Grand Committee
Contemporary Cultural Boycotts
(1 month ago)
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Baroness Fox of Buckley
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Freedom in the Arts report The New Boycott Crisis, published in February 2026, and of the impact on artistic freedom of contemporary cultural boycotts.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am delighted to have the chance to bring to the attention of the Government and the Committee the themes in this recent report, The New Boycott Crisis. If we value art as a crucial mirror on society, the corruption of art reflects social trends right back at us and we should look back closely, so I say many thanks go to those noble Lords who are doing that today.
The report was launched here in Westminster at the end of April, alongside the Art Beyond Boycott Toolkit. It was a packed room with lots of cross-party attendance. The authors are co-founders of Freedom in the Arts, Rosie Kay, an award-winning choreographer, and Denise Fahmy, a senior arts professional, who teamed up with Reading University’s Professor Jo Phoenix. All three have experienced the vicious consequence of cancel culture. They combine their personal insights with oodles of professional knowledge to provide a multilayered investigation into how boycotts operate against different art forms, looking not just at individual artists but at gatekeepers such as venues, agents, managers and producers.
Using survey data and qualitative interviews, the report shows how even the threat of cultural boycotts is leading to anticipatory cancellation, institutional anxiety, silent boycotts and self-censorship. The report is so on the money that it got extensive media coverage even in the same crowded week as the local elections. Significantly, it was picked up by specialist publications such as Arts Professional, Museums Journal, Chortle and Mixmag, no doubt because it cut through due to its insights into the genuinely heartbreaking stories of individual artists brought to financial and reputational personal ruin by boycotts—you cannot get more personal than being cancelled because of your identity. As the report documents, that is the fate of so many Jewish artists today.
Perhaps this is nothing new. As we head into August and Edinburgh Festival season, I recall years of participating in that wonderful, artistically rich atmosphere, when the Academy of Ideas put on arts debates and live reviewing at the Fringe and at the book and international festivals. It was a joy, but it started to turn sour when, 20 years ago, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign demanded boycotts of any art form involving Israelis. Whether it was an ugly disruption of a performance of the Jerusalem Quartet in 2008, with activists yelling, “Israeli-armed musicians”, or a decade later, getting an Israeli hip-hop opera evicted from its venue. These were shocking but marginal, isolated incidents. What is shocking today is that such occurrences are so regular they are barely noticed. The campaign against antisemitism notes:
“Discrimination against Jewish people has become normalised in the arts: it’s now simply part of doing business as a Jewish creative in modern Britain”.
The report notes something else that has changed. If boycotts were historically public, involving external bodies bullying arts organisations, today they have evolved into an internal, systemic dynamic within arts organisations. Sometimes, it is a leadership team more driven by ideological agendas than artistic excellence, but more often it is insidious, with weak management capitulating to staff complaints demanding that their well-being is protected from allegedly dangerous performers. Last year, comics Philip Simon’s show “Jew-O-Rama” and Rachel Creeger’s “Ultimate Jewish Mother” had their acts pulled at the last minute by a fringe venue. The reason? Staff at the venue complained of “feeling unsafe”. Apparently, a fictional comedic Jewish mother was a threat to employee safety.
The report is full of similar evidence of employees activating internal HR procedures to reframe political demands. There is an additional institutional vehicle used similarly, especially in publicly funded arts organisations, and that is values frameworks and equality, diversity and inclusion policies. I know that the Government can be a little defensive about the virtues of EDI, but I hope the Minister will examine the documentation of how EDI is being weaponised to demand the boycotting of certain artists. I note that in February, DCMS Minister Ian Murray MP, while stating the Government’s commitment to free speech, caveated it. He quoted the Secretary of State’s ambition not to stoke the culture wars, and stressed the need to protect people from hate speech. But does the Minister acknowledge that, in many institutions, the culture wars are stoked by EDI enthusiasts and that hate speech is often a euphemism for speech someone disagrees with? Arts organisations often state that their value statements are anti-hate to justify cancelling Zionist and gender-critical artists, for example.
In her moving and passionate speech at the report’s launch, acclaimed singer-songwriter Róisín Murphy, herself a victim of a high-profile vicious boycott after speaking her mind on puberty blockers, made an important, relevant point. She said:
“Public funding, meant to support excellence regardless of politics, has become an ideological points system …This isn’t patronage. It’s patronage with strings attached so tight they strangle the critical thinking it takes to invent anything”.
What can politicians and government do to help the arts escape this censorious stranglehold? While the Arts Council declined an invitation to attend the parliamentary launch of the report, it was notable that a couple of days later, after two Jewish men were murdered in Golders Green, the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, used the opportunity to put pressure on the Arts Council. He said:
“Where public funding is being used to promote or platform antisemitism, the Arts Council must act, using its powers to suspend, withdraw and claw back funding”.
That is a positive sentiment, but I worry about cancelling the cancellers as a tactic. It perhaps also misses more subtle, silent boycotts, rather than the overt anti-Jewish abuse. Also, it does not note that a wider range of artists with dissenting views are now targeted.
For example, Scottish performance poet Jenny Lindsay, author of the aptly titled book Hounded, explains that after a tweet criticising a trans activist threatening violence against lesbians, she had seven months of private, quiet, bewildering cancellation, losing work without knowing why, unanswered emails, complaints to her publishers, messages saying we are frightened to book you. She notes, “It was clear people had got a memo: Jenny Lindsay’s a TERF”. But with no paper trails, no proof, just commissions swerved in case they cause grief, it can be especially isolating. The real loss is, “artwork that was never made and never seen”.
I therefore hope that the Minister will meet the authors of this report to discuss how the Government can help the sector adopt the report’s proposals to improve institutional capacity to resist this politicisation of programming and employment decisions that is discriminatory in terms of who gets to create, perform, exhibit and publish. Artistic judgments must be centre stage. Leadership from Ministers could include public support for boycotted artists, encouraging publicly funded arts organisations—indeed, the Arts Council—to adopt the Freedom in the Arts free speech charter.
To conclude, artistic creation needs freedom to challenge, explore, surprise and push boundaries. Otherwise, art created and programmed will be risk-averse, narrower, safer, samey, carefully calculated and curated not to offend. What a dreary tragedy. To quote Róisín Murphy again:
“Without that freedom, we don’t get better art, we simply put artists into a chokehold and suffocate the life out of our culture”.
The arts must breathe freely again. How can the Minister help them breathe freely again?.
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for bringing forward this important debate. The Freedom in the Arts report raises important questions about artistic freedom and the role of our cultural institutions in an increasingly polarised society. While Members may reach different conclusions about some of the findings, I believe it presents us with an opportunity to reflect on the kind of cultural institutions we want for our country.
Art has always challenged society. It can inspire, provoke, comfort and sometimes unsettle us. Shakespeare explored powers, prejudice, justice and the human condition. I am sure each of us can think of a contemporary work of art that has challenged our assumptions or encouraged us to see the world through different eyes. Great art does more than entertain, it invites us to question, reflect and better understand one another. That is why the arts matter not only to our economy but to our national identity and to the strength of our democracy itself?
Drawing on my experience of leading one of London’s most diverse boroughs, I think that one of the greatest lessons that I have learned is that good leadership is not about eliminating difference; it is about creating the conditions for respectful dialogue, where people of different backgrounds, faiths, cultures and perspectives can come together, encounter new ideas and learn from one another. That is why our theatres, galleries, museums and festivals are so important. They are among the few places where people who may never agree on every issue can still sit in the same audience, visit the same exhibition or share the same cultural experience. In doing so, they encounter different perspectives and often leave with a deeper understanding of one another. Equally, the right to peaceful protest and criticism is fundamental to a healthy democracy. The challenge before us is not choosing one freedom over another, but ensuring that artistic freedom and the right to peaceful protest can both flourish and coexist.
