they will face scrutiny only once things have gone badly wrong. We have all seen the most extreme cases pop up on our TV screens and news apps. The hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock) mentioned the 37 dead dogs and 20 live animals seized in Basildon and Billericay in May last year, and almost 100 animals were seized from an animal sanctuary in Lincolnshire in 2024.
Although these extreme cases of animal abuse are shocking, there is a more sinister side to the regulatory desert in which rescue centres in England and Wales operate. Too often, when adopting an animal, members of the public do not know what they are getting and from where, because of the lack of a mandatory licensing and inspection regime. Seventy-eight per cent of the public believe that minimum standards are already in place. That leaves animal abuse hidden and allows families to be taken advantage of or even put at risk. Voluntary-only standards, such as those operated by the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes, are well intentioned but unenforceable. Rogue providers ignore them, while responsible rescues already comply. Only a nationwide licensing framework will provide consistency and accountability.
Unfortunately, too many animals being rehoused from animal shelters are, unbeknownst to the adopters, from puppy and kitten farms. Others rehoused via rogue rescues were stolen. With no law to compel rescues to check where a dog came from, paperwork can be limited. The issue is best highlighted by the case of Maggie, a King Charles spaniel adopted from a dog rescue centre. Unfortunately, little did her adopter know that Maggie was the product of a puppy farm. That was known by the rescue centre, but not discussed. Maggie was later found to have more than 20 rotten teeth, facial paralysis and a heart murmur. She also had a shoulder injury possibly after being kicked. Worryingly, one in every four rescues is unknowingly rehoming puppy-farmed dogs like Maggie. A new licensing scheme must prevent that by ensuring proper record keeping, microchip scanning and veterinary assessment.
Animals also often arrive in pseudo-rescue centres after being imported from abroad in a practice denounced by the RSPCA as “Deliveroo for dogs”. With the Naturewatch Foundation reporting that four in every five dogs in the UK have no verified origin and the numbers of animals entering Britain doubling in the last decade, this is of grave concern.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is a real champion of these issues, so I thank her for her work. My constituency is home to the Radcliffe animal centre. It is the only RSPCA animal centre in Nottinghamshire, but what most people do not realise is that the centre is still funded individually—independently—not by the national society, and it costs £800,000 a year to run. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a need to invest in the capacity of the sector and to look at funding of these centres, to ensure that we reach the standards that she is describing?
Ruth Jones
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This is about consistency, levelling up and ensuring that across the UK we are all operating to those standards, so I thank him for that intervention.
People need to know the animal they are adopting. A lack of screening also presents major biosecurity concerns. A University of Liverpool study found that 15% of imported dogs that were tested had Leishmania infantum—a parasitic disease uncommon in the UK —despite 93% of the tested dogs’ owners believing that a vet had given their dog a clean bill of health. Any new licensing regime must ensure that rescue centres accept only animals imported with full documentation verifying origin and veterinary health. Medical checks must also be undertaken prior to rehoming.
Rogue operators often rehome animals with no regard for their behaviour, putting vulnerable people at risk and potentially worsening the surge in dog-related violence we have seen in recent years. Hospital admissions for dog bites have risen by 47% over the past 10 years, costing the NHS more than £71 million a year. In my county, Gwent, 539 dog attacks were reported to the police last year, an increase of more than a quarter on 2024.
We cannot allow the supply of dogs to become dominated by dodgy breeders and rogue rescue centres. That is why any new licensing regime must be outcome-focused, with minimum requirements for enrichment and behavioural support, as well as a behavioural assessment prior to rehoming. Rehoming animals with unaddressed behavioural issues only puts people at risk.
In introducing such a scheme, UK and Welsh Ministers must learn the lessons from Scotland. Small, independent foster-based rescue centres are a critical part of the animal welfare landscape, with independents outnumbering the major charity sites by almost 10 to one. In Scotland, many of these were forced to close after 2021, when the Scottish Government tied licensing to charity status and a minimum turnover of £5,000. Those closures came despite many foster-based rescue centres having excellent welfare standards. I urge the Minister not to replicate this mistake, and to ensure that any new licensing regime incorporates smaller rescue centres. In recognising this diversity of high-welfare provision, I also ask the Minister to consider a tiered approach to any new licensing fees, thereby reducing the disproportionate burden that could be created for smaller, high-welfare rescues.
In closing, I emphasise that the case for change is urgent. We need licensing schemes in England and Wales that people can trust. The rules must be robust and enforced.
Mr Bayo Alaba (Southend East and Rochford) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for securing this debate on a very important issue to many of my residents.
The discovery of dozens of deceased dogs at the South Essex rehoming facility last year brought the consequences of the lack of regulation for animal rescue centres into sharp focus. That case is progressing through the courts, and I know that many constituents have closely followed developments, including my daughter, who is probably monitoring my attendance here. I used to be the most important male in her life, but I have been replaced by Caesar, a five-year-old ragdoll cat. Anyway, I digress.
While most rehoming and rescue centres operate to high standards, I share the concerns of residents who feel that without regulation, both animals and their owners face unnecessary risks. In the UK, we have robust animal welfare laws that regulate services including pet boarding and breeding, yet oversight of rehoming centres remains a blind spot. As it stands, anyone in England, Wales or Northern Ireland can set themselves up as a rehoming organisation without any licensing or inspection requirements. The decision to hand over a pet to a rehoming centre is an incredibly hard one to make, and those who take that decision deserve to have full confidence in the quality of care that they are promised.
I welcome the Government’s work on an integrated approach to improving animal welfare, including tackling puppy smuggling and puppy farming. I hope they will pay adequate attention to the regulation of rehoming and rescue centres. The thousands of signatures that this petition has collected, including 647 from Southend East and Rochford alone, demonstrate the scale of concern. I am grateful that the issue is getting the attention it deserves.
Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec. I thank my constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for securing this debate. I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on cats.
Across the United Kingdom, nearly 60% of households own a pet, and around 10.2 million of those pets are cats. They bring comfort, companionship and a great deal of amusement to millions of families. I know that personally, because I am owned by two rescue cats, Clement Cattlee and Mo Meowlam. Vital to the welfare of those pets and their future are our rescue and rehoming centres, such as Johnstone Cat Rescue in my constituency. Those organisations carry out extraordinary work, but beyond the duty of care established in the Animal Welfare Act, there are no specific statutory requirements governing how those services operate. As a result standards vary wildly across the sector. That is deeply unfair to the many outstanding providers that deliver a genuine and professional service through the dedication and compassion of their staff and volunteers.
Sadly, as so often is the case, it is the few that fall short that cast a shadow over the many, and it is because of such cases that we are debating this issue today. Too often, lack of training, resources or proper oversight means that even well-intentioned providers fail to meet the standard of care that our cats deserve. In more troubling cases, animals are placed in foster or rehoming centres where due care and attention are simply not given.
I will give one example. Linda, a volunteer at her local cat protection charity, saw a photograph of a kitten advertised by a local rescue centre and wanted to offer it a loving home. She completed an online form and later received a brief telephone call. During that call, she was not asked about her lifestyle, her living arrangements or whether she had any other pets, and she was given no meaningful information about the kitten’s health, background or needs; she was told only that it was three months old. She paid an adoption fee over the phone and was given an address from which to collect the kitten a few days later.
When Linda arrived, she was not allowed into the property. Instead, the fosterer came outside, closed the door behind them, took the cat carrier from Linda’s hands, pushed the cat inside and handed the carrier back to her. There was no opportunity to see the kitten’s living conditions, to see its mother and assess its health, or have any conversation about its needs or care. She was then told, almost as an afterthought, that the kitten had not been neutered or vaccinated.
That is why regulation matters. We need clear, enforceable, baseline minimum standards that protect animals, support responsible rescue centres and give the public confidence in the system. That must be backed by properly trained inspectors and meaningful oversight.
As has been mentioned, the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes has standards that could provide a good basis for the licensing of rescue and rehoming centres and help local authorities to enforce any licensing regime. The Association of Dogs and Cats Homes has 153 rescue centres already following those standards, which have been enforceable since 2015 and are self and externally audited. They cover the management and governance of centres, as well as the health and welfare of the cats and dogs in those centres and transported to them. The Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (Scotland) Regulations 2021 should also be considered when looking at existing standards, as they also cover wildlife.
I welcome the Government’s recent animal welfare strategy, but I confess that I was disappointed to see no clear detail on how they intend to consult on the licensing of animal welfare establishments. Through my work as chair of the APPG on cats, I know that the sector is ready and willing to engage; the Government should be equally willing to listen.
If new legislation is to genuinely improve standards, we must also learn from the experience in Scotland, where it has become clear that without effective enforcement, adequate funding and properly trained inspectors, legislation alone does little to improve the lives of animals in substandard establishments. Scotland’s two-tier licensing system has also caused confusion for both rescue centres and local authorities. That is a lesson that we should take seriously, so that any system introduced in England is clear, workable and accessible for those who operate within it.
Our rescue centres do remarkable work; our cats deserve the highest standards of care, and the public deserve to have confidence that, when they open their homes and their hearts to animals in need, the system behind that decision is worthy of their trust.
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alec, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for securing the debate. I pay tribute to the campaigners, who are with us today, for the opportunity to raise this issue, which is of deep concern to many of my constituents, as well as to people across the northern parishes and indeed the whole country.
Across all our communities, rescue centres play an extraordinary role: they step in when animals are abandoned or neglected, or when they can simply no longer be cared for. They do so largely through the dedication of volunteers, through donations and though good will, and their work is often unseen but invaluable.
However, unlike kennels and breeders, animal rescue centres in England currently operate without a clear, consistent national licensing framework. There are proposals that would address that gap, using the model that already exists under other legislation. That would not create a new system from scratch, but extend a familiar and well-understood framework to a sector that is currently insufficiently regulated.
We know that that approach can work, because it works elsewhere. As has been mentioned, Scotland already has licensed animal shelters, and I am reliably informed that Wales is committed to introducing legislation too. That means that England is now the only part of Great Britain without a formal system of oversight. Introducing such a system would simply bring England into line with best practice across the rest of the country.
There is strong support for that across the rescue and veterinary community. The RSPCA and Dogs Trust have publicly welcomed the discussion about licensing, and colleagues across the House have also expressed their support. This is an issue on which there is genuine cross-party and evidence-based agreement, focused solely on improving animal welfare.
Across Southport and west Lancashire, we are fortunate to have several rescue organisations that do excellent work. I visited one of those, the Woodlands Animal Sanctuary, only a couple of weeks ago. It provides a safe and caring environment for animals during some of the most vulnerable periods of their lives. It already operates to high standards and would have nothing to fear from proportionate regulation.
However, not all rescue centres are able to meet the same standards. Many of them, despite the best intentions, are run from spare rooms or garden sheds. They are driven by compassion, but lack the facilities, training or support necessary to guarantee the best outcomes for animals. Without sufficient formal oversight, conditions can vary widely; in the most extreme cases, that has led to the tragic consequences we have seen across the country.
At a time when the cost of living crisis is forcing more families to make heartbreaking decisions about their pets, the pressure on rescue centres is growing. That makes it even more important that animals are placed in environments that are safe, suitable and properly supported. This is not about burdening good organisations with too much regulation; it is about giving them recognition, consistency and reassurance, while ensuring that every rescued animal receives the care it deserves. I hope that today’s debate can be a constructive step towards achieving that shared goal, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s comments.
Sarah Dyke (Glastonbury and Somerton) (LD)
It is an honour to serve with you in the Chair this evening, Sir Alec. I thank the Petitions Committee for enabling this debate, and the 201 petitioners from Glastonbury and Somerton.
For many years, the UK has enjoyed the reputation of being a nation of animal lovers, with over half of us owning a pet. Indeed, I am owned by three Patterdale terriers, George, Bert and Griff, who keep me on my toes, and a farm cat, Thomas, who spends less and less time up at the farm.
The UK was the first country in the world to start a welfare charity for animals. That concern to rescue and care for animals led to the formation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. A 2025 survey by the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals found that 17% of dog owners and 33% of cat owners got their pet from a rescue centre. The RSPCA collects an abandoned animal every hour during the summer, and an estimated 250,000 animals go to rescue centres every year, which equates to 700 per day.
The cost of living crisis has undoubtedly increased the number of animals being abandoned, with the RSPCA recording a 24% increase in pets being handed over in 2022. Many rescue centres reported increased pressure because of the covid pandemic, which changed the landscape and increased the number of abandoned pets. Many covid dogs were sent to rescues with major separation anxiety, having never been away from their owners. Owners clearly had to go back to work, which put untold pressure on them as well, as they had to give up their dogs.
I put on record my thanks for the incredible work that rescue centres do. Somerset and Dorset Animal Rescue, based near Wincanton, has been run by Liz and Colin Stewart for more than 30 years. In their time, they have saved the lives of more than 34,000 animals, including dogs, cats, ponies, chickens and rabbits. In 2007, in recognition of their work, Liz was invited to the House of Lords to receive the award for international animal rescuer of the year. They run a charitable non-profit organisation. They have no full-time paid staff and rely on support from volunteers, but the costs of running such an operation are significant, with veterinary and food costs rising every day.
Some centres do not have the experience and knowledge of Somerset and Dorset Animal Rescue, and many exist without the facilities and resources to ensure that animals receive the right care and support. However, the lack of regulation surrounding animal rescue centres means they can operate without a licence as long as they do not report making a profit.
James Naish
The hon. Lady touched on the costs generated by animal centres, and earlier I mentioned the £800,000 running costs of the Radcliffe animal centre in my constituency. I put on record my thanks to David Carter of Gamston in my constituency, who has lit up his house every Christmas for a decade to raise money for the local animal centre. However, does the hon. Lady agree that relying on people like David to generate funds for these centres puts their regulation and licensing, and the way they look after animals, at risk?
Sarah Dyke
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I thank Mr Carter for all his amazing work to support the financing of these important rescue centres. Many people across the country do exactly the same thing.
Despite having the best intentions, some establishments take on too many animals or animals they do not have the specialist knowledge, expertise or resources to help, which often results in devastating situations where animals are sadly left to suffer. Donna, a constituent from Street, wrote to me recently about the heartbreaking situation at Save A Paw in Essex, where 40 dogs were sadly discovered.
If regulation is not in place, not only are such awful situations allowed to occur, but major health risks can be posed due to poor biosecurity. Pets should be spayed, wormed, de-fleaed and vaccinated while at a rescue centre, but there is no regulation to ensure that they are. Indeed, some animals in rescue centres are becoming infected with diseases that will need lifetime treatment, which is obviously an additional cost to the owners who take them on. There is support in the industry for measures to be implemented, with an RSPCA survey finding that 82% of wildlife rehabilitators believe welfare standards are inconsistent across the sector, and that more than 68% feel statutory licensing is important.
Earlier today, I spoke to Zoe, who runs Rushton Dog Rescue in my constituency with her mum, Cindi. They have operated for nearly 20 years in Langport, and have rescued thousands of dogs, along with horses, ducks, cats, ferrets and other animals, keeping them at their 15-acre centre. Zoe told me they believe that licensing would be good for the centre, and that unregulated pop-up rescues, sometimes operating out of people’s homes, can leave animals without the care and proper expertise they need.
Concerns also exist over those who use animal rescue centres as a front to run unscrupulous puppy breeding businesses, which leave legitimate animal rescue centres to pick up the pieces. In fact, Zoe told me that that was her No. 1 concern, so I would appreciate the Minister’s comments on the extent to which her Department is aware of the issue, given its admission that it lacks a complete picture of rescue centres in the country.
The Tories pledged to pursue licensing requirements in 2021 and 2023, and confirmed that they would look to consult on the matter, but ultimately failed to act before the last general election. The Liberal Democrats have called for a comprehensive national strategy on animal welfare that secures Britain’s place as a world leader on standards. As such, we welcome this Government’s commitment to ensure rescue centres have the right checks in place to protect the welfare of the animals they care for, but we are clear that any potential new licensing requirements must be properly enforced. There is also a need to ensure that regulations actually result in welfare improvements.
Zoe was also keen to stress that the Government must give existing rescue centres the financial support they need, to ensure they can follow new regulations to bring about improved welfare at animal rescue centres. The RSPCA has been clear that if that does not happen, many smaller rescues, set up with the best of intentions but lacking specialist resources, would be forced to closed, and the lack of capacity would place an unsustainable burden on those remaining in the sector. In turn, that would result in a lowering of animal welfare standards as remaining centres were overwhelmed and unable to care for their animals. I would welcome the Minister’s comments on that and on whether the Government would be willing to provide the support the industry requests.
I was also able to speak with Nigel, who runs the Somerton branch of Service Dogs UK, a charity dedicated to supporting armed forces and emergency services veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder by matching them with rescue dogs from across Somerset and the south-west. It uses rescue dogs from Dogs Trust, and applies strict rules, including background and household checks, before matching dogs. Nigel feels that regulation could ensure that rescue centres are properly inspected, while helping animals to receive the medical treatment they require. However, he noted that three out of 15 dogs in the Service Dogs UK system were found unchipped and abandoned on the street, which highlights the scale of the problem rescue centres are trying to deal with.
Nigel also highlighted concerns over individuals who set up centres and bring in dogs from overseas, putting them into British homes without proper controls. Vets and other public health experts have expressed concerns about the health and wellbeing of dogs and animals illegally imported into the UK, as well as the potential infection of animals already resident here.
The Liberal Democrats believe it is important to improve the welfare and quality of life of household pets, while ensuring that all animals are treated equally in legislation. That is why I am really proud of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers), whose Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Act 2025 will transform animal welfare in the UK and eradicate cruel practices that should have been wiped out years ago.
It is right that we now look to take action on this important matter, and I hope the Government come forward urgently to launch their consultation. There is strong support from the public and industry, and as the number of abandoned pets sadly increases, the problem will only grow.
Animal cruelty must be considered unacceptable, because animals are sentient beings with the capacity to feel pain and suffering. They have a right to live in decent and humane conditions, and it is crucial that we change the law to better protect them from harm. I hope today’s debate serves as an important step on the road to higher welfare for animals who find themselves in the care of rescue centres.
Mr Richard Holden (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Sir Alec. It is also a pleasure to hear from the Petitions Committee, and I thank the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for outlining the petitioners views. There were almost 110,000 of them across the country. Some of them are here today in the Public Gallery. Led by Paul and the other campaigners, they have driven so hard to get us to where we are today—not just this debate in Parliament or with the private Member’s Bill that I introduced, but in actually seeing that consultation brought forward by the Government, which is very much to be welcomed.
I begin by thanking hon. Members from across the Chamber: the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock); the hon. Member for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones); the hon. Member for Southend East and Rochford (Mr Alaba); the chair of the APPG on cats, the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter), and the hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) contributed in a really valuable way to this debate. It is without doubt that the breadth and strength of those contributions have demonstrated why this issue of licensed animal shelters and rescue centres matters so deeply to communities right across the country.
Now, it might be highly unusual to have the shadow Transport Secretary speaking in a debate on a subject for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but I requested this one personally, given the fact that an incident that has been referred to, and that sparked off this position, happened in my own constituency at Crays Hill. Many Members will be aware of that and have made a reference to that horrible and tragic case—the appalling discovery of dozens of animals found dead at a property which was presenting itself as a rehoming centre. Some animals were taken back alive. Yet even when they were taken alive some had to have the most horrendous operations done to them, including one having to have its eyes removed because it was so badly maltreated. I was inundated with correspondence from my own constituents and people across the country who are determined to see high standards brought in for this sector and proper, meaningful oversight delivered.
I thank those 2,600 of my constituents who responded to this petition—more than any other constituency in the country. They are the reason that we are where we are today and the reason I brought forward my private Member’s Bill for establishing a licensing regime for animal shelters. Only by setting clear standards, and, crucially, as Members have said, by having them properly enforced, can we actually protect animals. That is why I am determined that, hopefully, with the Government’s consultation coming forward soon, we arrive at a licensing regime that puts animal welfare at its heart—and I look forward to hearing a few more details from the Minister in her response and very much welcome the proposal’s inclusion in the animal welfare strategy. That licensing regime must be one that clamps down on malpractice and bad actors while protecting and supporting the many kind-hearted individuals and organisations—from small individuals right through to some of our largest national charities—which provide safe, caring and responsible environments for animals and often animals in real need.
We have heard passionate speeches from right across the House in support of those small, often individual institutions in Member’s constituencies. I am heartened by the depth of experience and expertise that exists in the sector to help us get this licensing regime right as well. I place on record my thanks to the RSPCA, Dogs Trust, Cats Protection, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes, Farplace Animal Rescue and so many others for their outstanding work and leadership in this area. I obviously also have to pay tribute to Paul Watkinson. His dogged determination to protect animal welfare and ensure that high standards are there across the board also deserves recognition in this House, as do local campaigners in my constituency.
As the hon. Member for Southend East and Rochford said, the problem, as has become painfully clear, is that anyone, regardless of their experience or their intention, can put up a sign and declare that they have an animal rescue shelter or rehoming centre. They will not face routine inspection, be subject to monitoring or be required to apply for any form of licence. That gap in oversight has led to consequences that are as clear as they are troubling: it has undermined public confidence in the integrity of the sector; placed intolerable pressure on reputable charities that are trying to get on with their meaningful work and that already face additional costs; and most importantly, it has resulted in animals suffering—not only dogs and cats but horses and the other animals that have been mentioned.
We know that it does not have to be this way. As we have heard, in Scotland, a licensing regime provided a clear bulwark against malpractice and has been in place since 2021. As was mentioned, in Wales, the Government have made plain their intention to move in the same direction. It is therefore vital that England, which is currently an outlier, moves in the same direction. To continue as we are at the moment is clearly not sustainable, and there is a clear advantage to addressing this issue now. As we set about fixing the problem, we are not starting from scratch. As hon. Members have mentioned, we can draw directly from the experiences of those who have gone before us to get it right. I have spoken to many animal welfare charities based in Scotland that are adapting to the legislation and want to see updates. We can help get it right. We can get it even better here than those charities have managed. That is why it is so important that we act now.
It is important to recognise that many rescue and rehoming centres already operate to the highest of standards. A significant number are subscribed to the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes voluntary code. That framework is the gold standard and was developed over many years with considerable care, expertise and sector-wide input. I am sure that the Minister will look closely at the voluntary code and work constructively with the association and the wider sector to ensure that the policy is delivered properly. At its best, the sector shows us what good looks like. The task before us is to ensure that those standards are applied fairly and right across the board, so that wherever they are, animals get gold-standard treatment.
The hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock and the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South mentioned the fact that, for licensing to succeed, it must be proportionate and, crucially, properly enforced. One message I have heard repeatedly from across the sector is that regulation without enforcement is no regulation at all. Clear standards must be matched by trained inspectors, adequate local authority resourcing and a system that allows concerns to be acted on before situations deteriorate into crisis, as clearly happened in my constituency.
Any effective system must reflect the realities of modern rescue and rehoming, including foster-based rescues and online rehoming operations, as well as reflecting the work of organisations facilitating rehoming more broadly. The ADCH standards are excellent and many responsible rescue centres have rightly adopted them, but a voluntary system alone will always leave gaps, as rogue operators can simply opt out. That is why I welcome the Government’s commitment to consult on a licensing regime for rehoming organisations, but that consultation must be followed by real clarity. The sector has been has been ready to engage for many years. What it needs now is a timetable and a clear scope, and there must also be reassurance that wildlife rescue centres will not be left outside of any framework and that there will be support for smaller organisations during any transition.
What happened in my constituency last year is not just deeply disturbing; it is a crime, and the man who was arrested for it has recently pleaded guilty and is now awaiting sentencing. I am glad that he will be brought to justice. The situation has galvanised campaigners, charities and Members from across the House to work together to ensure that this issue receives the attention it deserves. There is a clearly a broad consensus across Parliament, the sector and the devolved Administrations. The case for licensing is well made, but what is now required is genuine action.
Animals entering rescue and rehoming centres are, by definition, already the most vulnerable. Many have been abandoned, neglected or mistreated before. The very least we owe them is a system that keeps them safe and properly cared for, and we must hold those whose care they are put into to clear and enforceable standards. I urge the Government to ensure that England embarks on a structured roll-out of a licensing regime that is proportionate, inclusive and centred on animal welfare, regardless of the size of the organisation involved, at the earliest opportunity to ensure that the dogs at Crays Hill did not die in vain and we can prevent other tragedies in future.
The Minister for Food Security and Rural Affairs (Dame Angela Eagle)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Alec—my first time, I think; I am sure there will be many more. I thank the Petitions Committee and everyone who signed the petition for raising this important issue, especially the 164 from my own constituency of Wallasey. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) for opening the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee in the way that she did. The strength of public support behind the petition reflects a clear and shared concern. There was certainly cross-party consensus in the debate today about the state of sections of the rescue and rehousing sector, and I welcome this opportunity to discuss the proposal to introduce licensing and regulation for dog and cat rescues. I also want to reiterate the Government’s commitment to boosting animal welfare across the board.
Animals play such an important role in our lives. They enrich our homes, support our wellbeing, and in return they deserve the highest standards of care and protection. We are a nation of animal lovers, so we have to ensure that our policies uphold our commitment to their welfare at all stages of their lives. The Association of Dogs and Cats Homes reported that almost 35,000 dogs and 69,000 cats were rehomed by its member organisations in 2024. It found that more pets were being abandoned due to the cost of living crisis, something that has been mentioned by hon. Members across the House during this debate.
The Government are concerned about the neglect happening in organisations that pose as animal rescues and about the lack of transparency in the rescue and rehoming sector itself—again, an issue brought up by many who spoke in the debate today. I was horrified, as was everyone else in this debate, by the case in Billericay in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden); the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock) also referred to it. In May last year, 37 dogs were found dead in the care of a man who was pocketing donations for his so-called animal sanctuary. It was a shocking act of neglect and lack of humanity from the man entrusted to care for those animals.
As the right hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay said in his wind-up speech, the man has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing next week. That points to the fact that there are rules and regulations currently around the treatment of animals in rescues, even though there is not direct licensing in England at the moment. So it is not true that absolutely no rules apply, although the Government and I accept that we need to consider what we can do to increase the protection for animals that find themselves in that position.
Organisations may present themselves as rescues but fail to meet even basic welfare standards. There are also cases of well-meaning individuals willing to take in animals in need, but despite good intentions they lack the capacity to care for the animals properly. We have to make sure that the public can trust in the safety and legitimacy of animal rescue shelters in their area. We are taking seriously the risks posed by illegitimate rescues, whether that is financial exploitation, inadequate disease control or the rehoming of animals with unmanaged behavioural issues, all of which are risks, as many right hon. and hon. Members pointed out in this debate.
Most rescues operate responsibly and act with genuine intentions; we will crack down on those that do not. Last month we published our animal welfare strategy, which sets out the priorities that will deliver by 2030. It delivers on our commitments to introduce the most ambitious reforms to animal welfare in a generation. The Secretary of State launched the strategy at Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, an organisation that delivers crucial work rescuing and rehoming dogs and cats while also promoting best practice and knowledge, providing training and grant funding to animal rescue partners and offering online pet advice and training to anyone who needs it.
The Government recognise the incredible work that people across the country, including those at Battersea, do to protect our animals. That work, often done on a voluntary basis, ensures that the animals taken into the care of those organisations are offered the opportunity of a forever home. We also value our strong relationships with those who work in these key sectors, and are proud of the work we have already achieved through partnerships with such key stakeholders. Our history of delivering positive outcomes for animals would not be possible without the dedication of the organisations and individuals we work with and their expertise across many species and complex areas.
I am sure many Members will have attended the engaging Westminster Hall debate on the animal strategy last week. It further demonstrated the cross-party support and real dedication and commitment from across the country to ensuring the welfare of animals. As the pet population continues to grow, it is essential that our welfare standards keep pace, ensuring that all animals are safeguarded throughout their lives. To that end, the strategy will deliver on our manifesto commitments to end puppy smuggling and puppy farming. We will ensure that existing legislation is up to standard and work with local authorities and the sector to ensure that it is effectively enforced; as hon. Gentlemen and Ladies from across the House know, if the most perfect legislation in this area is not enforced, it might as well not exist.
We have come from a period when enforcement suffered enormously because of cuts to local authorities. It is harder, and it has been much harder recently, for enforcement to happen in a reasonable way. We have to make sure that we close the loopholes. As part of the animal welfare strategy, we have been very clear that we will launch a consultation on licensing domestic rescue and rehoming organisations. That would ensure that set welfare standards were being met and enforced across the licensed rescue centres. That could include, for example, requirements for training, for the environment the animals are kept in and for standards of care.
Today, hon. Ladies and Gentlemen from across the House have pointed out the need to ensure that we strike the right balance. My hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) talked in particular about a mistake that she said the Scottish Government made when introducing their licensing regime, which had the unintended consequence of closing down quite a lot of facilities that might have sensibly been able to survive. It is important that this Government learn the lessons of the unintended errors made in trying to regulate appropriately in such a diverse sector. The hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock made a similar point in his remarks.
We do not want to have such a fantastically sophisticated licensing regime that we put a lot of very good organisations that are doing a valuable job out of business. We are aware that many small rescue and rehoming organisations rely solely on donations and volunteer efforts. Any new licensing framework must therefore be proportionate, and we will carefully consider the variations in types of rescues and animals that they look after.
I know that many of our constituents will be keen to engage with the consultation at the appropriate point. We will share details about that, including scope and timings, as the policy is developed. The hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock asked a series of questions about that, but many of those questions are on points that the consultation will be trying to tease out, so that we can come to an appropriate decision about the best way to license and regulate in this area and we do the most good and the least harm.
I want to be clear that animal rescue organisations, as we have all contemplated following the horrible events in Billericay, must already meet statutory welfare requirements. Under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, any person responsible for an animal, whether on a permanent or temporary basis, has a duty to ensure its welfare. Companion animal rescue and rehoming organisations in England and Wales must therefore comply with the statutory welfare requirements set out in the 2006 Act. Members of the public can also check whether a rescue centre is a member of the Association of Dogs and Cats Homes. As has been pointed out in this debate, that group has set clear standards for animal assessments, neutering and rehoming procedures to which all its members adhere. The Government will continue to promote the work of that group and to encourage the public to source pets from responsible rescue and rehoming organisations in the United Kingdom. Many animal welfare organisations work hard to promote more responsible sourcing practices, and we will continue to promote their efforts.
We know that some individuals choose to rescue pets from abroad. Bringing animals from overseas has increased animal health and welfare risks. We will continue to develop the evidence base on the welfare issues associated with international rescue and rehoming. We have already commissioned the University of Liverpool to assess the impact on dog welfare, both for the dogs rehomed from abroad and for the domestic population. We expect to publish that research later this year.
I hope that everyone will agree that we must move forward, both with our banning of puppy farming and with the licensing of rescues, so that we modernise our animal welfare laws in this very important area and ensure that all animals, whether they lose their first home and must be rehomed or not, can look forward to acceptable standards of care and welfare before they find their new forever home.
Irene Campbell
I very much welcome the Minister’s response. This has been an important and informative debate. The animal welfare strategy is a big step forward in the right direction, and I am proud to be part of a Labour Government who are taking steps to correct some of the gaps in our animal welfare legislation. We have a massive opportunity to create change and I am looking forward to the consultation that is coming soon from the Government, as we have just heard.
I once again thank the petitioner, Paul Watkinson, and his colleague Niki Roe, as well as the groups that I met in preparation for this debate. I also thank, as ever, the staff of the Petitions Committee for all their hard work in organising these debates. As a final point, I should probably have mentioned that I am the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for dog advisory welfare.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 718660 relating to the licensing and regulation of animal rescue centres.
Business and Trade
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Written CorrectionsRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Blair McDougall
On 29 November, I launched the Capture redress scheme to provide payments to postmasters who suffered as a result of the Capture software…
[Official Report, 16 December 2025; Vol. 777, c. 55WS.]
Written correction submitted by the Under-Secretary of State for Business and Trade, the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Blair McDougall):
Blair McDougall
On 29 October, I launched the Capture redress scheme to provide payments to postmasters who suffered as a result of the Capture software…
Health and Social Care
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Written CorrectionsRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Paul Waugh (Rochdale) (Lab/Co-op)
What steps his Department is taking to improve maternity care.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
What steps his Department is taking to improve maternity and neonatal care.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)
… We have invested more than £131 million to improve neonatal care facilities, brought in a new maternity care bundle, implemented a programme to reduce the two leading causes of avoidable brain injury during labour, and increased maternal mental health services. There is so much more to do, however, to guarantee safety now and into the future, and also to ensure truth, justice and accountability for past failures.
[Official Report, 13 January 2026; Vol. 778, c. 734.]
Written correction submitted by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting):
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Wes Streeting)
… We have invested more than £131 million to improve maternity and neonatal care facilities, brought in a new maternity care bundle, we are implementing a programme to reduce the two leading causes of avoidable brain injury during labour, and we have increased maternal mental health services. There is so much more to do, however, to guarantee safety now and into the future, and also to ensure truth, justice and accountability for past failures.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
The maternity and neonatal plan is due in the spring, nearly two years after the Secretary of State took office. The maternity review has been delayed. There are no signs of the 1,000 additional midwives the Secretary of State said he would train. Gynaecology waiting lists are rising, with the number waiting for admission 6% higher than it was a year ago. The Secretary of State has an opportunity to save many lives, and I know that he wants to use all the opportunities available to him. May I ask him to concentrate on making more improvements in maternity care?
Wes Streeting
Let me just point out that in the 18 months for which I have had the privilege of holding this post, we have invested more than £131 million in 122 infrastructure projects across 49 NHS trusts to improve the safety of neonatal care facilities. We have implemented a new programme to reduce the two leading causes of avoidable brain injury during labour…
[Official Report, 13 January 2026; Vol. 778, c. 737.]
Written correction submitted by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care:
Wes Streeting
Let me just point out that in the 18 months for which I have had the privilege of holding this post, we have invested more than £131 million in 122 infrastructure projects across 49 NHS trusts to improve the safety of maternity and neonatal care facilities. We are implementing a new programme to reduce the two leading causes of avoidable brain injury during labour…
National Cancer Plan: Care and Early Diagnosis
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Written StatementsRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Ashley Dalton)
The Department of Health and Social Care will soon publish the national cancer plan. While more people survive cancer than ever before, progress has slowed over the last decade and England remains behind other comparable countries with working-class communities being failed most of all. This plan will change that.
The provision of cancer services varies significantly across the country. We will work to end the variation and ensure that access to the best cancer diagnosis, treatment and care is possible for everyone.
The national cancer plan will include a set of policies specifically focused on tackling geographic inequalities in cancer care, including:
More cancer care medical training places will be allocated to rural and coastal areas, particularly in areas where there are high numbers of vacancies, or areas with poor performance.
Improved scrutiny and support of cancer services, including increased data transparency on the quality of care and performance to drive up standards across the country. Where people live should not determine whether they get high-quality treatment when they need it.
Patients to get access to cutting-edge early cancer detection technologies regardless of where they live, as NICE begins to assess technology as well as medicines, which, if approved, would be available on the NHS in the same way that already applies to medicines.
Cancer alliances will receive funding and work proactively with local communities and providers to improve early diagnosis rates, including for rarer or less survivable cancers. They will focus on increasing awareness of cancer symptoms, supporting primary care to spot signs of cancer early, and reducing the gap in screening uptake between the most and least deprived areas, with particular efforts to reach ethnic minority and underserved communities.
Further to this, we know that early diagnosis is crucial for improving survival for cancer, for all cancers, including bowel cancer, which is the fourth most common cancer in the UK, impacting 40,907 people in 2023.
Which is why the national cancer plan will include actions to ensure more bowel cancers are caught at an earlier stage, rolling out changes to our bowel cancer screening programmes that are expected to save more than 5000 lives by 2035.
The NHS bowel cancer screening programme offers people aged 50 to 74 screening every two years, faecal immunochemical test kits are sent to people’s homes.
The NHS in England is improving this offer by rolling out increased sensitivity in bowel cancer screening, the programme will lower the threshold from 120 ug/g to 80 ug/g to bring the sensitivity in line with Scotland and Wales. When fully rolled out from 2028, this is expected to catch cancer at an earlier stage for over 600 people per year, treating it faster and saving lives.
Going further, we will roll out letters and invitations on to the bowel cancer screening programme via the app. This will make it easier for individuals to access screening programmes, and give patients control over their health.
The national cancer plan, which will be published shortly, will provide further details of how we will seek to improve early diagnosis of all cancers, and deliver high-quality cancer care to everybody, no matter where they live.
[HCWS1271]
Independent Review of Disclosure and Fraud Offences: Government Response
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Written StatementsRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Security (Dan Jarvis)
The first report of the independent review of disclosure and fraud offences —“Disclosure in the Digital Age”—was presented to Parliament in March 2025. Since then, the Home Office, the Attorney General’s Office and the Ministry of Justice have worked together on a joint response to its 45 recommendations. The Government are grateful to Jonathan Fisher KC for his thorough analysis of the criminal disclosure regime.
Building on that foundation, the Government are committed to modernising disclosure so that it is fit for purpose in the digital age. In particular, the review identifies practical opportunities to deploy technology in criminal cases to manage digital material more effectively, reduce administrative burdens and release police time for frontline duties. Any adoption of new tools will be underpinned by robust safeguards and full regard for the rights of the defence and the interests of justice.
The programme of reform is designed to strengthen the justice system as a whole: streamlining investigations and prosecutions, reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and improving consistency across agencies, while maintaining fairness for all parties. Any delivery will be taken forward in partnership with law enforcement bodies, the Crown Prosecution Service and wider criminal justice stakeholders to ensure that changes are workable, proportionate and sustainable in practice.
The Government will publish its full response to the independent review by 20 May 2026, aligned with wider reforms across the criminal justice system. This response will include careful consideration of any linkages to the recommendations made in part two of Sir Brian Leveson’s independent review of the criminal courts on efficiency. Further updates will be provided to the House in due course.
[HCWS1272]
Arrangement of Business
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes) (Con)
My Lords, I am obliged to remind the Committee that, if there were to be a Division in the Chamber, we will adjourn for 10 minutes. It seems highly unlikely.
Pension Schemes Bill
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Noakes
“(c) able to demonstrate that they deliver investment performance which exceeds that achieved by the average of all Master Trusts which hold an approval under section 28A in respect of a main scale default arrangement.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment allows Master Trusts which deliver good investment performance to be excluded from the scale requirements.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendments 91 and 95. I thank my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe for adding her name to them. Having had a little detour into asset mandation in the last group, we now return to scale. My Amendments 91 and 95 relate to master trusts and group personal pension plans, respectively, returning to the theme of size not being everything. They are intended to exempt from the scale requirements those schemes that deliver investment performance which exceeds that achieved by the average of all master trusts or all group personal pension plans.
We debated the general theme of size not being everything on the last day of Committee. I firmly believe that we should not let an obsession with size squeeze good performers out of the market. The Minister’s arguments on that day, despite protestations to the contrary, show that the Government have an obsession with size that overrides their professed desire for better outcomes for savers. If they really care about outcomes for savers, they should not be fixated on structural issues such as the size of assets under management, because good investment returns are not the exclusive preserve of schemes that reach the magic £25 billion of assets. The evidence for the Government’s policy cited by the Minister last week merely indicates that there is a correlation between size and returns achieved. That evidence, however, categorically does not demonstrate that good returns are obtained only by those which pass a size threshold.
At the heart of this debate is the problem that the Government are trying to use this Bill to force pension schemes to divert investment resources into things that the Government think will improve the UK economy, while at the same time claiming the objective of good outcomes for savers. I remind the Minister of Tinbergen’s rule: if policymakers wish to have multiple policy targets, they must have an equal number of policy instruments under their control. One instrument—mandating the size of pension provider—will not achieve the separate targets of improving savers’ outcomes and increasing UK productive investment without risking policy effectiveness and reduced transparency and accountability. By ignoring Tinbergen’s rule, the Government are actively inviting policy failure in this area.
I also strongly support Amendment 98 in the names of my noble friends Lord Younger and Lady Stedman-Scott. Innovation will not thrive in the pension sector if it has to pass arbitrary size tests. We should do everything that we can in this Bill to promote innovation. I beg to move.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I, too, have a number of amendments in this group and I will address my remarks mainly to them. Amendments 99 and 106 recommend removing the specific figure of £25 billion from the Bill and replacing it with a figure to be determined by the Government nearer the time, I hope, after detailed consultation.
On the last day in Committee, when we debated Amendment 88 on small pots, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, which proposed a monetary limit of £10,000, the Minister rejected the amendment on the grounds that
“the Government are not persuaded that it is sensible to hardwire the cap in primary legislation”.—[Official Report, 22/1/26; col. GC 188.]
Quite right. The same applies here: my amendment follows exactly that principle. I am concerned about the risks involved in tying primary legislation to a fixed monetary sum.
First, a change in market conditions could render it inappropriate. Secondly, such a large sum risks stymieing the development of newer companies and gives an exceptional competitive advantage to those providers already of the required scale. There is no evidence—I have been searching—to suggest that big is always best and there is certainly no academic proof that £25 billion, £10 billion or any other number is the right dividing line between successful funds and failing funds.
Newer entrants with an interesting approach to member service, digital engagement or innovative investment may well take time to break into the market, but just because they have not reached what the Bill determines is the magic number should not mean that they are forced to close, which is what the Bill would do, in effect.
The Minister said that consolidation and scale will mean
“better outcomes for members … lower investment fees, increased returns and access to diversified investments, as well as better governance and expertise in running schemes”.—[Official Report, 22/1/26; col. GC 202.]
That may well be the case for many, but deliberately disadvantaging innovation and putting up barriers that damage recent or newer entrants, regardless of their merits, runs counter to those intended outcomes over the longer term. Using collective vehicles, for example, run by already established experts such as closed-ended investment companies, can replace the need for in-house expertise at each of the big pension funds. Indeed, that option is already available but is being discouraged by the Bill.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said, a correlation is not the same as a causative impact. Putting £25 billion into the Bill creates a big issue with some of the newer companies that will fall into the vacuum between the new entrant pathway, which does not start until a scheme is established after 2030, and the transitional pathway, which requires this fixed £10 billion—I could have tabled amendments on that, but £25 billion is the same principle—if they have not reached that level.
What is worse—I tried to indicate this last week—is that, although I know that the Government want to inject certainty by including these numerical figures, unfortunately they are also blocking the progress and potentially forcing the closure of a number of schemes that have digital-first methodologies right now but have not been established long enough to reach the required scale and to which the market to raise growth capital is currently shut. Who would lend money to a newer company that may or may not reach the scale required by the particular date?
The Government need to think again about the merits of using a fixed number, as the Minister mentioned last week. I would be happy to meet officials or Ministers to go through the rationale that has had this damaging effect in the market. I hope that we will not give a hostage to fortune by specifying a particular number in the Bill that may or may not prove to be right, wrong or damaging. I hope that the Minister will help the Committee to understand whether the Government might consider this principle.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendments 91 and 95 in the name of my noble friend Lady Noakes, to which I have added my name. I apologise for not being able to contribute to the Committee’s discussions on Thursday because of competing business on the Floor of the House. I have read Hansard and I should record that I share the reservations expressed about mandation, a subject on which I have received many well-argued requests and emails. I commend the arguments that have been well put by my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie on the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles. I particularly dislike powers delayed into the future. If the Government decide that they need to legislate later, they can bring in another Bill that the House can scrutinise in the light of contemporary evidence.