The report raises important questions about the pressures that some cultural organisations face when making difficult decisions. Whether those pressures are widespread or more limited, it is right that we consider how institutions can be supported to respond with confidence, fairness and integrity. The true test of a cultural institution is not whether it avoids controversy but whether it has the confidence to navigate controversy fairly, openly and with integrity. I therefore ask my noble friend the Minister: what assessment have the Government made of whether publicly funded cultural institutions have the confidence and support that they need to uphold artistic freedom while fostering respectful dialogue and community cohesion? Are there examples of good practice that the Government believe should be shared more widely across the cultural sector?
Artistic freedom and the right to peaceful protest are not competing principles. We must ensure that our cultural institutions have the strength of leadership and the confidence to strike the right balance between protecting artistic freedom, respecting the right to peaceful protest and fostering dialogue and community cohesion.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for securing this debate. The New Boycott Crisis raises issues that go well beyond disagreements over politics or foreign affairs. It asks whether we are still willing to defend one of the defining characteristics of a free society—the freedom to create, perform, exhibit and debate without fear of ideological intimidation. Art has always challenged orthodoxies. It provokes, unsettles and encourages us to see the world differently. That is precisely why artistic freedom matters. If artists, writers, musicians and performers feel compelled to self-censor because of organised campaigns, threats or pressure to conform to a political orthodoxy, our cultural life is diminished.
The report documents a growing trend of cancellations, boycotts and institutional pressure directed not at the quality of artistic work but at the ethnicity, religion, perceived political views or associations of those producing it. Hearing the stories from the founders of Freedom in the Arts, Denise Fahmy, Rosie Kay and others, at the launch in April, was powerful and shocking, especially to those who were not really aware of how quickly cancellation happens and how brutal it is.
Throughout history, boycotts based on identity have rarely advanced understanding. During the Cold War, we rightly welcomed Soviet dissidents, musicians and writers, rather than excluding them; we recognised that culture builds bridges where politics erects barriers. Universities, museums, theatres and galleries should be places where difficult ideas are encountered, not places where only approved opinions are permitted.
Increasingly, however, cultural institutions find themselves under pressure from highly organised activist campaigns that seek not to debate but to silence. Decisions are sometimes made because managers fear reputational damage or disruption rather than because they reflect the institution’s commitment to artistic excellence. This has consequences beyond the arts. Once organisations begin deciding who may speak or perform according to political tests, we erode the principle of viewpoint diversity that underpins liberal democracy itself.
The report’s emphasis on stronger institutional leadership is to be welcomed. Trustees and governing bodies should have the confidence to uphold freedom of expression even when doing so attracts criticism. Publicly funded cultural organisations have a particular responsibility to serve the whole public, not simply the loudest campaigners. The Government also have a role. The protections for freedom of expression in our law are important, but they must be accompanied by clear expectations that publicly funded institutions will defend artistic freedom consistently and transparently. Funding agreements should reinforce rather than undermine this principle.
This debate is not about shielding anyone from criticism. Artists should expect robust debate and peaceful protest. However, criticism is very different from organised efforts to prevent performances, exhibitions or collaborations from taking place at all. The answer to speech that we dislike is more speech, not enforced silence. Our cultural institutions have long been admired because they have welcomed excellence from every nation, every background and every viewpoint. We should not allow them to become places where ideological conformity replaces intellectual curiosity.
Freedom in the arts is not a luxury; it is one of the foundations of a confident, democratic and open society. If we fail to defend it now, we will be all the poorer not only culturally but civically. I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for raising the report and I commend the founders and supporters of Freedom in the Arts. I hope that the Government will give serious consideration to its recommendations, reaffirming that, in Britain, artistic freedom remains a principle worth defending.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, this subject is one of those where you suddenly think, “Yes, there shouldn’t be any form of cancellation”—here, primarily on grounds of antisemitism. I have always felt it to be rather absurd that the Abrahamic religions attack each other over which day they pray on, given that half the time they are all referring to similar texts, but let us go into this issue in further detail.
I turn to the recommendations in the report. It admits that it is not the most scientific of structures but, still, questions around taking on the law and training for organisations have been asked. It says that on page 6. What are the Government going to do to make sure that there are training schemes? I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, is not a fan of them; we have clashed on this in the past. We need to go through this and have a look at what we are doing to make sure that there is knowledge of the legal duties going forward, because that seems to be the issue here. The question of whether you are breaking the law if you do not allow somebody to do something that is legal and is not threatening somebody else seems to be the real question here.
Let us remember that, although one organisation may be under pressure now, another one will be tomorrow. Other groups have been cancelled and other people have been pressured. Things have changed. Look at our own society: we have Protestants and Catholics—I speak as somebody whose background is half from the west coast of Scotland. These are real issues. What are the Government doing about making sure that the people in charge know what their duty is? That is very important here. If we cannot stop unpleasant attitudes going out in society, at least we can let people know what the legal frameworks and duties are. Surely that is the least the Government should be doing at this point.
Lord Polak (Con)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for introducing the debate, which is of course timely. I thank Freedom of the Arts for this report, but I thank in particular the artists, the performers and the writers who found the courage to describe what has been happening to them. Speaking out is never easy when doing so may cost you your next role.
This report does not allege formal censorship. It describes something quieter and in some ways more sinister and more troubling. It calls it “the silent boycott”. Opportunities simply disappear. Invitations are quietly withdrawn. Projects never quite materialise. Emails are left unanswered. Careers stall not for a want of talent but because of an artist’s Jewish identity or assumptions made about it.
This has become something that institutions would rather manage than defend. The report is candid about the cause. Institutions are increasingly driven by fear: fear of a social media pile-on, fear of activist pressure, fear of internal disputes or fear of a controversy that has not even happened yet. Decisions are being taken pre-emptively before a single complaint is even made. This is not caution. Once an institution starts programming to avoid a row rather than to reward excellence, artistic freedom does not stay intact for long.
Let me be clear about what this debate is not. It is not about shielding anyone from criticism or closing down legitimate political debate, including robust arguments on the Middle East. Freedom of expression must include the freedom to criticise the Government of Israel, but criticism of a Government can never justify the exclusion of an individual because he or she is Jewish. That distinction is fundamental and this report finds, again and again, that it is being lost. Jewish identity itself is increasingly treated as politically contentious, regardless of what the work in question actually says, and none of this happens in isolation. The Community Security Trust recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents just last year, one of the highest totals it has ever logged. The arts do not sit apart from that reality. They are part of it and, because they help shape how the country talks to itself, they carry a greater responsibility to get this right, not a lesser one.
Cultural boycotts have a long and unhappy history and they rarely open a conversation. More often, they close one down, narrowing perspectives and impoverishing the very culture they claim to defend. What has always made British culture strong is confidence: the confidence that ideas can be debated, that disagreement can be aired and that audiences can be trusted to make up their own minds. That confidence should not now be allowed to give way to fear.
I ask the Minister three things. Will the Government make clear to the Arts Council of England that informal exclusion of Jewish artists is antisemitism, not just discrimination? What support will the Government give publicly funded institutions to withstand pressure campaigns? Will the Government tie funding to proof that programming decisions are made on merit, not on fear? Our arts should be open to all. They should reward talent and defend freedom, and they should never become places where an artist has to conceal who he or she is to work.
I conclude with a tribute and a plea—a tribute to a British icon, my friend Maureen Lipman. A couple of weeks ago, I saw her perform brilliantly as “Allegra” in Windsor; it is opening tonight at the Harold Pinter Theatre, but activists have stood outside the theatre that she is playing with leaflets stating “Maureen Lipman supports genocide”. My plea to the Minister is this: is she aware of this, and is it right that Maureen, a proud Jew, has been forced to hire security guards because she is being targeted by anti-Israel activists?
Baroness Meyer (Con)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for introducing this important debate. Freedom of expression has always been the lifeblood of great art. Art flourishes through freedom, not conformity. History reminds us what happens when freedom is lost.
In the Soviet Union, writers and artists who challenged the official ideology were censored, blacklisted, imprisoned or sent to the Gulag. My own family experienced that world. My aunt was a dissident writer and a close friend of both Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Anna Akhmatova. She chose satire as her way to defy the regime, rather than open political confrontation. Even so, she spent days under interrogation in the Lubyanka. She watched friends and fellow writers disappear into the Gulag, including her friend Solzhenitsyn. Like Akhmatova, she knew that in such a climate silence could become a means of survival.
Britain is not the Soviet Union, and I am not suggesting otherwise, but history teaches us that freedom is rarely lost overnight. It is eroded gradually as people begin to censor themselves, because they fear the consequences of speaking openly. The New Boycott Crisis suggests that this climate of fear is now affecting our cultural sector. As James Marriott wrote in the Times, something has gone badly wrong. A world once built on talent, merit and creative risk has, he argues, been replaced by a culture of fear, informal sanctions and institutional cowardice.
The report identifies two groups as particularly affected: Jewish artists and those with gender-critical beliefs. Since 7 October, some Jewish artists, as we have heard, have found themselves judged not by the quality of their work but by their identity. Likewise, gender-critical artists, such as Rosie Kay and Róisín Murphy, have described the professional backlash they faced for expressing lawful views. The problem arises when cultural institutions become so fearful of organised campaigns that they no longer defend artistic freedom. Instead, they quietly exclude those views considered controversial, not because they are unlawful but because they are not fashionable. The greatest casualty is self-censorship. We never see the play that was never written, the exhibition that was never staged or the young artist who decided it was simply safer to remain silent.
Does the Minister accept that artistic freedom includes the right to hold lawful gender-critical beliefs, even when those beliefs are not popular and considered controversial today? If public bodies are under a statutory duty to uphold freedom of speech, how will the Government ensure that this duty is honoured in practice rather than being quietly abandoned in the face of organised campaigns?
Lord Frost (Non-Afl)
My Lord, in his great essay The Prevention of Literature, George Orwell wrote:
“imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity”.
I think this is a little commented-on reason why the current repression of free speech and freedom in the arts is such a problem. It affects not only those whose opinions are repressed but everybody. That repression is obviously outrageous in its own terms, with the shocking levels of antisemitism that have been documented and the bias against gender-critical views and even simple views on the right of politics. I congratulate Rosie Kay and Denise Fahmy for drawing attention to it in this excellent report, and I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, for getting today’s debate.
As we know and as the report documents, the repression of free speech and the spread of antisemitism have had seriously bad effects on those directly affected. We know that. It constrains what they can produce, and it may force them entirely out of the sector. There are some telling quotes to this effect in the report, such as one artist saying:
“I realised how much of myself I had edited out just to survive”,
or:
“You make terrible art when you are cowering”.
This is clear—it is sort of obvious—but my point is that the effect is on not only those affected in this way, but on everybody else. It is on those who somehow get through it.
A politicised art sector produces a lot of bad art, and we have had quite a lot of it recently. On the London stage, from 20 years ago with “My name is Rachel Corrie”, through Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of “Who Killed My Father”, there has been a stream of plays about migration and refugees from one perspective and so on and so forth. Even when art is not politicised, this sort of sector produces an art that prioritises box-ticking and conformism. It produces art that is dull, worthless and often even contemptuous of its audience. It is a very good sign that Wigmore Hall and its director, John Gilhooly, have opted out of the Arts Council system. I cannot help noting that even the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge, in her recent report on the Arts Council, said:
“People felt that ACE was pursuing access to culture in an instrumentalist way and had lowered the priority given to the pursuit of artistic excellence. Art and excellence were sidelined”.
This is the problem. I contend that any artist who is happy to submit to the ruling orthodoxy and prevailing opinions, who finds excuses for squeezing out people who do not agree with him or her or who regards policing ideology as more important than their own creative work will in the end destroy themselves as artists. We can see that at work. As we look around Britain’s artistic scene today and compare it to, say, the efflorescence in the arts of post-war Britain in both visual and written form, we can be confident that, with a few exceptions, the past couple of decades will not be seen as a golden age in British arts. I contend that public conformism, internal bigotry and the driving out of contrary opinions are a big part of the reason why.
I finish by quoting Orwell, this time in Writers and Leviathan. He said:
“To yield subjectively … even to a group ideology, is to destroy yourself as a writer”.
That is true for any artist. It needs to be stopped, and I would like to know what the Government are going to do about it.
Baroness Spielman (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for securing this debate. I must start by declaring my interest as a trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Freedom in the Arts report gives us valuable insight into the worrying state of the arts and cultural sector. As it states, there is
“an interconnected web of … practices … that collectively polices the boundaries of acceptable thought, association, expression and programming within the arts”.
Unsurprisingly, mechanisms that allocate artistic funding funnel most support to currently prominent causes—climate activism, support for Palestine and opposition to Israel, transgender activism and anti-racism—and generally raise the status of people and organisations associated with those causes. But there are damaging consequences to this narrowing, which everyone should be concerned about, whatever their level of interest in and support for those causes.
Like my noble friend Lady Meyer, I take a historical perspective. In western Europe, it was really only in the 15th century that it became socially acceptable and normal to portray non-religious subjects in art. Over several centuries, the Catholic Church none the less monitored art ferociously to enforce approved narratives and discourage the spread of Protestant ideas, using the social penalties it could impose to make artists’ lives difficult—read the story of Veronese’s “Last Supper”. We do not want to return to inquisitions, whether by Governments, religious authorities or self-appointed commissars, and we should not want to return to an age where artistic expression is permitted only in the service of a narrow range of permitted interests and beliefs. But we have somehow moved a long way in that direction.
Artistic freedom eventually prevailed, and that freedom has brought many waves of creative exploration. Of course, that has sometimes been uncomfortable for some, but without exploration there can be no innovation. It is striking to look at how much artistic preoccupations have changed over time: the 1850s saw realism, truth to nature and a rejection of myths and legends; the 1950s saw adaptation to the new post-war world. We have no idea today what the artistic preoccupations of the 2050s may prove to be, but we can be absolutely certain that it is simply intellectual hubris to think that we have achieved a perpetual pinnacle of moral superiority to which all current practitioners in the arts and their successors should be bound.
Then there are the human impacts. I will touch on just four, which are well covered in the report. First, works that do not fit the current template are not being put on, or, too often, they are being shut down. Secondly, people are being shut down for their beliefs, even where they have no particular connection with their work. Many of the gender-critical artists are suffering from that. Thirdly, people are suffering simply because of who they happen to be. Examples have been given of Israeli and Jewish artists and groups that are unable to perform. That is simply intolerable. The fourth group I draw attention to are the young of this country. The status quo is affecting so strongly how they are shaped, both in education and in the community. They quickly learn what the high-status beliefs and opinions are and what not to say or acknowledge. If they are not allowed to see anything that contradicts those beliefs and opinions or explores a fresh direction, their lives are stunted and distorted.
Too many people have ducked the difficult issues here. It is time for a great deal more openness and discussion about rebuilding true artistic freedom. This report gives a very good platform for that.
Lord Doyle (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for securing this debate and Freedom in the Arts for its report, which certainly is rich and detailed. I am sorry that time means that I cannot do justice to all the noble Lords who have spoken before me, but I certainly associate myself with all those who have spoken out about our need to have constant vigilance and zero tolerance of antisemitism.
However, I want to focus on one particular aspect of cancel culture that is identified in the report, and that is the targeting of sponsors of those who fund the arts and who are essential for us to have what should be our starting point—that a healthy arts sector is fundamental to a healthy democracy. Protests, dissent, satire have long been the sources of the best art, and the priorities should always be to enable the most artistic expression possible without fear or favour. That is not to say that art exists in a space free from values. There will always be boundaries. But we should want to make the artistic square as large and inclusive as possible, and that means we need diverse funding, including sponsorship.