I turn to the amendments in this group, so well argued by my noble friend Lady Noakes. I am uneasy, as others are, about the overemphasis on creating size and scale in the Bill: £25 billion is a big fund and, as my noble friend Lady Altmann said, it does not seem to be well evidenced. It is a Labour trend that needs to be treated with some scepticism. We see it in local government reorganisation, in rail nationalisation and now in the proposals for the police. I know from my business experience, which noble Lords know I always come from, that mergers of any kind always have substantial costs and that you need smaller, pushy innovators to keep sectors competitive. This might be contentious, but Aldi was good for Tesco because it kept us on our toes—and even better for the consumer, the equivalent of the saver in this case. The point is that reorganisations of any kind always have costs and only sometimes have benefits.
We have seen the growth in recent years of money purchase funds that are almost entirely digital, and they have brought beneficial competition to the market. We risk eliminating the next generation of innovation, real value creation and indeed British unicorn funds, generated by competition, if we leave the Bill as it is.
We must not allow good performers to be snuffed out by the movement to bigger schemes. That is why we are asking the Minister to look at excluding master trusts and group pension plans that deliver good investment performance from the scale and size requirements. Performance is, after all, what matters to those saving for a pension. Size, scale and growth are not everything, popular though they tend to be with the fund managers who benefit. Returns matter more, but the Bill at present rather underplays them in favour of scale. My noble friend Lady Noakes’s amendments are just what is needed, and I look forward to hearing how the Minister is going to solve the problem that she has identified.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 99 in particular but I generally associate myself with all the amendments in this group, including Amendments 95 and 98 in the names of my noble friends.
As we have heard, there is no conclusive evidence that bigger is best when it comes to investment management. Of course there are some large funds that do rather well, but, as I explained on a previous day in Committee, within the Local Government Pension Scheme it is the smallest fund in the Orkneys that has outranked the performance of all the 88 other schemes in the LGPS, and there is something to be said for that. It has never changed its investment manager, and there is a lesson there.
In my experience, the best returns are to be made in investing in companies where you either buy the product or know the management—not so that you can tap them for inside information, of course, but because it hardly ever pays to invest in bad people. I also like to buy when prices fall because, let us face it, buying high and selling cheap is never a good investment strategy. But there is no evidence at all that scale in and of itself is good. There is plenty of evidence that it is worse. As they say, the larger they are the harder they fall, and small ones are more juicy.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, I will not go into too much detail. I should, because I was not here last week, declare an interest, in that I am a director of a Guernsey-based, open-ended protected cell company and a London-listed, closed-ended investment company. Neither of them begins to approach the necessary size to qualify under the scale criteria that this Bill introduces.
I agree entirely with the points made by my noble friends Lady Noakes, Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lord Fuller and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. Scale is nothing to do with this. I find it quite extraordinary that the Government assume that big is good and small is bad. All big funds were once small: they started with nothing and built up. There is also some evidence that, if you get really big, you become a big complacent and do not have to be quite as sharp as you do when you are making a small fund bigger and more successful and establishing its reputation.
Interfering with the fiduciary duties of pension fund trustees in this way is risky, bad, potentially dangerous and unlikely to be in the interests of the pension beneficiaries, so I strongly support all the amendments in this group. I do not think that the minimum size of a master trust should be specified in the Bill. Trustees will have their own criteria for the maximum proportion of funds that they may own in any one fund, and for the maximum percentage of their funds’ assets that may be invested in any one fund. I think these are better ways to achieve the obvious need to reduce risk, and pension fund trustees are the right people to deliver them.
Lord Ashcombe (Con)
My Lords, I remind the Committee of my interest as an employee of Marsh, which owns Mercer, a pension and investment advisory management company.
I did not intend to speak on this group but I do not believe that financial size is the be-all and end-all. In my world, working for a very large insurance broker, we think we have advantages in the marketplace. However, it would be remiss of me to ignore not only the smaller operations but the many small boutique entities that are experts in a very narrow and small field. It is very unlikely that they will ever become one of the large operations. Although size can be useful, the smaller experts are essential to the marketplace and, you might argue, keep the larger operations honest.
I do not believe this picture is anything different from that of the pensions industry. These amendments address the benefits of the new and smaller entities being a necessary part of the market, and should be welcomed.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. As we know, this group addresses the use of scale, as measured by assets under management or monetary value, as a determinant of scheme quality.
The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, gave the example of the Orkney trust. I ask myself: what is the reason? Is it size? Personally, I think it is the calibre of the single malt whisky. Then we go to the other end of the country, to Guernsey. Is it because trusts are at the extremes of the country that causes the good benefits, or is it something else? You can always look for a reason: it could be size, location or anything else—or, indeed, the quality of the whisky.
We accept that scale can bring efficiencies, but there is a strong question over whether size alone is a reliable proxy for value. Amendments 91 and 95 recognise that some master trusts and group personal pension schemes deliver strong investment performance despite being below prescribed thresholds. Amendment 98 similarly acknowledges that innovation and specialism do not always depend on scale, location or whatever else.
We are also concerned about the rigidity of fixed monetary thresholds in the Bill. Amendments 99, 101, 106 and 108 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, are concerned about the rigidity of fixed monetary thresholds in the Bill. These amendments probe whether the figures chosen are evidence-based and future-proofed, or whether they risk being outdated—that is the point—as the market evolves. It is not cast in stone, and we should not try to see it as such.
Amendments 101, 104 and 108 in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and others, raise an additional concern: the risk of mandating common investment strategies. Diversity of approach is a strength of a pension system. Forcing schemes into uniform strategies risks herding behaviour and systemic vulnerability. My question to the Minister is this: is the Government’s objective genuinely better member outcomes—which I believe we all want—or prioritising administrative simplicity at the expense of innovation, competition and resilience? All the amendments in this group tackle this problem, and those in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, particularly stress that. I hope we will continue to push these through to the next stage of the debate on this Bill.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, today’s groups build directly on the issues explored in last Thursday’s debate. That discussion was both stimulating and constructive, and the contributions made, particularly on mandation, highlight the value of the scrutiny that this Bill continues to receive in Grand Committee. On this group, in the interests of brevity—I am sure that will please the whole Committee—I shall keep my remarks focused on the amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie. A number of significant and related issues have been raised by other noble Lords, and we will wish to return to these later today. We will listen carefully to the Minister’s response to the points made on this group.
Amendment 98 would introduce a clear and proportionate innovation exemption for relevant master trusts under Clause 40, so that schemes delivering genuinely specialist or innovative services are not automatically required to meet the scale threshold simply because of their size. We have been challenged today not to be obsessed with size. We recognise the policy aim of improving outcomes through scale. However, as I said, size is not always a reliable proxy for quality or value: there are master trusts that are smaller by design yet deliver strong member outcomes through innovation, whether in investment approach, governance or engagement with particular workforces. As the Bill is currently drafted, such schemes risk being forced to consolidate or exit, not because they are failing members but because they do not meet a blunt asset size test.
Amendment 98 provides a sensible alternative route, recognising that innovation and specialisation can also deliver high-quality outcomes. This amendment simply ensures that size alone is not determinative. I hope the Minister will see this as a constructive amendment that supports innovation and choice while remaining fully aligned with the Bill’s objective of improving outcomes for savers.
Amendment 102 is, again, a probing amendment. Clause 40 gives the Secretary of State the power to determine by regulations the method for calculating a master trust’s total assets for the purposes of this provision. That is a potentially significant power, because the way that total assets are defined and measured will determine which schemes fall within scope and which may benefit from exemptions.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)
I am grateful to noble Lords who have introduced and spoken to amendments. Clause 40 delivers the Government’s commitment to ensure that DC workplace pension savers benefit from the advantages that flow from scale and consolidation. It establishes a clear, measurable threshold and a framework centred on a single main scale default arrangement—MSDA—so that governance and investment decisions can be applied consistently across large pools of assets. This approach is integral to securing better member outcomes, improved access to productive investment and stronger in-house capability.
We had a preliminary conversation about all this on Thursday, but I know that not all noble Lords were there so, before I dive into specific points on the amendments, I will pick up a couple of the headlines. In response to the noble Lords, Lord Ashcombe and Lord Palmer, the UK’s workplace pension industry accounts for more than £2 trillion in assets, serving more than 16 million savers who have been automatically enrolled and are not engaged in pension savings. It is particularly important that these assets are working as hard as possible to provide better saver returns and security in retirement and, to do that, scale and provision really matter.
Evidence suggests that there are direct benefits derived from scale; they include better governance and economies of scale, whereby greater size reduces average cost per member and creates the ability to move investment in-house, which reduces investment costs in turn. It also enables access to a wider range of assets, including diversification and the ability to invest directly in assets rather than having to be part of a pooled fund. With improved bargaining power, schemes can negotiate lower investment fees, improving net returns.
There is a lot more that I could say, but I have said quite a lot of this before. I will say just a word just about the level of scale and why it is £25 billion. As I explained last week, our evidence shows that, across a range of domestic and international studies, a greater number of benefits can arise from a scale of around £25 billion to £50 billion of assets under management, including investment expertise, improved governance and access to a wider range of assets.
That is supported by industry analysis, showing that schemes of this size find it easier to invest in productive finance. International evidence shows that funds in the region of £25 billion invest nearly double the level of private market investment compared to a £1 billion pound fund. We selected the lower band, but there is further evidence that demonstrates that the greater the scale, the greater the benefits.
I can point to a range of studies. Analysis from Australia’s pensions regulator found that funds with around £25 billion were able to spread costs over their membership, keeping fees lower. Pensions UK reported that schemes with £25 billion to £50 billion of assets have considerable governance capability and find it easier to invest directly. The Conexus Institute again found in favour of funds of £25 billion to £50 billion. We have been transparently reporting the evidence via the impact assessment and the previous publication of Pension Fund Investment and the UK Economy, which outlined the evidence.
The noble Lord, Lord Fuller, will have to forgive me; I am not going back to LGPS. We spent two entire days in Committee on the first 10 pages of the Bill and I am not going back there. We can do it on Report. He is not going to stand up; I have not responded to a word he has said yet. Give me a moment. The noble Lord’s point is about scale. The evidence shows that larger schemes are better placed to invest—
Lord Fuller (Con)
The Minister invites me to stand up. The only reason I mentioned the LGPS is because the LGPS funds have been put into pools of £25 billion to £50 billion. We have a real economy experiment of what might happen if these provisions are enacted on the rest of it. The noble Baroness said that there are lower costs of investment. Then she went on to say, just now, that it is transferred with in-house teams. You will therefore have to substitute an externalised team for an in-house team at a scale of £25 billion. You are trying to compete with Fidelity, which has £900 billion in its team. You are setting these people up to fail; you have got the wrong scheme. You need the ability to go to the largest fund managers with the hugest assets under management, not try to recreate the City in aspic on footprints of £25 billion by duplicating all the procedures, staffing, HR and everything else. You have the B team and, guess what, they are always away on holiday in the first two weeks of August when the last three market crashes have happened and there is no one to answer the phone. That is the problem. You are saving one risk and applying the other.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I made these arguments at some length on Thursday. I have made them again now. The noble Lord disagrees with them; I can tell from his tone. He can read Hansard and pick up the relevant bits with me if he would like to.
Let me come back to the amendments. I will start with Amendments 91 and 95 from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. I thank her for introducing them with her customary clarity and brevity. These would create an exemption from the scale of requirements for master trusts and GPPs that can demonstrate investment performance exceeding the average of schemes that meet the scale conditions. I recognise the intent to reward strong performance, but obviously I am concerned the proposal would undermine the Government’s objective, which is a market of fewer, larger, better-run schemes, where economies of scale deliver sustained benefits to savers.
I should clarify the point about objectives. The Government’s primary objective is saver outcomes. I want to be clear about that. While I am here, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, that this is not about administrative simplicity but about member outcomes. At the centre of our policy is the drive for better membership outcomes. That does not mean a simple scheme, but one that has strong governance and is well run, including strong administration, because scale supports the scheme to have the resources and the expertise to do this.
To respond to the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, in considering scale in the pensions landscape today, we have all shapes and sizes of schemes, in which value for members is important. We know that performance can be delivered across different sizes of scheme, but scale changes the landscape. Schemes that have scale will have the tools to deliver on value and performance in a way that a small scheme will not be able to in this future landscape. That is because scale enables greater expertise, efficiencies and buying power than a small scheme. That is the landscape we need to deliver for members because we want better outcomes for them. In considering the issue, it is therefore important to focus on the future landscape, the market at scale, and not the current landscape. In our view, there is not sufficient evidence that other approaches can deliver the same benefits for members and the economy.
On the specifics of the noble Baroness’s amendment, there are also some concerns around the impact; it could create an unstable landscape if we were to focus on the performance at any point in time. Of course, the intention for any exemption is that it is a permanent feature of the scheme and is not subject to regular assessment. As we all know, past investment performance is not a guarantee of future success. If we went down this road, there would be times when exempted sub-scale schemes found that they were no longer delivering investment performance that exceeds the average of those at scale. That is not stable for members or employers, and does not support their interests.
Amendment 98 proposes an innovation-based exemption from the scale requirement for master trust schemes offering specialist or innovative services. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, that innovation really matters; that is precisely why the Bill provides for a new entrant pathway so that novel propositions can enter the market and scale responsibly. But creating a parallel innovation pathway as an alternative to scale would dilute the fundamental objective of consolidation and risk maintaining a long tail of small schemes, with fragmented governance and limited access to productive investment.
I should say a few words on competition. Actually, I might come back to that.
Amendments 99 and 106 from the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, would remove the £25 billion threshold from the Bill. We believe the threshold is a central pillar of the policy architecture. It has been set following consultation with industry and government analysis of the emerging evidence, to which I referred earlier, on the point at which the benefits of scale are realised. We believe that this is a key policy decision that should be in the Bill. We also believe, as the noble Baroness indicated, that it is very important that there is certainty for industry on this threshold at the earliest possible point. Putting the £25 billion on the face of the Bill assures industry that it cannot be changed without full parliamentary engagement.
I know the noble Baroness wants me to reassure her that this matter is open for further discussion. I regret that I will have to disappoint her. The Government are committed to this and have put it in the Bill for the reasons I just explained.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
If the intention is to maintain these specific limits in the Bill, I hope that consideration will be given to an existing new entrant pathway—rather than only a new entrant pathway from 2030 onwards—and some kind of innovation pathway, as suggested by my noble friends Lord Younger and Lady Stedman-Scott, so that schemes that either are already in existence or will come through over the next few years, if they are able to do so, will not be forced out of business or prevented even beginning.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes an important point about innovation. We recognise the importance of a proportionate approach to scale, which is why we created the transition pathway. I know that the noble Baroness thinks the number or scale is not right, but that is the purpose of the transition pathway: to give schemes that can reach scale within a reasonable time the chance to do so.
On innovation, although we want to see a market of fewer, larger pension schemes, the policy still encourages competition through allowing innovative schemes, such as CDCs, to develop and by enabling brand new innovative schemes to enter the market via the new entrant pathway. I know the noble Baroness is not satisfied with that, but that is our answer to her question: the new entrant pathway.
Amendment 102 from the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, would delete the regulation-making power on what values can be counted towards the scale threshold in order to probe how assets will be calculated. The market contains varied and complex arrangements. It is both prudent and necessary that affirmative regulations, consulted on with industry, set out the assets that may be included or adjusted when calculating the total value in the MSDA, with a focus on assets where members have not made an active choice.
Let me be clear on that point: the choices that will be made here are the ones that will create the big fat wallet, if you like, which will in turn drive the benefits of scale. The intent is that the regulations will focus on the default arrangement that the vast majority of members will be in. We want to see members of the same age who join the scheme at the same time get the same outcome, but the regulation-making power enables practical realities of how the market operates now—especially at the margins. We know that there is a variety in practice in the market, so engagement and consultation are crucial.
Amendment 104 from the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, would remove the regulation-making power to define “common investment strategy” and to set evidentiary requirements for the scale condition. I understand that the aim here is both to probe this power and to require the Government to define “common investment strategy” prior to Royal Assent. A common investment strategy will help to deliver a single approach to maximise the buying power of a scheme in terms of fees and the diversification of its investments. We think that is crucial because allowing, for example, multiple potentially divergent strategies within the MSDA would maintain fragmentation and drive away from the consolidation that we want members to benefit from.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who took part in this debate, which has demonstrated that there is unanimity on this side of the Committee on scale not being the most important thing—in direct contrast to the Government’s dogged attachment to scale.
We will probably return to innovation next week, so the Minister will not escape it, but I do not think the Government yet understand how innovation works and what it takes to scale a business: the timescales involved, the way you need to raise finance during the growth of a business, and the impact that what they have put in the Bill will have on those processes. We will need to explore that in much more detail. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, who wished to do so, is absolutely right, because I do not think the Government really understand what is involved in this area.
On “big is best”, which we on this side of the Committee certainly do not subscribe to, the Government said that the primary objective was savers’ outcomes, but a couple of minutes later the Minister said that the objective was consolidation. Is there a hierarchy of objectives in this Bill? It is not clear to me that there is. A few sentences away, she talked about the benefits that derive from scale, but the Government seem to have closed their mind to this: if you can get equivalent benefits without scale, why should you not?
That was immediately followed by the Minister saying that when you are in a £25 billion-plus fund, you put double the money into productive finance. There we are into the real objective of this Bill: to funnel savers’ money into productive investment. I refer the Minister to my comments on each policy objective needing a policy instrument and getting into terrible trouble when you try to get one policy instrument to meet more than one objective. I was reminded of this by one of her Back-Benchers, who kindly pointed out that clear rule, which is well evidenced. I will not disclose his identity, and he is not going to get up and say it, but I really think the Government should look again at how they are using the instruments in this Bill to achieve what are clearly multiple objectives, not disclosed in a hierarchy and not even acknowledged as being potentially in conflict. We will clearly not progress any further in Committee, but the Minister should be in no doubt that this will be a feature of our discussions on Report. I beg leave to withdraw.
Baroness Altmann
Member’s explanatory statement
This probing amendment seeks to ensure that this legislation does not exclude Master Trusts or other pension funds from offering members the chance to invest in default pension arrangements which are more suited to their own circumstances, including age, retirement intentions, health conditions, plans for future retirement income options etc.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I will speak to all the amendments in this group, which are basically on exactly the same topic. I hope that the Minister understands the spirit in which they are all intended. I also hope that the Committee will be minded to support them. In a way, they follow from my Amendment 108 in the previous group, which sought to get away from the idea that one size fits all in pensions and that a common investment strategy is a recipe for success for either a group of members or all members.
My concern is that the approach to auto-enrolment pensions hitherto was to assume that there is a standard fund that is suitable for all classes of members, which can then be safely invested in by everybody. Of course, it is easiest for providers to have a common investment strategy or a common investment approach in the default fund, but enforced uniformity does not mean that all groups of members are served well.
These amendments seek to anticipate the possibility that some of the large pension providers, either existing ones or, I hope, new ones, will follow an approach in which they have a number of default funds that can be suited to different classes of member on the basis of three or four basic questions that might be relevant to their circumstances. I hope that we get to a position—I know some of the new providers intend to do this—where the pension provider does not look just at your chronological age, for example, and make an assumption about what investments suit you, but asks you whether you intend to stop working at a particular date, whether you have other pension funds and what your state of health is. Just those three basic questions can be critical to the success of an investment strategy for that group of members, but they are all lumped together at the moment.
In addition, it would be helpful to use the Bill not to close down the option of a scheme offering a number of default funds. At the moment, the danger is that everybody thinks that we have to get to £25 billion, even if it is by a range of different approaches. I know that there is an option potentially to aggregate assets, but my amendments seek to ensure that, if the £25 billion number stays in the Bill—the noble Baroness unfortunately seems intent on that being so—the Bill directly allows for a number of default funds to be added up.
I say that because we have seen in recent years the “lifestyling” approach, for example, in which all members are put into one default fund with a lifestyle approach, or a target date fund approach. This has let members down significantly. Although it is not widely reported, I am sure that many other noble Lords have had emails or letters from people coming up to retirement in 2022, who had a pension fund statement that told them they were in a safe fund and the size of the pension they could expect to receive in a few months’ time. By the time they came to, let us say, later in 2022, however, their so-called safe fund had lost up to 30% of its value. Suddenly, they were unable to stop work because they had been put in an approach that was not suitable in the end or did not do exactly what it said on the tin in its results.
If the current approach is that, just because you are 50 or 55, no other questions are asked and you are in a big default fund that says you will be stopping work within the next five to 10 years, and therefore you should not be invested in high-risk assets, which is another name for higher expected return assets, but should be moved into low-risk assets, which is another name for low expected return assets, you are not necessarily being provided with a suitable option. One size fits all does not work if, for example, the member is 55 or even 60, has no intention of stopping work in the foreseeable future, perhaps has a guaranteed defined benefit pension somewhere else that they can rely on, or, at the other end of the scale, is in very poor health and may have to stop work soon, so should be in a different pool. I hope that the Minister will understand that the intention is to anticipate innovation in that regard. I feel that, at the moment, pension companies are not even asking members what their intentions or circumstances are, or even the basic three or four questions.
I declare an interest as an adviser to Cushon, which is looking to introduce an approach of that nature. Other innovative companies also intend to improve member engagement by reaching out to members and trying to put them in segregated pools, rather than just one big pool. The Bill, using just one default fund, or a standard fund, as I prefer to call it, will preclude that kind of development, which could be in members’ interests, could have avoided the catastrophes that we saw with the current one-size-fits-all approach and could encourage providers to explain more clearly what exactly is happening to the members’ money in the investment pools that they are in, which currently does not take place—low risk is not explained, nor is high risk. Therefore, I hope that this principle can be put in the Bill. It is a very minor change, to talk about more than one default fund for a provider, rather than saying “the” default fund. I beg to move.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, I will speak only briefly, because the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, has put her finger on it. There is a choice here—the choice of the members. If we believe that the members have a say in their own retirement, having saved for it, so that they are stakeholders in that respect, they have a choice, or they are forced into groupthink. It is masterfully explained. The nonsense that gilts are low risk is a fantasy. We heard how the move into gilts resulted because the markets moved into a 22% loss in the underlying asset value.
But the groupthink in the pensions industry is that you have to go to gilts as you approach retirement. As you approach retirement nowadays, you have 30 years to go—30 years of growth. Yes, I do not deny that you need something in gilts and bonds, but there is still a long way to go. Especially in an inflationary period, as we have been through, cash, cash-like and bond/gilt-like investments will not be enough.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, on having a group of nine amendments all on her own. We normally share groups rather than have them all on our own. This group considers how scale requirements interact with default pension arrangements where most savers remain invested. I have listened to the debate and, having spent a large part of my career in accountancy and advising clients, I know that the trouble is that the majority of clients are not expert enough to know what they should do with their pension. They seek advice from various organisations on what they should do. We should make sure that the quality of the advice they get suits their position in life. As other noble Lords have said, we are concerned about the overly rigid scale test, which could unintentionally narrow choice within defaults and push schemes towards one-size-fits-all designs.
Amendment 97 highlights the importance of allowing defaults that reflect members’ differing ages, health conditions, retirement plans and risk profiles. Amendments 97A to 101B probe—this is the point—whether the authority can take account of the combined value of assets across multiple default arrangements, rather than assessing each in isolation. Without this flexibility, schemes that offer well-designed cohort-based defaults could be penalised simply for tailoring provision.
Amendments 168A and 170A reinforce this point, seeking to ensure that schemes are not excluded from the market for moving beyond crude uniform defaults. Our concern is that defaults should be designed around member needs, not regulatory convenience. I hope the Minister will explain how the Bill avoids pushing schemes towards uniformity at the expense of suitability and long-term outcomes.
I hope the Minister does not regard the series of amendments in this group as combative. They are meant to try to help pensioners or future pensioners. It is wrong if the Government look for a simple process but do not look at the benefit for the people concerned. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, who talked about what happens in gilts and the like. I come from a period in the chartered accountant profession when you always went into gilts in what you thought were the last few years of your working life. Now, things have changed. We have to look at what you do and when you do it, and those things depend on the people involved.
I hope the Minister will see that these amendments are trying to say that things should not be too prescriptive. They are not against what the Government are trying to do, which is look after people. But are doing it on a one-size-fits-all basis, which does not work in the real world that we are in. I hope the Government go back and think about this a little more so that, when we come to Report, we can be a little more innovative.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I wish to speak briefly in support of this group of amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady Altmann. She has once again demonstrated her expertise and the value that she brings to our scrutiny of these important issues. Most importantly, she explained the spirit in which these amendments were tabled.
Throughout our proceedings on this Bill, a consistent theme across the Committee has been the need for proportionality in the steps we are taking on scale and value for money, and for definitions that are sufficiently comprehensive to reflect how the market actually operates in practice. I do not intend to repeat the points already made by the noble Baroness or ask the questions she has posed, but we will listen carefully to the Minister’s response on these issues.
Clause 40, as drafted, risks applying the scale test in an overly narrow and mechanical way by requiring the regulator to assess each default arrangement in isolation without regard to the wider context in which it is offered. That approach is not necessarily proportionate; nor does it reflect the economic reality of how master trust providers operate. This amendment would allow the regulator to take into account the combined assets of several non-scale default arrangements offered by the same provider. In doing so, it would not dilute the principle of scale; rather, it would ensure that scale is assessed in a comprehensive and realistic way, focusing on the resilience, governance and efficiency of the provider as a whole.
That matters because, without this flexibility, we risk forcing consolidation for its own sake and potentially requiring well-run, well-performing defaults to be wound up simply because they fall on the wrong side of an arbitrary threshold—even where the provider clearly operates at scale overall. This amendment therefore speaks directly to the principles that we have already raised in Committee: that regulations should be outcome-focused rather than box-ticking, and that they should avoid unintended consequences that could undermine member confidence rather than enhancing it. For those reasons, I believe this is a sensible and proportionate refinement of Clause 40, and I hope the Minister will give it serious consideration.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for the clarity of the exposition of her amendments, and I thank all noble Lords who have spoken. I will try to explain what the Government are trying to do here and then pick up the specific points that the noble Baroness raised.
To maintain the policy on scale and secure its benefits for pension scheme members, there will need to be centralised decision-making over a large pool of assets. The Bill sets out that this will be delivered by the main scale default arrangement, which is subject to a common investment strategy. I recognise that the noble Baroness has raised concerns about the common investment strategy being able to accommodate different factors, but I will tell the Committee why it is there. A key purpose of the policy is to minimise fragmentation in schemes and to have a single default arrangement at the centre of schemes’ proposition. Fragmentation is an issue, not because it is a piece of government dogmatism but because it is in the interests of members that those who run their schemes have a big wallet at the centre to give the scheme the buying power and expertise they need, because that enables them to deliver on the benefits of scale.
When we consulted, the responses told us that there were schemes with hundreds of default arrangements that have been created over a long period of time and that this is a problem. Members in these arrangements get lower returns and pay higher charges, which some consultation responses also told us. It is important that we deal with that fragmentation and that we improve member outcomes.
However, the Government also recognise that there are circumstances where a different default arrangement is needed to serve specific member needs only—for example, for religious or ethical regions. These will be possible through Chapter 4 but they will not count towards the main scale default arrangement. If the scale measure encompassed multiple default arrangements or combined assets, as these amendments would allow, it would not drive the desired changes or support member outcomes derived from the benefits of scale. Following consultation, there was clear consensus that scale should be set at the arrangement level as that is where key decisions about investments are made. Simply put, centralised scale is the best way to realise benefits across the market for savers.
The pensions industry has told us there are too many default arrangements in some schemes, and that fragmentation—
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I am going to answer the point and then come back, if that is okay. Just give me another two minutes.
That fragmentation does not benefit savers but can lead to increased charges and lack of access to newer, higher-performing investments. The Government are committed to addressing this fragmentation, which exists predominantly in DC workplace contract-based schemes.
To prevent further market fragmentation, Clause 42 allows for regulations to be made to restrict the creation of new non-scale default arrangements. To be clear, this is not a ban nor a cap on new default arrangements. There will be circumstances where they will be in saver interests and meet the needs of a cohort of members. As the noble Baroness says, this is not a one-size-fits-all approach.
On the point about choice, auto-enrolment has moved many members to save for the first time. The vast majority enter the default fund and do not engage in their schemes. Those who do can choose their own funds, and these measures do not interfere with that, but they are a minority, and these measures aim to support the millions who do not engage.
The noble Baroness is right that one size of default arrangement does not fit all, but the Bill requires a review to consider the existing fragmentation and why multiple default arrangements exist. That will inform us of which default arrangements should continue and the characteristics they possess that deliver better member outcomes or meet a specific need.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
The Minister has raised many points that I would like to ask further about, if that is okay. The fragmentation applies to legacy schemes: the contract-based schemes, as she says. These are the old personal pension-type arrangements—SIPPs, GPPs and so on—which were developed a long time ago. Typically, the more modern schemes have just one default, with one investment approach that is meant to suit all members. It is that approach that I hope and expect to be refined as we move forward so that there can be different types of default fund for different types of member. I do not anticipate that they will be people choosing their own. It will be on the basis of information that the provider seeks from its members, using that to send them down a slightly more appropriate investment route for their money. That does not stop the providers having large pools of money that they allocate members to, but it would not be in just the one central fund, as I say. Of course that is easier for the provider, but I think the providers owe members a different duty, which is to try to tailor a little more for those who do not choose, based on wider circumstances than just their chronological age, what is best for their investment and pension outcomes.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I have heard the noble Baroness’s explanation and understand the point she is making. The point about choice was not actually directed at her; it was directed at a colleague who mentioned choice and I was trying to explain that this is not about choice. I accept the point the noble Baroness is making that this is for those who do not engage.
If having a single default fund were simpler for the pension schemes, and that is what drove this, we would not have the number of defaults we have at the moment. We have huge numbers of defaults. I accept that many of those are the product of history, but the key is that we have to consolidate. To be clear, as I have said, we are not banning or capping the new default arrangements, but we want to ensure that any new arrangements meet the needs of members, so any new non-scale default arrangements will have to obtain regulatory approval before they can accept moneys into them. We have said that we are going to consult and we need evidence to look at whether anything else should be included, and that will come up when we consult.
I understand the point that the noble Baroness is making and I am happy to reflect on it, but we need consolidation and we need to consult to make sure that we have allowed for the right things. With that reassurance, I hope she feels able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
I thank the Minister for her constructive engagement on these issues. There is something slightly missing here because, if one consults before this approach enters the market, one will not know that that might be the appropriate approach. Indeed, the providers that one would consult will not necessarily recommend more than one approach, because that does not necessarily suit their business interests, and members will not know what it is because by definition they are not particularly engaged.
I am trying to address this issue and I very much appreciate that the Minister is engaging constructively and has listened carefully. Perhaps we can continue this at some point. This would be a very small change to the Bill; it would not stop the unsuitable dispersion of numerous different legacy funds from being consolidated, but it would potentially stop these new approaches entering the market. That is the concern. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Sherlock
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment corrects an error.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to align provisions in the Bill with the Mansion House Accord definition used for UK private markets to mean the underlying assets.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 111A would add the words
“as determined by the underlying assets in any structure or fund”
after “qualifying assets” in new Section 28C(1). Its purpose is simple: to ensure that when measuring investment in private markets via collective investment vehicles, we look at the underlying assets, not the wrapper in which they are held; we look at where the money goes, not the route it takes.
In debates on the Bill, I have been tracing the consequences of the Government’s approach to private markets. On the first day, I set out the competition concerns inherent in the Mansion House Accord as transposed in the Bill. Last Monday, I explained the role that listed investment companies play in transparency and valuation of private equity, as recognised by the Bank of England and the ICAEW. On Thursday, I explained the range of infrastructure that they fund and the regulatory changes that are designed to make investment easier but that have not been given time to work.
Today, I turn to the policy history of how long-term asset funds, LTAFs, were developed as an open-ended alternative to the closed-ended listed investment company and what was and was not agreed. The LTAF was developed through the productive finance working group, co-chaired by the Governor of the Bank of England, the chief executive of the FCA and the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. It was supported by senior representatives of the PRA, pension schemes and investment managers. It was an unusually high-level and accelerated process, driven in part by the then Chancellor’s public commitment to have the first LTAF launched within a year.
Precisely because of that elevated framework and compressed procedure, it is all the more important that we adhere to what the working group actually agreed. The record is remarkably consistent. Across almost every meeting of the working group, the minutes recognise that there were two established routes for accessing long-term illiquid assets: the new LTAF and the long-standing listed investment company. From the very first steering committee meeting on 26 January 2021, the minutes record that
“closed-ended funds facilitate investment in productive finance assets … Some members believed existing fund structures, such as investment trusts, were sufficient … several members suggested … adapting existing vehicles, such as investment trusts, rather than developing a new open-ended fund structure”.
At the first technical expert group meeting on 12 February 2021, the Investment Association stated explicitly:
“The proposal does not intend to replace existing structures”.
At the technical working group on 20 April 2021, it was confirmed that the LTAF was to
“complement, rather than replace, existing structures”.
Later in the process, on 4 May 2021, the steering committee agreed:
“The LTAF is not the only structure for investment in less liquid assets”.
The final road map, published in September 2021, reinforces this, stating:
“There are a range of ways to invest in less liquid assets, and all of them play important roles”.
In practice, for DC schemes and retail investors, those routes are the LTAF and listed investment company. Nothing in this policy process—not the minutes, road map, FCA contributions or the IEA’s own presentation—ever suggested that Parliament should legislate a single wrapper preference or exclude the listed wrapper route to private assets. On the contrary, the working group recognised two parallel structures capable of holding productive finance assets. It was explicit that the LTAF was to complement not replace the existing one.
When the public policy process is this clear, it is difficult to see why a private agreement should be allowed to override it. Yet the Bill does that, and the Minister says it is because of the Mansion House Accord. The effect of the Bill is therefore threefold. It is anti-competitive because it removes a functioning structure from the market and mandates a single route for accessing the same underlying assets. It is anti-policy, because it contradicts the working group’s own record—a record developed by the Bank of England, the PRA, the FCA and the Treasury, all of which recognise that listed investment companies already perform this role and were never intended to be displaced. It is anti-transparency, because it excludes the only structure where private assets are accessed, with all the benefits of public market transparency, daily market valuations, regular auditor disclosure and shareholder engagement, including AGMs and independent boards to hold managers to account.
The consequences do not stop at the DC default funds. Last night, one of the most senior asset management figures emailed me to say that this is not just a matter for pension schemes. Excluding listed investment companies will widen discounts to net asset value, with direct detriment to retail investors.
Next, let us examine the evidence of the origin of this exclusion. At Second Reading, the Minister said,
“we have aimed to stick closely to the scope of the Mansion House Accord, which itself is limited to investments made by unlisted funds”.—[Official Report, 18/12/25; col. 938.]
That is at best an approximation and, in substance, not true. There is no such definition in the accord. It points to underlying assets, explicitly defining that:
“UK private markets means where the underlying assets are based in the UK”.
It knows the difference between an asset and a wrapper.
The Minister’s letter after Second Reading says that the exclusion is to support the Mansion House agreement. That is even more approximate and perhaps an admission that it is not in the accord after all, but something done afterwards and now being justified in its name.
Treasury officials have said in meetings that the pension funds want it, but there is no public record of any such request. If the accord itself does not say it, the Government are doing it on the basis of something else. I must ask again: who asked for this exclusion? Where is the written evidence? It is not in the accord, any consultation or any published policy. It is not in the working group minutes, the road map or any regulatory framework on LTAFs or listed investment companies by the FCA. I have elaborated publicly available evidence showing that the policy process recognised two parallel structures. What written evidence can the Minister show the Committee that supports the exclusion of one of them? If the Government are relying on private representations, Parliament is entitled to know what they were and who made them.
I have written evidence from DC default pension providers and Mansion House Accord signatories, representing a substantial majority share of the auto-enrolment market. They say that the exclusion of listed invested companies was not something they agreed to or understood to be part of the accord. Some have been going back through their meeting records to check. Others have said that they had not realised that this was a provision in the Bill; that they are neutral on the wrapper; and that they thought that the exclusion meant only listed equities, not investments within a wider listed investment company wrapper, and would be against that exclusion. Others said that they use listed investment companies and would not want this.
I have my evidence and more is still coming. Where is the Government’s? This exclusion was devised within government without a proper evidential basis, or it is being done to please interests that have not been put on the public record, or Ministers have simply not appreciated the implications of what is being proposed. None of those possibilities is a sound basis for legislating away a long-standing structure with a clear history of positive economic outcomes.
It is explained as suitably targeted guard-rails. These are the kind of guard-rails over which you are thrown to the lions. We are being asked to legislate a single-wrapper mandate on the basis of assertions not supported by the public record. If the Government wish to exclude a structure that the Bank of England, the PRA, the FCA and the Treasury itself recognised as valid, they must show the evidence.
My amendment would restore the position that the working group adopted: what matters are the underlying assets, not the wrapper in which they are held. I beg to move.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I support every word that the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, has said. I hope the Minister understands that this series of amendments is designed, once again, to help the Government.
The policy of excluding the very asset classes that the Government want to promote and want pension funds to invest in, just because they are held in a particular form, seems irrational. The process used to introduce it, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, outlined, was materially flawed. There was a lack of consultation and the policy is directly contrary to some previous ministerial Statements and to the stated policy intention. I cannot see how any reasonable person could argue that excluding these companies is a legitimate means of achieving the stated policy objective. The decision goes against common sense and defies economic logic. It opens pension scheme members up to less choice, higher long-term costs and, potentially, new risks such as gating or frozen investments.
Amendments 122 and 123 are designed specifically to ensure that, if a closed-ended investment company holds the assets in which the Government want pension funds to invest as a result of the Mansion House Accord, they can do so. Amendment 123 includes these as qualifying assets under the Bill and Amendment 122 talks about ensuring that, if securities are
“listed under Chapter 11 of the UK Listing Rules or the Specialist Fund Segment that provide exposure to the qualifying assets”,
they too can be included.
These amendments would not change the intentions of the Bill or the Government’s policy; they would reinforce them. If schemes cannot invest in listed securities, we will exclude the closed-ended funds that hold such assets, for no obvious reason other than, perhaps, the fact that the pension funds or asset managers that are launching the long-term asset funds will obviously prefer to have their own captive vehicle under their direct control, rather than those quoted freely on the market.
I would argue that, by excluding investment trusts and REITs as qualifying assets, we will fetter trustees’ discretion as to what assets they can invest in and how they can do so. I do not believe that the Government want to do this. I think this is an unintended consequence of wanting not to allow schemes just to say, “Well, I invest in Sainsbury’s and it has a lot of property in the UK, so that’s fine”. But this is a very different argument. I hope that the time spent by this Committee on these funds will prove worth while and that this dangerous, damaging exclusion can be removed from the Bill.
If the Government want—as they say they do—pension schemes to invest in UK property, the amendments on this topic would allow them to choose to hold shares in Tritax Big Box, for example, which is a listed closed-ended fund. It is a collective investment REIT, not a trading company, and UK regulators, the stock market and tax regulation recognise its functions as a fund. It is just like a long-term asset fund, but it is closed-ended instead of open-ended. Under the Bill, pension funds would not be able to invest in it, even though it holds precisely the type of private assets targeted by this section of the Bill.
The amendments would maximise schemes’ choice of investable assets within the target sectors. This would widen competition, which should bring downward pressure on asset management costs; it would reduce the risks of inflating asset prices, by channelling demand into fewer investment pathways; and it would enhance potential risk-adjusted returns. There is simply no reason why master trusts and other pension schemes should object to being given additional freedom to make investments to meet the requirements of these reserve powers. Why are we discriminating against a particularly successful British financial sector offering a proven route to holding the assets in which the Government want pension funds to invest? I have not seen any argument to say that, if we include these amendments, pension funds would have to invest in these companies, but they could use them if it suited their needs.
I look forward to the Minister’s answer. I know and accept that she is in a difficult position, but I have not heard a coherent answer as to why we are going down the route that we are. Tritax Big Box is just one example. It owns and develops assets worth £8 billion and controls the UK’s largest logistics-focused land platform, including data centres, which the Government designated as critical national infrastructure in 2024. Tritax Big Box announced that its data centre development strategy will be partnering with EDF Energy, which manages the UK’s nuclear power, to develop such infrastructure. It is remarkable that such a homegrown success story should be excluded from the opportunities available to pension schemes.
This sector has reinvented itself over the past few decades, from being a holder of diversified quoted equities to managing real illiquid assets. It is generally recognised that it is an ideal structure for holding illiquid assets—it has renewable assets, wind farms, solar farms and National Health Service GP surgeries. All these elements of the economy need significant investment and pension funds could be using their assets to support them. Surely that should be part of the Government’s intention for the Bill. I hope that this possible error in the Bill can be recognised and corrected so that we can move forward without further discussion on this topic.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, called on the support of reasonable people. I think of myself as a reasonable person, and I support her. I find the Government’s position on this totally inexplicable. I say in all honesty to my noble friend the Minister that the reasons given so far for these provisions do not in any way explain their position. It is inexplicable.
In my view, it is possible to make an argument that closed-end funds of this sort are more suitable than some other sorts of investments for pension investment because of the possibility of there being additional liquidity. That makes it even more inexplicable. A further problem is that pension funds could invest in an investment company that is not a closed-end fund but holds these investments. However, if it decided to float on the stock exchange, it could not do so because it would lose all the pension fund investments. So there is not logic at all to the Government’s position. There may be some logic, but we have yet to hear it.
Lord Remnant (Con)
My Lords, I very much support the amendments in this group, tabled variously in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Altmann and Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted. They all seek to ensure that closed-ended funds, in the form of UK-listed investment companies, are not disqualified from being eligible to invest in the private market assets targeted by the Bill, alongside open-ended funds. I say this not only as a private investor in both types of funds but as one who has sat on and chaired boards responsible for managing both types of investment.
They each have their relative advantages and disadvantages, which I will not enumerate here, but it is in fact investment companies that, over the long term, tend to have lower fees and better performance records, to the advantage of their investors. It seems perverse to exclude them from the Bill, seemingly solely on the grounds that they have listed status, when the nature of their underlying investments is identical to those held by open-ended vehicles. Indeed, investment trusts are particularly suited to the type of investments envisaged by this Bill and the Mansion House Accord—namely, assets that are essentially illiquid. Investment companies hold well over £100 billion-worth in private assets, and unlisted infrastructure and renewables have been among the fastest growing segments in recent years.
As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, indicated, it is this ability more effectively to offer liquidity in illiquid assets that particularly distinguishes closed-ended vehicles from their open-ended cousins. It is in times of stress, whether within the investment vehicle itself or more broadly due to general economic or financial conditions, that some of the more unfortunate investment failings occur. They tend to relate to liquidity or lack thereof, they have happened in the recent past and they have occurred in open-ended structures.
Noble Lords will need little reminding of the demise of the Woodford Equity Income Fund. Suffice to say that, in two years, it lost two-thirds of its value; it became increasingly and disproportionately reliant on unlisted investments, which could not be sold to meet investor redemptions; and it was suspended in June 2019, leaving investors unable to access their money.
Noble Lords may be less familiar with the travails afflicting open-ended property funds. Property is an asset class specifically targeted by the Mansion House Accord. The writing was on the wall for them ever since they suspended in the depths of the Covid crisis. That triggered funds in the sector to begin to close down, given the evident problems with liquidity that resulted in a fundamental mismatch in the demands of investors against the liquidity of the underlying asset. These investors are mainly not faceless institutions but retail investors—the same individuals who save for their pensions. The only way in which the managers of the fund can mitigate these liquidity issues is by holding substantial cash holdings, which cuts across its investment objectives and dilutes returns. Once an announcement to close is announced, properties are likely to be sold at fire sale prices into difficult markets, and investors may have no access to their money for well over 12 months.