When it comes to the choices made, as other noble Lords have said, there should be a clear distinction between things that are illegal and things that simply some people do not like. I look at the recent example of the Sporting Events Bill in your Lordships’ House. There were assorted amendments proposed that would have banned sponsorship from fossil fuel companies and unhealthy food companies. We see within these boycott campaigns that it is not just the companies themselves that are being targeted but even financial institutions that might have minor investments in some of these companies, which are, of course, entirely legal in the activities that they are carrying out. We can take the example of the defence sector, which regularly comes up as being targeted. I regard BAE Systems as a successful British company that employs people in this country in high-skilled, well-paid jobs. If it wants to give something back by supporting artistic or cultural endeavours, then why on earth should it not be able to do so?
I also want to question the role that we have seen some artists take. We need to call out those high-profile artists who have put their names to campaigns to deny funding to the very institutions that those artists benefited from when they were starting out in their careers, when they were in the small theatres and so on that gave them their rise to be the high-profile campaigners that they are now.
We need a mixed economy of cultural funding that encompasses philanthropy and corporate sponsorship. That means we need a climate in which responsible sponsors feel able to support culture without expecting to become the next target of a campaign. Otherwise, we create a structural disincentive to private investment precisely at the time when the sector needs it most. There is a role for government here and for all of us. Institutions need to know that they have the support of politicians in order to resist the pressure of a small minority. We also need leadership in the arts sector. Policy cannot be made by social media, by tactics rather than strategy. There needs to be solidarity within the arts sector because while the beam of the lighthouse might not be at you at this moment, you can guarantee that it will come round to you next.
We are all in this together and, together, common sense can prevail so that we can have the arts and culture we need as a country.
Lord Young of Acton (Con)
My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for bringing forward this debate and to Freedom in the Arts for having produced this excellent and timely report. I declare my interest as the director of the Free Speech Union and will try and put a human face on what we are talking about. There are plenty of examples in The New Boycott Crisis. I thought I might give some examples from our own case files.
We have fought on behalf of 150 artists, writers and performers in the last six years of our existence, all of whom have been targeted for cancellation or, indeed, cancelled because they expressed views that other people disapprove of. Where possible, we have tried to help them. It is worth noting that more than one-third of the more than 150 people we have come to the aid of have been targeted for cancellation because they have expressed their gender-critical views. That is, I think, the coalface in the arts; it is what people find themselves cancelled or targeted for cancellation for more often than expressing any other point of view. Rosie Kay is a case in point, someone who I am proud to say the Free Speech Union was able to help when she was targeted for cancellation in 2021. It is fantastic to see her recover so magnificently.
I shall give the Committee some other examples. There was a case last year involving Martin Speake. He was referred to the Free Speech Union by Freedom in the Arts, with whom we have a close working relationship. Martin Speake was an internationally regarded saxophonist who was for more than two decades a jazz tutor at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in Greenwich. In February 2024, he replied to the conservatoire’s request for feedback on its diversity plan, and argued, I think reasonably, that Black musicians were not underrepresented in British jazz and that Black Lives Matter was a dangerous organisation. He quoted Martin Luther King that people, including musicians, should be judged on the content of their character, not the colour of their skin. For this, students boycotted his classes, a petition was got up demanding his removal, the London Jazz Orchestra asked him to step down, his album was put on hold, and his UK concerts were cancelled. The stress eventually forced him to resign in November 2024 from a job he had held for two decades. Happily, the Free Speech Union was able to fund an employment tribunal claim for constructive dismissal, and Trinity Laban settled in February 2026 in a way that was very satisfactory.
Another example is Gillian Philip in 2020. She is a children’s novelist who was part of the team producing the best-selling Warrior Cats series under the pen name Erin Hunter. She was dropped by her fiction packager in 2020 after adding a message of support for JK Rowling to her Twitter profile. Not only did she lose her job, but she was unable to get another job as a writer and had to retrain as a heavy goods vehicle driver.
I could come up with more and more examples, but I will close with just one recent case to come in at the Free Speech Union involving an Irish playwright based in New York called Phelim McAleer. He tried to organise a staged reading of a play about the events of 7 October 2023 in southern Israel. He tried to organise this staged reading at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, which is subsidised by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. It is a verbatim play based on interviews with more than 100 survivors of the Hamas attack on 7 October. It had a six-week off-Broadway run and was acclaimed by the New York Post as spellbinding, but the Lyric could not find a single evening on which to stage a reading of this play, in spite of the fact that he was going to pay for it privately and even though the theatre had found numerous opportunities to platform Palestinian perspectives, including a poet who described Israel as a settler-colonialist project, a genocidal state and a pariah state. No one is suggesting that that Palestinian poet should have been no-platformed, but all voices in these debates should be heard, and the arts need to play a proper role in facilitating these discussions.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, on securing this debate and thank her and Freedom in the Arts for the work that they have done in highlighting these problems. Above all, as others have done, I thank those individual artists who have come forward to share their experiences. The experience of being marginalised, sidelined and silenced can be lonely and frightening, and I hope they feel a bit less lonely and frightened after today’s debate.
This has been a good debate—rational, articulate and well-informed. We do not all agree on everything, but we have all agreed very strongly about the importance of hearing diverse perspectives and differing opinions. We do so enjoying parliamentary privilege, which allows us to speak freely here. Lots of our arts and cultural organisations do not have the protections of Parliament or the legislative protections that higher education institutions have to preserve free speech, so it is right that we are vigilant in how they are applying their duties.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, was right about making sure that people are well informed on their legal responsibilities and their founding charters, as well as ensuring that trustees and others take those duties very seriously. Arts organisations have a duty to challenge, provoke and inform us, not to hector, censor or boycott.
The noble Baroness, Lady Dacres of Lewisham, was right to say that, at their best, the arts enable us to see things through others’ eyes. That is why we enjoy them so much and what enriches us when we encounter them. This is particularly important when approaching contested or highly charged issues. For instance, going to a museum or a gallery would give us a different perspective, separated from time and geography, on the question of how other societies have viewed gender roles, and would remind us that conflict in the Holy Land is not a feature of this century alone.
My noble friend Lady Spielman is right to worry about whether the generation coming through the education system and coming to work in the arts will take an illiberal and censorious approach. We are, I think, past what felt like the high watermark of sensitivity readers and authors and others being objected to in writing about things of which they did not have lived experience, but we must remain vigilant on all of this because, if the closing of those minds and those discussions is a loss for us all, it is a particular loss for the generation that is coming through, which needs to be well equipped with critical and inquisitive minds in an age of mis- and disinformation online. They need to see things that challenge them and make them feel uncomfortable.
The noble Lord, Lord Doyle, was right to highlight the pressure on sponsors. I have mentioned previously in Grand Committee that, regrettably, we have seen parliamentarians in both Houses among those boycotting things such as the Hay Festival. We all regret the disappearance of sponsors such as Baillie Gifford. It means fewer, smaller, narrower literary festivals and fewer thoughts for us all.
Noble Lords were right to highlight the silent and sometimes insidious nature of these boycotts, which threaten the enlightenment values that underpin us. My noble friends Lady Meyer and Lady Spielman were right to highlight the importance of dissident and unorthodox voices, which add to our understanding.
Above all, people are right to point to the growing evidence of antisemitism that we see in the arts, as through our whole society. My noble friend Lord Polak was right to say that it is completely wrong to treat all Jewish people as the same or to make them all accountable for the actions of any particular Government of Israel. The powerful Nova Exhibition in Shoreditch, like the extremely powerful museum at Yad Vashem and the Holocaust galleries at the Imperial War Museum, is a way in which the arts can help us understand the terrible atrocities to which this attitude can lead.
As my noble friend Lady Jenkin of Kennington said, freedom in the arts is not a luxury; it is essential to our free society. I am glad that we have been able to highlight these problems today.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Twycross) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, for initiating this important debate and all noble Lords for their valuable contributions. As the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, made clear, even where individuals do not agree with each other, it is important that we have this discussion. The debate has reflected many of the issues raised by The New Boycott Crisis, which was published by Freedom in the Arts earlier this year. During the debate, I particularly welcomed the historical perspectives from the noble Baronesses, Lady Spielman and Lady Meyer.