Institutions running open-ended funds attempted to address these liquidity problems by establishing the long-term asset funds referred to earlier, but their structure is still such that they cannot solve the problem but only rather crudely mitigate it through having more restricted dealing windows than the daily dealing offered by more traditional open-ended funds. They have been authorised by the FCA only since 2023 and are unproven. They are described by one prominent investment platform as high-risk investments recommended for experienced investors who have already accessed the more traditional investment options, yet they qualify under this Bill to the exclusion of investment companies which have proved their worth for over 150 years. I do not understand the rationale for this.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, found the Government’s position inexplicable such that these amendments have become necessary. I can understand that. The point is that the Government do not—they do not understand finance. Perhaps they should have had a few more prawn cocktails before the election; they might have got some learning inside them. This group demonstrates that there is ignorance in this Bill about investment, asset classes and asset allocations.
New Section 28C(5) treats private equity as if it is just one class, but it is not. That is why I welcome Amendment 121, specifically proposed new paragraphs (f) and (g), which would lay out the appropriateness of scale-up capital and quoted and unlisted companies.
There is no doubt that you can make a lot of money in private equity. High risk leads to high rewards; the big hitters can and do make money. The early backers of Revolut turned a million into a billion, as the FT reported last week. On that basis, everybody should be having a go. What could go wrong? We all know that, in many cases, companies get loaded with debt and dividends are extracted; we have ended up with serial bankruptcies in the casual dining sector, for example, and Claire’s has gone bust twice in the last four months. I am not exactly sure the Government should be mandating this sort of thing by statute.
Putting that to one side, I have some experience through my membership of the Norfolk Pension Fund in private equity investment. I have been a board member since 2007. There are some big firms in this space; HarbourVest might be a name familiar to noble Lords but others are available, as it says in the adverts.
To participate in this space, you typically enter a 10-year commitment for quite a lot of money as a fund. You provide the fund manager cash certainty. He can go ahead and acquire smaller firms within the fund. You do not pony the money up front necessarily; it just needs to be available when the fund manager calls you to chip in. By and large, the fund manager finds the firms and invests that money, typically over the first four years of the indicative 10-year period. They then grow and nurture those firms until they can be sold for a profit—unless they go bust in the meantime, which many do.
At some point, 10 to a dozen years later, after all the surviving companies have passed on and the fund closes, all the money is returned to the pension fund. It is a well-trodden path and a proper asset class. This is why proposed new paragraph (g) in Amendment 121 is so important. These opportunities should be available to pension funds, but the Bill as currently constructed excludes them. It is madness. This is not what we need as a nation.
We need to go further. We need to be able to step in and help those founder-owned companies, together with local business angels, their families and friends, to get to the stage where HarbourVest can have a nibble. We need to make the small nibbles into larger fish. It is the scale-up issue. The exam question here is to identify good founder-led businesses locally and grow them. I declare an interest; I have been a director of New Anglia Capital Ltd, which was public sector, 100% owned by councils in Norfolk and Suffolk for the purposes of investing in early stage companies, taking them from a glint in the eye to the stage at which private equity might get involved. My goodness, it is hard. We have invested in bright prospects in life sciences, engineering, medical technology and clean energy. It is high risk, and I am told it carries the opportunities to make big returns—not that we have found them yet. But at least it carries that opportunity. As a nation we need to turn those cygnets into swans and those small acorns into mighty oak trees. The Bill should aim to do that, but it does not.
The conflict is with the press release that accompanied the Mansion House announcement. The Government’s own presser boasted:
“More than 50 scale-up businesses have signed a joint letter to the Chancellor welcoming the reforms as a ‘significant milestone in ensuring British institutions back British businesses at the scale required to generate growth, employment and wealth’”.
I feel sorry for the people who signed up that letter, because they were suckered. The Bill does little to scale up businesses and it has taken the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, to put proposed new paragraph (f) into the amendment so that the Government’s own press release can form part of the law.
Forcing everything to be large, as we have heard, makes it harder to get the boost for start-ups. Amendment 121 would remedy this. We need it not just for those start-up businesses: the founders, their families and friends and all those angels—important though they are. We need it for our provincial cities and market towns. These are the places with the gems that need to grow in pursuance of
“UK growth assets rather than wider overseas assets”,
as it says in the Member’s explanatory statement.
Without this amendment, Mansion House is a mirage. By this Bill the Government have done a confidence trick on those who believed there would be a flow of capital to these businesses. It is not too late to change course. I echo strongly the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles and Lady Altmann, and note that we are in Committee. I think this Committee is doing valuable work, because it has set up the conversations we all need to have between now and Report. The Government can reflect on what they are trying to achieve and recognise that it will not be achieved by the Bill as currently constructed. We may then need to have a compromise that will actually do the thing we are here to do, which is to invest in Britain and have better, more secure futures for people who want to invest in pensions, not Lego sets or Star Wars characters.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted, for her forensic analysis of both the Mansion House Accord and the ways in which there is a significant mismatch between what is in that accord and what is in this Bill. I confess that I was not aware of the extent of that, so that analysis is really important; I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
I would like to comment on whether investments in listed securities should be excluded; here, I will part company with many of my colleagues on this side of the Committee. I understand why they are excluded. It is because buying and selling shares in listed companies is just buying and selling a financial asset. The buying and selling of shares in UK-listed assets does nothing to put money into the UK economy.
However, the way in which this measure is drafted probably goes too far, because it is possible that companies could raise new capital—for the purpose of investing in some of the things where the Government wish to encourage new investors—and that those vehicles could be listed. The way in which the Government have approached this is possibly too extensive, but I certainly do not think that the simple buying and selling of financial assets aligns with getting productive investment into the economy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, knows, I do not think that is a valid objective for this Bill—certainly not one that should override the need to get good returns for savers.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
I apologise, but I think that the noble Baroness’s characterisation of the impact of buying and selling, as she said, on listed companies—whether that puts money into the economy, to use her words—does not necessarily apply in the way she believes, particularly with closed-ended investment companies.
One of the problems with which they have had to deal, because of the regulatory constraints that we have been trying to help the Government address over the past two or three years, is that if people are selling these closed-ended investment companies but no one is buying them, they sink to a discount to their net asset value. At that point, they cannot invest in new opportunities; they cannot IPO or raise new capital. That has had a dramatic impact on the economy because these closed-ended companies, which were investing significantly in infrastructure across the country, have been unable to raise new money to invest in new opportunities.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
If this is an intervention, it is quite a long one. I ask that interventions be kept brief; they should just be questions, really.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
The noble Baroness knows that she and I disagree on this subject. I hold to my view that the buying and selling of shares is simply the exchanging of financial assets.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)
May I intervene so that I do not have to take up time later? I cannot see the difference between the follow-on funding that you get with a listed investment company, if you have an IPO, and the subsequent follow-on funding rounds. With an LTAF, you have initial fundraising and subscriptions. With a listed investment company, you buy and sell on the market. With the open-ended LTAFs, you have redemptions, purchases and flow matching. If you are watching the money, those are equivalent processes.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
If the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, had listened, she would know that I said I thought what the Government were doing had gone too far, because there were instances where there was a necessary flow between the raising of funds and that flowing into new investment.
A number of noble Lords on this side of the Room have been talking as though this Bill stops pension schemes investing in listed assets or investment companies. It certainly does not; it merely says that they do not qualify if asset mandation is introduced. We ought to be concentrating on whether this is a valid policy objective—the Minister knows that I do not subscribe to that—to get money out of pension funds and into the real economy. We then ought to concentrate on which flows achieve that; certainly not all flows of buying investment trusts or other listed vehicles will achieve that.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I rise to speak in strong support of a number of carefully drafted amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, and once again ably supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. I will also speak to my Amendment 127.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
That was fun. I will have a go at explaining the Government’s narrative on this, which is an alternative to the narrative that has been established so far. I will then try to go through and answer as many of the questions as I can.
Let me start by stating the obvious. The amendments relate largely to the part of Clause 40 that determines which types of investment are deemed as qualifying assets for the purpose of meeting any asset allocation requirements were we to use the power. I stated in my opening reply to the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, that he said “when” mandation comes in, but it is very much “if”; we do not anticipate using this power but, if it were used, we would need to be clear about what happens next.
The most relevant provisions are found in new Section 28C(5). This broadly limits qualifying assets to private assets. The subsection provides by way of example that qualifying assets may include private equity, private debt, venture capital or interests in land—that is, property investments. It also clarifies that qualifying assets may include investments and shares quoted on SME growth markets, such as AIM and Aquis.
In contrast, according to this subsection, qualifying assets may not generally include listed securities, defined as securities listed on a recognised investment exchange. That approach reflects the aim of the power to work as a limited backstop to the commitments that the DC pensions industry has made, which relate to private assets only.
That brings me to the subjects of the amendments from the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles and Lady Altmann. I start by reminding the Committee of the rationale for this approach, because it stems from the Mansion House Accord. The accord was developed to address a clear structural issue in our pensions market. DC schemes, particularly in their default funds, are heavily concentrated in listed, liquid assets and have very low allocations to private markets. That is in contrast to a number of other leading pension systems internationally, which allocate materially more to unlisted private equity, infrastructure, venture capital and similar assets.
The reason the Government are so supportive of the accord is that it will help to correct that imbalance and bring the UK into line with international practice. A modest but meaningful allocation to private markets can, within a diversified portfolio, improve long-term outcomes for savers and support productive investment in the real economy, including here in the UK.
The reserve power in Clause 40 is designed as a narrow backstop to those voluntary commitments. For that reason, any definition of “qualifying assets” must be clear, tightly focused on the assets we actually want to target and operationally workable for schemes, regulators and government. That is the context on the question of listed investment trusts and other listed investment companies.
I recognise the important role that investment trusts play in UK capital markets and in financing the real economy. Pension schemes—as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, pointed out—are, and will remain, free to invest in wherever trustees consider that to be in members’ best interests.
However, the clear intention of this policy has been to focus on unlisted private assets. This is reflected in industry documentation underpinning the accord, which defines private markets as unlisted asset classes, including equities, property, infrastructure and debt, and refers to investments held directly or through unlisted funds. That definition was reached following a number of iterative discussions led by industry, as part of which the Government supported the definition being drawn in this way.
Bringing listed investment funds within the qualifying asset definition would be out of step with the deliberate approach of the accord and its focus on addressing the specific imbalance regarding allocation to private assets. It would also raise implementation challenges, requiring distinctions to be made between the different types of listed companies that make or hold private investments or assets. It would introduce uncertainty about what we expect from DC providers. We might justly be accused of moving the goalposts, having already welcomed the accord, with its current scope, in no uncertain terms.
But the line has to be drawn somewhere. This is not a judgment on the intrinsic qualities or importance of listed investment vehicles, nor does it limit schemes’ ability to invest in them. It is simply about structuring a narrow, targeted power so that it does what it is intended to do: underpin a voluntary agreement aimed at increasing exposure to unlisted private markets in as simple a way as possible and without cutting across schemes’ broader investment freedoms.
The legislation draws a general distinction between listed securities and private assets; it does not single out investment trusts. Any listed security, whether a gilt, main market equity or listed investment company, is treated in the same way for the purposes of this narrow definition.
Crucially, this concerns only a small proportion of portfolios. Under the accord, the remaining 90% of default fund assets can continue to be invested in any listed instrument, including investment trusts, where trustees and scheme managers judge that that would benefit their members.
I am just coming to the answers, but please ask some more questions.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. In a situation where trustees do not wish to put more than the prescribed amount in the qualifying assets, and they want to hold those through a listed closed-ended company because they are concerned about the structure of an open-ended fund and do not have the ability to invest directly, why would the Government want to fetter their choice in that way? I thank the Association of Investment Companies, which has helped me to understand some of the things that these companies do.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, trustees will have to make their own decisions on that. I understand that, were mandation to come in, there would be constraints on this, but let me see whether I will pick up some answers to help with that as we go.
The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and, I think, the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, suggested that the Bill explicitly discriminates against listed investment funds. The noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, made this point previously. That concern is perhaps reflected in Amendment 124, which would remove the language that in general serves to exclude listed securities. Nothing in this language refers directly to investment funds or should be construed as a signal of discrimination, but I have listened carefully to the arguments made and I recognise that some people clearly feel otherwise. I am happy to take that away and consider further the arguments about signalling.
A number of noble Lords, starting with the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, emphasised the issue of underlying investments, pointing out that the Mansion House Accord includes specific language on this. It defines UK private markets as meaning
“where the underlying assets are based in the UK”.
Accordingly, new Section 28C(6) provides the mechanism to reflect this aspect of the accord. Amendment 127 relates to this point, and I will say more when I return to it. I have already recognised that DC funds may invest directly or through funds. That means that, if we ever came to exercise these powers, we would need to implement the regulations under new Section 28C in a way that suitably reflects this. However, we do not consider it necessary to amend the clause to achieve this, since there is sufficient flexibility in new Section 28C to prescribe descriptions of qualifying assets in a way that reflects this, subject to the constraints in new Section 28C(5).
On the matter of competition, the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, made a more constrained speech than she did last week, and I commend her for that. The question of competition law was raised. For the record, there has been no breach of competition law by the Government, nor are we encouraging a breach of competition law. We strongly welcome the Mansion House Accord; I make that clear for the record.
I turn back to Amendment 127 in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, because it picks up some of these points. This amendment would remove the provision that allows the Government, if exercising these powers, to specify that a proportion of assets subject to an asset allocation requirement should be invested in the UK. This aspect of the clause was developed with the Mansion House Accord firmly in mind. Under the accord, half of the 10% of default fund assets committed to private markets is intended to be invested in the UK. This provision simply ensures that the powers can operate as a backstop to that commitment. What constitutes a UK investment will vary by asset and will be set out in due course, with new Section 28C(6)(b) making it clear that this can be done through regulations.
Amendment 121, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, also relates to the definition of qualifying assets. Its effect would be to add to the list of examples of private asset classes that may be prescribed as qualifying assets in regulations made under new Section 28C(4). As the noble Baroness is aware, the Government have designed these provisions to mirror closely the asset classes covered by the Mansion House Accord. The clause does not perfectly correspond, word for word, with the drafting of the accord, but the effect is the same. To be clear, I can confirm that UK infrastructure assets, UK scale up capital and UK SME growth market shares, which I assume is what the noble Baroness meant when she referred to quoted companies, are all capable of being designated as qualifying assets, provided that they are not listed on a recognised investment exchange. They are very good examples of the sorts of assets in which these reforms should encourage investment; none the less, it is not necessary to list them individually in the Bill.
I have listened carefully to the many considered points and arguments that have been made in relation to qualifying assets. I recognise that there is not unanimity in the Committee, although it is always interesting when my noble friend Lord Davies agrees with the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and, at least in part, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, agrees with me; all things are possible, we discover, in Committee in the House of Lords. Given that, and given the arguments that have been made both here and previously, I hope that noble Lords will feel able to withdraw or not press their amendments.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate; I also thank the Minister for, from my perspective, attempting to defend the indefensible.
The Minister mentioned the industry documentation underlying the accord. I would be grateful if that could be forwarded to me, made a matter of public record and, perhaps, placed in the Library. As I said in my opening speech, if noble Lords want to know, I have had some 70% of the people representing the default funds—if you take their turnover—say that they did not think that they have agreed to the exclusion of listed investment companies. So something is going wrong here.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I should have quoted what I was referring to; I meant to do so but forgot, so I apologise. I was referring to the question and answer materials that accompany the accord on the ABI’s pensions website, which I am sure the noble Baroness has read. They say:
“The definitions of both global and UK private markets assets include directly held, or via investment through unlisted funds in property, infrastructure, private credit, private equity and venture capital”.
The Government understand that this reflects the intention of the accord to exclude investment in listed investment funds. I would be happy to send these materials round to noble Lords.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)
I am not sure that “directly held” applies to an LTAF either. The fact is that you have wrappers and underlying assets. It is discriminatory, and that should be tested. I still do not see how, when you have the public policy laid out by the high-level working group set up to create LTAFs, you can then say, “A private negotiation overrides that”. I stand by that.
I know that the Pensions Minister received a letter from a past lord mayor, Alastair King, who is one of the architects of the Mansion House initiatives, on 22 October last year. He relayed that he had encountered both support for the investment trust market and concerns that the Bill did not acknowledge the potential of the investment company structure. That evidence—one of the architects asking, “What’s going on here?”—also seems to have been ignored.
I come to the same basic point: for me, the Government have not provided a clear, public or specific rationale for this exclusion. I would say that neither has the ABI, but I did not know that it runs the country. All of the evidence points the opposite way to what the Government have done. Officials have confirmed in meetings that no assessment of using listed investment companies has been carried out, despite the clear steer of the policy in the working group to do so. It seems that this Q&A from the ABI overrides a Bank of England/FCA/government working group. That cannot be so. The only explanation ever offered is that there are “suitably targeted guardrails”—a phrase that has never been defined, evidenced or justified. What do you have to guard from in a listed investment company? Competition? Transparency? That is a very strange thing to say; it is an instrument of division and discrimination, protecting secrets.
Let us remind ourselves of what we are dealing with: two collective investment vehicles, each of which is a wrapper holding protected assets of net asset value for the pension scheme. That is where they differ from an ordinary equity. An ordinary equity does not have any protection for the assets; if the company goes bust, it is bust. If the listed investment company goes back to the net asset value, the assets are still there for the pension fund. That is the difference, which is why a collective investment vehicle such as a listed investment company belongs with the LTAF; it does not belong with an equity.
I still do not see why they stick so closely to some Q&A but, whether by design or by accident, they have produced a proposal that I still say is without foundation, without evidence and, frankly, without integrity. It is irrational and procedurally unfair, and it fails to take account of relevant and public considerations, relying instead on things that have not been consulted on and that have been presented through private industry discussions. I have never seen anything like this before. There are simple ways to make it fair in various proposed amendments in the rest of this group, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann—
Lord Katz (Lab)
The noble Baroness has spoken for five and a half minutes now. Whether she is pressing or withdrawing her amendment, this should be brief.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)
I have only two more lines. I will just remind noble Lords that there are simple ways to make this fair and reasonable, as spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. These give a free choice of instrument, with no compulsion—and yet there is still resistance, with no rational explanation. This is, of course, not the end, unless the Government see their error, but for now I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Baroness Altmann
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and others to Clause 40 in the name of Baroness Coffey seek to cap the prescribed/mandated asset allocation to 10% and limits the time for this power till the end of 2032.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
On behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, who is unable to be here today, I am happy to move her Amendment 112 and speak to the others in this group. My remarks on Amendment 112 also apply to the noble Baroness’s Amendment 117 and Amendment 114 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh.
The aim of this amendment is merely to ensure that, in new Section 28C, which says that master trusts or GPPs will require regulatory approval of their asset allocation—and that that will require that at least the prescribed percentage by value of the assets held in the default funds of the scheme are qualifying assets—the maximum value should be no greater than the Government’s expressed aim of 10%. As far as Amendment 114 is concerned, the UK element of that should not be more than 5%. The aim is to avoid policy creep. If there is mandation and it prescribes a percentage in particular assets, this should not then be used as the basis for perhaps increasing the element of mandation, given that there is no figure in this instance in the Bill.
My Amendment 113 is on a slightly different aspect. In the case of regulatory approval being required for asset allocation and a prescribed amount of qualifying assets being required, I would like to add the possibility—this is a “may” not a “must”—of the minimum amount in prescribed assets being part of the flow rather than the stock. My concern—it has been mentioned on other groups, and I am sure we will come back to it—is that, by prescribing a percentage of assets in a very illiquid range of assets as the proportion of the already-existing stock of funds in a default fund, there is a danger that all the new contribution flows will need to be directed to that particular type of asset to end up with an overall percentage of the whole fund in the required prescribed assets. My suggestion is that the Government might want to have the option of just mandating—if they do so, which they may or may not—a proportion of the new contributions, which will perhaps be less disruptive to the market in the underlying assets.
I support all of the amendments in this group. I am also supportive of the idea that the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, and the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, are recommending and which the noble Lords, Lord Vaux and Lord Palmer, are suggesting, of moving away from the idea of mandating just private equity—or, indeed, just private equity and private debt—and having a wider range of options for meeting the Government’s intention, which I support, of bolstering pension fund support for new companies and growth assets in the UK that can help support and boost both the long-term growth of this country and the returns of the UK’s pension funds over the long term. I beg to move.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, this is the first time I have been able to speak on the Bill. I am delighted to follow my noble friend, who I still consider the pension tsar and who is so knowledgeable in this field. I apologise for being absent when Amendments 132 and 133 were reached; unfortunately, with all the business in the House, there are inevitable clashes, and we cannot be in two places at one time.
I thank the ABI and others who have briefed me in advance of the Bill proceedings. I have to say, I agree with their conclusions. I believe that they are right when they say that the Government are right that it is not necessary to mandate asset allocation by pension funds.
This amendment is intended as a probing amendment for debating purposes; I am sure that the debate will represent the broad consideration of views in Committee this afternoon. The aim, really, is to provide reassurance to pension providers by capping the mandatory asset allocation at a total of, say, 10%, which is a figure that my noble friend Lady Coffey and I independently happened upon; I also added 5% for geographical locations, such as the UK, as a proportion either of total assets or of a subset of assets.
It is true to say that the industry is generally opposed to mandating asset allocation at all. This amendment would provide some reassurance, which is what I shall seek from the Minister when she comes to respond to this debate, to pension providers of that by capping the mandatory asset allocation to a total of these two figures—10% and 5%—as a proportion either of total assets or of a subset of assets.
There has been much talk of the Mansion House Accord this afternoon. I would like to chip in also and say that this power would align with the accord, which had widespread support across the industry—as well as from government, as it was supported by the Chancellor. I understand that the accord was led jointly by the ABI, Pensions UK and the City of London Corporation. It followed extensive discussion between the industry and the Pensions Minister and had a 17 signatories, who committed
“to the ambition of allocating at least 10% to private markets across all main DC default funds by 2030; and … within that, at least 5%”—
and I have now lost my briefing, so I am completely at sea.
I hope that I have given a little taste of where we are. I am not saying that these are the definitive figures; I am just throwing into the wash that this afternoon would be a good opportunity to give some reassurance to the pension providers in the way I and my noble friend Lady Coffey have sought to do.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendments 112, 114 and 117 in the names of my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lady McIntosh of Pickering, which aim to set a cap on asset allocation.
In response to our debate on the previous group, the Minister consistently described the mandation power as seeking to achieve a “modest but meaningful” investment in private assets; and said, importantly, that it was designed as a “narrow backstop” to delivering the Mansion House Accord. If that is the case, why is the proportion of assets that can be mandated under this power not capped in line with that accord? Indeed, as I read it, it could be up to 100% of assets. Why is that? The Minister may point to consultation and other measures that will constrain the use of the power but, for something so controversial and which the Government say they do not want to use, I cannot understand why they are not constraining it in primary legislation.
I will touch on timescales in our debate on the next group, but the Minister says that this Government do not want to use this power. However, as things currently stand, it would be open to the next Government to use the power, and the one after that—as well as a couple of Governments in between if we do not go to full Parliaments, as we have not always done in recent years. In those circumstances, it would also be sensible to limit the power to delivering what the Government say they want it to do.
Why do the Government not want a maximum limit in primary legislation? What is their objection to it? The cynic in me wonders whether the power is so widely drawn that, when we remove mandation on Report—I might be getting ahead of myself but that is on the cards—the Government could bring forward a series of concessions at ping-pong to limit the use of the power to what they say they want it to do. I am sure that that is not the case, but it might be better than the position in which the Government think that this power, as it appears in the legislation, has been drawn appropriately. I am really interested in the Minister’s response on this.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, I will come in at this moment because I wish to speak in favour of the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, which I have co-signed, because he is unable to be with us today. These words are both mine and the noble Lord’s, more or less.
I am not in favour of the asset allocation mandation clauses generally. Amendment 119, however, seeks to probe the reasons why the Government have chosen a particular asset class for mandation: private equity. I have no problem with pension schemes choosing to invest in private equity; historically, it has generated good returns, in large part because of the use of debt to leverage those returns. Private equity may be a good investment for pensions schemes, and this amendment would not prevent that.
However, my understanding is that the principal motive of the Government for mandating asset allocation is to drive greater economic growth. I agree that venture capital and private debt—two other asset types listed in the Bill—may indeed create growth, but I do not understand why the Government believe that private equity is a growth driver. I have to assume that this is because the Government have fallen for the story that the private equity industry often tells about how much investment it makes, how many people it employs, what great returns it generates, and so on. What private equity actually does is buy existing companies or assets, allowing the previous owners to cash out.
Very rarely, I believe, does a private equity company provide new equity into a company. Rather, it typically does the opposite: it funds the acquisition with a very high proportion of debt. The leveraged buy-out is the basic model of most private equity activity. That debt is not borrowed by the private equity itself; rather, it is pushed down into the underlying company, and the interest and any debt repayments are made from that company’s profits.
One effect of this is to reduce the taxable profits—in other words, the debt interest is tax deductible—and therefore the tax is payable by the company. The debt itself is often located in offshore low-tax locations, so tax is not paid on the interest by the private equity or the lender, which may well be related. This is a direct loss to the Exchequer. I hope the Minister can reply to that.
The high leverage also has the effect of reducing investment by the company in its products or services. Instead of investing in its future growth, the company now has to use much of its cash flow to pay the interest. What often happens is that the private equity undertakes a cost-rationalising exercise so that the profits are improved in the short term with a view to selling the business again as soon as possible. The leveraged effect of the debt means that private equity can make a substantial gain even if the underlying business grows only in line with inflation.
The cost rationalisation often invokes workforce reductions. Studies indicate that private equity-owned companies typically have lower levels of employment even five years after the original buy-out. This certainly tallies with my experience, although I have not had the benefit of the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, who worked for private equity-owned companies during his career.
In the meantime, if there are any profits left, rather than being invested in growth they are usually paid out as dividends. In fact, it is not uncommon, if a company has managed to reduce its debt ratio, for a PE to recapitalise the company to put in more debt in order to allow the payment of a dividend. Of course there are exceptions, but, as many examples show, such as Thames Water—indeed, much of the water industry—Debenhams, Southern Cross and Silentnight, private equity cannot legitimately claim to be a force for growth. Are there good returns for its investors, and particularly its partners? Yes—but is it a force for growth? It is not really. It is said that £29.4 billion was invested in UK firms by private equity in 2024. Yes, but that investment was almost entirely in buying out existing businesses, which is very different from providing capital for growth.
So the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, and I are baffled as to why the Government think that mandating pension funds to invest in private equity will be good for the country. It may be good for someone but not necessarily for the country. I repeat that I have no problem with a pension fund investing in private equity if the trustees believe it is right for the fund and its members, but I see no benefit, and probably a downside, for the country as a whole. If we must mandate allocation, let us at least target it to asset types that generate growth, such as venture capital or infrastructure. If the Government’s primary motive for mandation is to drive UK growth, we should exclude private equity from the list. I hope the Minister and her colleagues will give thought to this, because we are on the same wavelength and we want the same answer, but not in the way that the Bill proposes at the moment.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
I wanted to speak after the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, because, while I agree with what he said, I slightly disagreed when he talked about the favourable returns achieved by private equity. There is a massive problem with survivorship bias in those figures because the ones you never hear of again do not enter the figures.
I have a question for my noble friend the Minister. It seems an odd bit of drafting to say: “may for example”. Is “for example” doing anything in that sentence? Clearly it is not intended to be all encompassing, so others must be possible; it suggests that the person doing the drafting was not really sure that they liked what they were doing. It is pussyfooting about a bit. Secondly, what do these terms actually mean? I have an idea about “private equity”, but what about “private debt”, “venture capital” and “interests in land”? Goodness knows what the last one means. Are these terms defined anywhere? Can we get a clear definition of these things before we confirm this part of the Bill?
Lord Remnant (Con)
My Lords, I will comment briefly on the amendments in this group, tabled by several noble Lords, relating to the suitability of private markets and a potential cap on the allocation of funds to those markets. Equity and debt markets often now tend to be positively correlated; in other words, they move in the same direction. That was not normally the case in the past, when negative correlation brought better balance to a portfolio and to its risk and reward characteristics. So-called alternative investments—of which private markets form a part—that fall outside the traditional investments of stocks, bonds and cash can offer a sensible diversification.
The Mansion House Accord refers to the higher potential net returns that can arise from investment in private markets, but that comes with higher risks, less liquidity and, typically, less regulation. Given the disadvantages of the open-ended nature of the vehicle that would deliver such investments, to which I referred on an earlier group—and given that private markets, however defined, should be part only of a portfolio’s allocation to the alternatives class—I would certainly be in favour, as a matter of principle and practice, of a cap not exceeding the 10% mooted by my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lady McIntosh of Pickering. I cannot envisage any well-run, prudently managed and appropriately diversified pension fund wishing to exceed such a percentage in normal circumstances.
Viscount Trenchard (Con)
My Lords, briefly, it is not appropriate for legislation to tell the trustees of pension funds, in any case, that they can make investments in some types of structure but not in others. It should be entirely up to the trustees, in exercising their fiduciary duties, to determine what investments they make and the structures through which they make them to deliver a maximum level of risk that they are happy to accept.
The Government will succeed in realising their target of increasing pension fund investment in UK infrastructure by adopting fiscal and economic policies that encourage growth. We will then see a natural return to the much higher levels of UK equity investment by pension funds that used to obtain many years ago. If the Government require, nevertheless, some potential or possible mandation, it is right that there should be a cap. But, as my noble friend Lord Remnant said, it is inconceivable that any pension fund manager would be likely to invest more than 10%—I would say considerably less than that—in asset classes traditionally defined as alternative assets.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, briefly, this group again underlines a central point that we have been making: mandation should not be in the Bill. Time and again, we have heard concerns about the risks of picking winners and the unintended consequences that inevitably follow. I raised these issues on the previous group, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles and Lady Altmann, have today and previously put those concerns firmly on record.
However, I am grateful to noble Lords for their thoughtful efforts to limit or mitigate the impact of the mandation power. I thank my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, supported by my noble friends Lady McIntosh of Pickering and Lady Penn in particular, for their remarks on these issues. However, our view remains unchanged and, for reasons already rehearsed at length, asset allocation mandates have no place in this legislation. There is no compelling evidence that they are either necessary or effective in increasing productive investment in the UK.
If we are serious about addressing the barriers to UK investment, we must be honest about where those barriers lie. They include governance and regulatory burdens; risk-weighting and capital requirements; liquidity constraints and scheme-specific funding; and maturity considerations. None of these challenges is addressed, let alone solved, by mandation. If, notwithstanding these concerns, the reserve power is to be retained, significantly stronger safeguards are essential: a clear cap on the proportion of assets that may be mandated; more robust reporting and evidential requirements before regulations are made; explicit conditions for access to any transition pathway relief; a strengthened savers’ interest test; and rigorous post-implementation review. The question of when and on what basis the power should be sunsetted is one that we will return to on the next group, but the fundamental point must be clear: mandation is the wrong tool and the Bill risks embedding unjustified and anti-competitive discrimination between equivalent investment vehicles, driven not by evidence or public interest but by a narrow and self-interested approach. I will address those issues in more detail in a later group but, for now, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the specific amendments raised.
However—before she gets up—I wish to turn to Amendment 118 in my name. It probes the power that allows regulations made under new Section 28C to include assets of various classes under the broad heading of private assets and to permit the future inclusion of additional asset classes. I appreciate the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, on this part.
I touched on this matter in some detail in the previous groups, so I will not repeat those arguments here. However, this amendment once again draws attention to our concern about the specific types of asset that the Government have chosen to list on page 46 of the Bill. It remains an issue about which we are deeply concerned, and one on which we will continue to work closely with other noble Lords though to Report.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I apologise to the noble Viscount for jumping up prematurely. These amendments relate to the level of any asset allocation requirements and the potential treatment of investments in private equity and private debt as qualifying assets for the purpose of any asset allocation requirement.
I will start with the with the level of any asset allocation requirement, a question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh in her Amendment 114 and the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, in Amendment 112. Both would cap the percentage of default fund assets that could be required to be invested in qualifying assets. I understand why noble Lords were keen to table these amendments and to look for a cap. I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, that I am shocked by such cynicism in one so young. I will explain the—perfectly rational—reason the Government have not done this; I hope that she will find it very satisfying and feel suitably chastened at that point. We do not expect to need to exercise the power, but to do so would be a significant step and, as noble Lords may have picked up by now, the Government’s general approach has been to design the power so that it can be used as a backstop to the commitments used in the Mansion House Accord. I underscore that point.
The aim has been to create a backstop to that rather than to fix a numerical cap in primary legislation. That is what it is designed to do. The accord is not a legal document, and its terms and definitions are not of a kind that could simply be lifted into statute. If the Government were ever to exercise these powers, we would need to define key terms precisely, and it is at least possible that those definitions might have some bearing on the precise percentage levels that are appropriate. We have therefore not taken the step of hard-wiring a fixed cap, although I underline that we have included various other safeguards, which I have repeated more than once, so will not repeat again in the interests of time.
In relation to Amendment 113 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, the Mansion House Accord commitment has informed the design of these powers, including the ability for government to require a proportion of assets to be invested in specified qualifying assets. I understand the point that she was making, but our approach has been deliberately limited, going no further than necessary to support the commitments already made. That caution is important, given that this is a novel—and, I discern, a not entirely uncontroversial—part of the Bill. Although we are aligned on the objectives, I would not want to suggest a change in policy direction where none is intended. Our aim is to give the DC pensions industry reasonable clarity about our expectations.
Amendment 119, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, interrogates the inclusion of private equity as an example of a qualifying asset. Its effect would be to remove private equity from the illustrative list in new Section 28C(5). Amendment 120 from my noble friend Lord Sikka would do the same, as well as removing private debt.
Baroness Altmann (Non-Afl)
I thank the Minister and all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. We have had a good rehearsal of the views and concerns about mandation and the need for a specific limit. I understand that the Minister is not keen on having a specific limit, but I hope that we can meet ahead of Report to go through some of these issues, which are keenly felt by many noble Lords in Committee.
The same is true of the concern about private equity or private debt and the dangers of being invested in them. It strikes me as rather strange that the Government think that the risk-return opportunities in private equity are suitable for mandation but that that would not extend to quoted listed investment companies, which have long proven their track record without the disasters that we have often seen with private equity. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment probes the reasons behind the provision allowing the Secretary of State until 2035 to exercise the mandation power.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to open what I hope and assume will be another interesting debate. Once again, I hope it will shine a light on the flaws of mandation from new and specific angles that merit discussion.
Amendment 115 in my name is a probing amendment, which goes to the architecture of the power itself. The Bill allows the Secretary of State to exercise the mandation power up until 2035. Why has 2035 been chosen for sunset? Why is it that particular year? Was that date chosen because it aligns with some evidenced policy rationale, a defined market transition or a known obstacle that is expected to have fallen away by then? A sunset date sets the constitutional balance between Parliament, Ministers and the pensions industry. A sunset clause extending to 2035 runs beyond the life of this Parliament and would allow very broad discretion for a Secretary of State, not merely to encourage investment but to direct it, in effect, by setting targets and conditions. That is an extraordinary proposition when we are dealing with the retirement savings of millions of people.
I put a simple set of questions to the Minister. What analysis underpins the choice of 2035? Was it recommended by the department’s own evidence base? If the concern is a temporary set of barriers, for instance, a collective action problem, why is the power not time-limited to a shorter period, with a requirement for Parliament to renew it if, and only if, the evidence remains compelling? If the Government believe the power is genuinely a reserved power, why does it need such a long reserve? If the Minister cannot explain the logic of the date, it becomes harder to accept that the scope of the power has been calibrated with care.
Amendment 152 relates to the review process following the exercise of powers under Section 28C—the mandation power. This is another probing amendment intended to test why the Government consider a five-year period an appropriate timeline for regulations to be reviewed and why an earlier review has not been proposed. Five years is a long time in pensions and financial markets. It is a very long time in the life of a saver, because compounding does not wait politely while Whitehall decides whether its intervention has worked. If an allocation has been distorted, returns have been impaired, costs have risen or liquidity has been compromised, five years is long enough for the damage to become embedded in outcomes. It is also long enough for market conditions to have changed so significantly that any review risks becoming a rear-view mirror exercise rather than a real safeguard.
I ask the Minister directly, why five years? What is the justification? Is there evidence that a shorter review period will be impractical? Why are the Government not willing to commit to a more immediate post-implementation assessment, perhaps—let me be helpful to the Minister—within 12 months or two years, to ensure that any harm to savers is identified early? If Ministers believe the power is low risk, surely a quicker review should not trouble them.
There is a further point. The Bill speaks of not only assessing the effect on the financial interests of members of master trusts and savers in group personal pension schemes, but of such other matters as the Secretary of State may consider appropriate. What precisely do the Government envisage falling within those other matters? Does it include costs to schemes, liquidity, operational complexity, market impact and whether compliance has forced schemes away from diversified strategies that would otherwise have been in members’ best interests? Does it include, as many fear, political metrics dressed up as economic analysis, such as whether a mandated allocation has supported a preferred sector or class of domestic asset?
Most importantly, what happens if the review reveals that the financial interests of members have been harmed? What is the mechanism for redress and the practical remedy? Do the Government anticipate compensating schemes or savers? As the Committee will appreciate, we will return to the question of redress later in our proceedings.
I now return to the subject of market risk through Amendment 115, which is intended to ensure that any review explicitly considers two linked dangers. The first is that mandated investment requirements may become misaligned with economic conditions. The second is that directing multiple schemes into the same assets could cause market distortion or asset price inflation.
Mandation can distort markets in ways that are entirely foreseeable. If multiple large schemes are required, either explicitly or implicitly, to invest in the same asset class, the demand shock can inflate prices. If market participants interpret government direction as a signal of future price support, price movements can be amplified further; these arguments have been rehearsed not only in Committee but at Second Reading. Artificial price inflation then risks reducing long-term returns for pension savers because you are requiring schemes to buy after prices have been driven up, rather than allowing them to invest on value and fundamentals. It is picking winners and losers, not through the discipline of markets but through the blunt force of regulation.
So I have further questions for the Minister, I am afraid. Has the department modelled the potential for asset price inflation in any asset class that might be subject to a mandated allocation? Has the department assessed the risk of crowded trades in which schemes find themselves paying more for the same exposure because the Government have forced them to compete with one another? Has the department consulted the Bank of England or the FPC on the risk that mandated flows could contribute to procyclicality or instability, particularly in less liquid markets? What is the Government’s plan if mandated allocations coincide with an already elevated valuation environment?
There is a second risk: that of regulation falling behind economic reality. Mandated asset allocations risk becoming misaligned with economic conditions because compliance takes time. Requirements to hold a specified percentage in a particular UK asset class within a fixed timeframe may no longer be appropriate by the time schemes comply. Economic conditions, market valuations and government priorities can change far more quickly than regulatory mandates. This creates a real risk of locking savers into allocations that are no longer in their best financial interests.
So, again, what mechanism will ensure that mandated requirements remain compatible with changing economic conditions? Will there be a duty to pause or suspend requirements when market conditions deteriorate? Will there be an explicit test that requires Ministers to show why a mandated allocation is consistent with the fiduciary duty at the point when it is imposed, not merely when it is first conceived? If Ministers insist that their fiduciary duties remain paramount, how do they reconcile that with a policy that, by design, substitutes government preference for trustee judgment? I am reverting back to that argument.
Amendment 209 would require the Government to review the barriers that may prevent pension and investment funds investing in the UK, including regulatory, tax and fiduciary constraints; and to report their findings to Parliament. Instead of beginning with mandation then asking later whether it has caused harm, the Government should have started here. If Ministers genuinely wish to increase productive investment in the UK, their first duty is to diagnose the barriers properly. Stakeholders have emphasised repeatedly to us that limited UK investment by pension schemes is not a failure of willingness but reflects real constraints: government and regulatory burdens; risk weighting and capital requirements; liquidity constraints; scheme-specific funding and maturity considerations; fixed fees; and the economics of administering more complex, perhaps even less liquid, investments at scale. Many of those may be solvable issues but they require the hard work of reform, not the easy headline of compulsion. Addressing these barriers is far more likely to increase investment sustainably than imposing mandation, and care should be taken to avoid adding further unintended obstacles through legislation.
Baroness Penn (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Younger has asked many of the questions that my Amendments 116A and 130A seek to probe on the rationale for the Government’s timescales in the Bill. They are also intended to shorten those timescales and implement an absolute sunset; I want to be clear to the Minister that I do not think that a deadline by which the maximum asset allocation cannot be raised further is a sunset.
I heard what the Minister said in our debate on the previous group about introducing a maximum allocation cap. I am not sure that I really buy into that argument but, if that is the rationale, are the Government really saying that it might take 10 years to work out what the definite figures agreed under the Mansion House Accord are and that that is why they have their timescales in place? Are the Government really saying to those who signed up to the Mansion House Accord—or, indeed, to those who did not—that the figures that could be mandated under this power could go above 10% and 5%? That would make it an even harder power for people to swallow. Further, this could be over by an unlimited amount—not even a variance of maybe up to 15%, but up to any level.
The Government have used the argument for the mandation power that it creates certainty for those pension funds but, the more we discuss it, the more uncertainty there seems to be. The figures of 10% and 5% do not seem to be the figures of 10% or 5% any more. Under the Government’s approach, we will get a cap, but maybe in 10 years’ time, while the assets required to be invested under that cap can still change in perpetuity. I used the example at Second Reading of one Government wishing to mandate investment in net zero and the other wishing to mandate investment in defence assets; both are conceivable things that we might see happen in the longer term. The point is that, the longer this power is in place, the greater the risk that it is used not for this Government’s intention but for something else.
On the guardrails outside of the primary legislation, which the Minister referred to but rightly did not go into in our debate on the other group, I have a question about one: the requirement to consult. At Second Reading, the Minister said that the Government would be required to consult before using these powers for the first time. I want to check whether this means that they will not be required to consult when amending them subsequently or they will be required to consult each time they bring forward regulations under this power. I had thought that it was the former—consulting each time they used the powers—but, if it is not, and it is only the first time when they are used, I would be grateful if the Minister could clarify that point.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie for introducing this group and setting the scene so eloquently, and to my noble friend Lady Penn for speaking to her amendment. I shall speak to the amendments in my name and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, for lending her support to Amendments 129, 153 and 156. They follow on neatly from the other amendments about which we have heard. The Bill requires the Government to publish a report before the introductory regulations are brought into force to bring in the reserve powers, but it covers only how the financial interests of savers will be affected and the effect of the regulations on economic growth.
The purpose of my Amendment 129 is to set out additional items to be covered in the report, to ensure that the Government properly and comprehensively assess the impacts of any future regulations, such as, for example, the functioning of workplace pensions markets and impacts on the market of assets to be mandated and other requirements. What I am proposing in Amendment 129 is to test whether the Government have done enough to justify using such a drastic power. I am also suggesting, taking up the point of my noble friend Lord Younger, that the first report should be in less than five years: the first report should be after two years, because a lot of damage could be done in the first two years and even more damage could be done if there is no report for five years.
Amendment 156 continues on this theme, looking at a different part of Clause 40 for these purposes. Amendment 153 says that there should be a review, as I have mentioned, which should take place within at least two years, in addition to a review within at least five years. While the review in the Bill allows for mandation to be in place for five years before the Secretary of State must review its impact, I believe that that is too long and that it could potentially allow for negative effects to set in under the regulations under the Bill for affected default schemes. Taken together, Amendments 153 and 156 bring forward the review of regulations to take place within two years after those regulations have been in force, as well as after another three years to stop any further damage being done. We set out here what those reviews should look at
“the functioning of the market for Master Trusts … what effects the measures have had on that market … what effects the measures have had on the markets for qualifying assets”,
and so on, as set out in these amendments.
I hope the Minister will look favourably on these amendments, particularly since there is a mood on this side to coalesce around a review within the first two years.
Baroness Noakes (Con)
My Lords, all the amendments in this group raise important issues. I hope that none of them will be necessary, because I hope that we will have got rid of the power from the Bill, so these will become irrelevant details. I have Amendment 130 in this group, which would modify the mandation power by removing new Section 28C(15). This subsection “overrides any provision” of a trustee or scheme rules that conflicts with the mandation power. Thus, if the scheme had been set up with investment parameters that, for example, ruled out investing in private equity, and the Government then specified private equity, the wishes of the employer expressed in the scheme’s governing documents would be completely overwritten. Since there is no requirement in the Bill, as I understand it, for the Government to specify more than one asset class, it is quite possible that the Government could specify a required asset class that conflicted with things that had been deliberately set up when the scheme was set up.
I can understand, of course, why the Government want to encourage pension schemes to consider investing in alternative asset classes. I do not think you will find much resistance to the concept of investing in alternative asset classes. But I simply cannot understand why the Government think they should have a power to force schemes to invest in a particular way, if a conscious decision has already been made not to invest in that asset class. The Government might not agree with that decision, but I hope we do not live in a world where the Government can simply ignore the clearly expressed wishes of those they govern. I hope that we still live in a free society. Subsection (15) seems to me to extend the powers of the state too far, and we ought not to go along with it.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)
My Lords, I have several amendments in this group: Amendments 154, 157, 158 and 159, which I will not say much about because I am fishing in the same pond as everybody else. If there is this mandation, we are anxious to know how it works, and we think the review should come earlier—I have put in some of the things that I think it should look at. I will spend more time on my Amendment 131, which is about prior steps that would have to be taken before there was any exercise of the mandation and regulations were made. It is about the prior steps that must be taken before the Secretary of State can exercise the regulation-making power in new Section 28C—what I termed the devil’s clause once before, although we now know that it is the ABI clause.
It is probably worth pausing here to remind ourselves whom the ABI represent: it is the Association of British Insurers and it represents the insurance companies, which are the manufacturers of the LTAFs, as was indicated earlier. It had a meeting in which, as usual, it displayed the slide that says, “We’re not colluding and breaking competition law, but we’re just going to agree that we won’t be investing in the other vehicle that has protected net asset value, and we’ll do a Q&A that says that’s not happening”. Interestingly, the insurers present at that meeting seem to have either forgotten about it or are telling me that they did not agree to anything. However, I leave that hanging.
If the Government wish to enforce a power of this potential scope, which, as has been explained, is much wider than the example in the Bill—a power that could reshape asset allocation across the pension sector—it must be subject to proper safeguards. These prior steps are not obstacles but constructive checks that should support the Government’s own objectives.
Proposed new paragraph (a) would require the Secretary of State to
“review the effect of any voluntary agreements or coordinated commitments relating to asset allocation”.
We have had a lot of policy alignment, pledges and so forth, and we all want the voluntary method to succeed. But if the point comes that regulations are contemplated, it is essential to understand what the voluntary route has already achieved, where the evidence points and why it did not happen.
Proposed new paragraph (b) would require an assessment of
“the impact of any such agreements on asset allocation, pricing and valuations”.
If the Government are concerned about market functioning, they should be equally concerned about how co-ordinated commitments affect pricing signals and valuation discipline. This is simply good policy hygiene because it ultimately affects workers’ pensions.
Proposed new paragraph (c) would require a review of
“the likely effect on returns to pensions savers”.
We all hope for the double benefit: better long-term returns for savers and productive investment that supports the UK economy. But we must analyse whether that is happening in practice, and if not, why not, before moving to a regulatory footing.
Proposed new paragraph (d) would require the Secretary of State to “obtain clearance” from the Competition and Markets Authority, and that is entirely consistent with the CMA’s pro-competition remit and with the competitiveness and growth objectives embedded in FSMA. Any use of this power must reinforce the UK’s competition framework, not bypass it, and where co-ordinated commitments already exist in the market, the Government must be certain that any regulations they bring forward meet a clear public interest justification.
Lord Ashcombe (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, after that. I support Amendments 115 and 152, in the names of my noble friends Viscount Younger of Leckie and Lady Stedman-Scott, concerning the Government’s draft powers to mandate. The matter before us is not, in essence, a question of technical refinement but one that touches directly upon the principles of parliamentary sovereignty and the standards of scrutiny that this House has long upheld.
As has been evident during the deliberations of this Committee, we are all acutely aware that the pensions industry forms the very foundation of the long-term financial security of millions of people across the United Kingdom. It is therefore essential that any mandates imposed upon this sector are framed with clarity, certainty and due consideration for the practical realities—of which we have heard a lot this afternoon—faced by industry participants and savers alike. The sector quite reasonably seeks early and unambiguous direction so that businesses and individuals may plan prudently and with confidence. Ambiguity serves only to sow uncertainty and to heighten risk; it also almost always reduces the probability of the desired outcome.
Clarity alone, however, is insufficient. The process by which such mandates may be introduced or amended must itself be transparent, accountable and subject to full and proper parliamentary oversight. Under the current provisions, potentially substantial changes to the scope of mandation powers could be affected through negative secondary instruments. Such a mechanism falls short of the constitutional rigour expected in matters of this significance. These instruments, as the Committee well knows, may pass with limited visibility and without the robust debate and testing that both Houses are uniquely equipped to provide.
The amendments before us seek to remedy that shortfall by requiring that any future changes to mandation rules receive the express consent of Parliament, rather than proceeding without a vote. This proposition is not, I emphasise, a question of party-political alignment but a question of sound governance, institutional responsibility and public trust.
We must not lose sight of what is fundamentally at stake. Effective parliamentary scrutiny protects not only the interests of the industry and the Government but, most importantly, the millions of individuals, including myself, who have saved faithfully into the pension system and rely on its long-term stability. I therefore urge the Committee to lend its support to these amendments. In doing so, we would strengthen the clarity and certainty required by the pensions and lifetime savings sector; uphold the enduring principle of parliamentary consent; and ensure that the governance of our pension system reflects the transparency, diligence and integrity that the public rightly expects and deserves.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, for his introduction to his amendments in this group and all noble Lords who have spoken.
I will start with the sunset provisions. Amendment 115, from the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, would remove one element of these, but I understand that it is obviously tabled for probing purposes. There are two distinct elements to the sunset provision. The first is the element identified in the amendment: the provision in new Section 28C(3), which means that if percentage asset allocation requirements have been brought into effect by the end of 2035, they cannot be increased beyond that date. The second is what I call the “main” sunset provisions, in Clause 122(6), which automatically removes the power from the statute book altogether if it has not been used by the end of 2035. I fully recognise that there is a legitimate debate about where to set those sunset dates. Through her Amendment 116, the Baroness, Lady, Coffey, would prefer it to be shorter. The noble Baroness, Lady Penn, proposes bringing forward to 2030 the date beyond which the requirements cannot be raised. Her Amendment 130A would ensure that not only the enabling powers but any requirements in effect would expire in 2035. This is a significant power that would potentially be at the disposal of different Governments and such restrictions would seek to ensure that it is not on the statute book any longer than required.
The noble Viscount made the point about this being in a subsequent Parliament. In a sense, that is inevitable, because the Mansion House commitments are only to make those commitments by 2030 and, because this is meant as a backstop to the Mansion House Accord, the timeframe is shaped by the timescale within the Mansion House agreement and the Government’s own reform plans. We obviously do not want it on the statute book for longer than it is needed but, on the other hand, the Government do not want—nobody would—to create a situation in which a future Secretary of State felt compelled to use the power prematurely just to avoid it lapsing. It was therefore a genuine judgment about where to land it. In my view, it would not be logical to have the ability to implement a requirement, only for it to expire very shortly afterwards, as Amendment 130A might permit. The Government had to make a judgment between those competing considerations and we came down on 2035. I accept that it is matter of judgment and the Government’s may differ from that of noble Lords, but I hope that explains the competing pressures that made us land in that space.
The Committee has also focused, through a series of amendments, on the requirements for reviewing any asset allocations before and after they are implemented. The Government are acutely aware of the need to both design any regulations with great care and ensure that, if they are every introduced, they work as intended. That is why we have embedded not one but two statutory reporting requirements in Clause 40. The first is the ex ante report, which must be published under new Section 28C(12) before the power is exercised for the first time. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, her first understanding was correct. The requirement to consult is on first use. This requirement arises from a combination of new Section 28C(12) and (14), but the approach was designed so that the compulsory report and the critical first use of the power are informed by the consultation, and that is why it was put up front.
The second is the post-implementation review, which must be carried out and published under new Section 30A no later than five years after the first regulations come into force. Amendment 154 tabled by noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, would bring forward the mandatory post-implementation review of any asset allocation requirements from five years to three. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, would require an additional review within two years as well as the existing five-year review. The amendment tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, would remove the time limit altogether.
I understand why noble Lords would want a shorter deadline for the post-implementation review, especially as many have strong reservations about the power in general. Again, the five-year deadline is a matter of judgment, and I accept that we may land at different points, but our concern is to allow enough time for the arrangements to bed in, so that their effects can be properly understood. Markets can take time to adjust. It is possible, for example, that some providers might seek an exemption under the savers’ interest test. Those applications might be granted on a time-limited basis or be subject to an appeal process. That all means that the full impacts of the measure might not be visible after only a short period. On the other hand, by choosing 2035, we have deliberately kept the deadline short enough that it serves as a meaningful check.
I turn now to the content of the pre-implementation and the post-implementation reports. A number of amendments, in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady McIntosh and Lady Bowles, and others, seek to specify additional matters that the Government should be obliged to review. In the main, I do not demur from the importance of any of the topics that noble Lords have identified; they cover many of the kinds of issues that any responsible Government would want to consider either before or after using a power of this kind. Indeed, it is worth recalling that the Government have already conducted a wide-ranging review of pensions investment that considers many of these topics. The review reported last year and, as noble Lords know, led to many of the measures in the Bill.
However, the Bill already places clear duties on the Secretary of State to look at the key overarching questions: how many measures are expected to affect, and then have actually affected, the financial interests of members in the relevant schemes, and how they affect economic growth in the UK? Both the ex ante and post-implementation reports must cover those core matters, and both are expressly permitted to cover “any other matters” the Secretary of State considers appropriate. That formulation is designed precisely to allow the Government to take account of the kinds of issues included in many of these amendments, but to do so in a way which can be adapted to circumstances at the time, rather than being hard-wired into primary legislation.
I stress that these reporting requirements are not the only safeguards built into the framework. The savers’ interest test provides a route by which providers can apply to the regulator for an exemption, where they consider that complying with the asset allocation requirements would cause material financial detriment to their members. If, for example, the kinds of market distortions or misalignments described in Amendment 155, from the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, were to arise in such a way as to raise material concerns about the impact on savers of meeting the targets, providers might well choose to apply for an exemption.
The issue of transparency was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, and implicitly by the noble Viscount, Lord Younger. I absolutely agree that it is good practice to be clear about the evidence and submissions that have informed policy decisions in this area. That has been the Government’s practice to date. In taking forward the pensions investment review, from which these measures have arisen, the Government consulted extensively and then published a 47 page response, including a full list of the 107 organisations that responded. If further formal consultations are carried out to inform the work required under the Bill, they will be conducted in the same spirit of openness. However, I do not think that we need detailed prescriptive publication requirements in primary legislation to achieve that.
Amendment 131 from the noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, would impose a further list of “prior steps” that the Secretary of State must take before using the power. One is a requirement that the Government must obtain clearance from the Competition and Markets Authority prior to exercising the powers. I will not rehearse the debate on investment trusts; we have done that already today. However, I stress again that this mandation clause is neither the work of the devil nor the work of the ABI; it is the work of the Government acting as a backstop to a voluntary Mansion House Accord, which is an industry-led initiative by 17 pension providers, aimed at securing better financial outcomes for DC savers and boosting investment in the UK. It is for the participants of the Mansion House Accord to ensure that they comply with competition law, and I have no reason to believe that they are not doing so. For our part, the Government will of course continue to comply fully with competition law in relation to any actions taken under these powers. I do not think a statutory requirement to seek specific CMA clearance is necessary or justified.
Amendment 130 from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, is a probing amendment to understand why we need to override any contrary provisions in scheme trust deeds. New Section 28C(15) simply clarifies that, where there is a conflict between the statutory asset allocation requirements and restrictive provisions in a trust deed, the statutory requirements take precedence. It is designed to give trustees legal certainty, not to dilute their general duties. As I have said, we do not expect to have to use this power but, were it to be exercised, we would want to ensure that there is certainty for trustees that these requirements may be met without inadvertently causing a conflict with a provision in a trust deed or rules.
Obviously, we do not have sight of every set of deeds or rules that schemes operate under, and it may well be that no relevant conflicting provisions exist. The provision is essentially a precaution. It means that it is not necessary for trustees or providers to spend time or money to scrutinise the interaction between the asset allocation provisions and their deeds. It also addresses the risk that a scheme might find itself at risk of closure to new auto-enrolment business due to a trust deed provision that prevents it from complying with the asset allocation requirements, which it may well want to do.
However, I want to draw a clear distinction between any specific provisions within the trust deed and the broader responsibility of trustees to select investments that operate in the best interests of members. That does not change, and trustees would continue to be subject to a duty to invest in savers’ best interests in line with the law.
Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)
My Lords, I will be brief in closing this debate; I am conscious that I spoke at some length when opening this group.
First, the point raised by my noble friend Lady Noakes was a sound one. Amendment 130 probes the extent to which it is appropriate for regulations to override the trust deed or rules of a pension scheme. I listened carefully to the response from the Minister but I think—my noble friend may agree with me—that this is a fundamental issue that goes to the heart of scheme governance and trustee responsibility. I know it is an issue that she feels strongly about, and we do too, because it is vital that trustees retain clear and accountable responsibility for investment decisions made in members’ best interests. I will reflect on Hansard, as I am sure my noble friend will too.
I also just touch briefly on Amendment 153, tabled by my noble friend Lady McIntosh. As she highlighted, this amendment seeks to ensure that a review of the asset allocation mandation powers takes place within at least two years, as well as within five, and of course it reflects the same concern that I raised. I also listened when the Minister said that it was a matter of judgment by the Government. I take note of what she said—I will not give a view on that but, again, we will reflect carefully on it. Despite the best efforts of the Minister, I remain with the feeling that there is not a clear rationale or sufficient assurance, but we will reflect.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bowles, raised a number of technical and specific points. Taken together, this group once again demonstrates the complexity of this particular area, the necessary safeguards and the prior steps required, and the degree of intervention that the Government risk embarking upon through this mandation power. Once mandation is introduced, it inevitably draws policymakers into ever more detailed interventions, and with that comes a cascade of unintended consequences, as I said before. We will therefore reflect on the Minister’s responses but, in the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Member's explanatory statement
This amendment seeks to remove the time limit for savers’ interest exemptions to the asset allocation requirements that would be set by the Authority.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
My Lords, I hope that this little group is fairly self-explanatory.
In Amendment 141, I am again seeking to provide more certainty in relation to the savers’ interest test for exemptions to the asset allocation requirements and ensure that providers are not required to alter their asset allocation until the authority has made its determination or they have received the outcome of the referral to the Upper Tribunal. This is a probing amendment for debating purposes. I hope that we will get further light from the Minister when she replies.
My noble friend Lady Noakes has just reminded me that I would also like to speak to Amendment 140, the “starter for 10” in this group. Here I am seeking to remove the time limit for savers’ interest exemptions to the asset allocation requirements that would be set by the authority. I thank the Committee for its forbearance in allowing me to speak to Amendment 141 as well.
Baroness Bowles of Berkhamsted (LD)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 146 to 150. This group of amendments is all about trustees. Although I submit that nothing in this Bill should unsettle the basic foundation of our trustee law, there remains extensive debate in the courts and academic literature, and among trustees, on how far wider policy objectives and emerging risks can be taken into account. I am trying to address some of those.
Amendment 146 would simply reinforce the obvious: fiduciary duty remains the overriding principle of pension governance and trustees must act in the best financial interests of members. That is the cornerstone of trust law. The courts have been clear for decades that trustees must prioritise members’ financial interests above all else. Yet the combination of the Mansion House rhetoric, promotional language in the Bill and the possibility of future regulations has created real anxiety among trustees about whether they are expected to prioritise government preferences over member outcomes. This amendment aims to remove that ambiguity. It would restate the law, reassuring trustees that their primary duty has not changed.
Amendment 147 follows on from that in seeking to introduce a safe harbour. Trustees are increasingly worried about being second-guessed, not for misconduct but for failing to meet expectations that are not clearly defined. Many are lay trustees. They act in good faith, take professional advice and follow their fiduciary duties. They should not face penalties or adverse consequences because they did not meet a quota or chose a different route to the same underlying assets. A safe harbour is a standard legal mechanism used in other regulatory regimes. It protects trustees who do the right thing, prevents retrospective reinterpretation of policy signals and ensures that trustees can make decisions based on evidence, not fear.
Amendment 148, also tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, addresses systemic risk. Trustees already consider systemic risks: climate change, economic resilience, supply chain fragility and other long-term factors that materially affect pension outcomes. The Pensions Regulator already expects trustees to consider these issues, but the statutory framework is uneven and expectations are not always clear, so this amendment would codify best practice. It would ensure that trustees consider systemic risks as part of their fiduciary duties, while making it explicit that this does not mandate investment in any particular vehicle. It is about risk management, not direction of capital. Trustees are careful and sensible people and will observe the policy direction, including on private assets. As I said last week, before we had the devil’s clause, there was broad agreement that it would be far better to trust the trustees.
Amendment 149, again from the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, addresses structural discrimination. I have already dealt extensively with how the Bill risks creating unequal treatment between different collective investment structures. Trustees should be free to choose the most appropriate structure for their scheme, whether listed or unlisted, based on liquidity, valuation, discipline, governance or member outcomes. The amendment would simply ensure a level playing field. It would prevent distortions, protect competition and ensure that trustees are not nudged away from structures that have served savers well for over a century.
Finally, Amendment 150 deals with herding risk. Regulatory herding is a known danger, which we have seen most recently and dramatically with LDI, where regulation, guidance or professional advice pushes everyone in the same direction at the same time and systemic risk increases, not decreases. The Mansion House agenda, if interpreted too narrowly, risks creating precisely that kind of clustering. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to avoid mandating or promoting investment in a way that induces herding and ensure that any guidance emphasises diversification and risk management. It is a simple “Do no harm” provision which learns from recent history. It is also embedded in the terms of the Mansion House Accord, as spoken to last Thursday by my noble friend Lord Sharkey. Trustees must not be forced to purchase assets that do not exist, do not exist safely or do not exist at a fair price.
None of these amendments would obstruct the Government’s objective. None would prevent investment in productive finance. None would limit trustee discretion. What they would do is ensure that trustees remain protected, that their duties remain clear and that the Bill does not inadvertently distort markets, undermine competition or create new systemic risks. These amendments are modest, sensible and protective. They would strengthen the Bill, support trustees and safeguard the long-term interests of pension savers. It is what we should all be thinking about.
Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)
I support mandation. I am in favour of the Government introducing the measures in this Bill, in principle. All Governments have a duty, not just a right, to deal with market failure. If the current investment advice and structures that we have are failing to deliver investments in the growth that we need in our economy, then the Government have a duty to act. I am not yet convinced that they have all the mechanics of mandation right, but that is the process we are going through at the moment in investigating how it will be achieved.
I am not so sure—I ask my noble friend the Minister to guide the Committee on this—about a question raised at Second Reading to which there was no answer, which applies to this part of Bill. Do the Government understand that the inevitable corollary of mandation is responsibility for the outcome? Outcomes may be better. We are told at length that this will improve things; the aim is to grow the economy to achieve good investments.
The Government may not have a legal responsibility to make sure that happens, but they certainly have a moral responsibility when they are saying how members’ money should be invested and they also, inevitably, have a political responsibility to ensure that they produce a system that enjoys broad public trust. A failure to achieve the Government’s objective will break that trust. Do the Government appreciate and understand the implications of what they are doing?
Lord Sharkey (LD)
My Lords, I will speak briefly under the auspices of Amendments 146 and 147 when we resume some of the discussions the Minister promised last week to continue, notably on mandation and statutory guidance. In our debate last week, I tried to establish the evidence base for the Minister’s assertion that
“the Government would not be proposing these powers”—
mandation—
“if there were not strong evidence that savers’ interests lie in greater investment diversification than we see today in the market”.—[Official Report, 22/1/26; col. GC 218.]
The key words here are “strong” and “evidence”. There are certainly those whose opinions would align with the Minister’s assertion, but opinion is not the same as evidence and not nearly the same as strong evidence.
As I said last week, the DWP recently commissioned the Government Actuary’s Department to model four variations of pension scheme strategies. I will not list them again, but the study concluded that across a range of economic scenarios the model portfolios deliver very similar projected pension pot sizes. But it also showed that if the current underperformance of the UK versus global equities persists, UK-heavy allocations will underperform the baseline. The Government Actuary’s Department said in a post on GOV.UK on 15 November 2024:
“Our analysis showed that a greater level of exposure to private markets may deliver slightly improved outcomes to members. However, there is considerable uncertainty, particularly with the assumptions for projected future investment returns”.
That does not sound like strong evidence for anything.
The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries makes the same point. It says that, based on the Government’s own impact assessment, “We do not think there is strong, clear evidence that in most foreseeable scenarios savers’ interests lie in greater investment in private markets and infrastructure”. It believes that there exists a very uncertain central estimate of an extra two percentage points over 30 years, equivalent to 0.066% a year compounded. It goes on to say: “Given the inherent uncertainty in such estimates, this is almost negligible and could easily turn out to be negative over the next 30 years or indeed much higher”. The IFoA goes on to say: “The point is that it is far from clear that there would be a material benefit”. That does not sound like strong evidence commendation either, yet this is the basis on which the Government seek to mandate investment, which raises as a consequence significant concerns about the operation of fiduciary duty.
The proposals in this Bill, for there is a power to mandate investment, cause uncertainty about trustees’ duties to their members. That uncertainty is understandable, especially because the case for mandation is weakly evidenced, if evidenced at all. The uncertainty is also unnecessary in many ways because of the existence of the Mansion House Accord for which, as others have said, 17 leading pension providers have already signed up. How will the anticipated statutory guidance, for example, contribute to the model of co-operation embedded in the Mansion House Accord? Is it no more than a useful threat? What role will the statutory guidance play in modifying the application of fiduciary duty? In fact, can the Minister confirm that the promised statutory guidance will have something to say about the possible clashes between mandated action and fiduciary duty, if only to confirm the primacy of fiduciary duty?
Minister Bell responded on 22 January to a Written Question from my honourable friend the Member for Stratford-upon-Avon about the scope of the coverage of the upcoming guidance on fiduciary duties. His reply did not refer to the mandation powers at all. Will the Minister confirm that the guidance will be non-binding and have the same have force as many other “have regards” that exist in the financial services sector? If the guidance has, or could plausibly be read as having, detectable, real-world influence, it should come before Parliament for scrutiny, and it should come before us when we can recommend changes.
Minister Bell’s Written Answer, as I mentioned a moment ago, says of the guidance that:
“Work will commence shortly beginning with an industry roundtable to gather views and technical expertise to ensure the guidance meets the identified need”.
I suppress my astonishment at this rather late start for thinking about statutory guidance. I notice that, in the reply, there was no mention of Parliament and the role it might play or of timescale in all this, except we now know that it has either just started or is about to start. In other words, as things stand, the likelihood of effective parliamentary scrutiny of anything to do with statutory guidance is unlikely. This is entirely unsatisfactory for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Ashcombe, has argued so forcefully.
There is no compelling evidence that mandation will work. If the Mansion House Accord is to be taken seriously and the Government play their part, mandation will be unnecessary. Mandation would interfere with or complicate the principal of fiduciary duty. It is also opposed by major stakeholders including, as I mentioned previously, the Governor of the Bank of England.
The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries ends its latest assessment of the situation by saying that trustees should not be leaned on to invest in ways that conflict with their own best judgment. Instead, those investments and markets that the Government wish to promote should continue to be made more attractive through initiatives such as LTAFs and so on. The pension schemes will freely choose to follow in a way that is right for them and their members. We agree with that and will continue to try to convince the Government that the reserve power is not necessary or desirable—activated or not—and that there is no sound basis for using it.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
My Lords, I will speak briefly on the other amendments in this group before turning to Amendment 145 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Younger of Leckie. As noble Lords have already set out, Clause 40 represents a significant extension of regulatory influence over asset allocation in defined contribution default arrangements. Given the scale of that change, it is both reasonable and necessary that we consider carefully how risk, responsibility and accountability are apportioned within the framework the Bill creates.
The amendments in the name of my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Bowles of Berkhamsted and Lady Altmann, seek to introduce greater certainty and procedural fairness into the operation of the savers’ interest test. Removing an automatic time limit on exemptions, ensuring that schemes are not compelled to alter asset allocations while determinations or appeals are ongoing and requiring the authority to give reasons for its decisions are all, in my submission, entirely sensible propositions. They make the framework that the Bill creates more robust, transparent and defensible.
In a similar vein, allowing schemes to apply for the savers’ interest test over a limited number of consecutive years, while demonstrating a credible pathway to compliance, reflects a realistic understanding of how long-term investment strategies are developed and implemented. It recognises that good outcomes for savers are not always delivered by abrupt or mechanically imposed changes.
Several of the amendments in this group speak directly to the core point of fiduciary responsibility, which, as was powerfully reinforced during our debate on the final group last Thursday, is an absolutely central point to the approach being adopted by noble Lords across the Committee. The amendments reinforcing fiduciary duty and proposing a safe harbour for trustees acting in good faith on professional advice and in accordance with their duties are an attempt to clarify that nothing in this Bill should place trustees in an impossible position, caught between regulatory direction on the one hand and their fundamental obligation to act in the best financial interests of members on the other.
Related to this, the probing amendment from the noble Lords, Lord Vaux of Harrowden and Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, asks an important and unresolved question: where investment decisions are mandated by the state, in effect, where does liability sit if those investments underperform? Even if the Government do not accept the mechanism proposed, the question itself cannot simply be wished away; I hope that the Minister will address it directly.
I also wish to touch on the amendments that deal with systemic risk, structural neutrality and herding behaviour. Requiring trustees to have regard to long-term systemic risks, including economic resilience and climate change, is entirely consistent with existing best practice and does not mandate investment in any particular asset or vehicle. Ensuring that listed investment funds are not structurally disadvantaged helps preserve choice and diversification. The amendment on regulatory herding speaks to a well-understood risk: overly prescriptive frameworks can drive homogeneity of behaviour, amplifying systemic risk rather than mitigating it.
I hope, therefore, that the Minister will engage seriously with the questions these amendments ask around process, liability, fiduciary duty and risk. Even where the Government may not be minded to accept the amendments, as drafted, they highlight issues that, given the provisions in the Bill, deserve clear and careful answers.
As has been our consistent approach throughout these days in Committee, my own amendment seeks to probe the Government on a key question: why have they provided for a maximum civil penalty of £100,000 for failure to comply with the mandation requirements set out in this chapter? Given the nature of those requirements and the breadth of discretion that they confer on the authority, it is not at all clear in the Bill how the Government have arrived at that figure or why it is considered proportionate. We are dealing here with decisions around long-term asset allocation in pension default arrangements—areas where reasonable, professional judgment may legitimately differ and where the consequences of regulatory direction may not be apparent for many years. In that context, a six-figure penalty is not a trivial matter.
This amendment is designed to invite the Government to explain the rationale for the level of the penalty; how it is expected to be applied in practice; and whether sufficient regard has been had to scheme size, intent and the nature of any alleged breach. I hope that the Minister can set out clearly why £100,000 is the appropriate ceiling; how proportionality will be ensured; and what safeguards will exist to prevent penalties being applied in a blunt or mechanistic way.
Lord Katz (Lab)
We have to have a hard stop at 8 pm, I am afraid, so I move that the Committee do now adjourn.
Introduction: Lord Barber of Chittlehampton
Grass-roots Music Venues
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Lord Bassam of Brighton
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the 2025 Budget on grassroots music venues.
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Livermore) (Lab)
My Lords, we are introducing permanently lower tax rates for eligible retail, hospitality and leisure properties, including grass-roots music venues, worth nearly £1 billion a year. As part of the changes to business rates, we announced a £4.3 billion support package to protect those facing higher bills after revaluation. We have also more than doubled funding to support independent artists and grass-roots music venues as part of the music growth package, building on the UK’s strength as a world-leading creative industries destination.
Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)
My Lord, that is a very welcome response from the Minister, but I wonder what assessment His Majesty’s Government have made of forecasts that increased business rate valuations could result in a closure of between 80 to 120 grass-roots music venues and place a further 120-plus at risk. How do the Government square this with their welcome commitment to high street regeneration, creative sector growth, the night-time economy and protecting cultural infrastructure? Will the Minister agree to meet representatives from the sector to discuss the issue further?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for the question. I am very happy to meet the groups that he mentioned. He is absolutely right to say that the creative sector is extremely important to the UK economy. It is a major employer and a significant part of our economy. It has been included as a priority sector in our industrial strategy, recognising its high growth potential, particularly through the development and adoption of new technologies.
On business rates, which my noble friend raised, as I have said before in your Lordships’ House, I acknowledge that the revaluation means that sectors such as pubs and music venues will struggle in relation to the business rates applicable to them. That is why we are working with the sectors involved to ensure they get the support they need. Noble Lords will have heard what the Prime Minister and Chancellor said on this in recent days. I will not add to that or comment on any speculation, but where there are further comments to be made I will of course come back to your Lordships’ House to discuss them.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, there is plenty of time. We will hear from the Lib Dems next, then the Conservative Benches.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, given that the Music Producers Guild reports that 50% of recording studios are considering closure within the year, with rateable value increases of up to 100%, will the Minister commit to urgently reviewing their exclusion from the retail, hospitality and leisure multiplier, and their misclassification as office space by the Valuation Office Agency, particularly given that film studios, which are similarly not public-facing, already benefit from 40% targeted relief?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
The Government have been very clear that the lower multipliers will broadly reflect the scope of the current retail, hospitality and leisure business rates relief, which is centred around retail, hospitality and leisure properties that are reasonably accessible to visiting members of the public. If a recording studio forms part of a single property with a qualifying hospitality or retail business, and the hospitality or retail aspect is the main purpose of the property, it will qualify for the lower multipliers.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, the whole House will agree that music venues are a vital part of our cultural ecosystem. Music venues are now benefiting from a voluntary grass-roots levy levied on concert tickets, which I understand the Government are keeping under review with a view to introducing a statutory levy. The Government are also talking about a tourist tax. I suspect I know what the Minister’s answer will be, but would it make sense to roll up consultation on a tourist tax and a ticket levy into one single tax?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I do not think so. I shall repeat what my right honourable friend Ian Murray, the Culture Minister, said on the industry levy:
“My ambition is to see the voluntary levy in place for as many concerts as possible and, as a milestone in that progress, for at least 50% of tickets on sale for stadium and arena shows in 2026”
to have adopted the levy by 31 December.
“Following this, I would like to see this target brought as close to 100% as possible”.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, further to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is the Minister aware that as well as the possibility of closures, there is the danger that our recording studios may up sticks and move abroad? With the continuing effect of Brexit on the music industry, unfortunately, they will not need a great deal of encouragement.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
As noble Lords will know, I am very happy to agree with the noble Earl on the last point he raises: the incredibly damaging effect of Brexit on that sector in particular. He will like to know that, along with the EU, we have jointly recognised the value of travel and cultural artistic exchanges, including the activities of touring artists, and we will continue our efforts to support travel and cultural exchange. We will explore how best to improve arrangements for touring across the European continent with the EU and other EU member states.
Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that I am leading a fan-led review of live music as commissioned by the Culture Committee in the House of Commons. One of the things that comes clearly from fans’ voices is that they are happy to pay a levy if they know it is going to grass-roots music venues in order to support them, unlike the obscure levies they sometimes have to pay, or other service charges on top of ticket prices. With that in mind, will the Government commit in the forthcoming ticketing legislation to include taking powers for a statutory levy just in case the voluntary levy does not work out?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am very grateful to my noble friend for the work he is doing in the review he mentions. I do not think it is for me to commit the Government to that specific point, but I will of course take it back and discuss it with colleagues in other departments as well.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his answers. Across the country, churches provide the largest network of performance spaces available to professional and amateur groups for music making and other artistic endeavours, so I thank him for the recent announcement regarding the new places of worship renewal fund. But I am sure he will be aware that there are thousands of churches and other faith communities across the country waiting to know how that scheme will operate. Will the Minister let us know when the details of the scheme will be published and whether the Government will work with us to ensure the scheme is workable, consistent and fair, especially in the levying of VAT?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am grateful for the support that the right reverend Prelate set out in his question. I assure him that that will be responded to very shortly.
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)
The Minister will be aware that music venues contribute hugely to growth, particularly in market towns and cities, and that the night-time economy suffered greatly during Covid. Will he discuss with his colleagues the impact that the agent of change principle is having, especially when it is not followed to the letter, where poorly soundproofed residential developments are built in close proximity to an existing music venue? It can force a music venue to close down, despite it being very popular.
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I will absolutely do what the noble Baroness asks. The Government have heard exactly what she said: that the existing policy to mitigate the impact of development on existing activities, including live music, is not always applied effectively. The creative industries sector plan committed to improving the implementation of the agent of change principle. MHCLG’s current consultation on the National Planning Policy Framework proposes that the policy be more explicit about the matters to be considered, such as both the current and permitted levels of activity within existing uses, which includes licensing for music and cultural venues. This will enable decision-makers to consider the right information early on, addressing the conflict between new and existing development.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, live music venues are the R&D incubators for our creative industries. Some 53% of venues made no profit last year, and the Government’s choices on national insurance contributions and business rates have given them an additional tax bill of £7 million. At a recent helpful meeting with the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, a number of noble Lords met representatives of music venues who said that one of the difficulties is hearing different things from the Treasury and from the Valuation Office Agency. So regarding the meeting the Minister’s kindly agreed to on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, may I encourage him to bring along somebody from the Valuation Office Agency to help clarify the situation for these vital parts of our grass-roots music sector?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I am not in a position to promise who specifically will attend the meeting, but I will absolutely take that representation back to the department to see if it is possible. I agree with the noble Lord on the importance of music venues; as he says, they are the R&D incubator for the rest of the sector. As part of the industrial strategy, the Government have recognised music and performing and visual arts as a priority sub-sector, and we have recognised the potential for growth. The UK is the third biggest music market globally. As you all know, as part of the music growth package, we are backing the next generation of British talent by doubling funding to support independent artists and grass-root music venues.
Lord Spellar (Lab)
My Lords, can the Minister take back to Whitehall the very clear message on the importance of the music industry, including for Britain’s place in the world, that he has identified? No one starts their career playing the O2; they learn their trade—particularly how to relate to an audience—by playing the small venues, night after night. This is hugely important for our soft power but also for a significant part of our economy. Is that understood in Whitehall?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
I hope it is understood. I agree with much of what my noble friend says. He will know that we have provided £2.5 million of funding this year for Arts Council England’s Supporting Grassroots Music Fund, enabling grass-roots music venues, recording studios, promoters and festivals to apply for grants to develop new revenue streams, make repairs and improvements, and enhance live music experiences.
ILO Convention 190
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the UK’s implementation of ILO Convention 190, which recognises the right to be free from violence and harassment in the workplace.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)
My Lords, the UK ratified ILO Convention 190 in March 2022, demonstrating its commitment to preventing and addressing violence and harassment in the workplace. We have a robust legislative framework in place, consisting of strong health and safety at work and discrimination laws. We are confident that these meet the convention’s requirements. These protections will be further strengthened through the Employment Rights Act 2025, which includes a requirement for employers to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment and harassment by third parties.
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. However, if one in five workers reports feeling at risk of violence at work, on what basis are His Majesty’s Government confident that existing legislation is sufficient to result in prevention, rather than simply to respond to the harm once it has occurred?
Lord Katz (Lab)
The noble Baroness is obviously right and correct that we need to be concerned about prevention and building a culture of positive employers’ attitudes towards tackling harassment and victimisation in the workplace, rather than simply relying on tackling harm when it is caught.
However, we have very strong laws and regulations in place right now. As I said, harassment is covered under the Equality Act 2010, which was recently strengthened in October 2024 to place a specific duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. The noble Baroness will remember well the debates we had in Committee on the then Employment Rights Bill, now Act, where we changed the law to toughen it up further so that employers must take all reasonable steps to stop sexual harassment before it starts and create and maintain workplaces free from harassment.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the rise in the number of reported harassment cases—certainly of women—means either that we have got a great rise in the number of incidents or that people are more prepared to report it? If so, can we make sure that there is an easier way of getting resolution of any complaint? Something that is merely reported and talked about will mean nothing unless there is an effective enforcement regime in place.
Lord Katz (Lab)
The noble Lord is right that enforcement is as much a part of tackling the issue as is creating solutions to the nature of workplace culture. The Employment Rights Act does a number of things in this regard. As well as what I have already mentioned, it voids non-disclosure agreements between employers and workers that prevent a woman speaking out about relevant harassment and discrimination. It also strengthens protection for whistleblowers, making it explicit that sexual harassment can be the basis for protected disclosure. On top of all else, it creates the Fair Work Agency, which will monitor all these new workplace rights.
Baroness Prosser (Lab)
My Lords, an awful lot of these incidents occur because many people, in various kinds of workplace, either think the issue is a non-issue or that it is funny, or they just do not get it. How about, with companies that have been found guilty of not facing up to these problems properly and not dealing with them efficiently, taking some further action unless the company agrees and carries out proper training of its managers to ensure that they do understand what is wrong and spot things before they get out of hand?
Lord Katz (Lab)
My noble friend makes a very good point that enforcement has to be driven somewhat by example. It is important that we do not trivialise this issue, as some seek to do. I would widen that out past workplaces to the very issue of discrimination, harassment and violence against women and girls. That is why everybody in your Lordships’ House should be welcoming the Government’s violence against women and girls strategy that was published just before Christmas. We have a landmark mission to halve violence against women and girls over the next decade. That is the way that we place women’s equality at the heart of the Government’s missions.
Lord Young of Acton (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a director of the Free Speech Union. Can the Minister help define what third-party non-sexual harassment employers will have a duty under Section 21 of the Employment Rights Act to take all reasonable steps to protect their employees from? In the past, when I have raised the spectre of that duty being extended to indirect harassment—for example, overheard conversations, jokes, remarks or witticisms—I have been pooh-poohed. Can the Minister assure us that I was just being alarmist and that, when the Government do produce their guidance on this issue, which I understand they are about to do, it will specifically say that business owners are not responsible for protecting their employees from overheard conversations, remarks, witticisms and jokes?
Lord Katz (Lab)
Well, I congratulate the noble Lord on getting through that question without mentioning the phrase “banter ban”. I am going to be absolutely clear: employers will not be penalised for failing to anticipate the unforeseeable or take other impractical steps. Employers cannot and are not expected to police or control every action of third parties. The measure does not change Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which applies in terms of interfering with the right to freedom of expression. It is clear that it is not about banning banter in a pub; it is about taking action against real hate, homophobia, racism and misogyny, which other customers or other workers should not have to face in this day and age.
Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)
Does the Minister agree that those in Downing Street should accept that the ILO convention applies to them as well when it comes to meting out violence and harassment on Labour colleagues whose only crime is that they think they could run the country better than the Prime Minister?
Lord Katz (Lab)
To answer the noble Lord’s question, yes, of course it applies in all workplaces, but I am not going to tell the NEC how to do its business.
Baroness O'Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, alongside many other people across this House, I welcome this Government’s focus on reducing violence, and in particular the introduction of those new measures on non-disclosure agreements that silenced thousands and thousands, particularly women, who were facing harassment. That is serious when you are at work trying to earn a living, so we should congratulate the Government on listening.
On the duty to prevent harassment, will my noble friend the Minister also listen to concerns that, at the moment, Health and Safety Executive workplace inspectors do not have a specific role to enforce that duty? If there are other ideas, I think people would be happy to listen to them, but can he reassure us that there will be a comprehensive enforcement regime for that duty to prevent harassment?
Lord Katz (Lab)
My noble friend is right to recognise the important step this Government have taken to avoid NDAs when it comes to prevention or speaking out about harassment and discrimination. Our Benches are very proud of that landmark piece of legislation in the Employment Rights Act. In terms of enforcement, as I have already said, one of the other things that the Employment Rights Act does is create the Fair Work Agency, which will be relevant in terms of enforcing all the new rights at work that the Act creates. Having said that, health and safety at work legislation still covers people at work in terms of work-related violence and other risks arising from work activities, and that will certainly still be in place enforcing those aspects.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
Might I share with the Minister my concern that backlogs in employment tribunals have now reached record levels? He referred to the Employment Rights Act. That statute and the related work reforms will generate, on the Government’s own analysis, at least a 17% increase in claims before employment tribunals, so will he give a clear assurance that those involved with claims of violence and harassment at work will not face delayed justice because of employment tribunal backlogs and that the Government will provide the additional judges, staff and resources required to meet that expected rise in claims?
Lord Katz (Lab)
When it comes to talking about backlogs and underfunding in our criminal justice system, in fact our whole justice system, it takes a certain amount of chutzpah from those on the Benches opposite, who spent 14 years underfunding all aspects of our justice system, to then say, “Isn’t this going to be a problem?” We are investing in our criminal justice system, we have legislation going through your Lordships’ House to do just that, and I do not resile from my criticism of the Benches opposite for their failure to invest in our justice system.
Uniformed youth groups: Promoting Skills and Resilience in Young People
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of uniformed youth groups on promoting skills and resilience in young people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
We recognise the excellent contribution and impact of uniformed youth organisations. The Government have directly funded their work since 2022. There is a range of existing research that shows the positive impact of uniformed youth organisations on young people and their lives. Ipsos independently evaluated the DCMS-funded uniformed youth fund from 2022 to 2025. The evaluation found evidence supporting the positive impact of uniformed youth organisation membership on young people’s well-being, social and emotional development, skills and community connectedness.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Lab)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for that fabulous reply. I could not agree with her more. We know that uniformed youth groups will play a vital role in delivering the Government’s new youth strategy. Groups such as the Scouts, the Girl Guides, all our cadets, the Jewish Lads’ and Girls’ Brigade and of course the Girls Brigade and Boys’ Brigade do an amazing job. Will the Minister encourage her department to look again at the funding arrangements so that these groups can retain staff during the transition from the uniformed youth fund, which is coming to an end in March, to the new funding arrangements that will come into place with the new youth strategy? It is great to put the contribution of these groups on the record here today.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I pay tribute to all those supporting uniformed youth organisations, including my noble friend. Our new national youth strategy has been co-designed with young people. We are engaging further with young people in youth groups, including uniformed youth organisations, to ensure that their perspectives, needs and proven outcomes are incorporated. As for transitional funding and funding arrangements, I will take my noble friend’s points back to the department ahead of her meeting with Minister Peacock, which I understand is taking place early next month.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
It is definitely the turn of the Conservative Benches. Can we make our mind up?
Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as the chair of the cadet health check team. The value of the uniformed services to our young people throughout the country is beyond doubt, particularly in the poorest communities in the country. The real challenge now is adult volunteers. The entire service is based on adult volunteers, so what work are the Government doing to improve recruitment and retention of those very valuable volunteers?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I agree with the points the noble Lord raised around the value of uniformed youth groups. One of the things our new funding arrangements will do is support the development of volunteers. I will be very happy to share some examples and discuss that further with him.
Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)
My Lords, I echo comments made earlier in your Lordships’ Chamber about the invaluable service that uniformed youth services provide, particularly when it comes to life skills and experiences. How can the Government change policies to get more young people involved in these organisations so that more young people benefit from this and stand a better chance in the world of employment?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The new national youth strategy has been developed with young people precisely to make sure that the Government are directing funding towards areas that young people themselves have identified. One of the most difficult findings from some of the work done in the run-up to the launch of the national youth strategy was around the isolation and loneliness faced by so many young people. The strategy is a 10-year plan to make sure that every young person across the country has somewhere to go, somewhere that cares for them and a community they feel part of.
Lord Mountevans (CB)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interests as a vice-president of the Sea Cadets and president of the successful City of London Sea Cadets. The Minister kindly discussed the new arrangements of DCMS, but the strategic defence review just six or seven months ago called for a 30% increase in the offer of the cadet organisations. What additional funding, if any, can the Minister point to that is going to facilitate this growth?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
This is Ministry of Defence funding. My understanding is that the Government plan to have increased military cadet forces by 30% by 2030; this is an investment of over £70 million of new funding, as set out in the strategic defence review, which the noble Lord rightly points out was published last year.
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Bollington and Macclesfield Sea Cadets—there is a northern aspect to me, as you can see. Whenever I have been involved with the uniformed cadet forces, I have been amazed how they have changed the lives of many of our young people. Can the Minister confirm that sea cadets will now carry rifles when members of a guard and that they will do range-firing practices like the other cadet units?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I have absolutely no idea. I am not going to come up with a fudged answer, but I will write to my noble friend to outline whether or not that is the case.
Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)
My Lords, as a former Brownie, Guide and Guide leader, I absolutely agree with all that has been said about the worth of belonging to uniformed organisations, particularly in relation to self-esteem for our young people and the resilience that is built up. I visited my local Guide unit two weeks ago during Parliament Week, and I was very concerned to learn that a number of units have closed recently because of the lack of volunteers. Is there more that the Government can do to help with the lack of volunteers? I am working with the devolved Administrations to help highlight that.
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes a valuable point, as previous speakers have done, in relation to the vital role of volunteers. You cannot have these uniformed youth groups without volunteers. Most of the funding that is outlined within the national youth strategy is focused on England, but I will take back the noble Baroness’s points, because it is a national organisation. I thank her and everyone else in your Lordships’ House who have contributed through volunteering for these groups.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to my interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission. In 1908, Scouting for Boys—and, in 1912, the companion edition called How Girls Can Help to Build Up the Empire—was very explicit about the importance of being prepared. That remains very much at the heart of the work that those two uniformed organisations, and all the others that have been mentioned, do. This is going to be increasingly important for the nation, given all the threats and hazards that we face. Can my noble friend indicate whether or not that philosophy is going to be supported in relation to those organisations, other youth organisations and, more generally, in schools, to ensure that young people are equipped with the personal resilience skills and the skills that may be necessary to support the country in terms of the threats and hazards that we face?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I think “Be prepared” could usefully be used as a motto for Ministers standing at the Dispatch Box in your Lordships’ House as well. There is clearly a role played by cadet forces and other uniformed youth organisations in the broader resilience piece. However, a thread that goes through all our policies on youth is around that resilience that young people so desperately need. All noble Lords from across the House will be aware of the crisis that so many people are feeling, and we want to make sure they feel equipped for the challenges they may face in the future.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
The Minister said in her initial Answer that the last Conservative Government set up the uniformed youth fund to give young people these life-changing skills and opportunities, and I was glad to hear about the evaluation she mentioned. It is sad, therefore, that the fund is ending in March. In the transition to the new funding arrangements, can she guarantee—as she said in response to her noble friend—that all of the organisations, including the Sea Cadets, St John Ambulance, the Guides, the Scouts and others, will continue to receive funding support so that young people can continue to have these life-changing opportunities?
Baroness Twycross (Lab)
I have committed to my noble friend to take the point about transitional funding back to the department. However, as the noble Lord will be aware, the uniformed youth fund was announced in the immediate aftermath of Covid and was intended to allow the groups to set up additional units. It was only ever intended to run until 2025. Therefore, the additional year has been while we have been setting up the programmes and funds under the new national youth strategy, which we are proud to say we have co-produced with young people. That is why the focus has shifted to a different way of rolling out funds.
Superintelligent AI
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to regulate the development of superintelligent AI.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Baroness Lloyd of Effra) (Lab)
AI’s superintelligence is the subject of ongoing debate regarding its definition and whether it is achievable. Advanced transformative AI presents both significant opportunities, such as improvements in healthcare and climate action, and risks. As frontier AI evolves, the AI Security Institute helps the Government assess and identify potential emerging risks, which would include pathways towards any kind of superintelligence. The Government will remain vigilant and prepare for new AI risks, including rapid advancements that could affect society and national security. AI regulated by existing expert regulators will be informed by the AISI findings.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that considered Answer. Clearly, AI has great potential; the UK is third in the global league of AI investment. I understand the Government’s response, which is essentially a nuanced approach to encourage both proper regulation and investment.
However, superintelligent AI undoubtedly does present risks. The Minister will know that the director-general of MI5 has warned of the
“potential future risks from non-human, autonomous AI systems which may evade human oversight and control”.
Meanwhile, the UK’s AI Security Institute has warned:
“In a worst-case scenario, this … could lead to catastrophic, irreversible loss of control over advanced Al systems”.
The problem is that the companies developing superintelligence do not know the outcome and there are currently no barriers to the development. I urge the Government to take this really seriously and to start talking to other countries about putting some safety controls in.
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
My noble friend is right to mention the research of the AI Security Institute, which is advice the Government listen to and take very seriously. AI is a general-purpose technology with a wide range of applications, which is why the UK believes that the vast majority of AI should be regulated at the point of use. My noble friend is also right that collaboration with other countries is critical, and the UK’s approach is to engage with many other countries, and through the AI Security Institute with developers so that it has good insight into what is happening in development today.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
Let us have the Lib Dem Bench next and then the Conservative Benches.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a consultant to DLA Piper on AI regulation and policy. In their manifesto, the Government promised
“binding regulation on … companies developing the most powerful AI models”,
yet, 18 months later, even in light of the harmful activities of stand-alone AI bots, we have seen neither the promised consultation nor any draft legislation. How can the Government credibly claim to be taking superintelligence seriously when they cannot get round even to publishing a consultation, let alone legislating?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
As I mentioned earlier, most AI systems are regulated by our existing expert regulators, and they are already acting. The ICO has released guidance on AI and data protection and the MHRA is taking action to allow a sandbox for AI as a medical device product. We are working with regulators to boost their capabilities as part of the AI opportunities action plan, and where we need to take action—for example, as we have under the Online Safety Act—we will do so. We do not speculate on legislation ahead of future parliamentary Sessions, but we will keep noble Lords updated should and when we bring forward a consultation ahead of any potential legislation.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, in 1982, the then Government commissioned a philosopher, Dame Mary Warnock, to explore the moral and ethical frameworks around human embryology and fertilisation, long before many of the developments were really possible. I worry that the AI Security Institute is just trying to work out what it does, rather than what it should do. Will the Government consider a similar commission to establish the ethical frameworks for superintelligence?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
The AI Security Institute looks at the science and the implications of AI, and collaborates with many other research institutes to examine some of the implications for our society and economy. That approach is bearing great fruit. The institute publishes findings so that we can all take account of them.
Lord St John of Bletso (CB)
Can the Minister elaborate on what economic and labour market risks are associated with superintelligent AI, as distinct from generative AI?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
As I mentioned at the start, there is a lot of debate about the pathway that AI development will take and the pace at which it is developing. The AI Security Institute has reported a sharp rise in AI capabilities over the past 18 months, with continued growth almost certain, and it is looking at the implications of this. For example, one of its research focuses is tracking the development of AI capabilities that would test the limits of human control, which is one of the most pertinent questions for anybody thinking about the implications of superintelligence.
Viscount Camrose (Con)
My Lords, I want to build on the very important point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. Given that AI research and development can be conducted, in effect, anywhere, regulation of the development of superintelligent AI is going to have to be global. Does the Minister feel that the UK is genuinely taking full advantage of our considerable convening power in this space to drive forward the global AI safety agenda? Further, might there be grounds for concern that our convening power may be diminished over time by the emerging political uncertainty that came to the fore over the weekend?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
The Government have forged many extremely successful relationships; as evidenced, for example, by the number of trade deals secured over the past 18 months or so. These relationships with the EU, the US, India, France and many other countries include discussions on AI. In addition, the UK is the co-ordinator on related questions for the International Network for Advanced AI Measurement, Evaluation and Science, which aims to shape and advance the science of AI evaluations globally. Our engagement is on all levels, and specifically on the technical level. The noble Viscount makes an extremely important point. This is an effort of global development, so it is important that we engage with developers globally and with other countries.
Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)
My Lords, I am and always have been a faithful. With tighter regulation in the future confidently anticipated, is it not often the case that its absence in the present can impede innovation rather than foster it? Given that many of those responsible for the development of AI—and, in some cases, the development of AI superintelligence—have repeatedly requested tighter controls on their activities, can my noble friend the Minister assure your Lordships’ House that the existing regulatory structures are adequate? Can she describe the mechanisms through which their salience and strength are kept under constant review?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
My noble friend makes a very good point: our regulators need to be equipped and to have the capabilities, capacity and expertise to regulate a fast-advancing technology. We have put in place many actions and convening powers as part of the AI action plan, to make sure that our regulators have that capacity and capability. Through the AI Security Institute, we are making sure that they have the information they need to regulate. Many departments are thinking about this in concert with their regulators, to ensure that we are taking advantage of the opportunities and preparing for the risks that AI will undoubtedly bring.
Local Government (Exclusion of Non-commercial Considerations) (England) Order 2026
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage
That the draft Order laid before the House on 2 December 2025 be approved.
Relevant document: 46th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 21 January.
Holocaust Memorial Day
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage
That this House takes note of Holocaust Memorial Day.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, it is with great respect and solemn reflection that I move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. As I rise today, I do so with a heavy heart and a deep sense of responsibility.
As noble Lords will be aware, gradually, as time moves on, we lose many of the first-hand survivors of the Holocaust who were so engaged in the education of our young people and the rest of us. With the permission of the House, I would like to read the names of some of those whom we have lost during this year. Eva Schloss, MBE, who died on 3 January 2026, was a co-founder and honorary president of the Anne Frank Trust UK and stepsister of Anne Frank. Manfred Goldberg, MBE, who died aged 95 on 6 November 2025, was a Holocaust survivor and educator. Manfred’s story is part of the Holocaust Educational Trust’s virtual reality Testimony 360 education programme. Harry Olmer, who died on 15 January 2026, was a Holocaust survivor and Holocaust educator. Vera Schaufeld died in January 2026, aged 95. Vera came to the UK on the Kindertransport and shared her story up and down the country, including with our staff at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Eve Kugler, BEM, was a Holocaust survivor who witnessed Kristallnacht and shared her story, again including with the staff in my department. Suzanne Rappaport Ripton died in June 2025. She was the founder member of the Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association, now Holocaust Centre North. Ruth Posner died in September 2025. She was an extraordinary woman who survived the Radom ghetto, slave labour and life in hiding under a false identity. By the end of the war, Ruth and her aunt were the only surviving members of their family. After a dazzling career in theatre and dance, Ruth decided to begin sharing her testimony as a response to rising levels of antisemitism in the UK. I thank all of those who share their testimony and help us remember, and who will continue to make their mark on our remembrance of the Holocaust and its victims.
Tomorrow’s Holocaust Memorial Day is not only a date in the diary for me; it is a moment I return to each year with humility and resolve: a day that makes me pause and reflect on the stories I grew up hearing, and the lessons my parents impressed on me about the horrors of hatred. Tomorrow, we remember the 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust, and the Roma and Sinti, disabled people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay men and political opponents who were also persecuted and killed. Each one had a name, each had a story and each was loved. Behind every number was a human being whose life was cut short by hatred and a machinery of persecution that sought to erase entire communities.
We also remember those who, against all the odds, survived. Many rebuilt their lives in the UK and dedicated themselves to sharing their testimony, ensuring that future generations understood both the horrors they endured and the hope they managed to hold on to. Many of us in this room have been privileged to hear these survivors speak with honesty, courage and an often extraordinary generosity of spirit.
My own family roots are in the East End of London, once home to a vibrant and close-knit Jewish community. Even those of us whose families were not directly targeted felt the shock waves as news of the camps emerged. In homes such as my parents’ and grandparents’, the stories of what had happened were spoken about with a kind of hushed reverence: an understanding that something beyond comprehension had taken place. They taught us that, while we could never fully feel that depth of pain, we had an absolute duty to learn about it, remember it and pass the lessons on.
This year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme, Bridging Generations, feels especially poignant as we move into a time when survivors’ voices are fading. Many have now fallen silent. Yet it is our responsibility to ensure that their legacy does not fade with them. Bridging generations is not an abstract concept: it is the quiet question from a child trying to understand why people were hated for who they were. It is the moment in a school assembly when a survivor’s words change the entire mood of the room. It is the recognition that truth, when spoken plainly, has the power to transform hearts.
The Holocaust did not begin with camps and crematoria. It began with words: with prejudice that became normalised, then embedded in policy and then allowed to flourish unchecked. It moved from insult to exclusion, from exclusion to persecution, and from persecution to genocide.
Memory is our safeguard. Forgetting is the first step towards repeating history. I feel a profound personal responsibility to ensure that these stories are never lost. That is why I am proud that, in 2024, the Prime Minister pledged that every student in the country should have the opportunity to hear recorded survivor testimony. By enabling every young person to access first-person accounts, we build resilience against distortion and denial.
The Holocaust Educational Trust’s Testimony360 programme will allow students to virtually meet survivors and explore historical sites using virtual reality. Long after survivors can no longer be with us, young people will still be able to hear their voices, ask questions and engage with history in a way that feels deeply personal and immediate.
The Holocaust Testimony portal, created by the Association of Jewish Refugees and supported by the Government, is another vital initiative. The portal brings together thousands of interviews with survivors, refugees, rescuers and liberators, providing user-friendly access to decades of testimony. Generations to come will be able to learn from those accounts. Initiatives such as Generation 2 Generation ensure that descendants of survivors continue sharing family histories, preserving the human threads that connect past and present.
When I was a council leader, I set up a Holocaust memorial event in Stevenage—it was over 15 years ago—and I have been privileged to listen to family and first-hand testimony at that event each year. A couple of years ago, I listened to Anita Peleg speak about her mother, the sculptor Naomi Blake. I remember the hush in the room as Anita played a recording of her mother’s own words. It was the kind of silence that falls when truth settles on the heart: heavy yet somehow illuminating. Naomi Blake, who survived Auschwitz and went on to create art filled with hope and renewal, embodied the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit. Hearing her voice reminded me that testimony is not merely information: it is a gift—of courage, of memory and of humanity.
Lord Lieutenant Robert Voss, whose parents escaped Nazi Germany, came to our meeting and gave an account of his paternal grandparents, who were murdered in the gas chambers of Sobibor in June 1942. That moment touched me deeply, and strengthened my resolve to ensure that these stories are never allowed to fade.
Other projects, such as Ordinary Objects, Extraordinary Journeys, a collaboration between the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the National Holocaust Centre and Museum, and the Jewish Museum of Greece, show how even everyday belongings can bear witness. A pair of glasses, a letter, a suitcase: these objects speak when words fall short. They provide a tangible link to lives interrupted and remind us of the profound human cost of antisemitism and hatred.
Restoring names to victims is another sacred responsibility. Yad Vashem’s project to identify the 6 million murdered Jews is a monumental effort grounded in the belief that every person deserves to be remembered. A name is the most personal thing we have: chosen with love and often carried through generations. For the Nazis, names became tools of persecution. For us, restoring them is an act of dignity, remembrance and defiance of those who sought to erase an entire people.
Yet today, all too sadly, Holocaust denial and distortion persist. We still see antisemitic slogans and graffiti on our streets and the trivialisation of the Holocaust in public discourse, online spaces and even protests. Antisemitism is not new to Britain; we know that it stretches back to medieval times and, tragically, that it has never disappeared. The Community Security Trust recorded more than 1,500 antisemitic incidents in just the first half of 2025. This rise demands a clear and courageous response. I pay tribute to the CST for all the work it does in supporting our Jewish community.
Education remains our strongest defence. Young people are bombarded daily with information, some unreliable and some deliberately misleading. We must ensure they have the tools to distinguish truth from manipulation and history from distortion. Teaching about the Holocaust is not simply about understanding the past; it is about shaping a future where hatred cannot take root so easily. That is why I believe that having the national Holocaust memorial and learning centre at the heart of our capital, beside Parliament, matters so deeply. It will stand as a daily reminder to decision-makers, visitors and future generations that this country takes its responsibility to remember seriously. There are differing views, and it is right that Parliament has debated them so fully, but I feel the duty my parents and grandparents felt to ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust are carried forward with honesty and integrity.
We cannot change the history behind us but we can shape the history ahead, and so I make this commitment: I will listen, I will learn, I will speak, and I will help those who come after us to do the same. I look forward to the debate ahead of us this afternoon.
Lord Pickles (Con)
My Lords, I draw attention to the fact that I am the co-chairman of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation. It is a great pleasure to follow the Minister. I thought reminding us of the survivors we have lost this year was a wonderful way to start a speech. Many of them were friends and people we knew, people we shared a joke or a meal with, and people we worked together with for Holocaust remembrance. I mourn them all, but I particularly mourn Manfred, who did such outstanding work. May all of their memories be a blessing.
Whatever the circumstances, we have a whole day’s debate here. I hope the Government will think long and hard next year and ensure that, if not in the precise circumstances under which this debate has occurred, we get a whole day’s debate. I agreed with the Minister’s sentiments and with her speech—as someone once said, I even agreed with the punctuation.
Holocaust Memorial Day challenges us to confront one of the darkest chapters in human history, but remembrance requires more than ritual. It is not enough simply to speak solemnly in Parliament, to stand in silence, or to light a candle once a year. Ceremony without action becomes ceremony without meaning. True remembrance demands leadership—moral, civic and institutional—that is willing to resist hatred in all its modern forms.
In 2025, Britain received a series of wake-up calls that showed how fragile our complacency had become: a violent attack on Jews in Manchester; the conviction of terrorists who planned the mass murder of Jewish people; the shocking murders at Bondi Beach; a pop star calling for the killing of Jews, broadcast on the nation’s media; and the disturbing failure of West Midlands Police, which chose ideology over evidence in describing an antisemitic attack. Each incident triggered brief outrage, followed by national amnesia—shock, condemnation, and then forgetting, and then the cycle begins again. But the danger has not passed. Britain, like much of the world, is sleepwalking into disaster.
We hear the word “genocide” thrown around casually, stripped of its precise and grave legal meaning. This trivialisation obscures the real genocidal ideologies—including those openly embraced by Hamas, whose intent is clear from both its words and its actions. Jew hatred has returned: violently in Israel, genteelly on British streets, and through silence in response to atrocities against Jews elsewhere.
The events of 7 October marked a turning point. The massacre that day was driven by a murderous ideology with deep historical roots. It reveals itself in acts of brutality that defy language: murder, mutilation, rape, and the kidnapping of children and the elderly. Yet almost immediately, the world saw denial, distortion, and the inversion of victims and perpetrators. Those are ancient patterns. Together with modern disinformation, they threaten not only Jewish communities but the principles of liberal democracy.
That is why we must confront the reality of antisemitism today: measurable, documented and rising. The data speaks with clarity. More than 1,500 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the first half of 2025, as the Minister said—the second-highest total ever for that period. There are more than 200 incidents every month. We saw sharp spikes following high-profile provocations, including the chants at Glastonbury, proving how cultural platforms can amplify extremism. University campuses show a slight reduction from the recorded highs of 2024, but a drop from crisis levels is still not normal. A campus where Jewish students hide their identity, avoid events, or face intimidation is not a safe campus, and it does not respect academic freedoms. Antisemitism is not a metropolitan phenomenon. The numbers in Manchester have been described as sickening, but incidents occur in cities, towns and rural communities across the country. This is a national problem.
Institutional responses remain inconsistent: policing varies dramatically from place to place; public bodies hesitate; cultural institutions falter under political pressures; and inconsistency creates space in which extremism grows. We can legislate against crime but we cannot legislate away hatred. The long-term defence is education, yet this is where new challenges have emerged. The number of schools marking Holocaust Memorial Day has fallen sharply, from 2,000 in 2023 to 1,200 in 2024, and only 850 in 2025. Teachers express uncertainty about discussing modern conflicts. Some refuse to mark Holocaust Memorial Day unless it is reframed. This is not just a moment to reflect; it is a warning, and there is a duty to deal with it. We are at a crossroads and we must address this. We need to ensure that leadership is there. We cannot educate children about the Holocaust unless those children are prepared to be in classrooms. We must recognise that this will affect all of us.
I conclude by dealing with a question that we have grappled with before. We have been worried about the nature of the Holocaust, whether it will be diluted by subsequent holocausts and whether we are going to do “Holocaust-lite”. The debate that we had the other day made it clear that this is not our intention. However, we must not forget the Roma genocide.
It was Danny Danon who reminded me most forcefully that the characteristics of the Holocaust applied also—almost exclusively—to the Roma genocide. People were selected not on the basis of who they were, what they did or where they lived but on the basis of the Nazis’ views on race. He reminded me that Adolf Eichmann, at his trial in Israel in the 1960s, faced charges against him for the Roma genocide. I sincerely hope that the Roma can commemorate their genocide at the new national memorial when it is built. I am pleased to announce that the USC Shoah Foundation in the United States is in negotiations to ensure that we host one of the main servers of that institution’s enormous records of Holocaust testimony. This will ensure that the United Kingdom can bring with it many of its methods of remembrance of the Holocaust.
There are many photographs that bring the Holocaust to mind, but for me two main photographs always bring it back to me. The first I suspect will be familiar to Members around the House: the young boy at the Warsaw uprising who has been arrested, with his hands in the air, surrendering to large German soldiers. I am pleased to say that there is good evidence that the young man survived. The second is of a frightened young girl in a scarf peering out of a cattle truck. She is Roma, she is on the way to Auschwitz and she will not survive. Those two young people show what we lost. They show the possibilities that we did not have. We must confront. We must do more than light candles. We must ensure that our children, our grandchildren and those who survive in a multicultural Britain remember the Holocaust and remember what happens when government goes bad. We will ensure that their memory will always be kept.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, for their impressive speeches. I very much agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, that we must do more than light candles. I too look forward to the maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry.
I want to talk about the need, based on the experience of the Holocaust, for not only constant vigilance against antisemitism but the perception and courage to swim against a tide and stand up to the mob. That vigilance and resolve must, of course, extend to all prejudice and hate based on race, religion, ethnicity or any other characteristic. But there is something unique and specific about the 2,000-year history of demonisation of Jews and the depths of antisemitism which led to the Shoah, which must not be overlooked or forgotten.
How can we forget, in fact, when we are holding this debate not only two and a half years after the massacres of 7 October 2023 but shortly after the terrorist atrocities at Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester and in Sydney, the dishonourable conduct of West Midlands Police towards Israeli football fans, and numerous antisemitic incidents?
I attended the event this morning to mark this year’s International Holocaust Memorial Day, hosted by the FCDO and the embassy of Israel, and I will come back to some of the words spoken at that event. I fell to wondering how many of those attending marches and demos supposedly in favour of Palestinians in Gaza and who chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestinians will be free”, which implies the destruction of the State of Israel, and “Globalise the intifada”, which implies worldwide violence against Jews, actually felt uneasy about one or both of those chants but suppressed their doubts to be in the in-crowd.
I have watched three films about the Holocaust within the last 10 days. I belatedly caught “Nuremberg” at the cinema; “Schindler’s List” and “The Zone of Interest” have both been on the television, and I watched them again. In my speech on this day two years ago, I quoted Dov Forman, great-grandson of the late, great Holocaust survivor, Lily Ebert, and I do so again. He said that
“this dark chapter in history wasn’t only about mass murder. It was the destruction of a rich Jewish culture and civilisation that had thrived for thousands of years. To remember the Holocaust is to acknowledge both the Jewish lives and the Jewish life that was lost”.
I noticed to my surprise that “Schindler’s List” was not only broadcast pretty late, finishing at nearly 2 am as it had to wait for the live snooker to finish, but classified 15, along with “Nuremberg”, by the British Board of Film Classification. The justification for a minimum age of 15 for “Nuremberg” included that it contained
“images of real dead bodies”,
while for “Schindler’s List” it was that
“based on a true story, younger viewers may find the film’s depictions of persecution and the Holocaust emotionally upsetting”.
Well, yes, that is the point of Holocaust education: to teach people what happened in terms of dead bodies and physical and emotional horror. If they are not, in consequence, upset, distressed, outraged, and despairing at what inhuman persecution, murder and destruction people are capable of perpetrating against their fellow human beings, the basis for action to stop indifference is not laid. I think at least all secondary school-age children should watch these films at school, as well as at home, as the basis for a discussion about the horror of the Holocaust and other genocides.
I was six years old when I watched a serial on the TV called “The Silver Sword” from 1958 about child refugees from the Nazis. This is the synopsis I found online:
“On a cold, dark night in Warsaw in 1942, the Balicki children watch in horror as Nazi stormtroopers arrest their mother. Now they are alone. With the war raging around them, food and shelter are hard to come by. They live in constant fear. Finally, they get word that their father is alive. He has made it to Switzerland. Edek and Ruth are determined to find him, though they know how dangerous the long trip from Warsaw will be. But they also know that if they don’t make it, they may never see their parents again”.
I do not remember much of the plot, with only snatches remaining imprinted on my memory; and, unlike so many histories of the period, this fictional story had a happy ending. Notwithstanding that, what has persisted with me is the sense of fear and desperation, or, in the words of one online comment:
“Just an image—an image of devastation and loss—and a knowledge that this was something powerful and important”.
This is, of course, nothing compared to the ghastly memories of those who endured the Holocaust or the real and terrible losses of those whose families perished in it, but it is important that those deep feelings of fear, devastation and desperation continue to strike a chord with people of all kinds, both within and beyond the Jewish community, if the pledge of “never again” is to have any meaning. Hence the essential need for Holocaust education. I am grieved and disappointed to hear that fewer schools are delivering that.
I have always believed that Nazism, fascism and their like, with the combination of obedience to authoritarian rule and callousness towards human suffering, are viruses that can be caught anywhere, in any country. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney last week quoted in his speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos from Václav Havel’s 1978 essay, The Power of the Powerless, which was about how the communist system sustained itself. He said:
“And his answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: ‘Workers of the world, unite!’ He doesn’t believe it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists. Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false. Havel called this ‘living within a lie’. The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true”.
Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of Auschwitz, apparently saw himself as
“a cog in the wheel of the great extermination machine created by the Third Reich”.
American military psychologist Gustave Gilbert wrote of his discussions with Hoess during the Nuremberg trials, at which Hoess testified, that:
“In all of the discussions, Höss is quite matter-of-fact and apathetic, shows some belated interest in the enormity of his crime, but gives the impression that it never would have occurred to him if somebody hadn’t asked him”.
In a remark this morning at the Holocaust Memorial Day event at the Foreign Office, Meg Davis, a Holocaust Educational Trust young ambassador, struck a similar note, when she talked of how “compliance is the enabler”.
To my mind, Holocaust education needs to encompass not only the terrible history of antisemitism and where it led but the importance of an instinct and resolve against compliance and conformity. People who refuse to go with the flow, who have the guts to say, “This is not right”, and who are difficult and even objectionable to some minds are essential grit in our pledge of “never again”.
The warning signs tend to come long before the atrocities. The grandfather of the present noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, was the second Lord Russell of Liverpool. He was a deputy Judge Advocate-General to the British Army of the Rhine and one of the chief legal advisers during the war crimes trials in Nuremberg, and he wrote a book, The Scourge of the Swastika, on his experiences.
With the kind agreement of the current noble Lord, I would like to quote some passages from that book. First, the author noted that, a few months before the outbreak of war, a
“menacing German Foreign Office circular must have clearly pointed out the course of future events to all but those who did not wish to see it”.
That circular read:
“‘It is certainly no coincidence that the fateful year of 1938 has brought nearer the solution of the Jewish question simultaneously with the realization of the idea of Greater Germany … The advance made by Jewish influence and the destructive Jewish spirit in politics, economy and culture; paralysed the power and the will of the German people to rise again. The healing of this sickness among the people was therefore certainly one of the most important requirements for exerting the force which, in the year 1938, resulted in the joining together of Greater Germany in defiance of the world’”.
We were warned. The second Lord Russell of Liverpool thus observed quite rightly that:
“Persecution of the Jews in the countries which the Nazis invaded and occupied”
between 1939 and 1945
“was indeed on a stupendous scale, but it cannot have taken by surprise anyone who had followed the rise of the Nazis to power in 1933 or their Party program. Point Four of that programne declared: ‘Only a member of the race can be a citizen. A member of the race can only be one who is of German blood, without consideration of creed. Consequently, no Jew can be a member of the race’”.
That was six years before the outbreak of the war.
These reflections strike a deep chord in me after the period since 7 October intensified the fears about how an attitude explained as anti-Zionism and opposition to Israel—the blood libel of our times—transforms so easily into raw antisemitism and the dehumanisation of Jews. An interview in today’s Telegraph with Professor Sir Simon Schama notes that his TV programme about the Holocaust, “The Road to Auschwitz”, was rigorous in its examination of how the Nazis found willing accomplices in mass murder while others looked away. The journalist notes how Marian Turski, one of the last survivors of Auschwitz, said:
“Auschwitz did not fall from the sky. Evil comes step by step”.
Professor Sir Simon Schama says:
“There has been a qualitative shift towards the sense that the Jews are kind of enemies among us. I think there’s been a shift from the fury about what Israel’s said to have done in Gaza, to essentially dehumanising Jews generally”.
Holocaust survivor Mala Tribich told us this morning of her experience at Ravensbrück:
“We were stripped of our identifiers and totally dehumanised”.
Let us react this time before we know precisely how bad it can get.
Baroness Deech (CB)
My Lords, for some of us, every day is Holocaust remembrance day. It is a pain we carry within our bodies, like a physical pain. It would be alleviated if only my parents had lived to see me in the House of Lords at an event like today, marking the grievous effect that the Holocaust had on them and, of course, their relatives, parents and wider family. We are grateful for national efforts to commemorate the Holocaust, but we remain troubled by the way the story of our lost families and the destruction of much of central European Jewish life is often presented.
I begin by paying tribute to the more than 1,200 victims of the atrocities of 7 October and the more than 200 people who were taken hostage—the worst massacre of Jews since the Second World War. Those killings were carried out with genocidal intent. Hamas has pledged to repeat them, if able, and its charter explicitly calls for the killing of Jews, not merely Israelis. As with the Holocaust, there are those who deny that the killings of 7 October occurred, or who falsely attribute them to Israel. That denial can be countered, among other sources, by the meticulous report on each victim authored by the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Belgravia.
I hope the national commemorations this week will include reference to 7 October. That is important because antisemitism is a continuum. It did not begin in Germany in the 1930s and it did not end in 1945. It has existed for at least two millennia and arguably longer. The Holocaust was not a historical aberration but an eruption of a hatred that had long been embedded across societies. Today, antisemitism is again re-emerging, using the Gaza war as a pretext. Those who blame Israel for rising antisemitism ignore the historical reality that mass killings, pogroms and expulsions occurred long before Israel existed and would persist even if it did not.
So what should we truly be remembering? Condemning the Nazi regime alone is both too narrow and too superficial. Research by University College London’s Centre for Holocaust Education shows that Holocaust education, while essential, does not reliably reduce antisemitism. The UK has invested heavily in museums, memorials, archives, survivor testimony and learning centres, but these efforts have not demonstrably shifted attitudes.
One reason is that Holocaust education often treats the subject as distant history. Students learn about it as a unique past atrocity with little connection to their own world. Antisemitism is framed as a Nazi phenomenon rather than a persistent, long-standing prejudice that still operates today. This fosters the mistaken belief that the problem ended in 1945. Students frequently come away believing that Hitler alone or a small group of Nazi leaders were responsible. This obscures the widespread collaboration across Europe from officials to ordinary citizens and the deep-rooted antisemitism that existed for centuries in many countries. Many students also believe that German soldiers would have been executed had they refused to participate, reinforcing the false idea that ordinary people had no moral agency.
At the same time, young people increasingly encounter Holocaust misinformation and conspiracy theories on social media platforms, such as YouTube and TikTok, often with more impact on them than their formal schooling. Some are influenced by historically misleading fictional portrayals such as “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas”. More historically grounded films such as those the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, mentioned, such as “Survivor”, “The Commandant’s Shadow” and “1945”, would provide far better educational value.
Crucially, many students learn about the Holocaust without learning about antisemitism itself. They do not understand its history, its ideological roots or the social and religious narratives that sustain it. They do no learn that antisemitism is rising sharply today, especially since 7 October. Nor do they grasp how far-right extremism, far-left hostility and Islamist ideology—perhaps I should have said theology—increasingly intersect. Young people who march calling for Israel’s elimination, who persecute Jewish students or who call for violence against Zionists have often already received Holocaust education, yet they frequently refuse to distinguish between Israel and Jews. The fact that similar hostility is not directed at, for example, Chinese, Iranian or Russian students for their Governments’ actions exposes the underlying antisemitism.
The recent report on antisemitism by the noble Lord, Lord Mann, and Penny Mordaunt, to whom we should be grateful, also warns that some religious teaching in schools may perpetuate anti-Jewish beliefs. Initiatives such as the Winchester diocese’s work with Jewish communities to eliminate medieval stereotypes from religious education are welcome, and it would be encouraging to see similar programmes expanded nationwide. It is fortunate for us that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry will make her maiden speech today. We look forward to her many contributions to come, but today’s will be especially pertinent.
Another flaw in Holocaust remembrance is that it has become overwhelmingly a narrative of Jewish death rather than Jewish life. Jews are presented primarily as victims with little attention to the vibrant culture, traditions, faith and resilience that sustained Jewish communities for thousands of years up to today. Even more problematic is the failure to link Holocaust remembrance to contemporary antisemitism. If “never again” is to have meaning, students must be taught how antisemitic tropes persist today in activism, conspiracy theories and some religious or political discourse. They must understand how the term Zionism is often used as a proxy for hostility towards Jews. As the late Lord Sacks observed, antisemitism has evolved from religious prejudice to racial ideology to hostility towards the only Jewish state and the right of Jews to self-determination. This is politically uncomfortable, but it lies at the heart of the modern problem.
Nevertheless, many Holocaust remembrance events avoid mentioning Israel or 7 October altogether. Some councils and politicians even avoid using the word “Jew” when discussing Holocaust victims. This erasure weakens historical accuracy and undermines the credibility of remembrance.
Another difficulty lies in the insistence, by successive Governments over many years, that Holocaust remembrance must always be merged with other genocides. Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur were appalling tragedies and deserve their own memorialisation. However, collapsing them all into a single narrative prevents meaningful understanding of why Jews were targeted, how antisemitism developed and how it persists. It also risks relativising genocide and enabling distorted claims, including those weaponised today against Jews themselves, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Pickles.
Students are supposed to learn lessons from Holocaust education, but lessons have become overly moralised and insufficiently historical. In an effort to put the education to use, students are taught general lessons about tolerance and being bystanders but are not given the historical knowledge or intellectual tools needed to recognise and challenge antisemitism in its modern forms. As survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, the cellist of Auschwitz, observed when giving evidence to the Commons Select Committee, a new learning centre here would not achieve anything that has not already been learned in the 80 years since the Holocaust. Lasker-Wallfisch labelled the plan to build it next to Parliament “a completely idiotic idea” and “dangerous”. She said:
“A Jew, unlike a Rwandan, is not safe anywhere now”.
What is needed is serious historical education and a clear understanding of antisemitism across time.
Young people, and society more broadly, should also learn about contemporary Jewish communities—their culture, contributions and place in national life. Jews should not be portrayed only as historical victims but as the active participants in civic, intellectual and cultural life that we are. This is why Holocaust education requires a fundamental overhaul. Teaching a narrow, Nazi-centric narrative of historical murder has not succeeded in changing attitudes or countering modern antisemitism. That is also why plans for yet another Holocaust memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens represent a missed opportunity. Its proposed learning centre appears to literally set in concrete many of the shortcomings already identified. It does not meaningfully address contemporary antisemitism nor the central role of Israel in Jewish identity. If it presents a primarily British perspective on the Holocaust, it risks appearing evasive.
Britain itself has a complex history in relation to its Jewish community. The massacre of 1190, the expulsion of 1290, the slow and relatively recent restoration of full civil rights, the restrictive refugee policies of the 1930s and 1940s, Britain’s failure to admit large numbers of Jewish refugees, its restrictions on immigration to Mandatory Palestine and its post-war treatment of displaced persons remain difficult chapters. Even the Kindertransport and the Winton rescues were privately, not nationally, funded, and the children admitted were separated from their parents because they were more readily assimilable and not a threat to job seekers. If only Israel had existed in 1938, courtesy of Britain, rather than in 1948, how many thousands or millions of lives might have been saved?
Against that backdrop, many in the Jewish community feel that contemporary antisemitism has been allowed to grow. Hate marches, biased policing, hostility on campuses, conspiracy theories spread by doctors, lecturers, teachers and students, vandalism and open calls for violence are increasingly common. Anti-Zionism has become a socially acceptable mask for antisemitism, even as Israel’s role in Jewish safety and continuity becomes ever clearer.
The Jewish community sees Governments tolerating extremist rhetoric, hesitating to challenge hate preachers, imposing restrictions on Israel’s self-defence, cutting themselves off from security and defence exchanges, and giving credence to Hamas-derived narratives. It is therefore unsurprising that some Jews feel sceptical about official declarations of “never again” and announcements of yet another Holocaust memorial while present-day antisemitism goes insufficiently challenged. It looks like an attempt to deflect justified criticism.
We expect more than platitudes. Will the Government call upon Christian and Muslim leaders to take responsibility for addressing religious teachings that perpetuate anti-Jewish ideas? Will they act decisively against extremist preaching? Will they commit to a serious reform of Holocaust education, one that drops vague moral messaging and treats the Holocaust as a uniquely Jewish genocide, and equips students to recognise antisemitism in all its historical and modern forms? The task of remembering has been accomplished, with the recording of testimonies, the collection of data, many memorials and 21 learning centres already existing in the UK, including the National Holocaust Centre in Newark and the Imperial War Museum galleries, but nobody has ever looked into what effect, if any, they have on those who visit, or into who does not visit. It is just assumed that they combat antisemitism. Finally, if Holocaust remembrance is to mean anything, it must affirm not only the memory of those murdered but the legitimacy, dignity and security of Jewish life today, including the central role of the State of Israel as a symbol of Jewish continuity and self-determination.
The Lord Bishop of Coventry (Maiden Speech)
My Lords, it is my privilege to make my maiden speech in this debate on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day. First, I express my gratitude for the kindness that I have received from your Lordships on entering this House, and especially for the support, patience and care of the staff across the departments since my appointment to Coventry.
Being of Jewish heritage myself, I cannot recall a time when I was not aware of the Holocaust. I am grateful that this was a part of our family history that was never kept from me but held as a marker of an inhumane world, from which I was charged to do all I could to make the world a better place. Since then, I have served in Yorkshire, Uganda, Surrey, Sussex, Durham and now Coventry. I have a deep love of singing, especially the high notes, and running, unimpressively, and a nice glass of Sauvignon. Coming to Christian faith through youth ministry, I think I am now qualified to say, at the risk of current cliché, that I am and have pretty much always been a faithful.
I will focus my contribution on the importance of educating our children and young people in their religious understanding of the world, as I was, having been among the first cohort of children to journey through the GCSE curriculum, with an outstanding religious studies teacher whose support remarkably continues to this day. He ensured our introduction as teenagers to Judaism, Christianity and Islam without prejudice or favour. From this firm foundation I was privileged to have the opportunity to study Judaism as part of my first degree, with a special interest in the literature generated by the Holocaust.
I am now honoured to serve the diocese of Coventry, covering Warwickshire and part of the West Midlands, with Coventry city at its heart—a city that has always welcomed the refugee and the stranger, and which has benefited greatly from the rich culture, skills and contributions they have brought. Coventry knows that we cannot take for granted the understanding which builds relationships between communities, the tolerance which enriches communities through diversity, and the peace which overcomes. We know that we have to act in order to make a difference. Coventry is a city of peace and reconciliation, with a strong multicultural community and interfaith network, supporting each other’s festivals, celebrations and challenges. This has a long history, including the welcome of 50 Kindertransport children on the eve of the Holocaust. In the decades before and after, Coventry has continued to welcome those who have faced genocide and destruction from countries around the world.
The Jewish community of Coventry was founded by immigrant watchmaking families, who produced the best watches in the world and contributed so much to the life and well-being of the city. They had faced hardship, persecution, oppression and pogroms, only then to face antisemitism in their adopted land while serving the city. The German-born Jewish mayor, Siegfried Bettmann, faced not only antisemitism but extreme xenophobic, nationalist, anti-German sentiment, forcing him to retire from office and public life as World War I approached, despite his devotion to his adopted country.
In this debate, we recognise that the families of every member of the Jewish community are impacted for generations by the horrors and carry the burden of antisemitism today, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has rightly reminded us. As a bishop, while recognising the deep sensitivities of the present moment, I was proud to discover that there are Anglican clergy who are taking some responsibility for addressing this impact in their communities, rather than remaining silent.
Tomorrow, in the town of Bedworth, Nuneaton, renowned for its pride in holding the longest-held Armistice Day event, unbroken since 1921 and attracting up to 10,000 people, in which schoolchildren line the streets, All Saints Bedworth is holding a special event to mark Holocaust Memorial Day for the first time. Though many schools across the nation have chosen not to mark Holocaust Memorial Day in recent years, as the noble Lord reminded us, recognising the deep sensitivities around the terrible and humane suffering of the people of Palestine in Gaza, Reverend Dave Poultney has taken the decision to offer a space in his community to remember the Holocaust, to educate the children of the three schools in his parish, and to lament, as the Psalms encourage us, but to remember, so that they are invited to build a world in which this will not and cannot ever happen again. This is especially important, as the Minister reminded us, at a time when survivors of the Holocaust who can testify as eyewitnesses reach the end of their lives, and in a culture where truth is contested and must be defended.
I pay tribute to those among the Jewish community here in the UK and other parts of the world who have faced dreadful persecution and attacks that can never be justified. It is a source of sorrow to my soul that the antisemitism that caused such fear in our family continues, such that communities are having to be on constant alert, afraid for their children and for themselves. This cannot be right.