I start by addressing the critical points made by a number of noble Lords—including the noble Lords, Lord Addington, Lord Polak, Lord Frost, Lord Doyle and Lord Parkinson, and the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman—on the scourge of antisemitism in the arts, as highlighted in the report in stark detail, which reflects the wider and, regrettably, growing antisemitism more broadly in society. I want to make it explicitly clear that this Government find antisemitism, wherever it may raise its ugly head, both abhorrent and completely unacceptable. We will do whatever it takes to work with the Jewish community to tackle it in wider society. Antisemitism has no place in our society and, as the Prime Minister made clear in May at a summit he held on the issue, it is our shared responsibility to tackle rising antisemitism.
Since that summit, we have been working with the Arts Council on plans for an independent audit into how concerns are handled and where its systems need to be strengthened. This will focus on allegations of antisemitism, but we anticipate that its findings will strengthen the Arts Council’s handling of all concerns, and more information on this will be shared in due course. The noble Lord, Lord Polak, cited examples of informal exclusion of Jewish arts and artists. We will make clear to ACE that the work it is doing now to tackle this issue in its audit and in its engagement with the sector should and must cover antisemitism as defined in law and the informal exclusion the noble Lord rightly highlighted.
This work by the Government is in tandem with sector-specific round tables that we are launching in partnership with the Board of Deputies. Over the next few months, these sessions will bring together Jewish representatives, DCMS officials and arm’s-length bodies, including Arts Council England, to share best practices and secure meaningful, practical commitments for the next six months. Nobody should feel unsafe, whether performing on the stage or going about their daily life. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Polak, that it is entirely unacceptable and a damning indictment of where we are as a country that an actress such as Maureen Lipman, undoubtedly one of our national treasures, has to have private security. It is completely unacceptable. The noble Lord also raised wider issues around the security of our Jewish community and pointed out that the arts do not sit separate to the rest of society. As noble Lords may be aware, the Home Office has committed record funding of £32.4 million this year to protect the Jewish communities through the Jewish community protective security grant managed by the Community Security Trust.
The noble Lord, Lord Frost, raised points about potential politicisation and referenced my noble friend Lady Hodge’s review of Arts Council England. This Government remain committed to the arm’s-length principle that artistic expression, including decisions around funding and programming, should be free from political interference, but this is not the same as being free from protection. I am sure noble Lords welcomed, as I did, the Government’s response to my noble friend Lady Hodge’s independent review. The response reaffirmed the arm’s-length principle and the importance of public investment in culture supporting a wide range of voices. Arts Council England supports a broad range of artistic practice and viewpoints, including actively investing in organisations that defend creative freedom. Index on Censorship is one such organisation whose work highlights and challenges censorship and the oppression of artists and creatives.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, and the noble Lords, Lord Frost and Lord Young of Acton, raised points around artists with gender-critical views. The Government are clear that while it is right that protections from discrimination exist for LGBT+ people, such as those held in the Equality Act, this does not prohibit and should not exclude people expressing their views, opinions or beliefs, including gender-critical views. Each individual’s right to freedom of expression must be balanced against the rights of other people or those of the wider community to achieve a fair outcome for everyone, including those who are trans or who hold gender-critical views.
As the noble Lord, Lord Doyle, made clear, there is a difference between what we do not like and what is illegal. My noble friend Lady Dacres highlighted the importance of challenge within arts, as did other noble Lords. Freedom of expression carries with it certain responsibilities. Cultural organisations must always comply with the law, including legislation relating to equality, discrimination and public order. When speaking up becomes hate speech, a clear and unacceptable line is crossed. However, within these legal boundaries, organisations and artists should feel confident in presenting their work.
Noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Parkinson and Lord Doyle, spoke about protests and boycotts. While the Government are wholly supportive of freedom of expression, we are equally supportive of peaceful protest. However, there is growing concern across the cultural sector about the impact of organised activist campaigns. They can include calls for exhibitions to be cancelled, performances to be withdrawn, artists to be disinvited or sponsorships terminated.
I note the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, about self-censorship also being an issue. The noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, and the noble Lord, Lord Frost, made similar points.
The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and the noble Lords, Lord Polak and Lord Young, spoke about silent cancellations and boycotts. These boycotts, as well as the silent cancellations noted in the report, are, in the Government’s view, damaging to art and artists. We have been unequivocal in pushing back against these boycotts. Last year, the Secretary of State said:
“Boycotting sponsors, and killing these events off, is the equivalent of gagging society … we will stand against it with everything that we’ve got”.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, said, the answer to speech that we do not like is more speech, not silence.
This Government are clear that boycotting festivals, performances and organisations harms the art, not the sponsor. As the noble Lord, Lord Doyle, made clear, we have a great tradition of philanthropy in this country, and the Government want to strengthen it. That is why we published a strategy on philanthropy earlier this year. As the noble Lord said, we need a mixed economy that includes private sector funding.
The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked about guidance on the legal position and my noble friend Lady Dacres of Lewisham asked about some examples of guidance and best practice. We recognise the increasing and enduring pressure that arts and cultural leaders face on this issue. In response, Arts Council England has supported the recent publication of new guidance on the matter, which I will circulate to noble Lords who have taken part in today’s debate. There are positive signs that the sector is grasping the nettle and rising to the challenge. Arts organisations in Manchester are tackling this head on, with Factory International spearheading the brave spaces principles. Work such as this acts as a north star in guiding organisations through the complexity of programming and sponsorship decision-making in the face of activism.
I will conclude shortly but I want to respond to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, on whether I would be willing to meet Freedom in the Arts. I would be very happy to meet the organisation, but that may need to be after the conclusion of a number of legal matters which it is currently supporting. My private office will arrange a meeting in due course.
As I have outlined, the Government recognise many of the challenges identified in the report The New Boycott Crisis. By encouraging a plurality of voices, this Government are helping to ensure that this country remains one of the world’s leading centres of artistic and cultural excellence. As my noble friend Lady Dacres said, at its best, art allows us to see people through others’ eyes. I am clear, and this Government are clear, that lawful artistic expression deserves protection, that cultural organisations should be free to make their own decisions and that our cultural life is strengthened, not weakened, by the free exchange of differing opinions and ideas.
Ukraine: Decentralisation Reforms
Lord Risby
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of Ukraine’s decentralisation reforms; and what steps they are taking to support municipal partnerships as a contribution to Ukraine’s recovery, resilience and reconstruction.
Lord Risby (Con)
My Lords, I am most grateful to have secured this debate today. We are likely to be approaching a turning point in this war, and the situation requires us to consider how we can underpin Ukraine’s future and facilitate its European trajectory.
It was my role for the Opposition in the other place to take forward the legislation for the expansion of the European Union. At the time, there was here in London a particularly impressive Polish ambassador who spoke with great prescience. Several times he said to me that if we did not embrace the country immediately to Poland’s east, someone with very large claws would attempt to smother it. How tragically right history has proved him to be. Since February 2022, we have seen those claws at work, with the horrors of a full-scale war that is now raged against Ukraine. Having recently returned from a visit to Kyiv, and most specifically the Chernihiv region, which borders Belarus and Russia, I start by noting that resilience remains very strong.
Ukraine is now emerging as one of the most militarily experienced, innovative and resilient nations in the world today. I do not wish for this debate to be a continuing commentary about the military situation on the battlefield, for what struck me most powerfully was that when I met my counterparts, they did not wish to dwell on the war. They wanted to showcase their resilience but, most importantly, their plans for locally enabled, investment-based recovery. They wanted to speak not only of how Ukraine recovers and prospers but of how Ukraine can emerge, as I believe it will, as a significant global force for good in the years to come. It is in this spirit that I turn to decentralisation.
As the former chairman of the British Ukrainian society, I have long promoted the need for decentralisation, regarding it as fundamental to democratic empowerment and the elimination of corruption, and to accelerating Ukraine’s accession to the European Union and it embracing the wider European family. Before the full-scale invasion, Ukraine had already made progress in this regard, and we should not underestimate how the progress made between 2014 and 2022 in the creation and empowerment of regional and local municipalities was a defining factor in Ukraine’s ability to withstand this ghastly war over such a significant period of time.
We should now turn to supporting Ukraine’s desire to continue on its pathway to much greater decentralisation. This could become one of the great practical legacies of the 100-year partnership. Under Pillar 9 of that declaration, our two countries are committed to supporting
“deeper and more nationwide links between local and regional governments”.
I use this opportunity to pay particular tribute to Kent With Ukraine, an NGO with which I am proud to be associated. Under the voluntary leadership of Jordan Meade, that organisation has, in just two years, helped to secure significantly active partnerships, stemming from region-to-region partnerships and twinning at every other tier in the country. This voluntary work is to be commended; I am sure we will agree that the 100-year partnership must be enabled by government, but built up from the grass roots. I offer the Minister four practical suggestions on how we may take this forward and achieve it.
First, the Government could establish a live public register of UK-Ukraine local and regional partnerships. At present, the landscape is far too fragmented and council leaders are slow in wanting to pursue relations without clearer government endorsement. A register could help to identify gaps, match donors to need, give SMEs confidence to invest in local projects and, importantly, allow Parliament to scrutinise progress under Pillar 9.
Secondly, the Government could support the creation of a platform that links municipal twinning to practical reconstruction pipelines. A structured platform could enable communities to undertake real and practical projects. This would help Ukraine, but it could also create opportunities for British SMEs to secure investments and contracts for reconstruction, which in turn would create much-needed opportunities for local growth here at home.
Thirdly, the Government should consider creating a municipal aid corridor. That would make it easier and safer for councils and public bodies to donate surplus equipment to verified Ukrainian municipal recipients.
Finally, the Government might also consider establishing a dedicated local government fund that would enable local authorities in the UK to bid for modest one-off grants to empower businesses, schools, cultural organisations and community groups to take part in furthering the key objectives of Pillar 9.
The Ukrainians themselves want these relationships to be reciprocal. There is much we can learn from Ukraine’s local leaders, particularly around civil contingencies, emergency planning and resilience. Against the backdrop of local government reorganisation, Ukraine’s experience could be studied carefully here to reform and strengthen our own structures.
I turn briefly to the important matter of veterans’ reintegration. While in Kyiv, I was pleased to meet the deputy Minister of Veterans’ Affairs, and just yesterday I was pleased to host both the Minister and deputy Minister here in our Parliament to brief parliamentarians on the growing challenges around Ukraine’s veteran population. I mention this as veterans’ policy could become an excellent test case for a decentralised Ukraine. It could demonstrate the model of national standards and local delivery.
The Ukrainian state should set clear national entitlements, standards and safeguards for rehabilitation, mental health, transport and mobility, employment, housing adaptation, family support and disability rights. But delivery must be made locally, through the oblasts. I raise this in the hope that the Government will build decentralisation into future funding programmes for Ukraine.
In the classrooms that I visited in the far north-east of Ukraine, there are murals of this Parliament on the walls, which are used as a reference point for freedom and democracy. This should humble and inspire us all. In Ukraine, constant gratitude was expressed for Britain’s support, but the clear desire at all levels is for Britain to be an influential long-term partner. As the Minister knows, one of the great strengths of our Parliament is that Ukraine continues to be supported by all parties. That unity is noted and deeply appreciated; it is so important.
The challenge before us is to turn the 100-year partnership from declaration into enduring delivery. This will be better achieved if we enable a grass-roots approach to this endeavour and support Ukraine’s decentralisation as a key component in its recovery.
Lord Udny-Lister (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Risby, on securing this important debate; I am only sorry that so few of us are in the Room for it. I also pay tribute to his long-standing commitment to Ukraine, which gives considerable weight and importance to everything he has said.
I spent many years in local government, including serving as the leader of a council and as a deputy mayor of London, so I thought I would come at this debate from a slightly different perspective. I have always believed in the importance of localism and the opportunities that come through decentralised decision-making. While it is of course up to the Government to establish national priorities, it is usually local government that ultimately determines how successfully those priorities are delivered on the ground. That is why the pathway to the decentralisation that Ukraine commenced back in 2014 must now be delivered on fully.
Despite the fact that Ukraine is literally fighting for its very existence, democratic local government continues to function across the overwhelming majority of the country. Where that is not possible, military administrations running in parallel in the cities provide the additional attention that is needed.
Through this system, local leaders across Ukraine, who are deserving of our admiration, have proven how decentralised decision-making has enabled local leaders to respond quickly and more humanely than any national Government could ever do. In many respects, from the continuation of education to the reconstruction of community assets and the maintenance of social services provision, local government has come to be one of Ukraine’s greatest strengths.
As we now rightfully turn our attention towards Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction, I believe that there is an area where the United Kingdom can make a distinctive contribution through our experience. That area is, I suggest, public procurement. While I note that it might not sound as exciting as funding the latest AI-empowered systems or advanced warfare, anyone who has been involved in a local authority knows that ultimately sound procurement is the bedrock of efficient local government. British local authorities have accumulated decades of experience in commissioning services, running competitive tenders and ensuring proper financial oversight. We have learned over these decades, sometimes, unfortunately, the hard way, the formula of balancing speed and innovation with accountability and sound governance.
Ukraine now faces the largest reconstruction programme seen anywhere in Europe, possibly even in the world, since the Second World War. It will require not only significant international investment but procurement systems capable of delivering thousands of projects simultaneously while ensuring international credibility, which is so important. I believe there is considerable scope for structured partnership between the procurement professionals of our local authorities and their Ukrainian counterparts. From strategic commissioning to supplier assurance, social value, fraud prevention and counter-corruption measures, local authorities have often learned the hard way but have developed the expertise that is the essential building block for attracting and securing long-term international investment, with investors being able to see that their money is being deployed correctly.
There is a security element in this too. We need to deploy our expertise in public sector procurement to ensure that rogue states and individuals are unable to secure any foothold in the critical national infrastructure and local utility projects that Ukraine is currently seeking international support to deliver. Will the Minister outline to the Committee what steps the Government are taking to export British local government procurement expertise to support Ukrainian municipalities as they prepare to manage billions of pounds in reconstruction funds? Have the Government considered the possibility of co-ordinating a UK-Ukraine local government procurement partnership? Building on the work of the City Ukraine Hub and the commitments contained in the UK-Ukraine 100-year partnership, I hope we are soon going to see the City of London play a leading role in strengthening Ukraine’s financial ecosystem. In the discussions I have had with Ukrainians, the message is always that they seek to have mutually beneficial relations.
There is also much that Britain can learn from Ukraine. I have been struck by the extraordinary speed with which Ukraine has restored national critical infrastructure, such as rail networks, bridges and utilities, under missile and drone attack. It slightly puts us to shame on projects such as High Speed 2 and the Lower Thames Crossing. While our circumstances are thankfully very different, I believe there are lessons. As we seek to accelerate housing delivery, modernise infrastructure and improve our public services, we should not be afraid to study how Ukraine has reduced bureaucracy, slashed waste and embraced innovation. Sometimes, those operating under the greatest pressure develop the most effective solutions, and local government would be foolish not to use our exceptional friendship with Ukraine to be radical in our approach to reforming our systems, both here and there.
As the Government embark on a significant programme of local government reorganisation—probably the biggest in decades—I hope that they will place far greater emphasis on civil contingencies and local resilience. Although much attention is rightly given to national defence, history reminds us that resilience begins in our communities. Since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine has demonstrated how, when resilience and emergency planning are valued and managed effectively at a very local level, communities are able to withstand the most challenging circumstances. It would be good to know what lessons from Ukraine’s exceptional resilience models the Government are going to draw on as part of our own reviews.