As this House will know, Coventry Cathedral has a worldwide ministry of peace and reconciliation, founded the very day after the destruction of the old cathedral in World War II. These relationships continue and are deeply precious to us. Just last month, we stood side by side with the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, who laid a wreath for peace in the ruins of Coventry’s old cathedral. Representatives of all walks of life, including the Armed Forces, and of all ages, shared together in gathering to mark our mutual challenges in peacebuilding and social cohesion to inspire a new generation to work together for peace in each of our countries.
Every day at noon, the cathedral prays the Coventry litany. This is used across the world by the Cross of Nails community that flows out of the cathedral and stands to heal the wounds of history, live well with difference and celebrate diversity, and work for communities of justice and peace. The litany begins:
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.
It goes on to pray for:
“The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class”,
inviting the response,
“Father, forgive”.
Interestingly, it does not say, “Father, forgive them”, for in 1940, the then provost Dick Howard recognised that the hatred that had caused the destruction of his cathedral church lay not simply out there among the perceived enemy, but within us all.
It is of great concern that, despite all the deeply significant efforts towards peacemaking and reconciliation, our times are more divided, not less, in these days. We know that the study of human behaviour which led to the evil of the Holocaust begins by using words—words that separate us through the language of othering, words intent on harming rather than healing. Words are our currency in this House, as they are in the wider world. Our words matter, and we can use words towards hostility or towards peace.
May this House and His Majesty’s Government stand for justice and kindness for all, so that every community of this nation may meet in understanding and respect, united by love of goodness, keeping far from violence and strife. May our children and the generations that follow be educated to live in peace, and may this nation find its honour and greatness in the work of peacebuilding and reconciliation today and for all our days to come.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure and a privilege to follow the right reverend Prelate, and I congratulate her on her excellent and poignant maiden speech. As we have heard, she joins us with a wealth of pastoral experience, both in her current role, since 2025, as the 10th Bishop of Coventry, and in a variety of positions before that, ranging from Burgess Hill to Bradford, and Guildford to Uganda.
As a severely disabled Member of the House, I particularly welcome the right reverend Prelate’s interest in and commitment to supporting disabled people, including by running the London marathon for Mencap in 2022. I cannot think of a better preparation for life in your Lordships’ House, where I am afraid she will find that the glacial speed with which any Government move makes having plenty of stamina a prerequisite for getting anything done. She may find that she has an advantage because, as she will know, the Spirit can move far more quickly than us mere humans.
That reminds me, as someone who joined the Movement for the Ordination of Women when I was at university in the early 1990s, of a beautiful verse from chapter 9 of the Book of Wisdom, with which the right reverend Prelate may well be familiar. It is addressed to God, and it reads:
“With you is wisdom, who knows your works, and was present when you made the world, and who understands what is pleasing in your sight and what is right according to your commandments. Send her forth from the holy heavens and from the throne of your glory send her that she may be with me and toil … for she knows and understands all things, and she will guide me wisely in my actions”.
Quite apart from exposing the absurdity of viewing God purely as male, I cannot think of a more powerful affirmation of the multidimensional nature of God, embodying spiritually all that is beautiful in his creation of humanity, including she as much as he. I cannot promise the right reverend Prelate that your Lordships’ House will always do as she advises, but we look forward to benefiting from her wisdom.
There is something else that strikes me as absurd, and which I find completely counterintuitive: our implicit construction, as a society, of a hierarchy of racism. Hitler could not have been clearer: his fanatical hatred of the Jews informed the 1935 Nuremberg laws, which classified Jews as
“enemies of the race-based state”.
That racist hatred, in turn, informed the genocidal logic of the Shoah, or Holocaust. In other words, everything revolved around race. Yet, here we are, 81 years on from the Soviet Army’s liberation of Auschwitz, still mouthing with sincerity the mantra of “Never again”, but not calling out the attack of 7 October 2023, the banning of the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, the attack on Heaton Park synagogue, the Bondi Beach shooting or the prevention of Damien Egan, in the other place, from addressing pupils of a school in his own constituency. We are not calling out these events for what they are: racist.
If Hitler knew what it was about—and as my noble friend Lord Pickles reminded us, it was about race—why do we not? After all, within 20 years of the liberation of Auschwitz, your Lordships’ House had passed the Race Relations Act 1965, which, as noble Lords will know, made the promotion of hatred on the grounds of race, colour, and ethnic or national origins an offence. The toxic abuse and now murderous violence being visited on our Jewish communities, such as in Manchester, clearly violates the Act. Unless we are saying that the Act applies only to skin colour—which would be factually incorrect—this is racism, pure and simple, so why does society seem to pretend that it is not?
What sort of message are we sending to our beloved Holocaust survivors when, instead of the theory of “Never again”, they see only the beginnings of “Yet again”? What about impressionable young people who get most of their news, as we heard earlier, from social media? The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is bridging generations. What sort of bridge are we building when we fail to call out racism and our police imply, as happened on camera, “Well, it depends on the context”. Really? So it is okay to be racist if it is not about skin colour, or it involves abusing Jewish people or Israel.
I fear we are in danger of legitimising racist prejudice by default. As the Minister said in her powerful opening remarks, the Holocaust had its roots in prejudice that began with words. Deborah Lipstadt tells us:
“Anyone who thinks this only impacts Jews is ignoring reality. This is an attack on Western liberalism, democracy, and international security and stability”.
We can be sure that, even as we speak in this debate, there are those who are determined that the answer to the question posed by the Daily Telegraph, “Should Jews feel safe in Britain?”, should be a resounding “No”. These racists must not be allowed to achieve their goal, for the cost of surrendering to such a racist creed is far greater than the millions spent on policing the demonstrations that have paralysed our capital city weekend after weekend.
In conclusion, my childhood Jewish refugee surgeon, Hanuš Weisl, fled for his life as a teenager from racism: a racism that would kill all the relatives who came to see him depart on the last train out of Prague before the Nazis closed the border. Surely, we owe it to him today to take stronger action to ensure that racism, in all its forms, is confronted with the full force of the law, so that “Never again” never becomes “Yet again”.
Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath (Lab)
My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, and to have heard the brilliant speech from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry—I am pleased to welcome another sort-of West Midlander—and so many powerful speeches from all noble Lords. I look forward to listening to the rest of the debate and, if I may be allowed to say, particularly to my fellow West Midlander, the noble Lord, Lord Austin, whose father was my inspirational head teacher at secondary school.
My father, Jim Ramsey, was a soldier during the Second World War, in a flail tank in the Westminster Dragoons and he was part of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen in April 1945. Sadly, he died in 1990 but, while I was growing up, he told me what he had seen there. He was deeply shocked and appalled, and told us, his children, about it during the 1970s and 1980s because he wanted us to know, and for us to then tell others what he had told us, making a reality of Bridging Generations, the theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day.
Survivors of the camps are now dwindling to tiny numbers and their stories must live on through their families and fantastic organisations such as the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, to which I pay tribute. I share my father’s conviction of the importance of bearing witness by continuing to repeat accounts by the men and women who saw what had happened in the camps. This extract was kindly given to me by the Westminster Dragoons Regimental Association; it is taken from a report on the concentration camp at Belsen, Germany, by a fellow member of my father’s regiment:
“Belsen is a small village 11 miles from Celle, which is in the province of Hanover. About a mile south of Belsen there is a concentration camp … The conditions at Belsen camp were ghastly. Obviously it was used as a place where the prisoners could be exterminated slowly and with least trouble to the Reich. This extermination took place in the form of slow starvation; the rations were a bowl of swede or turnip soup per person every day and a loaf of rye bread between 12 persons every week. Thus the bare minimum was given; a minimum which would not allow anyone to die quickly of starvation, but which would make him or her gradually waste away into a living skeleton. When this happened death either followed by typhus or mere collapse. It was reckoned that at least 400 persons died every day.
When the camp was first entered by British troops, they were met by a sight which we in England would think impossible of a ‘civilised’ nation such as Germany. All over the grounds of the camp lay the bodies of what had once … been men and women. It was impossible to miss seeing bodies. Two over there—nine in front of the barbed wire, a large pile of 40 outside one of the huts—it was hard to walk without stepping on them as they lay on the ground. They were there because to begin with the prisoners were too weak to move their comrades away to bury them, and secondly because the SS guards were either too lazy to move them or because there were too many to move, and as they were buried more died. In one part of the camp there was a large pit. It was 80 feet deep, and in the bottom there was a mass of corpses, half buried with earth. It was said that the pit had been 20 feet deeper, but that the last consignment of bodies had filled up that 20 feet. At this moment Hungarian guards are digging another pit for those prisoners whom our doctors know will die shortly from typhus.
Today is the 25th of April 1945. The British have been at the camp for almost a week. They buried 1,200 people yesterday and 1,700 the day before, and there will be more to bury tomorrow. But things will gradually become better as the food we are giving them builds them up.
It is quite probable that many of the people in England who read accounts of this concentration camp, despite the fact that there are photographs to prove it, will think that the whole thing is vastly exaggerated and that it is just a move in the effort to foster the feeling of hate against the Germans—a feeling which admittedly the average Englishman does not like to show. He believes in sport and fair play … and anyhow, how in the world could another country do such terrible things when we don’t do them? Also we haven’t seen with our own eyes so we don’t believe, and it’s better forgotten anyhow”.
I have read only extracts from the report; I apologise to Members for how upsetting it is, but, bearing in mind the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, it seems appropriate to read them today. The final line written by that solider is:
“Do you think it’s better forgotten?”
I do not know who he was addressing that to, but I think he agreed with my father.
That anxiety that the testimony of returning soldiers would either not be believed or not be passed on to future generations was shared by my father, as well as the utter horror of what he had witnessed. How dismaying it was therefore to learn, from the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s October 2020 report, that the Labour Party had been dealing so inadequately with antisemitism under its previous leadership, and that complaints of individual members sharing Holocaust denial on social media had not even been investigated.
When Keir Starmer became leader, he was determined to root out antisemitism in the party. As part of this vital endeavour, I was asked to lead the work needed to address the recommendations made in the commission’s damning report. It was terrible that such work was necessary, but what a fitting opportunity it was for me to honour my father. The EHRC had identified political interference in the handling of antisemitism complaints, so I had the task of developing an independent complaints system from scratch. I also established a proper process to engage with Jewish community stakeholders, and I oversaw the devising and delivery of a programme of antisemitism awareness training for use across the party for all staff and parliamentarians.
I worked closely with the Jewish Labour Movement, which was led so effectively at that time by my now noble friends Lord Katz and Lady Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent, as well as Dame Louise Ellman, Rebecca Filer, Peter Mason and Adam Langleben. I worked with Danny Stone of the Antisemitism Policy Trust and Adrian Cohen of the Jewish Leadership Council, as well as Marie van der Zyl, the then president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and her successor, Phil Rosenberg. I also came to hugely respect Dave Rich and all those at the Community Security Trust; obviously, that work is ongoing, for reasons that other noble Lords have mentioned today.
Under Keir’s leadership, and with the support and challenge of all those wonderful people, the Labour Party succeeded in turning things round. The EHRC lifted its legal enforcement action against the party, and no longer did the Chief Rabbi find himself needing to intervene publicly in the general election, as he had done in 2019. But, of course, antisemitism is still very much with us today, as we all saw last October with the horrific attack on worshippers at the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur. Therefore, Holocaust Memorial Day retains its vital role in ensuring that we all remember and—more than this—that we all do whatever we can to tackle antisemitism wherever we see it.
Lord Massey of Hampstead (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath. I thank her for all the work that she has done to combat antisemitism. I also thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, for arranging this debate and for commemorating so kindly those who witnessed the events we speak of who passed away this year. I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on her excellent maiden speech and thank her for her recognition of the multigenerational trauma experienced by those of us of Jewish heritage. That is a very significant thing, in my view.
Memorialising the Holocaust has never been more important. We know that this grotesque event was based on an ancient hatred, and yet the events since 7 October have produced a level of antisemitism in this country that few of us could really have imagined. Jews in the UK, as has been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and my noble friend Lord Shinkwin, can no longer attend school or synagogue without security protection. Israeli football fans have been banned from watching their team play. Members of the other House have been stopped from attending schools in their constituencies, and there have been deadly antisemitic terrorist attacks on our streets. The open statements about killing Jews and the demonisation and vilification of Israel have been normalised to a rather terrifying extent.
I will focus my brief remarks on the term “genocide”, which was the basis of the Holocaust and is now a term, as my noble friend Lord Pickles mentioned, that has been deliberately weaponised in some quarters to inflame a new version of hatred against Jews and Israel. For Jews to be falsely accused of this crime has been one of the most painful aspects of this war of words.
Let us look at the origins of the term “genocide”. It was invented by the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin during World War II and entered public discourse for the first time when it was included in the indictments against the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg.
What is genocide? Lemkin’s definition was that it was the extermination of racial and religious groups in order to destroy particular races and classes of people. The genocide convention of 1948 defines the term more broadly, but the key is the intent to destroy a racial or religious group. As we know, the Nazis devised their final solution in 1942 in a state-sponsored, institutionalised programme to exterminate the entire Jewish population of occupied Europe, which totalled 9 million people at that time. They managed to kill 6 million of them.
Let us contrast this with the alleged genocide in Gaza, which was a war of self-defence—Israel’s sovereign right—following the atrocity of 7 October and the kidnapping of 251 hostages, the worst pogrom since World War II, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. Whether you agree or disagree with Israel’s conduct of the war, there was never an intent to exterminate or eliminate any group or race. Israel’s war is against a terrorist group pledged to destroy it. It has nothing to do with the idea of genocide. Furthermore, Hamas bears responsibility for casualties in Gaza by refusing to release hostages and embedding itself and its weaponry within the civilian infrastructure. It is therefore vital that the Holocaust is remembered for its unique evil. The public need to be reminded of what constitutes a genocide. Understanding the term might prevent its misuse for political ends.
We are in dangerous waters now in terms of Holocaust denial and distortion, as opponents of Israel seek to undermine the unprecedented character of this event with false equivalence. This must begin in schools. As we lose living witnesses to this darkest history, we cannot afford a growing vacuum of knowledge in schools about the Holocaust, or, worse still, for it to be replaced with an ideology that questions it. So I urge the Minister to devote even more resource to ensure that the public understand the Holocaust, what constitutes a genocide, and how fragile societies can become in the face of antisemitism and racism. By doing so, we can make sure that it never happens again.
Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow that brilliant speech by the noble Lord, Lord Massey. It was a privilege to listen to the fantastic maiden speech by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry.
In March 1939, a 10 year-old Jewish boy in a town called Ostrava, in what was then Czechoslovakia, was woken up in the middle of the night; he got out of bed, looked out of the window and saw German troops marching into the town square. It was the day that Hitler had invaded. A few days later he was put on a train by his mum and teenage sisters. It was the last time he would see them, because they were eventually rounded up, sent first to a ghetto and then to Theresienstadt, before being murdered in Treblinka in October 1942.
That boy came to the UK—he was able to speak only three words of English, which were “hot”, “cross” and “bun”—but he grew up to become the youngest grammar school head teacher in the country and educated tens of thousands of people, including my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath. But, much more importantly from my point of view, he brought up four kids, of whom I am the second. In later life, he worked with black and Asian communities in Dudley to establish the racial equality council, raised funds for the Holocaust Educational Trust and spoke at its events. I pay tribute to it and its work.
We have heard in this debate references to statistics about Holocaust education. These are worrying figures, it is true, but HET, which engages with schools all year round, reports that across its programmes, it is working with hundreds more schools than in 2023, before the barbaric attacks on Israel by Hamas, and that this will increase still further with its new Testimony360 programme.
Last week I went to listen, as did a number of Members of your Lordships’ House present here, to the brilliant historian Simon Sebag Montefiore deliver an absolutely riveting lecture at HET’s annual parliamentary event. He said that teaching about the Holocaust and antisemitism is “more vital than ever” as:
“The last witnesses are passing away, while Holocaust denial, distortion, inversion, and what I would call perversion—now joined by eliminationist antisemitism—have made an alarming comeback”.
Those are the points I want to focus on today, but first I pay tribute, as others have done, to the survivors who have died this year; in particular, Manfred Goldberg, Eve Kugler—with whom I travelled to Poland for March of the Living in 2018, along with the noble Lords, Lord Pickles and Lord Shinkwin, and got to know well subsequently—and Harry Olmer, who died last week.
Many Members of your Lordships’ House will have known Manfred Goldberg; I thought he was a great man and a real hero. He survived the death camps, came to the UK after the war, got married, brought up three sons and made a huge contribution to our country in so many ways. He was absolutely appalled by the increase in antisemitism we have seen since Israel was attacked on 7 October.
I pay tribute too to the Community Security Trust and the brilliant work it does, led by Sir Gerald Ronson and Mark Gardner. We saw how important its work is on Yom Kippur last year, when two Jewish men, Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, were killed when an Islamist extremist terrorist attacked Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester. This was not a random attack on a shopping centre or in the street; Jewish people were attacked, at a synagogue, because they were Jews. It was murderous, brutal racism.
Then we saw a court case in which Islamist extremists were convicted of planning to murder Jewish people at schools, businesses, synagogues and even a march against racism, in what the police said would have been,
“the deadliest terror attack in UK history”.
These attacks do not happen in isolation. A recent YouGov survey suggests that more than one in five British people now hold entrenched antisemitic views—twice the level of four years ago. The CST’s research shows that antisemitic incidents are running at record levels, and Home Office statistics show that Jewish people are 10 times more likely to be the victims of religious hate crime than any other group.
On 7 October, at the same time as terrorists were murdering and kidnapping civilians and committing the greatest massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust, people here in the UK celebrated on the streets. Weekly marches then made central London and other city centres no-go areas for Jewish people. I went to watch some of these marches. I did not see any banners calling for peace, for hostages to be released or for a two-state solution but—and this is the distortion Simon Sebag Montefiore was talking about—plenty comparing Israel to Nazi Germany, its leaders to Hitler and Gaza to the Holocaust. They say the victims have become the oppressors and that Jews are doing what the Nazis did. Even before the conflict, Gaza was called a “new Warsaw Ghetto”.
What could more offensive than routinely accusing a country built by Holocaust survivors—the only democracy and equal free society in the whole of the Middle East—of genocide, crimes against humanity or committing another Holocaust? These disgusting comparisons are designed to demonise and delegitimise Israel and undermine the very reason for its existence as a safe haven for the Jewish people.
Protesters demand that Palestine stretch
“from the river to the sea”,
which would mean the destruction of Israel and the murder of its citizens. They chant for Israel’s destruction, for “death to the IDF”—even on the stage at Glastonbury and broadcast by the BBC—or to “globalise the intifada”.
Last month, unbelievably, extremists in Birmingham paraded behind a banner saying “One Solution, Intifada Revolution” with the Hamas symbol—the symbol of a proscribed, banned terrorist group—yet the police did nothing about it. The intifadas were terror attacks with suicide bombings, ramming people with cars and attacking them with knives—exactly what happened in Manchester.
It is good that the Met and Greater Manchester Police have finally said that they will start prosecuting people who make these statements, but this has been happening since 7 October. We need assurances that other forces will be required to do the same and that people who do this will be prosecuted with the same speed and determination as those who incite other forms of racism, as we saw, for example, after the Southport attack.
Over the last few years, we have seen Jewish kids attacked on the way to school, students targeted at university, Jewish patients hiding their identity when going to hospital, synagogues smeared with faeces and homes daubed with swastikas, and businesses attacked just because their owners are Jewish. As the Chief Rabbi said, this is a tidal wave of “Jew hatred”.
In Bristol, a Jewish MP was banned from visiting a school in his constituency. It turned out, extraordinarily, that the inclusion and diversity co-ordinator at the trust running the school had praised Hamas’s 7 October massacre as “heroes fighting for justice”. In Birmingham, Jewish people were banned by the police from going to a football match. Here in London, a mob gathers each week to scream abuse at the staff and customers of a restaurant owned by Jewish people. Of course, people have the right to protest in a democracy but not the right to harass Jewish people outside restaurants or synagogues. These people should be arrested and prosecuted. These incidents should be dealt with much more seriously in future.
What is the context in which all this is taking place? Parliament debates Israel more than any other issue—not just more than any international issue but more than any other issue. During the conflict, Parliament debated Israel and Gaza three times more than the NHS, crime, poverty or immigration. How can it be that MPs spend more time on a conflict thousands of miles away—which, if we are honest, though I am not pretending to be an expert on this, many of them know probably not very much about and can do even less to solve it—than the schools or the hospitals in their constituencies that they are responsible for? In Sudan, famine has killed 500,000 children, 10 million people are starving, and tens of thousands of civilians were murdered in just a few days. The UK is the UN Security Council penholder, yet we hardly ever discuss it.
Two weeks ago, on the very first day back after the new year, there was a Statement which was supposed to be on the Middle East and north Africa, but many MPs queued up to speak only about Israel and Gaza. MPs falsely accuse Israel of the worst crimes possible, but the Government concluded that Israel is not committing a genocide—so I would like to hear Ministers start to push back when Back-Bench MPs or others claim that it is.
We see the same obsession, bias and inaccuracies at the BBC, too. For example, when the Government concluded that Israel was not committing a genocide, the BBC pretty much buried the news. When the UN said it might be, it dominated every bulletin for days. The IHRA definition of antisemitism, the official definition that the Government subscribe to, says that demonising Israel, singling it out for criticism, holding it to standards never applied to other countries—which is clearly what is happening—are examples of antisemitism. All this matters because the obsessive demonisation of the world’s only Jewish state obviously drives hostility towards people who are identified with it, which is the vast majority of Jewish people. This is a large part of what drives antisemitism in the UK.
People cannot really promise to oppose antisemitism but then support boycotts, sanctions or embargoes that would prevent Israel from defending its Jewish citizens. People say that there is no place for antisemitism, but this has become meaningless when it is running at record levels, when Parliament and the BBC are fuelling it and when the authorities are not doing nearly enough to deal with it.
We need to be much more robust in standing up for our values. Migration is now a permanent feature of global life: in just four years, 3.5 million people came to live in Britain. Some will have come from places where antisemitism is more common than in the UK—places where the Holocaust is rarely taught, not understood or by many, probably not even believed. So, it is crucial that Holocaust education is increased, expanded and improved.
We have to be clear and say that, if people hate Jews or think Israel should not be allowed to exist, they should be prevented from coming to Britain or staying here to live. The Government and the police must clamp down much harder on extremist preachers making hate speeches in mosques. NHS staff or university lecturers responsible for racism should be sacked. Hate marches cannot be allowed any longer to take over our streets every week; the Government should change the law to curb them, if necessary.
No more empty promises or meaningless platitudes—taking antisemitism much more seriously and dealing with it much more robustly is not just a matter of standing up for the Jewish community, vital though that is; it is fundamentally about what it means to be British. Living in the UK means believing in democracy, equality, freedom, fairness and tolerance. That is what our country stands for. That is exactly what heroes like the late father of the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey, and his comrades were fighting for in the war. Those values define what it means to be British.
Of course, Holocaust Memorial Day is an opportunity to learn about history’s greatest crimes and pay our respects to its victims, like my dad’s mum and sisters. But expressing our sympathy for people murdered 80 years ago is not enough. Holocaust Memorial Day is the opportunity to dedicate ourselves, especially those of us in positions of leadership and responsibility, not to stand silently by or to mouth empty promises or meaningless platitudes, but to do all we can to fight hatred and prejudice and stand up for the victims of racism today.
Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)
My Lords, it is a somewhat daunting privilege to follow another passionate and erudite speech from the noble Lord, Lord Austin. I too congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on an outstanding maiden speech—the huge impact that she will make in this House is clear. I thank the Minister for leading this debate so candidly and emotionally. I declare my interest as a member of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation. I did not get a chance last week in ping-pong on the Holocaust Memorial Bill to pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Pickles for the huge amount of work that he is putting into the Holocaust memorial. He and his co-chair, Ed Balls, are extraordinary to watch at work together. We are incredibly grateful for the work that my noble friend does.
It is an honour to speak in this debate after such emotional, personal, erudite speeches. I always feel a fraud when I talk about the Holocaust because I am not Jewish. I did not come to Holocaust education and commemoration because of family and community links; my journey to this debate was far more prosaic. In 2015, the then Prime Minister, my noble friend Lord Cameron, asked me to serve on the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation to bring my digital experience to the project’s objective not only of being a physical memorial and learning centre but of bringing the content and the experience to everyone in the country.
On the premise that when your Prime Minister asks you to serve you should say yes, I did, without really understanding what I was committing to, and so my personal Holocaust education journey began. I did not learn about the Holocaust at school. I went to a Catholic convent where the religious education consisted of rote learning the Bible. There was no Holocaust Memorial Day when I was growing up. I began to learn the true horror of the murder of over 6 million Jewish men, women and children only through my involvement with the Holocaust Memorial Foundation.
I too had the privilege of my life in meeting Manfred Goldberg and watching and experiencing his testimony on Testimony 360. If noble Lords have not had a chance to experience it yet, I recommend it, because he is there in front of you as if he was in front of you physically. We are so lucky that Manfred and the other survivors were so brave to give their testimony.
My journey has involved visiting various museums and learning centres around the world, but it has also involved deep personal introspection. First, I needed to learn the facts; as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has pointed out, it is hugely important that we understand the overall historical context. We need to feel empathy for the heartbreak that this most atrocious of human acts has brought. However, as many have said this afternoon, I know that I cannot possibly fully comprehend what that multigenerational trauma must feel like. I know enough to know that I simply do not know.
My learning journey has taken me to looking inwards and asking myself some very uncomfortable questions that others have alluded to this afternoon. Would I have turned a blind eye to antisemitism as it set in again in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s? Would I have put up the equivalent of the greengrocer’s notice, as Václav Havel sets out? Would I have opted for a quiet life or, worse still, would I have joined in?
Sadly, that learning journey continues, because today, as we bridge the generations, as Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow asks us to think about, we cannot ask those questions in the hypothetical; I am afraid that we have to ask them in the present tense. Holocaust Memorial Day and Holocaust education in the round forced me to ask myself, “Am I turning a blind eye?”—as the noble Lord, Lord Austin, has just challenged us. Am I standing up for my Jewish friends as they question whether the UK is safe for them to live in today? Am I going with the populist flow, or am I fighting antisemitism as only a small minority of people did in the run-up to the Second World War in Germany?
Holocaust Memorial Day calls on all of us never to forget, but as many have said today, that is only the beginning of the journey of learning. To truly bridge the generations, to learn from and not repeat the Holocaust, we have to learn to act, not just learn.
I fear, as many have said, that we are living in a time when people are scared. The world order is shifting. Mark Carney encapsulated it completely brilliantly last week. He set out eloquently how the rules-based world order that I have been lucky enough to grow up in is shattering. People across the world are scared; they are angry; they are looking for easy solutions. History teaches us that that is very fertile ground for antisemitism.
My involvement in the Holocaust Memorial Foundation has taught me, as others have said, that you win and lose this battle day in and day out. It requires all of us, in whatever role we play, in public and in private, to recognise how easy it is for populist rhetoric to turn into antisemitic actions. To prevent history repeating itself yet again, we all need to stand up and be counted today, on Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow and, I am afraid, every day.
Lord Morse (CB)
I am very honoured to follow that excellent speech; and I take the chance to acknowledge the very brilliant maiden speech that we heard earlier as well.
I am intending to speak quite briefly on this subject, because it has been very fully covered already, and I am sure nobody will mind that. First, I should declare an interest. I am a member of the APPG on British Jews, although I am not Jewish. I believe that it is really important for all British citizens to show their support for each other in the face of antisemitism.
This needs to be offered with humility and a sense of how little—certainly for me—we know. I have not experienced the emotions that my Jewish friends have experienced or the loss that they have experienced. I have read about the Holocaust. I understand it to that extent, but I do not have the deep empathy that so many noble Lords in this Room have.
What I do have is a feeling of absolute fury when I think about children not being able to go to their schools, or going in while concealing their identity; or schools having to look like fortified camps because of fear that something may happen to the children or that they may be attacked; or indeed, Jewish friends I know who are beginning to have discussions about whether this is much of a country to live in any more and whether it is a safe country for Jewish people to live in. I was absolutely horrified to hear some of those discussions, but this is where it seems to be going.
Our country—my country—is surely much better than this. Our Jewish people and fellow citizens, who have contributed so much to this country and who continue to do so, are entitled to expect much better of the whole country and to expect our vigorous and committed support.
Religious hate crime, I am afraid, is growing significantly. We might try to believe otherwise, but it is not true. It is directed not just at Jewish people—a significant number of hate crimes are directed at the Muslim community as well, and it is important to remember that—but when you come down to the intensity of number of hate crimes per 10,000 people, the Jewish population suffers three or four times more than the Muslim community. So, although others do suffer from hate crimes, it is the Jewish community that is the most heavily struck.
When HM Government take a clear stance against hate crime and antisemitism, we have to acknowledge that, but, equally, we have to say when it is not working very well.
Antisemitism is advancing, and our Jewish fellow citizens feel that they are subject to pervasive threat and that their life, in many cases, is being made miserable as a result of these threats and antisemitism. Notwithstanding what HM Government are already doing, I believe they could and should go much further and start by setting hard, measurable targets to reduce and stamp out hate crime by specific target dates, and be willing to be held to account against them. What is measured generally gets done; that is my experience in life.
Even in this very serious matter, I think we need to be tough with ourselves—not sanctimonious, but tough—about what can be done. The best tribute we can offer, in my mind, to the horrors of the Holocaust is to act vigorously now, to fight against antisemitism and to keep on fighting until we win.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, I was born a Jew and I am proud to be a Jew, albeit a non-practising one. This has been an amazing debate, and I want to pay tribute the right reverend Prelate—I did not think I would be paying tribute to a a Jewish one—for an amazing speech. There have been some amazing speeches during this debate.
I want to give some experience of my life. We were Dutch Jews on one side of our family. My father changed the name because he wanted to sell more insurance, and he was good at that, so I suppose it was a good move.
Where we lived in the East End, I never experienced any antisemitism. It was a mixed street, mainly Jews. The synagogue was round the corner, and the rabbi was round the other side. I think we had a good upbringing.
When I was 15 years old, I was a precocious reader and I came across a book—
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Wilson of Sedgefield) (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord’s name is not on the list to speak, but if he would like to keep his remarks short, that would be okay.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
I am sorry. I will endeavour to keep my remarks short. I did not realise that I had to put my name down.
Anyway, when I was 15 years old, I came across a book, The Scourge of the Swastika, which, ironically, was written by the grandfather of the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. That taught me a lot about what goes on.
Bearing the mind the strictures that I have to keep my remarks limited, I will do. I think this is a really important debate. I thank the people who have made contributions about needing to do more to ensure that antisemitism remains something that we fight against. I will leave it at that.
Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I wish to welcome the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry. I did take the opportunity to visit Coventry cathedral—both the old, original one and the new one—and I believe she will make a fantastic contribution to your Lordships’ House. Also, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, as many noble Lords already have, that that was an excellent introduction to this debate.
The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, mentioned a couple of films, “Schindler’s List” and “Nuremberg”, and made a very valid point about their certification. “Nuremberg” is worth going to see, not least to see Britain’s Attorney-General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, skewering Goering at the dispatch box. I can recommend one film for your Lordships to see that really gives an indication of what actually happened in the Holocaust. It is called “The Grey Zone”, from 2001, and it tells the story of the 12th Sonderkommando uprising in Auschwitz in October 1944. It is certificated 18 because it is a little bit more graphic.
There is a large Jewish community in Manchester. As noble Lords can probably tell from my accent, my family comes from Manchester. I come from a council estate just south of Manchester. I remember that, growing up in the 1970s, we had a lot of veterans from the Second World War and the First World War. My mother remembered the Manchester blitz and hiding away in the garden in very dark Anderson shelters. She remembered the sound of German Daimler-Benz engines as they went over to bomb Manchester and the docks.
My mother also told me about the propaganda the Germans used to send out: “Germany calling, Germany calling, Lord Haw-Haw”. The Germans knew where the Jewish community in Manchester was. For those of your Lordships who do not know Manchester, just in the suburbs, in south Manchester, in a place called Didsbury, there is a large Jewish community and a synagogue—you could call it the south Manchester synagogue, as opposed to Heaton Park in north Manchester. William Joyce—Lord Haw-Haw—used to say exactly where the Jewish community was, because there was a tram terminus. He said, “We’ve got you marked out. We know where you are”.
As a coincidence, my mother worked for a company called Granada Television. This is where I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath, and the story of her father, the Second World War and the liberation of Belsen. Sidney Bernstein was a Member of your Lordships’ House. He set up Granada Studios in Manchester, but his wartime service was documenting exactly what happened in Belsen. He became a fellow of the British Film Institute. I remember my mother telling me what a good man he was. I never met him, but I have read up on him.
The films Lord Bernstein produced were made specifically so that future generations could say that this happened and could not be denied. Noble Lords can look this up on YouTube, but I remember seeing a member of the Cheshire Regiment, a sergeant. He was being filmed and was asked, “Where are you, who are you and what is happening?” In the background, there was a mass pit. SS prisoners were putting the bodies into a pit, as he described, in an accent not dissimilar from mine, that he was Sergeant Smith from Cheshire, and that he was in Belsen concentration camp. What he witnessed there was unbelievable. Those were his words.
Last year, I had the privilege of meeting Mervyn Kersh, a Jewish soldier who fought in the British Army. Although he was not there on the exact day of the liberation of Belsen, he came in about a week later. He witnessed the clear-up. He saw how the medical services saved as many lives as possible. It was wonderful to meet Mervyn. In the same room was a Holocaust survivor who was liberated by the British Army in Belsen. She subsequently married a British soldier. She thought that the British Army was the best army in the world, and who can argue with that?
I remember speaking to Mervyn last year. His family had escaped from Germany into Holland and then to the safety of Britain. He had volunteered for the British Army and ended up going to liberate Europe. He said to me that his father knew, in the 1930s, what was coming with the Holocaust. He said to Mervyn, as a very young man, “If they land on the south coast of England, we need to head to Wales, we need to head to Anglesey, and we’ll get ourselves to America”. Standing there, in the third decade of the 21st century, and hearing that memory of a very young man reminds us of where we are; I am afraid to say, “Here we are again”.
I turn to the future. Noble Lords have mentioned the fantastic work that the Holocaust Educational Trust has done, with Karen Pollock and her colleagues reaching over 100,000 people each year, ensuring that the lessons of the Holocaust are never forgotten. Each year, tens of thousands of young people hear the powerful testimony of Holocaust survivors and their descendants. Survivors travel across the country to talk to many schools. Through the Lessons from Auschwitz project, tens of thousands of young people have stood on the site where around 1 million Jewish men, women and children were murdered. They return as Holocaust Educational Trust ambassadors, committed to sharing what they have witnessed.
More than a thousand teachers are trained each year in how best to teach this challenging and sensitive subject. Testimony360 is a digital project that is transforming how the Holocaust is taught and understood. Using AI-powered search technology, thousands of students have already come face to face with survivors, engaging in natural language conversations as if they were in the room together. Paired with virtual reality headsets, students can also explore key sites connected to each survivor’s testimony, all without leaving the classroom.
Remembrance is no longer enough, though. Action must be taken to counter antisemitism here today. This year, we mark Holocaust Memorial Day with increasingly heavy hearts, just months after the deadly attack at Heaton Park synagogue and weeks after the barbaric attack on Bondi Beach. Since 7 October 2023, antisemitic hatred has intensified, rhetoric has spilled into violence, and what was once whispered is now said openly and proudly. We have seen it in protests outside a Jewish-owned restaurant, a Jewish Member of Parliament being barred from visiting a local school, and visitors to a London synagogue being forced to walk through a gauntlet of hate. It is no longer enough to remember the past or to say that antisemitism is not acceptable. Action must be taken to tackle antisemitism and to foster social cohesion.
Holocaust education faces significant challenges, but the Holocaust Educational Trust is reaching more young people now than ever before. Today, young people arrive in classrooms with views shaped by social media trends rather than by evidence. Some teachers are anxious about how their communities will respond when a Holocaust survivor shares their testimony, fearing a backlash from parents. Survivors themselves are being asked to navigate questions about contemporary conflict just because they are Jewish.
In response, the Holocaust Educational Trust is expanding its work in classrooms across the country and is now working with hundreds more schools than in 2023, before the barbaric terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas. Its reach will continue to grow and new programmes are being rolled out. The Holocaust Educational Trust knows that the Holocaust cannot and must not be taught in isolation. The antisemitism that culminated in the Holocaust was not invented by the Nazis; it was rooted in 2,000 years of anti-Jewish hatred. Likewise, we know that antisemitism did not end in 1945; it has continued to evolve and to adapt right up to the present day. It is up to us all to make a stand against antisemitism.
Lord Sahota (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on her moving and illuminating maiden speech.
I rise with a profound sense of solemnity and responsibility. Holocaust Memorial Day is not merely a day of remembrance but a day of moral reckoning—one that calls on us all year after year to confront the darkest capacities of humanity and reaffirm our shared commitment to ensuring that such horrors are never repeated.
The Holocaust was a heinous crime—an atrocity of the worst kind in human history. Six million Jewish men, women and children were systematically murdered, alongside millions of others, including Roma, disabled people, political dissidents, and members of the LGBT community. This was not an accident of war but a deliberate and industrialised attempt to eradicate an entire people. We must continue to remind the world that such inhumanity to humanity must never be allowed to happen again.
We also remember that many of those responsible were ultimately brought to justice. That matters. Accountability matters. It reaffirms our fundamental principle that no state, no Government and no individual are beyond moral or legal judgment.
However, Holocaust Memorial Day also invites us to reflect broadly on the lessons of history. It asks us not only to remember one atrocity but to recognise and remember others committed across different times, different continents and different cultures, so that memory itself may serve as a safeguard against repetition. In that spirit, we must acknowledge other grave injustices that occurred that scar our collective past.
One such example is the Amritsar massacre of 13 April 1919, when hundreds of unarmed men, women and children were brutally killed at Jallianwala Bagh. They had gathered there peacefully, yet they were met with indiscriminate and lethal force. This was a profound moral failure and a tragedy that continues to resonate, particularly for British Indians and the wider Commonwealth. There have been other atrocities across the world as well, such as Rwanda, Srebrenica, Cambodia, My Lai and many more. Each reminds us that the promise of “never again” must be renewed continually, not spoken once and then just forgotten.
Remembrance without reflection is hollow. Reflection without responsibility is incomplete. Acknowledging historical wrongs does not diminish a nation. Rather, it strengthens its moral standing and demonstrates the courage to confront uncomfortable truths. In reflecting on the lessons of the Holocaust, we are also invited to look with honesty and humility at our history.
Amritsar remains a source of deep sadness, particularly for those whose families were directly affected. In that context, I respectfully ask my noble friend the Minister whether His Majesty’s Government have any plan to offer a formal apology for the Amritsar massacre, in recognition of the hundreds of innocent men, women and children who were mowed down on that tragic day. Such an apology would not undo the past, but it would carry a profound symbolic weight and reaffirm our enduring commitment to justice, humanity and historical truth.
Lord Howard of Lympne (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to say a few words in the gap and to pay tribute to the many excellent speeches that we have heard in this debate, including, particularly, the admirable maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate.
As I have mentioned before, my grandmother was killed in Auschwitz, and I was partly brought up by an aunt who not only survived Auschwitz but, as she told me, survived being put into the gas chamber when that evil and macabre operation was aborted because on that occasion the system malfunctioned, so this subject is very real for me.
Last week, in the debate on the Holocaust memorial, my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for whom I have great respect, said that the Nazis intended to kill 6 million men, women and children. As I told her afterwards, I almost intervened during her speech because she was wrong. The Nazis intended, as my noble friend Lord Massey said, to kill many, many more. One of the most chilling documents of the Holocaust, which I am sure many of your Lordships have seen, is the map that was in front of the participants of the infamous conference at Wannsee in 1942 that planned the details of the final solution. That map showed every country in Europe and the number of Jews that those at the conference estimated that country contained. It showed not only the countries that the Nazis then occupied or planned to occupy, but the neutral countries in Europe and this country.
Those of us who are familiar with the events of the first three weeks of Churchill’s premiership know that an argument raged as to whether terms should be sought from Hitler. An argument raged in the War Cabinet itself for 10 days, and there is no doubt at all that, had it not been for Winston Churchill, such terms would have been sought, and much the same deal would have been done as the deal that Marshal Pétain and the French did at that time. If that had happened, even if by some miracle your Lordships’ House had survived or had been revived in the intervening years, I would be very unlikely to have been here to contribute to this debate today. Therefore, I am at the forefront of those who insist that the Holocaust must be remembered, even if the antisemitism that brought it about was just a matter of history, but, of course, we know that it is not.
A few months ago, I attended the funeral of Adrian Daulby, one of the victims of the Heaton Park attack. It was, as your Lordships would expect, a very moving event. It was an event of a kind that I never expected to attend and that I hope never to attend again, but unless the efforts of our Government and our society are increased and stepped up, I fear that I may.
Not long after 7 October, I was invited to give a talk at a synagogue in central London, and then I was told by the organisers that they had been advised that it would not be safe for that event to take place. Rather meekly, I accepted that advice, and the event was postponed, although it did take place at a later date. Looking back on it, I think I was wrong. I should have insisted that that event went ahead on the original date. It is the duty of government to ensure that its citizens can go about their lawful business in safety. The police have the responsibility of discharging that duty, and, alas, they have not always distinguished themselves in discharging it in recent months. More needs to be done, and I hope that this memorial day, this debate and the debate that is to take place in the other place help to get that message across.
At the annual memorial service that used to take place in Hyde Park and now takes place at other venues, which I have attended for many years, a rather beautiful song is sung. Its title and refrain are the words “Never Again”. It is our duty to ensure that those words are given their full meaning.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on her excellent maiden speech and welcome her to this House. Since she tells us that she enjoys singing, I invite her to accompany me after the debate to the crypt chapel for a rehearsal of the Parliament Choir, which has often sung in her cathedral. I hope that she feels at home in your Lordships’ House.
When I get up in the morning and dress to come to your Lordships’ House, I remember my mother as I put on the little ring that I am wearing, which belonged to her. When I think of her, I also think of my father, who had such ambitions for me. When I walk into this Chamber, I often look up and wish that they had both lived to sit in the balcony and see me admitted to your Lordships’ House 25 years ago. I have always tried to make them proud, because I am one of the lucky ones who grew up with my own parents and grandparents around me.
Although my father served in the British Army to fight the Nazis, he survived the war. However, millions of the survivors of the events in the terrible time of the Holocaust, especially the children, either have little memory of their parents or nightmarish memories of family members who died. I often think of what it took for Jewish parents to say goodbye to their children, who left on the Kindertransport or by other means, knowing that they would probably never see them again. To us human beings, as to many other species, our children’s lives are even more precious than our own.
We often use things—places, photos and situations—to trigger memories of those who went before. That is why we want physical memorials, events and activities to help us remember what we will never want to forget and ensure that future generations will not either. Art can often do that for us. A wonderful example is the collection of ceramic replica shoes made by Jenny Stolzenberg, now displayed in the atrium of Portcullis House. It reminds us that the Shoah, and the other Holocaust mass murders of human beings, was not about mathematical numbers, such as 6 million; it was about 6 million individual people with 12 million feet that took them to their terrible fate.
We should ask ourselves the question: why did it happen? I have my own theory. I have always felt that there are many different ways of being human and that we should treat all with kindness and respect. Indeed, that is a fundamental part of my political philosophy and the way I try to live my life. The fact is that the Jews were persecuted by the Nazis because they were seen as “other”, as they had been for centuries. That expression, which was also mentioned by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry, is now used to indicate people who are different from the majority—people with a different skin colour, gender identity, religion, nationality, language or culture, or different traditions, values or ways of life. That othering can lead to discrimination, inequality of opportunity and even hatred and violence. That othering of other human beings is the danger that we should all fear most in today’s world.