My noble friend Lord Risby rightly commented on twinning. It is encouraging to see not only how many council leaders across the country have shown solidarity through establishing twinning relations but the practical differences that these hyper-local arrangements are having both for Ukrainian municipalities and our own communities. Many of these relationships are now in place. I am told that there is a desire to move these relationships well beyond traditional civic twinning to provide genuine partnership that shares expertise, supports SMEs in both the UK and Ukraine and utilises the provision of the FTA that we have in place.
Earlier this week, I was very pleased to meet the Minister and Deputy Minister for Veterans here in Parliament. It was so encouraging to hear about the efforts they are putting into ensuring not only that there is a world-leading rehabilitation programme in place but that the work that is under way will ensure the full economic reintegration of these veterans. As we all know, that is going to be critical for the future stability of Ukraine.
I conclude by saying that Britain has much to contribute through our experience of local government procurement, financial governance and local leadership. Equally, though, we should approach this with some humility, recognising that Ukraine’s resilience and remarkable pace of delivery has lessons for us. If we get this right and make the 100-year partnership more community-based, I have no doubt that both countries will emerge stronger.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend Lord Risby for securing this valuable debate. Last week, in our debate on the Convention establishing an International Claims Commission for Ukraine, my noble friend Lord Callanan noted that, while the war continues, it is right that we look to the future of Ukraine. I will not repeat our overall position on support for Ukraine, as my noble friend set it out very clearly last week, but the Official Opposition will always support the Government in backing Ukraine in the face of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine. Across the House and across political divides, we must all work hard to maintain the consensus in support of the Ukrainian people.
As my noble friend Lord Risby mentioned, since 2014, the decentralisation process in Ukraine has progressed significantly, strengthening local self-governance and improving the Ukrainian state’s ability to deliver public services. That process has established local governments across Ukraine that retains more than half of the tax collected in their area. This means that more money stays in the communities where it is collected, and it should be spent to the benefit of local residents. Can the Minister say whether His Majesty’s Government are monitoring the impact of the reorganisation of government in Ukraine and its impact on the quality of the public services that are available to the Ukrainian people?
Support for Ukraine should not stop at funding and military training. Our strong tradition of democracy and effective local governance means that there may be relevant skills that we can share with Ukraine. Can the Minister say what conversations have taken place to ensure that we are making the local government expertise here in the UK available to Ukraine?
Although significant progress has been made, third parties report that there remain significant challenges around skills shortages in the Civil Service. What consideration have Ministers given to that? Are there steps that His Majesty’s Government can take, in concert with our international partners, to support Ukraine on the skills gaps it is experiencing within government?
The UK-Ukraine 100-year partnership, which was raised by my noble friend Lord Risby, is without question ambitious. However, ambition alone does not deliver results. Given that it is the intention of the Government for this partnership to ensure for a century, do the Government agree that Parliament should have greater opportunity to scrutinise delivery under each of the partnership’s pillars? In this spirit, will His Majesty’s Government commit to an annual report on the progress and expenditure incurred?
Today, we have spoken much about our local councils and the incredible work they are doing to stand by the people of Ukraine. However, reconstruction will require local economic recovery. It would, therefore, be helpful to understand what role His Majesty’s Government see for the British Chambers of Commerce, SMEs and local enterprise partnerships in supporting the effort to rebuild local economies across the region. Will His Majesty’s Government consider launching a UK-Ukraine 100 website and digital archive for successes under the UK-Ukraine 100 year partnership declaration? That would serve to showcase successes and inspire councils, schools, civil society groups and others to get involved.
The demonstrations that saw the fall of Yanukovych’s Government were fuelled by a collapse of trust in the Ukrainian Government. Those Ukrainians, who had such high hopes of a brighter future for Ukraine, have suffered much since then. We all share that hope for a brighter future, and we will work with the Government as they support this work. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for securing this debate. I know that it has not been the biggest draw of the day, as far as Parliament is concerned, but the quality of the contributions has more than made up for that.
The noble Lord, Lord Risby, made some thoughtful suggestions based on his extensive experience of working in Ukraine. I promise him that we will continue to look at ways to work with our Ukrainian friends as part of our commitment set out in the 100-year partnership and that we will explore his various suggestions. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, for his important contribution. Having a short debate is great because we can name each properly and not just say, “All those present”.
The illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia continues to cause immense pain and suffering. I absolutely accept the encouragement from the noble Lord, Lord Risby, not to focus on only conflict, but, last week, Russia launched around 500 drones and 70 missiles, aimed primarily at Kyiv, killing at least 30 civilians and injuring nearly 90. The scale of damage from more than four years of war is, of course, enormous. The latest World Bank assessment is that around $588 billion will be required for recovery and reconstruction over the next decade.
Early recovery and development support are therefore critical if we are to prevent Ukraine falling into decline, poverty and instability. This is an agenda to which we are fully committed and, as the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, said, it is entirely cross-party. Through the UK’s historic and wide-ranging 100-year partnership with Ukraine, we are deepening relations across the social, cultural, education and trade sectors to ensure a more prosperous and secure long-term future for both our countries. The entire premise of having a 100-year partnership is so that it is all-encompassing.
Already 54,000 British and Ukrainian pupils are set to benefit from the school-twinning programme under the 100-year partnership. The suggestions from the noble Lord, Lord Risby, of a register of partnerships, a platform to link communities, a municipal aid corridor and a local government fund for grants to support partnerships were all excellent and implementable, and we will of course consider them thoroughly. Not all of them need the Government to do them. In the true nature of the spirit of entrepreneurship that you often find in local government in this country and in Ukraine, some of those things can happen in any case.
Democratic institutions, including Ukraine’s Parliament and civil society, will play a key role in Ukraine’s recovery. Co-operation between the Ukrainian Government, Parliament and civil society, along with international partners, will help to ensure Ukraine’s democratic resilience. Ukraine’s decentralisation reforms have strengthened the ability of local authorities to deliver public services, respond to crises and lead recovery efforts, even in the most challenging wartime conditions. Strong local government will remain essential to rebuilding communities, strengthening resilience and supporting Ukraine’s future Euro-Atlantic integration.
The UK recognises that recovery and reform must go hand in hand. Continued progress on governance, anti-corruption, judicial reform and decentralisation will help Ukraine attract investment, strengthen institutions and support its Euro-Atlantic aspirations. Two weeks ago, the Foreign Secretary attended the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdansk alongside the Deputy Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. At the conference, the Foreign Secretary announced our package of bilateral assistance for 2026-27, worth almost £290 million, to bolster Ukraine’s recovery and energy security. We also announced a further $1 billion of fiscal support through the World Bank, demonstrating our long-term commitment to Ukraine’s reconstruction. The Deputy Prime Minister announced that £12 million of this package is for a new governance programme, including £2.4 million for anti-corruption initiatives.
The UK has consistently supported a recovery that is inclusive, accountable and, above all, led by Ukraine, with civil society playing a central role in shaping, supporting and scrutinising that recovery. However, we recognise that recovery cannot be delivered from Kyiv alone. Action at local and regional level was a core theme of this year’s Ukraine Recovery Conference, recognising that local communities are best placed to identify priorities and lead reconstruction.
As the noble Lord, Lord Risby, said, Ukrainian civil society organisations were among the first to step forward after Russia’s full-scale invasion. They continue to support those most affected by the war, including the communities that are hardest to reach. This is where municipal partnerships can make a real difference. I completely agree with the argument that the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, made. Like him, I have served in local government and learned a huge amount from that experience that I use every single day in my current role. It is these partnerships that help local authorities deliver better services, learn from each other’s experience and build the foundations for long-term recovery.
The UK is backing that approach in practice. The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, and the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, asked how we are doing this. We are using our humanitarian assistance and resilience programme to strengthen the role of civil society and community groups in delivering support on the ground. Through the UK-led multi-donor Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine we directly strengthen local authorities in Ukraine’s front-line regions to ensure that local governments remain visible, responsible, and, most importantly, trusted by their local residents.