It is not just about slavery, which we all thought was stamped out years ago but know is still happening; othering is happening in many different ways today: racial discrimination of all kinds, antisemitism, the bombing of Ukrainian people by the Russians because they do not want to be Russian, the repression of women in Iran who do not conform to the way that men want them to live, the persecution of people suspected of being “other” by ICE on behalf of the state in the United States. How ironic that indigenous people—yes, indigenous people—are having to carry their tribal ID with them on the streets of Minnesota.
All these things, if allowed to take hold in a society, can lead to disaster and inhumanity. We need to be very afraid if we see signs of it happening in our own country, and we need to stop it before it can take hold. After all, we have all heard the warning of Pastor Martin Niemöller from his own sad experience. Here is part of it:
“First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist”.
It then goes on, ending with:
“Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me”.
We should speak out and speak up loud and clear for the kind of country that we are and should be.
That is why the theme chosen for this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is so right. Bridging generations is vital if we are to alert our children to the danger to our country of every kind of othering, because, although we are reminded that the Holocaust was about the slaughter of 6 million Jews and the suffering of millions of others who survived, it was also a slaughter of other groups who were regarded as “other”, and therefore a danger to those in power. Power is so dangerous when it is linked to ignorance, greed and inhumanity. That is why I am glad that Holocaust Memorial Day is not just a big concert in a big concert hall and memorial services around physical memorial installations but small community events all over the country—in towns, villages, schools and homes, with their candles in their windows.
Tomorrow evening, when we look up at our public buildings lit up in purple, let us remember those who died in the Shoah and other Holocaust events, and let us celebrate and protect those who live on. Let us also vow that we will do everything we can to bring up our children in full knowledge of the Holocaust, and always to treat others with kindness and respect, no matter how different they are from ourselves.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for bringing forward this take-note debate on Holocaust Memorial Day, which falls tomorrow, and for her very thought-provoking speech. It was passionate, and I could feel that she felt it very deeply. I am also grateful to all noble Lords for their thought-provoking, passionate and moving contributions to commemorate all those 6 million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. I also congratulate the right reverend prelate the Bishop of Coventry on her excellent maiden speech. I look forward to hearing more such speeches in the years to come.
Having spoken in and brought forward this debate in previous years, it is a privilege to speak in this debate once again. This year’s theme, “Bridging Generations”, is not only an invitation to remembrance but a call to action. With each year that passes, we are left with fewer and fewer survivors and eyewitnesses to the Holocaust; it is increasingly up to us to pass on their memory.
The Minister read out the names of the heroic Holocaust survivors who have died this year. To their families and friends may their memory be blessed. It was this month that, sadly, Harry Olmer MBE died aged 98. Harry was born in Poland. His family was subjected to forced labour following the German invasion. In 1942, Harry, his brother and their father were sent to Plaszów labour camp in Kraków. After a year, when he was just 16, Harry was moved again to work in the chemical factories where many thousands died from poisoning, epidemics, starvation and exhaustion. Weakened prisoners were simply shot by the SS. In July 1944, shortly before the German retreat, a selection of those prisoners resulted in Harry being sent to Schlieben in Germany, a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp. As one of the surviving prisoners there, he was transported yet again, this time to Terezín ghetto in Czechoslovakia, and it was from here that he was finally liberated on 8 May 1945.
Harry came to the UK with a group of child survivors known as the Boys. Recalling his arrival, he said, “It was freedom”. The suffering he experienced clearly did not hold him back. He qualified as a dentist and became a British citizen in 1950 in order to serve in the British Army. He retired reluctantly at 86, and his commitment to educating the next generation continued all those years. We are lucky to have called Harry a fellow countryman. His memoir was titled My Revenge on Hitler is My Family, and I take this opportunity to offer, on behalf of your Lordships’ House, our sincere condolences to Harry’s children, his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren. It is an understatement to say that his story is an inspiration. It is a profound loss that he is no longer here to tell his story himself. Let his memory be a blessing.
“Bridging Generations” reminds us that memory is not passive. It is something we must actively carry and pass on. It is particularly alarming, therefore, that the number of UK schools commemorating the Holocaust has dropped by nearly 60% since the 7 October pogrom carried out by Hamas and the massacre of over 1,200 Jewish people. This is shocking in this country. I commend, and indeed recommend as a matter of urgency, the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, as well as all the other organisations, museums, teachers and volunteers who commit to educating the next generation about the Holocaust.
Now more than ever, at a time when social media spreads misinformation to children, and when antisemitism is on the rise, as we have heard said so passionately today, they need to be taught about the horrors that took place and how it is that they came about. These horrors occurred not just because of a few monsters at the top, but because of ordinary people and the monster that we all know humans are capable of becoming. Moreover, children need to be instilled with, and we ourselves need reminding of, the values that prompted people to think critically, to be courageous, and to stand up to evil in daily life. What lessons could be more valuable or more important? Those educators who are denying our pupils the chance to participate in Holocaust Memorial Day are doing our children a disservice, and I dare say in some cases doing so out of moral cowardice.
Furthermore, the work of organisations such as the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust should not be confined to the classroom. It was not schoolchildren who committed the terrorist attacks in Sydney, Australia, or on the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester. We on these Benches welcome the Government’s interventions in education, but also in security and taking action within our institutions. It is a source of shame that these measures have become necessary, but it is also a wake-up call that we all need to do more to uphold the dignity of every human life and to cultivate cohesion in our country.
In this vein, I give thanks for the work of His Majesty the King and all the Royal Family who, in the last year, have led the way in marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and indeed of Europe. I also note that today in 1482 the first printed edition of the Torah in Hebrew was completed in Bologna in Italy. This set the model for the page format still in use. The contribution of our Judaeo-Christian heritage to our civilisation today is undeniable and Jewish communities continue in this country to contribute to our society in most extraordinary ways. I end by saying that my thoughts and prayers are with those victims of the Holocaust, their families, and all those who continue to be affected by antisemitism on British soil and abroad to this day.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, as ever on these occasions I am struck by the depth, dignity and sincerity of the contributions we have heard. I am not sure I can do justice to every powerful point made today, but I will do my best. I start by congratulating the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on her excellent maiden speech and welcome her to the House. She reminded us of the way Coventry is linking its devastation in the Second World War and the hatred that led to that with the importance of speaking to our young people about peacebuilding and reconciliation. I am grateful to her for her words and hope she enjoys her time here in this House.
This debate is one that year after year brings out the very best in our House. It reminds us not only of the weight of our shared responsibility but of the compassion and the urge for moral clarity that unites us. We come together in remembrance of 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust—as well as thousands of Roma, Sinti, disabled people, gay men, political opponents, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the victims of genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda and Srebrenica. Their memories guide us, challenge us and call us to account. I particularly thank those noble Lords who have given their own personal testimony from themselves or their families today—the noble Lords, Lord Austin, Lord Evans and Lord Shinkwin, the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey, and the noble Lord, Lord Howard—and I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for her tribute to Harry Olmer. The noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey, asked us in a quote, “Do you think all this is better forgotten”? I hope the fact that we are debating this today means that none of us thinks that at all.
At this point I pay tribute to Stevenage Liberal Synagogue, particularly to Terry and Gillian Wolfe and Rabbi Danny Rich, who have supported me in my attempts to continue to educate myself about the Jewish faith and the life of Jews in Britain today. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, spoke about the Torah. It was an absolute marvel to me to watch Danny Rich pick up the Torah, which, in case people have not seen it, is the scroll that is unrolled in a synagogue. There is no punctuation and there are no spaces in it, and he explained to me how he navigates his way around that Torah. It has been a real education to me, and I am grateful to them for all of that.
A number of noble Lords, starting with the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, spoke very powerfully about the continuing scourge of antisemitism. The noble Lord, Lord Massey, reminded us of what an ancient hatred that is, but, of course, with a current and very present shadow that hangs over us all. Antisemitism is completely abhorrent and has no place in our society, which is why we must all take a strong lead on tackling it in all its forms.
Sadly, we have seen how events in the Middle East are used as an excuse to stir up hatred against British Jewish communities. The horrific terrorist attack on Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, mentioned by many noble Lords this afternoon, was an attack on the British values that unite us all. We stand together with British Jews and with all Jewish people. We condemn unequivocally the hatred and poisonous extremism that has led to these attacks. As we think about that attack and the dreadful massacre at Bondi beach, the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, raised powerful issues around 7 October and how we think of those and made a powerful plea that, as we face today’s antisemitism, we continue to keep alive the work that is being done to link the antisemitism we think of in terms of the Holocaust with what is going on today all around us.
I am grateful for the mention of the report from the noble Lord, Lord Mann, and Penny Mordaunt: I am very grateful for their work in this respect. The noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey, spoke powerfully about how we must confront failings in the organisations we are close to, even when it is painful—what the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, referred to as the very uncomfortable introspection that we need to undergo through our thinking about this. The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, is right: speaking out is a duty for all of us, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, reminded us of the powerful words of Martin Niemöller.
Much of this antisemitism is feeding into some of the awful words we hear about Holocaust denial and distortion. The noble Lord, Lord Massey, spoke powerfully about denial, and the Government condemn any organisation or individual that attempts to deny the Holocaust. We are implacably opposed to people such as the revisionist historian David Irving and have spoken out recently against the Iranian Government, who are attempting to cast doubt on the facts of the Holocaust. The Government deplore attempts to deny the Holocaust, including those views expressed in a pseudo-intellectual manner. It is of course the case that if Holocaust denial is expressed in a way that is threatening, abusive or insulting and incites racial hatred, or is likely to do so, it is unlawful under the Public Order Act 1986. The noble Lord, Lord Howard, and others, said how important it is that these laws are upheld: they are there for a purpose and we must all make sure that they are taken seriously.
The noble Lords, Lord Massey and Lord Austin, and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, referred to the impact of the current conflict in Israel and Palestine. We profoundly welcome the ceasefire agreement, of course, and are working intensively to support the 20-point plan for peace. It is vital that both parties uphold the agreement as we implement phase 2 on governance, stabilisation and construction. We continue to mourn the devastating loss of life on 7 October and afterwards and the ongoing desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza. We are deeply relieved that all living hostages have now been released and we continue to insist that the body of the last remaining hostage is returned. Even with the hostages released, we recognise that the trauma and terror Hamas’s actions have inflicted on hostages and their families endures, and we continue to work with partners to maintain the ceasefire and ensure the provision of urgent humanitarian assistance for the people of Gaza. Diplomacy, not more bloodshed, is how we will get security for Israelis and Palestinians, and that requires a political process and a political horizon towards a two-state solution. Over time, only that will ensure long-term peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians.
Much of the debate this afternoon has focused on issues around education and it is right that it has done so, particularly in view of the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day this year. The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, mentioned Dov Forman and Lily Ebert. I remember very well listening to Dov and to Lily. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, mentioned the distortion of social media for young people and how it is almost as if they are trying to educate themselves but they are getting a distorted picture because of what they are picking up from social media. The Department for Education actively supports schools to provide high-quality teaching on the Holocaust through the funding of two core programmes and we are also funding a two-year programme, the Supporting Holocaust Survivor Testimony in Teaching programme. Lessons from Auschwitz gives students aged 16 to 18 the opportunity to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau and funding for 2025-26 is £2,300,000. The Centre for Holocaust Education’s CPD programme supports teachers in their professional development, with the Pears Foundation and UCL contributing match and in-kind support of the same amount as the Government, which is £500,000. The Supporting Holocaust Survivor Testimony in Teaching programme will support schools in using recorded Holocaust survivor testimony in their teaching. Funding is being provided for that and being delivered by the Holocaust Education Trust.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry referred to what is I think is the most important thing in this education, which is when you get an outstanding teacher who can inspire and educate you on these topics. Then there is the much wider programme of support for tackling antisemitism in schools, colleges and universities. Some £500,000 of this money has been awarded to the University Jewish Chaplaincy for student welfare on university campuses, where we know there has been particular difficulty. Training for university support staff delivered by the Union of Jewish Students began in November, with 600 sessions planned over three years, and the scholarship programme will provide in-depth training and a learning network, with delivery commencing from this month.
A tackling antisemitism in education innovation fund is launching shortly to promote tolerant debate, and successful projects will commence from April. The Department for Education’s Educate Against Hate website provides schools and parents with free quality-assured teaching resources, helping to navigate discussions over sensitive topics and aiding our efforts to end hate and prejudice in our schools. On 5 November, we published the final report of the independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, alongside the Government’s response. The report’s recommendations for curriculum reform will help tackle hatred and prejudice by ensuring that, in areas such as citizenship and religious education, the refreshed national curriculum and its supporting resources reflect our modern society. There will be a renewed focus on improving young people’s media literacy, helping them think more critically about the content they consume.
There have also been incidents of antisemitism on university campuses, as we all know. There were 35 incidents reported to the CST in the first six months of 2025 in which the victims or offenders were students or academics, or which involved student union societies or other bodies. Of these, 16 took place on campus or university property and 13 occurred online. That is a drop of 64% from 98 higher education incidents reported in the first half of 2024, but each one of those incidents affects somebody deeply and for a long time. The total is twice the 17 incidents that were logged across January to June in 2023, which was not impacted by a trigger event in the Middle East. The Secretary of State wrote to university vice-chancellors in October, urging them to take steps to protect Jewish students from harassment. Where lawful protest crosses the line into harassment, intimidation and the glorification of terrorism, we expect universities to use the full extent of their disciplinary processes to take swift and decisive action to tackle it.
Turning to the commemoration on Holocaust Memorial Day, our national event, and education and community activities, the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, spoke of the reduction in the number of events taking place in education establishments. According to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, in 2023, more than 2,000 secondary schools held commemorative events, but on 7 October that year, things changed. In January 2024, just a few months after the deadliest attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust, the number fell dramatically to fewer than 1,200, and in 2025, the figure, which I think the noble Lord gave, was just 854 schools choosing to hold an event, so we must redouble our efforts in terms of commemoration here.
On our Holocaust memorial and learning centre, mentioned by the noble Baronesses, Lady Deech and Lady Harding, and the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, I agree that we must face our past. The Government are determined to deliver on the long-standing commitment to build a new national memorial to the Holocaust. I join the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, for all the work he has done on this.
The memorial will stand as a reminder to all in Parliament, and the whole nation, of our responsibility to remain vigilant against intolerance and bigotry. The new Holocaust memorial will honour the 6 million Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust and all other victims of the Nazi persecution. There can be no more powerful a symbol of our commitment to remembering those men, women and children murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators than placing the memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens, prominent among the buildings and memorials that symbolise our nation and its values.
I want to reflect for a moment on the comments made by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on faith and belief in the UK. For millions of people in this country, their faith and belief identity is a crucial part of their lives, and our nation is enriched by a diverse tapestry of faiths and beliefs. The Government are committed to harnessing the power of faith for national renewal, helping us to make progress against our missions and improving social cohesion.
The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, spoke about the importance of leaders of faiths other than Judaism speaking out against antisemitism; that is a really important point. I say to my noble friend Lord Sahota on the Amritsar massacre—a tragic event and one quite separate to today’s debate—that previous Prime Ministers have called the massacre deeply shameful, and the incident is a shameful scar on British Indian history. I understand the pain that it still causes in our Sikh community, and I am happy to discuss it with my noble friend outside of this debate.
I express my deep gratitude to the remarkable organisations in the UK that work tirelessly to ensure that the Holocaust is remembered and, crucially, understood. Their work goes far beyond commemoration; it shapes minds, builds empathy and confronts ignorance. Along with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord Evans, I pay special tribute to Karen Pollock CBE, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, and Olivia Marks-Woldman OBE, chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Their leadership has ensured that survivors’ voices continue to reach new generations.
It remains profoundly important that the Holocaust is the only historic event that is compulsory within the national curriculum for history at key stage 3. This Government have made a firm commitment that it will remain a compulsory topic in the reformed national curriculum, including in academy schools when the reforms are implemented.
Our Department for Education continues its active support for high-quality Holocaust education through University College London’s Centre for Holocaust Education and its continuous professional development programmes and through the Holocaust Educational Trust’s transformative programme for 16 to 18 year-olds—which I mentioned earlier—and the survivor testimony in teaching programme.
As many noble Lords have touched on today, we are approaching a moment in history when no Holocaust survivors will remain to share their testimony in person. This is a profound and sobering reality. The survivors who have spent their lives retelling the most painful chapters of their past so that we might build a better future will not always be with us. That is why the responsibility now falls to all of us to redouble our efforts, to preserve their stories, to speak the truth when others distort it and to ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust are never diminished, never denied and never forgotten.
I thank noble Lords for the dignity, compassion and commitment they have brought to today’s debate. It has been a privilege to listen and take part in it. As we face a world where the comfortable world order so many of us have grown up with is disintegrating around us, it is even more important that we continue to remember these things. In this debate, we put aside our party politics for our compassion, our determination to remember and our common humanity.
I want to close with the words from the noble Lord, Lord Austin, that we must pledge ourselves not to platitudes but to action. Listening to the debate today, I think that we are all determined to do that to make sure that this is not just about memories but about creating hope for the future that this will never happen again.
Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement the Answer given by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Europe, North America and Overseas Territories to an Urgent Question in another place on the Diego Garcia Military Base and British Indian Ocean Territory Bill. The Statement is as follows:
“On 22 May, the Diego Garcia treaty was signed and laid before the House. As the Defence Secretary told the House on the day of signature, the treaty secures the strategically important UK-US military base on the island of Diego Garcia. The Diego Garcia military base is essential to the security of the UK and our key allies, including the United States. It is essential to keeping British people safe. It is also one of our most significant contributions to the transatlantic defence and security partnership, because it enables rapid deployment of operations and forces across the Middle East, east Africa and south Asia, helping to combat some of the most challenging threats, including threats from terrorism and hostile states. Its unique strategic location creates real military advantage across the Indo-Pacific. The facility has also helped the collection of data used to support counterterrorism operations, including against high-value Islamic State targets in recent years.
As we have made clear many times, the UK will never compromise on our national security. As we have repeatedly made clear, the agreement that we have struck is vital for protecting our national security, guaranteeing the long-term future of a vital base for both the UK and the United States, which had been under threat, as the Opposition fully understood and on which they were briefed. The deal secures the operations of the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia for generations. It was publicly welcomed by the US, Australia and all other Five Eyes partners, as well as key international partners, including India, Japan and South Korea.
Just last week, the House spent two hours debating the Lords amendments to the Bill. The Opposition will know, of course, that programming of business in the other place is a matter for them and not for us. However, the Lords consideration of Commons amendments has been delayed because the Opposition tabled a wrecking amendment hours before the other place rose and on a day before a scheduled debate. This is irresponsible and reckless behaviour from the Official Opposition in the second House, using programming tactics to frustrate the implementation of a treaty on a critical national security matter.
I have to say that it stands in stark contrast to the reasoned and constructive criticisms, questions and suggestions from Members in other parties, and indeed from Cross-Benchers, which we have engaged with in good faith at every stage, and we will continue to do so. This is on the Opposition, because their amendment is not only unnecessary; it is toying with our national security. It is only right that we take some time to consider next steps on programming, because we remain confident that this treaty is the best way forward.
The Lords will consider the Commons amendments in due course, and that will be announced in the usual way. The Government are committed to the deal that protects the joint UK-US base on Diego Garcia. Some have sought to sabotage the process through procedural Motions and parliamentary stunts. We are instead focused on delivering this Bill to protect our national security”.
Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for repeating that Answer. In repeating it, she has accused my amendment of being “wrecking”. That is simply not true, and I have it in writing from our excellent clerks that the amendment is dilatory and not fatal. It is not wrecking. I hope the noble Baroness will take the opportunity to apologise when she answers those questions.
Instead of answering many of the serious concerns raised from all opposition parties about Chagossian rights and many other serious flaws in this agreement, all we heard in the other place from the Minister was bluster and an accusation that those of us asking those questions are somehow playing parliamentary games. This is a serious issue, so let me ask a couple of serious questions to the noble Baroness.
First, in her letter, sent to me, somewhat bizarrely, at 11.30 pm on Friday—she is lucky to have such dedicated private office staff—she referred to international arrangements needing to be in place before they can ratify the Mauritius treaty. For the benefit of the House, can she confirm that what she means by that is that the US Government must formally agree to amend the 1966 treaty and that, by failing to do this before they concluded the treaty, the Prime Minister has, in effect, given Trump a veto on this deal?
Secondly, if the Government do persuade President Trump to update that treaty—which looks unlikely—can she confirm that the amended 1966 treaty would then need to go through the full CRaG process in this Parliament before they can ratify their new deal?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I am glad that the noble Lord opposite has finally reread my contributions in this place from, I think, November, when I talked about an exchange of notes that would be needed with the United States in relation to the 1966 treaty. I am glad he has internalised what I said then as a fact. There would need to be an exchange of letters, and that is in hand. He asked whether that would then necessitate a CRaG process, and we will look at that when we get the detail of the letters. If it does then we will do that, but it may well not.
On whether or not the noble Lord’s amendment is a wrecking amendment, it is wrecking in its effect. As I understand it, the only wording in it that would be binding on the Government is the date, which he put as 23 March. This would breach the agreement we have with Mauritius. It may be a self-imposed deadline, but that is the deadline we have set ourselves as part of this agreement.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, with regard to the 1966 treaty, it is worth acknowledging that Article 2 is the basis upon which, under the euphemism of what the treaty calls an administrative measure, the expulsion of a population from that archipelago, and its forced depopulation, took place. That treaty is the basis on which this Government, and, I hope, every subsequent Government, will feel shame.
However, that treaty is the basis of the relationship with the United States. Therefore, it is quite extraordinary that the terms under Article 11, which stated that the treaty would expire in 2017 and then have an automatic extension for 20 years, were not chosen to be extended by the previous Conservative Government. This treaty—which we should now all depend upon for our long-term security relationship with the United States—would, under the previous Government, run out in 2037. Article 1 of the treaty, however, states that
“The Territory shall remain under United Kingdom sovereignty”.
Can the Minister confirm whether, when the previous Government opened negotiations with Mauritius on the basis of ceding sovereignty, there were any diplomatic messages to our ally the United States that Article 1 needed to be reviewed and updated?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
It is my understanding that the situation with regard to the 1966 treaty has certainly been understood by my Government, and, I am assuming—I cannot see that it would not have been—by the previous Government. That makes this rather late-in-the-day pseudo-alarm seem rather strange—but here we are. I agree with the noble Lord about the shame we should feel at the forced displacement of the population. He is right to bring that up and I feel that way.
Lord Beamish (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend the Minister suggested that this agreement was supported by our Five Eyes partners, including the United States—the Secretary of State to the US made a statement to that effect. I know from briefings we have had in the ISC the important nature of this base for us, the United States and our Five Eyes partners. They were looking for stability, which this agreement gives. In the other place today, it was suggested by some that the National Security Adviser has misled the United States in this agreement. Can the Minister tell the House that that is completely and utterly untrue?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I thank my noble friend, the chair of the ISC, for drawing that to our attention. I was not aware that that accusation had been made, but of course it is completely untrue and unfounded. I can only think that these things get bandied around in the heat of debate, but whoever said it might want to consider their words.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, when challenged about the defence and security implications of the UK-Mauritius treaty, the Government have prayed in aid the United States, Five Eyes and AUKUS. Last week, the President of the United States called the treaty an “act of great stupidity”, Five Eyes is not a military operation alliance, and that leaves only AUKUS. What recent engagement have the Government had with the Australian Department of Defence and what was the response?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
We talk with our allies and partners on this constantly, and we continue to talk to our friends in the United States because they are integral to this agreement.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Minister in the other place called the House of Lords irresponsible, not just the Opposition. I find that very offensive. Many of us have spent a long time trying to get this issue debated properly. I have a simple and straightforward question and I hope I will get a straight answer. Can the 1966 treaty be rewritten unilaterally?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I do not know of any treaty that can be rewritten unilaterally. As for the words of my honourable friend Stephen Doughty, I will let him know that this House considers its role as a revising Chamber to be very serious. I know that the vast majority of Members of this House, on all sides, see that as their job. We will continue to do that to a very high standard, in the way that this House has always done.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, the Minister appears to be in a parallel universe. Can she comment on what the President of the United States, Scott Bessent and Marco Rubio said last week? Is it not perfectly obvious that they are not going to agree to amend the 1966 treaty?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I do not know about it being perfectly obvious. There were many things said last week that it is probably best we do not treat as emblematic or representative of the nature of the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. We continue to have detailed conversations about this particular treaty and many other issues, as we can all remember talking about recently.
Lord Murray of Blidworth (Con)
My Lords, we are told by the media that four-star generals and admirals have written to President Trump saying:
“A base held under lease, subject to international arbitration, political pressure, or third party treaty obligations, is inherently less secure than one held under sovereign authority”.
Are they wrong?
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I do not think they are wrong. The problem, however, is that that option was unlikely to be available to us indefinitely. We needed to find a solution that was legally secure and that could not be challenged. Had we waited, as noble Lords opposite have encouraged the Government to do, for a binding judgment, then what kind of deal would we have been able to seek? The price was only ever going to go up. It was much better to seek a solution before a binding judgment could be reached, following the advisory opinion. I am assuming it is for James Cleverly, the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, and others to explain what on earth they were doing negotiating, on repeat, for the same deal that we achieved. Why were they doing that if they had no intention of ever securing the base?
Chinese Embassy
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Finn (Con)
My Lords, the Government’s decision to approve planning permission for a new Chinese embassy at the Royal Mint Court site is profoundly troubling. We should be clear about the nature of the regime with which we are dealing. This is a state that our own security services have warned is actively seeking to undermine our democracy, has placed bounties on the heads of Hong Kong democracy campaigners living here in the United Kingdom, has spied directly on Members of Parliament, supports Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and systematically infiltrates our universities and businesses to acquire, and often steal, sensitive intellectual property.
Yet the Government’s response to this mounting threat has been characterised by confusion, equivocation and weakness. Ministers have shrunk from calling China what it is: a national security threat. They show a singular lack of transparency by refusing to publish their China audit. They have failed to place China in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme and properly support the prosecution of two men accused of spying on MPs in the other place. Now, astonishingly, they have waved through the creation of a Chinese super-embassy in the heart of our capital.
On the eve of the Prime Minister’s visit, one thing remains strikingly absent: any clarity whatsoever about this Government’s approach to China. From these Benches, we have been clear about what a serious and responsible policy on China must look like. It requires relentless scrutiny of the national security threat China poses and firmness in the defence of sovereignty. It requires the courage to call out, clearly, plainly and without equivocation, the systematic human rights abuses inflicted on millions of people in China and across its sphere of influence.
We are equally clear-eyed about the realities of the global economy. China is the world’s second-largest economy, and engagement is unavoidable. But engagement must never mean acquiescence, pragmatism cannot become passivity and economic interaction must be matched by strategic resilience, moral clarity and a willingness to confront wrongdoing wherever it occurs. This Government have failed that test. What they have offered is not balance but capitulation. Their failure of clarity, resolve and principle leaves this country weaker, not stronger, on the world stage.
On the question of the embassy, let us be clear about what has just been approved. This will be the largest embassy in Europe, not for one of our closest allies but for a state that spies on us, represses people on our soil and backs an aggressor waging war on our allies in Ukraine. It will be an embassy so vast that it includes a 208-room underground complex, with a basement running just metres from cables carrying some of the most sensitive financial data in the world and linking Canary Wharf and the City of London. The question for the Minister is simply: what is the purpose of such a large embassy? What is it for? Why have the Government approved such a facility for a country described by our intelligence agencies as a national security threat? Why does the Chinese embassy need to be on such a scale?
Perhaps most alarming of all is the fact that the Secretary of State who approved this development has admitted that he did so without seeing the unredacted plans. How can a Government that claim to put national security first possibly maintain that the risks were properly assessed when the decision was taken on the basis of redacted documents? I ask the Minister directly: how is that compatible with any serious conception of responsible national security? It has been reported, furthermore, that the Chinese authorities could legally refuse access to UK inspectors during or after construction. If that is true, we will not know what is being built beneath our feet. Does the Minister dispute these reports, and has China said that it will allow access?
This decision cannot be divorced from the wider pattern of behaviour we are witnessing. China is spying on us. It is subverting our democracy by attacking our democratic institutions, the Government and the custodians of our electoral system. It is engaging in transnational repression on British soil, intimidating dissidents, targeting Hong Kongers who have sought refuge here and attempting to coerce British citizens themselves. The Secretary of State’s permission letter made out that, so long as China undertook
“lawful embassy use of the site”,
everything would be fine. I ask the Minister: is it lawful to assault Hong Kong activists on our streets? Is it lawful to operate so-called “police stations” on British soil? Is it lawful to place bounties on the heads of people living under the protection of UK law? Is it lawful to pressure neighbours of Hong Kongers to lure them into embassies so that those bounties can be collected? The answer to every one of those questions is no, and yet we are now proposing dramatically to expand China’s diplomatic footprint here, adding hundreds of additional staff, despite clear evidence that, wherever China expands its embassy presence, transnational repression increases. Does the Minister seriously dispute that pattern?
The truth is simple: China poses a security threat on multiple fronts. That means that, yes, we need to engage, but with our eyes wide open. We must remain vigilant and call out national security threats. It is the first job of government. Giving China exactly what it wants is a damaging capitulation. The Prime Minister might benefit from easier small talk during his imminent visit to China, but it is the British people who will pay the price and the impact of this decision will be felt for years to come. This House should be deeply ashamed that such a decision has been allowed to stand, and the Government should think again, before they discover, too late, that the risks they waved through so casually are risks that the country will be left to bear.
In closing, I emphasise that all this plays into a wider narrative of neglect and disregard for our national security. At the same time the Government are greenlighting the Chinese Government to build their mega-embassy, they are also paying millions of pounds to surrender the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which is itself in a long-standing friendship with China and has committed to supporting China’s core interests and major concerns so as to further deepen their mutual strategic partnership. As my noble friend Lord Callanan and other noble Lords have tirelessly pointed out, it is not our allies who welcome the Chagos deal but those who seek to harm us. It is Russia and China who have been fully supportive of the UK giving up its sovereignty of a key strategic asset.
I briefly touch on the Hillsborough Bill, on which the Government have been forced into yet another unedifying U-turn. When we debated this matter last week, the Minister was unable to answer the questions on national security that I raised, and this episode only reinforces the wider concern that the Government do not grasp what national security means in practice and instead treat it as something that can be traded away or manipulated for political convenience. The Government are fond of reminding the House that the first duty of any Government is the defence of national security. On that test, I regret to say, they have fallen at the first hurdle.
Lord Fox (LD)
My Lords, listening to the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, I was reminded that it was only in 2015 that the then Chancellor George Osborne declared the creation of a “golden decade”. I wonder how long it lasted.
At the very least, this decision will relocate China’s comprehensive security and surveillance efforts on to one huge 21st-century site. We believe it will amplify the threat and potentially endanger the security of vital financial data. It seems a clear indication of political weakness that the Government have taken this decision in the hope of furthering our relationship with China. This concession, along with issues such as the Government’s consistent failure to place China in the enhanced tier of the foreign influence registration scheme and their total failure to invoke sufficient legal protection against transnational repression of Hong Kongers, reinforced this message of weakness.
The Statement talks about the Government’s desire for a relationship with China and it says that the Government do not trade security for economic access. I agree, because given the scale of the trade deficit we have with China, we are actually increasing our security risks while continuing to give China virtually unfettered economic access. It is a win-win situation for China. There seems very little on the plus side of this relationship for us, except perhaps allowing Chinese Government-controlled firms to take large financial stakes in our critical national infrastructure.
Having made this announcement, what, if anything, does the Prime Minister hope to bring back from his visit? It is a transactional world. If the Prime Minister was to negotiate the freedom of Jimmy Lai, secure the removal of the bounties from the heads of Hong Kongers and close the university-based Chinese police operations then perhaps the extra risk that our security services describe flowing from this super-embassy might be worth taking. However, if all he gets is a handshake with President Xi, then he will have conceded—we will have conceded—a lot for absolutely nothing.
I will say a final word on the scale of this embassy. The plans for the super-embassy include the provision of 232 flats. I believe there are currently 146 embassy employees, which means that there will be accommodation for nearly 90 extra people—an expansion of at least 60% in the number of embassy staff. So what realistically does the Minister expect all those extra people to be doing?
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their points and questions on this matter, which rightly concerns us all.
To reiterate, this was a quasi-judicial decision taken independently by the Secretary of State for Housing. I also remind noble Lords of the premise of the Statement made by the Security Minister in the other place, which focused on the national security considerations of China’s proposal to build a new embassy at the Royal Mint Court. This concludes a process that began in 2018, when the then Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson—who I believe may have been a Conservative—gave formal diplomatic consent for China to use the Royal Mint site for its new embassy, subject to planning permission, and welcomed it as China’s largest overseas investment. I think we have seen how much has changed in a few short years on the Opposition Benches. Nevertheless, I am aware of the significant interest that this issue has provoked in your Lordships’ House, and as such I am grateful for the opportunity to provide an assurance of the work that the Government have undertaken to ensure that UK national security is protected.
I am very fond of the noble Baroness, but her comments about the Government’s prioritisation of national security were outrageous. National security is our number one priority. The Home Office and the Foreign Office both provided views during the planning process on potential security issues around the build and confirmed in writing when these were resolved. We have engaged with key allies throughout, and our security and intelligence agencies have been integral to the process. As the director of GCHQ and the director-general of MI5 wrote in their letter,
“as with any foreign embassy on UK soil, it is not realistic to expect to be able wholly to eliminate each and every potential risk … However, the collective work across UK intelligence agencies and HMG departments to formulate a package of national security mitigations for the site has been, in our view, expert, professional and proportionate”.
They also judged that
“the package of mitigations deals acceptably with a wide range of sensitive national security issues, including cabling”.
Indeed, they noted that there were “clear security advantages” from consolidating China’s diplomatic estates in London.
I am also grateful for the close consideration and scrutiny that my noble friend Lord Beamish and the Intelligence and Security Committee have given this matter. His committee concluded:
“On the basis of the evidence we have received, and having carefully reviewed the nuanced national security considerations, the Committee has concluded that, taken as a whole, the national security concerns that arise can be satisfactorily mitigated”.
National security concerns that have been raised in media reports again in recent days are not new to the Government or the intelligence community, and an extensive range of measures has been developed to protect national security. We have acted to increase the resilience of cables in the area through an extensive series of measures to protect sensitive data. The Government have seen unredacted plans for the embassy and have agreed with China that the publicly accessible forecourt on the embassy grounds will not have diplomatic immunity, thereby managing the risk to the public. Based on all that and our extensive work on this matter, we are content that any risks are being appropriately managed.
On our approach to China, I note that it is a fundamental and normal part of international relations that countries agree to establish embassies in each other’s capitals. The Government are engaging with China confidently and pragmatically, recognising the complexity of the world as it is and challenging China where we need to. Of course, we recognise that China poses a series of threats to UK national security, from cyber attacks, foreign interference and espionage targeting our diplomatic institutions, to transnational repression of Hong Kongers and China’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Government have responded and will continue to respond to these challenges.
However, taking a robust approach to our national security also includes engaging with China. Indeed, it is only through engagement that we can directly challenge China on its malicious activity. By taking tough steps to keep us secure, we enable ourselves to co-operate in other areas, including in pursuit of safe economic opportunities that are in the UK’s national interest and in areas such as organised immigration crime, narcotics trafficking and serious organised crime. That is what allies do and what we are doing: delivering for the public, putting more money in their pockets and keeping them safe through hard-headed, risk-based engagement with the world’s most consequential power.
I would like to clarify some specific points raised by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord. The noble Baroness asked what this is for. She knows what this is for: as a result of a quasi-judicial process and a planning application, this is the consolidation of seven different sites into one. There are significant security benefits that come from that.
On the planning and building processes, I reiterate that this is a British planning application that has gone through a quasi-judicial process. The normal building inspections will apply as the building is developed.
As I said, national security is the first responsibility of any Government, and especially this Government. Any other suggestion is frankly appalling.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Fox, I say that we will see the results of the PM’s visit when he returns and I look forward to discussing it in your Lordships’ House at that point.
On FIRS, we are looking carefully at whether other countries should be added to the enhanced tier. Any decision will be brought before Parliament in the usual way. Countries are considered separately for specification, and decisions are made on the evidence. The Government have a range of capabilities to manage and mitigate threats emanating from foreign states. FIRS is one of many tools that we use.
I will touch on the number of diplomats who will be present at the embassy. Under the Vienna convention, having an embassy is not a reward for like-minded partners but a necessity for any country with which we have diplomatic relations. On the issue of pragmatism, I say that we are talking about a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the second-largest economy in the world and our third-largest trading partner, so a level of diplomatic relations would be wise. It is also a fundamental and normal part of international relations that countries mutually consent to other nations having embassy premises. However, as the Vienna convention states, the UK has control over the number of diplomats in the UK on diplomatic relations. Any diplomatic position at the Chinese embassy must be approved on a case-by-case basis by the FCDO’s protocol department. The FCDO will work with allies on any additional extensions of that. As I have said, the Government have seen the unredacted plans. It is based on this and our extensive work on this topic that I am content that any risks are being appropriately managed.
The noble Lord raised a very important point about transnational repression. Noble Lords may be aware that I ran Index on Censorship until the general election and spent a great deal of time campaigning on these specific issues. The Government condemn the Hong Kong police’s efforts to coerce, intimidate, harass and harm those living in the UK and overseas; these acts of repression will never be tolerated in this country. We have raised these concerns directly with Chinese authorities, reaffirming that the extraterritorial application of Hong Kong’s national security law is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in the UK. The safety and security of Hong Kongers in the UK, including those on the British National Overseas visa, is of the utmost importance. The UK will always stand up for the rights of the people of Hong Kong. This is demonstrated through the bespoke immigration route for BNO status holders and their eligible family members.
The UK’s response to tackling state-directed threats is world leading. Appropriate tools and system-wide safeguards are in place to robustly counter transnational aggression. Following the Defending Democracy Taskforce’s TNR review, we have strengthened our response by implementing the National Security Act 2023, which provides a comprehensive suite of powers to counter the threat of TNR. We have rolled out training across 45 territorial police forces, including the upskilling of 999 call handlers to improve front-line identification of and responses to state-directed threats. We have published practical guidance on GOV.UK for individuals who believe they may be at risk, with advice to help them protect themselves physically and online. We have deployed tailored support and security assistance for individual victims, where we have become aware of them, that are proportionate to the threat and varied in scope and approach.
This Government will always welcome the knowledge and experience of noble Lords and Baronesses in your Lordships’ House, particularly when they pertain to matters of national security. So let me again reassure your Lordships that upholding national security is the first duty of government and we will continue to take all measures necessary to disrupt these threats. Based on the extensive work on this topic, the Government are content that any risks to the UK’s national security are being appropriately managed.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement. She made a great deal in her remarks of the quasi-judicial process that has been used. No reference, though, has been made to the Royal Mint Court Residents Association’s decision to open a judicial case challenging the mega-embassy on the Royal Mint site. Has the Minister considered imposing a moratorium while that legal process continues?
She also made a great deal about transnational repression, and I salute the work that she has done in a previous incarnation on that important issue. I thank the Government for providing time on 26 February for a full-scale debate in your Lordships’ House on the report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights on transnational repression. May I appeal to the noble Baroness to make available a copy of that report and a copy of the committee’s report on the use of slave labour in our supply chains, which touches on a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox, about how we cannot compete with a country that uses slave labour? Will she ensure that those two reports are in the hands of the Prime Minister before he travels to Beijing?
I have two questions for the noble Baroness. It has been claimed publicly by Richard Holmes of the i paper and Caroline Wheeler of the Sunday Times that, during 2025, while both journalists were working to uncover the risks associated with the sensitive cabling below the mega-CCP embassy, government media officials sought to discredit both journalists and denied that there were any such cables. Is it true that government officials denied the presence of sensitive cables? Is it true that these two good journalists were smeared by officials, who well knew that they were working on a true story, which the Government have themselves now admitted? If the noble Baroness does not have the answers to those questions immediately, I would be grateful if she would agree to write to me.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I think I am agreeing to write to him. I genuinely do not recognise, nor have I been aware of, that report regarding the journalists. I cannot comment on specific mitigations or on some of the issues. The noble Lord will have heard, both during my comments and those of the Security Minister, that we have discussed the cables. So I would find that concerning, but I will write to the noble Lord.
With regard to getting things into the hands of the Prime Minister, I will give it a go, but I assure the noble Lord that I will get the reports into the hands of someone in No. 10, in the hope that they will get to him before he leaves.
On the potential judicial review, the noble Lord will be aware that the Government are completely adamant that our actions are lawful and, on that basis, we will continue to proceed with the appropriate processes.
Lord Beamish (Lab)
My Lords, my noble friend, in her answer, referred to the ISC. The ISC has looked at this very closely. We were given access to all the confidential and sensitive documentation, and we took evidence from our security services and Ministers; I thank them for that. We came to the conclusion that Ministers, in making their security assessment, had been given all the information available, and also that the mitigations that could have been put in place on some of the issues that did concern the embassy were satisfactory and could be put in place.
In saying that, in 2023, we published our China report, in which we were very clear about the threat that China poses to the UK in terms of security. It also, as was referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Fox, laid out the golden era that opened up many aspects of our society, business and academia to the Chinese state under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. Does my noble friend agree that this Government will take a very strong and robust approach to our national security when it comes to China, while recognising, as she said, that China is one of our main economic trading partners, but what they will not do is put that in the place of our security, which the last Government did?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for the work that he and his committee have done, both in terms of ensuring appropriate scrutiny of the Government and more broadly. He raises a really important point, which I should have done earlier on. As ever, we need to thank the intelligence services, which work every day to keep us safe. One of the things that is so important in this space is that MI5 has 100 years of experience in keeping us safe and managing risk. It is at the forefront of our national security, especially in this space, and we are grateful for it.
My noble friend is absolutely right that there is a clear threat posed by China. We fully recognise that China poses a series of threats to UK national security, from cyber security attacks and foreign interference and espionage targeting our democratic institutions to transnational repression of dissidents in the UK. That is why, since we came into government, we have done the following: we have launched the new cross-government state threats unit; we have done the training models, as I spoke about earlier; we have invested £600 million in our intelligence services; we have strengthened support for political parties in the Elections Bill; we have provided £170 million for a new sovereign encrypted technology and £130 million for integrated security funds, and we have removed surveillance equipment that would be subject to the National Security Law companies. We are acting because there is nothing more important than national security. That is the first responsibility of this Government and that is what we are acting upon.
Baroness Foster of Oxton (Con)
My Lords, in 2015, if I recall, we were in coalition with the Liberal Democrats and I think that Nick Clegg clearly agreed with George Osborne’s position on China. But I did agree with the noble Lord, Lord Fox, when he highlighted the numbers of staff who will be allocated to this embassy. I wonder whether there is ever a limit on the number of people who can come here when an embassy is either created or expanded.
I turn to the point. The reality is that the regime in China is up to its neck in committing heinous crimes against its own citizens. It is up to its neck in supporting Russia and its invasion of Ukraine. It is up to its neck in the attacks that took place in Israel, and now in the Islamic Republic of Iran, where thousands of unarmed civilians are being slaughtered as we speak by the Ayatollah and the IRGC. Cyber attacks here in the UK are on the rise and are becoming much more frequent. So how can the Minister and this Government be so naive as to justify permitting the approval of this site?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I would like to clarify a couple of points. First, unless I missed something, the coalition ended in 2015. It was 2010 to 2015, so that was a matter for the noble Baroness’s party, not for the Liberal Democrats at that point. Secondly, on the number of diplomats, as I said earlier, that is subject to the Vienna convention. The Protocol Minister decides on a case-by-case basis on any additional applications for diplomats.
I have been very clear on the range of threats that China poses, but there are 370,000 British jobs that are dependent on our relationship with China. We need to have a level of pragmatism and a sensible relationship with the second-largest economy in the world and our third-largest trading partner. We just need to remember what we are doing and why we are doing it. The idea that this Government or any British Government are naive in their approach to foreign policy is frankly insulting.
On the specific matter that the noble Baroness raised about our relationship with China and where they have sat, the Prime Minister said, when he met President Xi at the G20 in 2024, that he also wanted to engage honestly and frankly in those areas where we have different perspectives, including on Hong Kong, human rights and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
We have genuine debate, we make our position clear, as we have on the national security law and on a range of issues, including Jimmy Lai’s status and the ongoing trials. You can have those conversations with allies only if you talk to them. While the world is as volatile as it is, I suggest that more words rather than fewer are important, which requires more people to have those conversations
Baroness Alexander of Cleveden (Lab)
My Lords, the events of last week and this week demonstrate to us the difficulties of managing superpowers and the challenges they present, as well as the opportunities. So, while the noble Baroness, Lady Finn, is right to suggest that China presents areas where we must oppose, there must also be areas where we seek to co-operate when we can. Does my noble friend the Minister recognise the need for expert advice to guide embassy location decisions, and is that the way to avoid the sort of ricocheting we have seen from the golden age that has already been referenced tonight to the ice age that we have also been presented with?
Can my noble friend the Minister also just confirm that the heads of MI5 and GCHQ stated that
“this consolidation should bring clear security advantages”?
Did she have the opportunity, exactly a week ago today, to hear this point reinforced by the director-general of MI5, speaking in this place, when he reiterated and dwelled on the fact that the greater threats surrounding espionage come not from within an embassy building but often from activities beyond an embassy that dominate much of the work of our security agencies? Finally, does my noble friend agree that, as we go forward on the question of embassy locations, we should be led by the UK’s most senior intelligence officers in our decision-making?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for her questions. One thing that is really clear, given that this Statement is about our national security, is about being led by our national security experts, who, as she rightly said, have been clear in their opinions about the mitigations that are required but also about the nature of this. With regard to the location of embassies, this is a piece of land that was bought in 2018 and was granted the diplomatic permission to move forward as an embassy, subject to planning permission, under the last Government—or, in fact, as I said, under Boris Johnson. But what is clear is that a quasi-judicial process has since followed. There is a 240-page document which outlines why that decision was made and how it was made, and it is all available to all Members of your Lordships’ House online. But she is absolutely right: my honourable friend the Security Minister in the other place and the directors-general of MI5 and GCHQ, have all made it clear that there are also clear security benefits to the amalgamation of seven sites into one.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, the Minister acknowledged earlier the concern among Chinese dissidents in the UK about the embassy. She may have heard the comments from Chloe Cheung, a British resident and former Hong Konger—a young woman who has a bounty on her head from China. She has said she feels betrayed by the agreement to this embassy: it looks like a Chinese castle, and it sends a message about overweening Chinese power. Can the Minister sympathise with and understand the fear felt by those dissidents—and more widely than just those who are explicitly identified as dissidents?
I note that the Statement refers to a closed meeting with vice-chancellors that is going to be held next month. We of course have huge numbers of Hong Kong and Chinese students at British universities, and we have had experience of them being intimidated and subject to physical violence. What can the Government do to ensure that universities can protect those students? If we think about a Chinese student who has always followed the line and come here and just starts to ask some questions, what are we going to do to make sure that that student is safe here in the UK?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I have met many Chinese dissidents who live in the UK and did significant work with them in my former iteration. It is really important that we make sure that their voices are heard and that on British soil they have the protections afforded to everybody here.
On academic interference, any attempt by a foreign state to intimidate and coerce universities to limit free speech and academic freedoms in the UK will not be tolerated. The new Office for Students’ guidance makes it explicitly clear that universities should not tolerate attempts by foreign states to suppress academic freedom.
With regard to the closed meeting with the Security Minister, which will be held shortly, there is a reason why that meeting is closed: to make sure that the advice received by people is for them as regards how they manage and mitigate their risks. It would be inappropriate for me to go further on that.
Lord Empey (UUP)
My Lords, I would be grateful if the noble Baroness, if she does not have the figures available right now, could send me a letter and put it in the Library as to how many diplomats from the People’s Republic of China are accredited to the United Kingdom and how many United Kingdom diplomats are accredited to the People’s Republic of China. It would be very interesting to see what the figures are. She mentioned a quasi-judicial process. I suspect that the head of the planning department in Beijing would have very little say in whether we built a super-embassy there. It would be dealt with by other people. Only we could come up with that kind of process.
As regards Hong Kong, since the crackdown started, we have done virtually nothing and, in my opinion, we are going to do virtually nothing, because that is what we do well. I fear that the universities have laid themselves wide open to interference and pressure—money talks. The Minister has just pointed out that we have to be pragmatic because 370,000 jobs are at stake with regard to Chinese companies. But as long as we have a trade deficit of the scale that we have, and as long as we cannot invest in China under the same terms as the Chinese can invest here, that is the major letdown in the security of our country, because we are making ourselves, in effect, at their disposal. Will the Minister bear those points in mind and, if she will be kind enough, make the figures available to the House?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I find it very wise always to listen to the noble Lord and to bear his comments in mind. On the number of diplomats, I will have to write to the noble Lord as I do not have the figures to hand. As my noble friend who is the Minister for MHCLG in your Lordships’ House is here, I will leave her to ponder the noble Lord’s suggestions about revisions to the planning regime.
Lord Bellingham (Con)
My Lords, I certainly support the noble Baroness our Front-Bench spokesperson and the noble Lord the Lib Dem spokesman. This is a regrettable decision but we now have to move on. I am being pragmatic; I accept that it is going to happen, and we have to make the best of it. China wanted this embassy very badly, the Chinese will be delighted at this decision, and it will undoubtedly create a lot of good will. Just to build on what the Minister said about trade and investment, when the Prime Minister comes back from China, can we have a full audit of all the deals that have been agreed and the investment decisions that have been discussed, so that we can get a very clear picture of exactly how that bilateral trade relationship will move forward?
I will ask the Minister another question. I have visited getting on for 60 UK missions abroad, and one thing that has struck me is that we have always been very strong at employing locally engaged staff. Normally, it is a ratio of probably 2.5:1 or maybe even 3:1. My impression of China is that it employs very few locally engaged staff. We heard about the increase in accommodation that is going to be required in the new embassy. Can the Minister say something about the representations that she and the Government are going to make to the Chinese about employing more local British people in what is going to be a huge operation and a massive project?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, there are several things to unpack there. First, I highlight the fact that while the Prime Minister is going tomorrow, the UK has been an outlier since 2018 in terms of our engagement with China. President Trump met President Xi in October and will visit China in the spring. Since 2018, President Macron has visited China three times, German leaders have visited four times, and Chancellor Merz is soon to travel to Beijing. Prime Minister Albanese went in July last year and Prime Minister Carney was there this month. There has not been a prime ministerial-level visit to China—the second-largest economy—since 2018, when the noble Baroness, Lady May, travelled when she was Prime Minister. There is a challenge here about how we chose going from one extreme to the other: a golden age to a golden ice age.
With regards to the trade agreements that will come out of the Prime Minister’s imminent visit to China, noble Lords will have the opportunity to discuss that in due course. What I would say is that this Prime Minister is going to China to deliver for the UK, and I look forward to discussing the details of what comes from that meeting in your Lordships’ House. With regards to the employment of local British people, I think that everyone should always want to employ local British people, but I will leave it for my colleagues in the relevant department to make that case.
Water White Paper
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, we welcome the progress made by the Government on the recommendations of the Independent Water Commission. In particular, we welcome the proposed integrated regulator to replace Ofwat and combine functions of the Environment Agency, Natural England and the Drinking Water Inspectorate.
However, I would first like to respond to some of the criticism levelled by the Minister at the Conservative record on the water system. In 2010, the previous Labour Government left us in a position where only 7% of storm outflows were monitored; now it is 100%. The Water (Special Measures) Act last year also took on Conservative regulatory proposals, which we welcomed. We also established the water restoration fund to ensure that the money received from fines imposed on water companies would be ring-fenced to pay for water restoration efforts. Can the Minister therefore recommit to the water restoration fund and, if not, explain how the money received is being spent?
We on these Benches are supportive of improving water security and streamlining the regulatory framework. We welcome the White Paper’s commitment to reform the 2013 specified infrastructure project regulations, as suggested previously by my noble friend Lady Coffey during the passage of the Planning and Infrastructure Act.
With regard to the new regulator, we have pushed the Government to ensure it will be accountable to the Secretary of State and, by extension, to Parliament. Can the Minister outline exactly how ministerial oversight of the new regulator will function in practice? Will the new regulator take responsibility for the initial nutrient neutrality environment development plans debated at length in the Planning and Infrastructure Bill’s passage and the sites acquired currently in the remit of Natural England? How will that impact the intention to use that learning experience and the intention to extend these EDPs to species and features that will presumably still come under Natural England?
We welcome the longer-term planning horizons but ask that the funding strategies are made transparent. In addition, will the new regulator be established in time to oversee the next price review scheduled for 2029?
We also propose leverage limits on water companies to avoid some of the mistakes made in the past with debt levels. The White Paper says the new regulator will work with companies to ensure that they do not accumulate unmanageable levels of debt. Should the Government not go further and put up stronger guardrails to prevent financial risk becoming such a major issue for the industry in future, as we proposed in the Water (Special Measures) Act?
Moreover, the White Paper promises new customer panels. Can the Minister explain how many panels will be created and what the estimated cost will be? If the Government are serious about wanting to streamline, we cannot end up with yet more arm’s-length bodies than before.
We are also concerned about the pace and apparent lack of urgency from the Government. Not only was the White Paper expected to have been published last year, but it has not accompanied by a full transition plan. When can we expect this, and when can we expect the water reform Bill to be brought before Parliament?
Farmers need financial support and clear advice and guidance to make their contributions to cleaning up our water. Simply relying on increased regulation and environmental inspections to force compliance will not work with an industry that is both critical to our national security and struggling financially, with low grain prices, high costs and destabilising government measures around inheritance tax and SFIs, in particular. Enforcing these regulations on our farmers in the way described in the White Paper will place them at even more of a competitive disadvantage versus those overseas, as they will be forced to comply with higher environmental and welfare standards and costs.
We understand the department is considering extending environmental permitting to cattle farming, which would add further administration and financial burdens on businesses. As has been flagged by my noble friend in other debates, farmers have already raised concerns that they might not be able to afford the changes necessary to remain compliant. In terms of supporting farmers to adapt to new regulations, the Government have promised to increase the number of Environment Agency inspections to 6,000 by 2029, but will they consider introducing new financial incentives to offer a carrot rather than simply a stick?
We, of course, support water reform and wish it was progressing more quickly, but it also must be coherent and considerate towards the agricultural businesses on which our food security relies. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Statement repeat this evening. Some proposals in this White paper are indeed most welcome, including the scrapping of Ofwat—something we have long called for—but it falls short of the fundamental reforms water customers are so desperately in need of. True reform demands root-and-branch change within the water companies themselves, because until profit is no longer their driving force, shareholder payouts will continue to be prioritised over investment and the urgent need to end the scandal of sewage in our rivers and seas. We therefore advocate a move towards mutuality, not the costly nationalisation that others propose but a shift to public benefit companies, a model that has proved so successful elsewhere, particularly in the United States.
I have a few questions. How can the Government claim there will be nowhere to hide when the White Paper rules out structural reform, including changes to ownership and profit extraction? What action is being taken to stop water companies evading the bonus ban, given evidence to the Public Accounts Committee only recently that they have reclassified such payments as “retention incentives”, even in the past year?
If this is truly the biggest overhaul since privatisation, why does it fail to confront the broken ownership model which has enabled pollution, underinvestment and profiteering for decades? Did the Government consider alternative models, such as mutuality, and, if not, why not at this stage, when the current funding system so clearly prioritises shareholders over customers, in turn using huge debts to fund dividends?
What guarantees can Ministers give that a new regulator, potentially more than a year from being operational, will be able to deliver immediate improvements, rather than the risk of extended regulatory failure? What assessment has been made of the cumulative impact of historic underinvestment and excessive dividends in today’s water bills, and how will this White Paper address that inequity? How will the Government work with farmers to tackle agricultural pollution in genuine partnership with them, rather than the slight blame culture that currently exists? Will Ministers commit to ending the sewage cover-up by requiring full publication of sewage volume data, not just the spill duration, as is the current system and the one we had under the last Government? Given record sewage dumping and rising bills, what measurable standards will define this White Paper as a success if river and coastal water quality, for instance, continues to decline?
Finally, and no great surprise from me, when will we see the necessary legislation on our precious chalk streams, which have a very welcome inclusion in this White Paper but which were promised urgent action when we were discussing the Planning and Infrastructure Bill? There continues to be a danger that it will be too late for the chalk streams.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Baroness Hayman of Ullock) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their interest and their questions on the water White Paper, which we published and laid in Parliament on 20 January. The White Paper outlines how we will work together with water companies, investors, communities and the environment to transform our water system for good, because we need to ensure a sustainable water system for future generations.
The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, asked why it had taken so long and when we were going to see change. As noble Lords know, we have already taken action. We brought in the Water (Special Measures) Act and took action to ring-fence water company investment. The transition plan will be published later this year, which will provide a road map for implementing the changes. We will bring forward a new water reform Bill during this Parliament, alongside which we will make progress with reforms that do not require primary legislation. That will include a shift to a supervisory approach to regulation, with dedicated teams with an understanding of how each company operates. There will be the piloting of regional planning approaches across the country. The water reform Bill will be a priority for the department going forward.
The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, mentioned the extension of environmental permitting to cattle. As the White Paper sets out, we are considering extending environmental permitting beyond pig and poultry to cattle, because cattle are a significant source of water pollution. However, we are working closely with the NFU and others, because we need to take a balanced approach to that issue.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, and the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, mentioned Ofwat and regulation. We have already done something on this, with the Water (Special Measures) Act, which shifted the burden of proof from the regulators to the water companies in order to enable automatic fines. The new regulator that will be set up will require us to change legislation. We feel it is really important to make sure that we get this right. The existing regulators will in the interim retain the powers they have until we have the new regulator in place.
The Environment Agency is carrying out record levels of funding and inspections, and is currently on track to deliver 10,000 inspections in the year 2025-26. We are going to issue interim strategic policy statements to the regulator as part of the transition plan, which will provide legally binding instructions on what the regulator’s priorities should be and how they should act during the transition period. We will reform the approach to the strategic policy statements and issue wider strategic guidance to provide long-term direction to the entire water system, alongside specific, measurable directions to the new water regulator.
The noble Earl asked when we are going to make appointments to the regulator and when it will be set up. We intend to make formal appointments to the board of the new water regulator at the earliest opportunity. We believe that providing early leadership will help the new regulator begin to develop its internal strategy, to build a new culture, which is very important, and to deliver the industry-wide approach from the start. As I said, during that transition the existing regulators will retain their full powers and responsibilities. We are considering the funding arrangements that will be needed. The new regulator will have the power to deliver its responsibilities in full and will balance the interests of customers, investors and the environment.
The noble Earl asked about accountability. Clear oversight and accountability will be an important design principle of the new regulator, and we anticipate that the regulator will be accountable to Ministers, and by extension to Parliament, in the way that it carries out its functions. We will consider how parliamentary accountability is handled through the legislation, any sponsorship arrangements and the framework agreement. We recognise the importance of appropriate independence, particularly for economic regulation, in supporting the credibility of the new regime and investor confidence, so we will ensure that there are mechanisms in place, including within the legislation itself, to protect regulatory independence. We will look at other relevant public bodies as we draw that up.
The noble Earl asked specifically about the water restoration fund. We are doubling our funding for catchment partnerships in order to bring together farmers and stakeholders to tackle agricultural problems. I am not in a position yet to say whether we will be continuing with the water restoration fund.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, asked about bonuses, which I think everyone feels strongly about, particularly in the light of what has been happening recently with South East Water. We introduced criminality for water bosses who cover up illegal sewage spills and the power to ban unfair bonuses. Some £4 million in bonuses for 10 water bosses was blocked last summer. We absolutely expect water companies to follow both the letter and the spirit of the law, and Ofwat is considering what further action can be taken to ensure that companies are held to account. The water White Paper goes further in order to ensure that water companies have nowhere to hide on poor performance. That includes a new supervisory scheme, which will ensure that the regulator has a stronger grip on exactly what is going on in each company.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, asked about mutuality and models of ownership. Mutual or co-operative ownership is not something that we are opposed to in principle. The White Paper says that, if a company’s owners propose changes to the ownership model, the new regulator will assess any proposals carefully against transparent criteria. But to take a company into mutual or co-operative ownership, either the current owners would need to propose this or the company would need to be bought first. We would therefore need to think carefully about how that transition would actually take place. We are not opposed to it in principle, but any mandatory changes in ownership would be costly and complicated, and would not deliver the material benefit. That is why it is important that it is the company’s owners who are proposing any such changes.
The noble Baroness also asked how the White Paper was addressing pollution; we talked about a number of issues there. As we have set out in the White Paper, there are several measures that we are taking to tackle pollution. Importantly, we are looking to strengthen collaboration in planning at catchment and regional level. This will help to identify lower-cost, higher-impact solutions to tackle pollution and include opportunities for farmers—which the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, was asking about—water companies and other stakeholders to work in partnership to ensure that the action taken is effective. We are also developing a new and strengthened approach to monitoring, because we do not want companies marking their own homework, as they have been doing for years. We are looking at how we can strengthen that.
We are shifting the emphasis towards tackling the root causes of sewage pollution by reducing the volume of rainwater and pollutants that enter the sewerage system in the first place and freeing up sewerage capacity for development and growth. I will give some examples of how we are doing that. We are building on the ban on wet wipes, which contain plastic, to stop sewers from getting clogged up so much. We have introduced a national standard for sustainable drainage systems which will help to improve drainage quality. That will be a requirement for all new developments and will have drainage implications beyond that through the National Planning Policy Framework. We are also committed to ensuring that funding looks at how to improve nature and the environment more broadly. This was mentioned when we talked about the PIB.
Overall, we need to improve transparency and ensure that the public can see what is happening in their local waters. That is important if we are to get back consumer confidence and boost protection for customers. We want people to see that this is serious action that we are taking to improve the water systems.
The Duke of Wellington (CB)
My Lords, I very much welcome the Statement and the White Paper, as the Minister knows, and I am particularly pleased that the Statement refers in its opening paragraph to
“putting consumers and the environment first”.
We had a discussion in this House at the time of the Water (Special Measures) Bill on whether the environment was given a voice equal to that of consumers. I was always in favour of giving more voice to the environment, so I am pleased that the Secretary of State has recognised that.
I have mentioned many times in your Lordships’ House the necessity of a single, strong regulator, and I welcome this. That involves abolishing Ofwat and taking over parts of the work of the Environment Agency and other regulators. We must recognise that Ofwat over many years allowed the balance sheets of the water companies to be transformed by private equity-increased leverage. That was agreed by Ofwat without any regard to the consequences for the environment. Despite the Environment Agency always claiming that it does not have enough resources, it has considerable resources. The problem is that it never gave sufficient priority to controlling pollution in rivers and on beaches.
I have some questions for the Minister. Of course, we are all anxious to see all this put into effect. The White Paper was delayed. The Minister said that there should be some guidance later this year. I hope that there will be a new water Bill in the next Session of Parliament. Can she confirm that? Fundamentally, when can we expect to see the new regulator in operation? That is what we are all looking forward to and what the public now expect.
The Whip is making a face at me, but I think that I am allowed to ask a second question. Will the new regulator have sufficient budget to fulfil its very considerable responsibilities? We all want to see a favourable outcome to this policy in development.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I thank the noble Duke for his broad support for the White Paper. He has been a champion of improving the situation with our water systems.
He asked about the new regulator. We intend to make formal appointments to the board of the new water regulator at the earliest opportunity. We want to get cracking with this. I am not in a position to say whether the Bill will be in the next Session or when it will come, but I reassure the noble Duke that this is a top priority for Defra. We are working very hard to bring this forward as soon as we can.
We are considering the funding arrangements that we will need, but I assure the noble Duke that the new regulator will have the power to deliver its responsibilities in full. We want to make sure that any new regulator is able to do the job and do it well.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the Government on producing this White Paper and on putting into effect the excellent work that Sir Jon Cunliffe did in his review.
The water industry has been an example of the worst of the capitalist system—not value creation but value extraction in a major way. Obviously, a major concern of any Government is keeping down the cost of living. My fear is that we will create a situation where the Government and the regulator are under pressure from the companies to allow environmental standards to be further weakened to make the finances add up and to save them from bankruptcy. Can my noble friend assure me that we will not tolerate any of that nonsense?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Absolutely; water companies have done an extremely good job of trashing the environment and causing pollution. This White Paper and the water Bill that we will be bringing forward are designed to stop that, to have a water system that people can trust and to have water companies that behave as we would expect them to behave. They have a responsibility for the environment. They should take that responsibility much more seriously.
Lord Teverson (LD)
My Lords, one of the areas that the White Paper does not even mention is the voluntary sector, particularly citizen science, which has been fundamental in calling water companies to account—in the Wye valley and other areas. As well as not mentioning citizen science, the White Paper does not mention either science or citizens, which is perhaps more worrying. What are the plans of the Government to keep this whole area of citizen science, which has been so positive in putting pressure on the water companies regarding water pollution and in motivating them to continue their work, and to somehow include this in the future? It is a resource that is wide, large, educated, willing and desperate to make sure that we have a better future.
Also, why is artesian water not mentioned in the report? In terms of long-term assets, it is one of the most important that we have. Although it is okay at the moment, it will be severely challenged in the future.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I think that much of what the noble Lord has talked about is what I need to feed back to the department. Obviously, this is a White Paper; it is not the final version of what any Bill must look like. The noble Lord makes some very important points, particularly on citizen science. I have a personal interest in this because before I ever came to this place, I was part of the Consultation Institute, which has worked in citizen science, so I appreciate what he is saying.
We have talked about working regionally. We have talked about working with stakeholders. We have talked about the importance of that local connection if we are to succeed in making the changes that we want. Citizen science—the noble Lord is absolutely right—can play a role in that.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, in responding to the Front-Bench questions, the Minister said the Government are not opposed “in principle” to mutual or co-operative ownership. I am sure that will be delightful news to the Co-operative Party, which of course has been in an electoral partnership with the Labour Party since 1927.
That question of ownership is one we keep coming back to. The Minister also said that we will get a regulator with a tighter grip. But will that grip not be resisted and see coming against it the force of the damage of private ownership that the noble Lord opposite just referred to? The legal responsibility for the managers of private companies is to maximise returns to shareholders. That is going to come up against, as the Statement says, this reform being for customers and the environment, but those are set in opposition to the profit motive. Surely the only way we are going to get a water system that does indeed work for customers and the environment is if we have a public organisation managed for the public good.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, talked about science and there not being a lot of it. One thing we are going to do is bring in a new chief engineer to bring more technical scientific expertise to the new regulator, which, just to come back on his point, is important.
On the modelling, the difficulty in moving away is how you are going to do it, because any new model needs to work. The evidence has shown that where there have been problems around the globe, the model has not been the problem; it has been the way that the owners have managed and dealt with the company and any problems that arise from that. I do not think we can just blame the model. We can blame the behaviour of the companies, the fact that there was not enough done to stop that behaviour sooner, and the way that the regulator has been set up—these are the problems we now want to tackle. Rather than just focusing on the model, we should focus on how we can restore confidence to consumers, how we can improve the environment and how we can set up a new system that makes sure this kind of behaviour can never happen again.
Lord Inglewood (CB)
My Lords, I am sure there is agreement around the whole House that the state of the water industry in this country at present is very far from satisfactory. In her remarks about the White Paper, the Minister referred to a whole number of possible initiatives and changes and regulations. Does she agree that, at the last resort, we as a society have to generate enough resources focused on these specific problems to actually bring about change? Is she confident that society will be able to generate those resources, because if not, various things are simply not going to happen?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord for his comments. It would be useful for me to perhaps have a cup of tea with him and understand specifically which resources he is referring to, because it could be very wide-ranging.
As I have said, we want to ensure that the new regulator is set up with the sufficient funding and resources to ensure that the water companies deliver what they are supposed to be delivering—what their contracts expect them to deliver.
As the noble Duke, the Duke of Wellington, pointed out, this is about a balance between proper consumer support, decent water and the environment, because consumers have been treated very badly by water companies over the years, as has the environment. We need to get that that right, and if those are the resources the noble Lord is talking about, that is absolutely what we are fixed on delivering.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, since there is time, following on from the question from the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, about science and citizen science, one thing that some of that sampling is starting to expose is the level of contamination from new areas of concern, such as PFAS, pesticide contamination and microplastics and nanoplastics. My reading of this report is that it does not seem to focus on the way in which new science is uncovering new concerns for public health and environmental health from those kinds of contamination. Is that something the Government are going to look at as they go forward with the new plans?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I can completely assure the noble Baroness that these issues are being looked at outwith these proposals. These are concerns that we are taking very seriously in the department.
The Duke of Wellington (CB)
My Lords, as there is still time, I will ask one further question, if the Whip will allow me. The White Paper mentions cutting leakage. The previous Government had a target of reducing leaks by 50% by 2050. It seemed to me—I asked a question in the House of the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Benyon—that surely that was not ambitious enough. Do this Government have an intention to change the target to something more ambitious than a 50% reduction by 2050?
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
The problem with targets is that half the time they are not met. With the water White Paper, we are looking at ways in which we can improve the infrastructure and get proper funding into it that is also for the long term, because there is no point in putting a plaster on it if it explodes later on, which is what has been happening all the time. We need proper investment to ensure that we do not have continued leakage. That is why we are bringing the new MoT checks on water infrastructure; that is, health checks on assets such as pipes, pumps and treatment works to stop them just being left to crumble. It is about getting ahead of problems before they come into place. That is the way we resolve issues such as leaks. Up to now, water companies have mended them as cheaply as possible by just doing a mend. We had it where we live in our village; they mended it, and then it started leaking somewhere else, and so it continued—you do not resolve the problem. It is really important that we are bringing in these MoT checks and a new performance improvement regime, so that if the water companies do not do what they have agreed to do, we can really crack down on them, because this is the way we need to move forward.
Local Government Reorganisation
(1 day, 6 hours ago)
Lords ChamberRead Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
My Lords, we are considering today a Statement of real constitutional significance. It concerns the decision to cancel scheduled local elections, and in doing so, raises fundamental questions about where responsibility lies, how accountability is exercised, and how seriously we take the rights of the citizen to choose who governs them.
The Secretary of State has made no secret of his views. He has spoken of a system he regards as wasteful, of the need for greater focus and capacity, and of elections which he has described, in his own words, as “pointless”. If that reflects a settled judgment, noble Lords in this House are entitled to ask why it has not been stated with equal clarity here, and why Ministers have appeared reluctant to accept openly the consequences of that position.
At the centre of this lies a more troubling question. Are elections now to be treated as an optional feature of local democracy, to be set aside when they become inconvenient or administratively awkward? Elections are not a discretionary exercise. They are the means by which consent is renewed and authority sustained. They are an integral part of our democracy.
That leads, inevitably, to the issue of responsibility. By asking councils to make the request, Ministers avoid coming to the Dispatch Box to say plainly that they have chosen to deny more than 3.7 million people their vote. Is this not, in effect, a means of shifting a difficult and politically uncomfortable decision away from those who have in fact taken it?
This sits uneasily alongside the broader story of reorganisation itself. A year on from its announcement, there remains little clarity about boundaries, structures or timetables—by timetables, I mean for the whole project across the country. Councils are being asked to manage disruption and cost while certainty moves ever further out of reach. When it will happen seems still unknown by the Government, or, if it is not unknown, it is unannounced.
From our consideration of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, we know that this legislation centralises powers, risks increasing costs for working people and leaves communities with a diminished voice.
Elections have been postponed before, but never on this scale and never in this manner. In the past, elections have always been postponed in a planned way, with plenty of time for councils to organise themselves and, particularly, plenty of time for them to talk to their communities who are affected and give them a voice and some clarity.
Democracy is not strengthened by avoidance nor protected by the quiet displacement of responsibility. If Ministers believe that elections should not take place, they should say so plainly, take responsibility for that choice and defend it openly. Surely the Government have learned from their mistakes at last year’s elections.
The Electoral Commission has been clear that scheduled elections should proceed as planned and that capacity constraints are not a legitimate justification for delay. I ask the Minister: why was the independent guardian of our electoral system not consulted before a Labour Government took the decision to cancel local elections, and what does that say about how lightly this decision was made?
Finally, will the same thing happen again next year?
Lord Pack (LD)
My Lords, the Government are presenting this latest round of election cancellations as an unexceptional administrative move that is justified by precedent, but I think that is fundamentally wrong. Cancelling elections should be a matter of last resort, triggered by global war or a domestic catastrophe. We should take pride in our commitment to democracy. We should have a pride that crosses party boundaries and enthuses Ministers about the value and preciousness of democracy. Instead, unfortunately, the Government seem to be treating elections as an administrative inconvenience, something to be brushed aside rather than cherished.
I could get all fire and brimstone and dust off grand quotes from Churchill, Gandhi, Lincoln or Fawcett, but, really, I am just disappointed by how lightly the Government seem to be treating this matter. Exhibit A is the comments of the Secretary of State, who said that fixing potholes was more important than running scheduled elections—no regrets, no apologies and no reluctance about cancelling but, instead, that poverty of low expectations, as if fixing potholes and running polling days are just too much and just not possible.
The Government claim that there is precedent for all that they are doing, but I have listened and read very carefully what has been said: all the peacetime examples that have been cited extended the time in office of councillors only by up to an extra year. But rather than one or two extra years, the Government’s plans will mean that many councillors, elected for a four-year term of office, will end up being in power for a full seven years—three years on top, in a completely unprecedented way.
This is not what the Government said they were going to do. The Minister said last March, when we were debating a previous round of election cancellations:
“We have no plans to postpone district council elections in 2026”. —[Official Report, 24/3/25; col. 1516.]
Likewise, the Minister also said that it was a
“postponement for 12 months only”.—[Official Report, 24/3/25; col. 1514.]
We are, of course, now in a rather different situation. That U-turn has not been justified by precedent, and certainly not by the need to fight the scourge of potholes; it is a U-turn, as the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, said, that flies directly in the face of the Electoral Commission’s very specific advice that
“we do not think that capacity constraints are a legitimate reason for delaying long planned elections”.
It also strikes me as being an unwisely short-term perspective to cultivate a culture in which elections are so often cancelled and in which terms of office that are meant to be four years get extended up to seven. Is that really a wise legacy to leave for a future Government of who knows what political complexion?
As the Government seem set on this course, let me ask three specific questions of the Minister. First, will the Government reimburse councils for the cost of preparing for elections that are now being cancelled? Secondly, given how much the Government have talked up the benefits of their plans to introduce elected mayors, which are part of the wider picture of election delays, will the Government publish estimates of the cost to economic growth of those delays in bringing in the elected mayors? Thirdly, given the importance of protecting our democracy—even in the face of potholes—will the Government commit to giving the Electoral Commission proper independence and removing the Government’s power to give it instructions over policy and strategy? That would show a real commitment to protecting and valuing democracy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, in 2024, councils were on the financial edge and sat as part of a patchwork map that did not make any sense to anybody—it did not to me, and I have been involved in local government for 30 years. The consequences of that and 14 years of funding cuts were the crisis in social care, the decline of our high streets, and councils not feeling empowered to build homes or grow their economies. Inevitably, this contributed to a decline in trust, and division on our streets, as people felt they had no say in the area they see every day when they walk out of their front door. This is important because, in the past, it had always been true that people had more faith and trust in their local council than in the Government, and that was starting to slip away.
I do not think anyone can dispute that, in July 2024, local government faced a crisis. Across this House, we may have differing views on how local government got to this point, but we cannot just snap our fingers and reverse the last 14 years. We can commit to a better future and to doing something different for that, with local councils empowered to make the right decisions for their communities and with communities really feeling empowered because they have councils that look after the full range of services that support them.
Let me be absolutely clear: this Government do not take lightly the postponement of elections. Democratic accountability is fundamental and of course elections are not optional. The vast majority of elections will be going ahead, but we are undertaking the most fundamental reform of local government for generations, and I think it is important that we are doing so.
These temporary postponements, where they have been requested, are intended to help us move to unitary councils quicker and strengthen local democracy, not weaken it. They apply only where the councils themselves have demonstrated a clear case, where reorganisation is already under way and where holding elections now would risk the transition to new councils by introducing confusion and duplication, and by wasting money.
Governments of all political colours have postponed local elections during periods of structural reform, including under the previous Conservative Government, and there is clearly statutory precedent for doing so. What would be truly irresponsible would be to press ahead with elections for authorities that may shortly cease to exist, and when councils party to those elections have told us they could put at risk services being ready for the transition to new councils.
Some have argued that the Government are acting out of political convenience. That argument does not withstand scrutiny. The postponements are driven by local views and circumstances, not partisan interest. Indeed, Liberal Democrat, Conservative and Labour councils have all come forward with concerns, on which we have acted. We have had that as formal feedback, but I have also had many conversations with local council leaders.
Those of us who have worked in local government know both the direct demands of running elections and the wider organisational impacts, including the diversion of critical senior officer time and focus during the pre-election period. Freeing up that capacity allows councils to prioritise service delivery and manage the reorganisation effectively. Running elections for short-lived authorities while simultaneously preparing for new unitary councils would impose avoidable expense while councils are focused on setting up new authorities and protecting front-line services.
Reorganisation, done properly, offers the opportunity to reduce duplication, clarify accountability and redirect resources to essential public services that have suffered years of neglect. Councillors’ terms are being extended for a clearly defined period, and fresh elections for the new unitary authorities will take place in 2027, once reorganisation proposals are agreed. Residents will have their say on stronger, more coherent councils, with one set of councillors with clearer responsibilities. This is a pragmatic decision, taken in partnership with local government, grounded in precedent and evidence, and focused on delivering better public services for the communities we serve.
I turn to the specific questions that the noble Baroness and the noble Lord asked me. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, has mentioned the lack of a timetable several times, both here and during debates on the English devolution Bill. There is a very clear timetable. Something is clearly causing confusion here, but I will briefly set out the timetable again. For Surrey, there will be elections to the new unitaries in May 2026. In April 2027, the new unitaries will come into force. For the six devolution priority areas, the consultation is now closed. Decisions for them will be taken by March 2026. In May 2027, there will be elections to the new unitaries. In April 2028, the new unitaries will come into force. In May 2028, mayors will be elected to Sussex, Norfolk and Suffolk, Hampshire, and Essex mayoral combined authorities. For the remaining 14 areas, in February 2026, we will launch our consultation. By May 2026, the consultation will close. Decisions will then be announced around the time of the Summer Recess in 2026. In May 2027, there will be elections to the new unitaries and the new unitaries will come into force in April 2028.
We do not believe in imposing these things on local authorities, which is why we have done it in consultation, rather than sitting in MHCLG, drawing a map and saying, “That’s what it’s going to look like”. We have been working very hard with our local authorities. That is why we did not set the boundaries ourselves. We have asked local authorities to work together on geographies that made sense to them, which was absolutely the right way to go.
The noble Lord, Lord Pack, asked about the delaying of elections and this not being a new phenomenon. I have set out before in the House that this has been done by previous Governments when they were doing reorganisation. We have always set and maintained a high threshold for postponements. As we have done before, we are responding to serious concerns raised by councils in the reorganisation areas that the 2026 elections were putting at risk their ability to deliver on local government reorganisation.
The noble Lord asked me about the funding for elections. Spend on elections is, of course, a matter for local authorities. Our announcement was in response to representations received from councils in local government. Postponement, of course, also avoids the cost of holding elections to councils that are proposed to be abolished.
The noble Lord asked me about the cost to economic growth. We need to take a clear view on this: where councils cover all the services in their area and are empowered to take on economic growth, the delivery of housing, transport powers and all the things that drive the economic growth of their area, the aim is to have councils that are able to deliver that for their communities.
The noble Lord asked me about the Electoral Commission, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Scott. I have had two meetings with the Electoral Commission in the last 10 days or so. We have had discussions. I spoke to the Electoral Commission only last week when the announcement came out about the postponement of elections. I have spoken to the commission extensively about the elections Bill, which is coming forward shortly, and we will work very closely together on that Bill. We have also had some very positive discussions around the capacity issues, because the commission had a view that the capacity issues we were raising were around the capacity of election teams; election teams in local authorities, particularly in district councils, are quite small. It is not that capacity that I think councils and councillors were worried about; it is the wider capacity of local authorities to manage such a significant, once-in-a-generation reorganisation alongside these sets of elections.
I hope that has answered all the questions, but I am happy to take any more.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Pack, referred to the some 250 councillors who could face seven-year terms under the Government’s plans. Four of the county councils are majority-Tory led, and they last held elections in May 2021. Noble Lords will have to cast their minds right back: Boris Johnson was Prime Minister; since then, we have had two Tory Prime Ministers and, thus far, one Labour Prime Minister; Suella Braverman had only recently been sacked as the Tory Attorney-General—for the first time. Politics is changing fast, and sometimes the Government are asking electoral officials to act fast also. The Gorton and Denton by-election is going to be held on 26 February, on the fastest possible timetable. As a measure of the degree of change in that, I note that, at the last election, the Labour Party got more than 50% of the vote, and a notional calculation for 2019 gives the Labour Party 67% of the vote in that seat, but the bookmakers today have the Green Party as favourite to win that by-election. With politics moving so fast, is this not a particularly dangerous time to be postponing elections and not giving voters a democratic say? Is this not damaging and dangerous, threating the whole concept of democracy by taking it away from people when there is so obviously a desperate desire for change?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am certainly not calling the result of the Denton by-election at this stage. I do not think we even have a candidate yet, so I think it would be unwise.
In response to the noble Baroness’s question on timing, we have been clear throughout that elections should go ahead unless there is strong justification otherwise. Many of the local elections that are due to take place in May will take place. We were very clear that if councils said they had no reason for postponement then we would listen to them, but that where a council voiced genuine concerns—we had significant evidence from those councils whose elections have been postponed—we would take it seriously. To make sure that everyone knows that this was not a rubber-stamp exercise, where anyone who asked for a postponement got it, there were two councils where we did not think the evidence was sufficient, Nuneaton and Bedworth and Pendle, and their elections are going ahead. We do not do this lightly. However, with an unprecedented reorganisation going on in local government, it is right that we took account of what local government was saying to us.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
Like my noble friend Lady Scott of Bybrook, as a councillor in central Bedfordshire I have already been through unitisation. That did not involve cancelling elections; in fact, we had an additional election after two years. We were able to do that because we had a proper plan that was locally developed and supported by residents. Is not the reason that elections are being cancelled that the Government do not have plan, do not know what is happening, and have not been communicating to councils and leaders what they should do or when they should do it? It is taking too long, and we end up in the difficult situation faced by council leaders of not knowing. Can the Minister commit that the Government will provide a clear timetable, as asked for by my noble friend, for local government reorganisation and for when elections will be held? Democracy matters; it is from where local government derives its authority.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am afraid it was the failure to bite the bullet and get on with this kind of radical reorganisation for decades that has meant that we have decided that we cannot go on any longer with a broken system. Services in local government are not sustainable, the finance system is not working, and we now need to make sure that we get local government on the firm footing it deserves, that we are distributing funding more fairly, and that councils are the right size and shape to be effective to deliver efficiently key public services, as the public that we serve deserve, and drive forward our economy, housing and transport in the way that we all want to see, right across the country. The current system results in confusion and waste. We have got to get on with the job. We have had to take this unprecedented step to make sure that we are taking account of what local government tells us about its need for resources.
On the timetable, I have just set it out again. I do not understand the confusion about the timetable. We have been very clear about it and we will move ahead with that. Local authorities are working, and have worked, very well within the timetable we have set out. We work closely with them on that, as on all the other matters related to the reorganisation.
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I too have been through this process. We are 15 months out from the next lot of elections and the new authorities, but these authorities do not yet know on what geography they are going to be based. To take Essex, it could be five or three, and the same is true with Norfolk and Suffolk, which could be three, four or five. Once you know that geography, I know, and I think leaders who went through what I went through will know, that one year is not a long time to deliver that change, particularly if you do not know what it is going to be at this time.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
As I stated earlier, decisions on the six devolution priority areas will be made by March 2026. Their geographies will be decided by then. We are going out to consultation on the remaining 14 areas, and it is important that we do that. The local authorities have come forward with their proposals. We want to find out what the local views on them are, so they have gone out to consultation. That consultation closes in May 2026, and we will make decisions on the geography of those remaining authorities before the Summer Recess.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
The Minister said, and I very much agree, that the officers, staff and structures of the councils that have asked for extensions are extremely stretched—I declare my position as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. One of the alternatives would have been for the Government to provide the resources to ensure that those councils were able both to hold elections and to continue with the plans for reorganisation. Can the Minister say whether the Government made any calculation for what allocation of funds from the Government here in Westminster would have been necessary to allow those elections to go ahead? What would the cost have been if those resources had been provided?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
With respect to the noble Baroness, putting in new resources at this stage would not really help matters. Councils have their programmes of work under way. They are all working very hard on the reorganisation programme, as they are on the transition. They have an enormous job to do on working out the transition for key public services and on how they are going to drive growth and housing programmes going forward and put new resources into that. When you have new councillors and council officers coming in, it takes quite some time for them to get up to speed and be able to deliver at pace. Councils have considered that very carefully and will have made their own decisions. That is why we had 29 of them submit requests to postpone their elections.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
As there is still time, I will come back on a couple of things that the Minister said. The Minister spoke of the need for fundamental reform. Can the Minister answer the following questions that I have asked previously? What real additional powers, and what funding, will come to local government from the Government? Secondly, the Minister said that local government funding was not sustainable, so why, through the Government’s unfair funding proposals, will many councils suffer some of the sharpest cuts that they have seen?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
The fair funding formula that we announced this year has given local government a significant increase in funding. Having spent the 17 years that I was a council leader cutting budgets every year, I know that has been a welcome change for some of our councils.
On the new powers that local councils will get, I know that we are in the process of considering the English devolution Bill and that we will debate it tomorrow afternoon. The seven areas of competence that are included in that are just the starting point for devolution. We want to see a widespread devolution of things that are currently decided in Whitehall; we want to see them being decided in local areas by local people. Once those combined authorities are established, the mayors will be able to apply for further powers that they see as necessary for their areas. It is important that those are driven by mayors. We have seen that existing mayoral areas have different needs. Some areas have a much greater need for powers on skills, for example, while others have greater need for powers on health and transport, and it can be all three. It is very important that that is driven at a local level. The very wide-ranging competences that we have set out in the English devolution Bill will enable local governments to take the powers that they need to drive their local areas forward. That is a huge move forward, and I welcome it.