Through our social protection programme, SPIRIT, we are helping Ukraine move from emergency response into long-term recovery, supporting reform, strengthening social services and helping Ukrainian municipalities—I will just call them that—to work together to meet local needs. Working with UNICEF and the NGO ISAR Ednannia, we are supporting around 100 municipalities and 120 local providers. This support is leaving a lasting legacy, helping municipalities build the skills, partnerships and systems that they need to sustain recovery long after individual grants end.
The noble Earl, Lord Courtown, asked for regular reporting and suggested a platform to showcase work that is happening, which are excellent ideas. Let us see what we can take forward.
As we say every time we talk about Ukraine, the UK stands with Ukraine in its journey towards a just and lasting peace and in its efforts to rebuild. Ensuring that Ukraine emerges from this war as a stronger, more resilient, more prosperous country is just as important as supporting its defence today. Ukraine’s recovery will be built through not only international investments but strong institutions, empowered local communities and the determination of the Ukrainian people. The UK remains committed to that effort and to Ukraine for as long as it takes.
International Development Outcomes for Women and Girls
Baroness Sugg
To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of cuts to Official Development Assistance on international development outcomes for women and girls.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to bring forward this debate and I thank all noble Lords who will speak. Although speaking time is unfortunately short, I hope that today’s interest leads to further opportunities to examine the impact of cuts to official development assistance. I declare my interests, as set out on the register, of support from the Coalition for Global Prosperity, and my position as chair of Plan International UK.
Since the Government announced ODA cuts, many in this House have challenged the logic: defence and development are not competing priorities but mutually reinforcing. This is a political choice, with devastating consequences, which undermines the UK’s ambitions and commitments. The cuts are not felt on paper or in government strategy documents; they are felt in the daily lives of millions among the most fragile communities globally, especially women and girls, who disproportionately bear the consequences.
Despite progress, and thanks in no small part to the work of UK development, the scale of the challenge globally remains staggering: 840 million women have been victims of physical or sexual violence; every two minutes, a woman dies from pregnancy or childbirth complications; and 133 million girls are not in school. Crises, be they conflict, climate or health, hit women and girls hardest. Violence increases, including sexual violence as a weapon of war, trafficking and early and forced marriage. In Sudan alone, 17.1 million women and girls now need humanitarian assistance, and 4.3 million have been displaced. According to ICAI, at the current pace, ending gender-based violence and achieving equality for women and girls will take another 100 years, so for the UK to be stepping back is deeply regrettable.
I welcome the Government’s new international strategic framework on women and girls, particularly its focus on SRHR and integration across health, education and survivor support. I also welcome the inclusion of women and girls as one of the FCDO’s six refreshed priorities. I am grateful to the Foreign Secretary and the Minister for their efforts in international fora and in the difficult—if regrettable—decisions around ODA allocations. As we face another change in No. 10 in the coming weeks, I hope that they can both continue this important work. The Government deserve credit for their target of 90% of bilateral ODA programmes contributing to gender equality by 2030. This is a significant commitment that builds on our positive track record on gender equality reporting. I hope that when the bilateral allocations are published shortly, the Government will have a clear assessment of progress towards that commitment.
All that said, I am afraid that that is where the plaudits end and the questions begin. The Government have said that mainstreaming women and girls’ rights should be built into decisions across the entire portfolio, yet significant concerns remain around mainstreaming, given evidence of mixed results of mainstreaming across different contexts. As the Gender and Development Network warns, poorly executed mainstreaming can dilute efforts, divert resources or become a tick-box exercise. I hope that the Minister will consider the network’s clear and tangible recommendations for a more effective approach. In addition to mainstreaming, is the Minister able to provide reassurances that the Government still see value in dedicated, stand-alone programmes for women and girls? Will they protect at least the current 12% of ODA allocated to gender equality?
When it comes to dedicated programmes that have been successful, there is no better example, in my mind, than that of the women’s integrated sexual health programme—WISH—which has transformed access to sexual and reproductive health and rights services for the poorest women and girls across 27 countries in Africa and Asia. Reaching over 6 million women and girls since 2018, it has averted nearly 37,000 maternal deaths, prevented 3.85 million unsafe abortions and helped 300,000 girls and young women stay in school. However, with centrally managed programmes expected to be cut by approximately 42% and to be replaced with “communities of expertise”, we need much greater clarity from the Government about what will happen to these programmes and how the women and equalities community of expertise will work. With funding cuts and life-saving SRHR service delivery being scaled down or closing, people in remote areas will have nowhere to access reproductive health services, women will be forced to continue pregnancies they were unable to avoid, teenage pregnancy will rise, girls will be denied an education, and death rates will rise.
There are actions that the Government can take to improve their effectiveness and help mitigate the worst outcomes for women and girls. The first step is robust accountability. The new commitment to gender mainstreaming should be operationalised in a way that sets clear objectives through incentive structures, develops institutional capacity and resources, and creates feedback mechanisms with women’s organisations. The second step is to set well-defined levels of high ambition. The FCDO should set clear priorities for heads of mission on women and girls, backed by necessary political heft. This should go hand in hand with the UK maintaining a strategic approach across its diplomatic corps and Armed Forces to put gender equality on the front lines of crisis response.
The UK should continue to support key multilateral bodies such as the UNFPA. In the context of a global rollback on reproductive rights, the UK must continue its important support and make its voice heard to protect the UNFPA’s mandate. But we must also ensure that our other significant multilateral contributions, to other UN institutions, to Gavi and the Global Fund, to the World Bank and regional development banks, are used as effectively as possible to benefit women and girls. As ODA shifts toward multilaterals, accountability for spending aligned with UK priorities becomes even more critical. The commitment to 90% relates only to the reducing bilateral portfolio; I would love to see this commitment extended to multilaterals.
Finally, the UK has a unique opportunity next year with the presidency of the G20. I hope the Government seize this chance to embed gender equality as a central theme of the summit. Can the Minister outline how the Government will ensure that gender is effectively mainstreamed across the agenda, particularly on the finance track, given the evidence on the gendered effects of debt burdens, the wider rollback on rights internationally, and the sharp reduction in financing for gender equality work globally?
I will end with an example of what the cuts to ODA mean in practice—not in the abstract, but in reality for women and children. Earlier this year, “Channel 4 News” broadcast a special report, “A Matter of Life or Death: Giving Birth in Sierra Leone”, filmed over one week inside the busiest maternity corridors in Freetown. It is challenging to watch but shows exactly what is now at stake for women and babies as UK aid funding recedes. I urge noble Lords and the Minister to watch it, if she has not already.
The report focused on the saving lives programme, a health systems-strengthening initiative delivered in partnership with Concern Worldwide. Progress has been made in a country with one of the world’s highest maternal mortality rates, but that progress is now at risk. The cuts are having real consequences: fewer services, shortages of essential medicines and weaker emergency referral systems. At a time when postpartum haemorrhage remains a leading cause of maternal death, these changes will cost lives.
This is what happens when funding is withdrawn from programmes that work. Women and babies are placed at greater risk from preventable causes because health systems are being weakened—and without time to put alternatives in place. I call on the Government to publish a full assessment of the impact of ODA reductions on maternal and newborn survival before any further cuts are made, not after the damage has been done.
Investing in development outcomes for women and girls is the right thing to do. It is also the smartest and quickest route to economic growth, improved health outcomes and global stability. I hope the Government act with the urgency that this demands and do everything in their power to mitigate the impact of the cuts on the women and girls who face the greatest risk from them.
Baroness Goudie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my friend the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for arranging this debate today. I also thank Concern Worldwide, Planned Parenthood, CAFOD, Action Aid and many other organisations which were kind enough to get in touch with me, as with others, about this debate.
The scale of the reduction in official development assistance that we debate here is significant and will drop to the lowest share since 1999. Most of our overseas gender focus will be affected if sitting within our bilateral programmes, which are being reduced significantly by 37%. The Government’s own equalities impact assessment recognises that this will fall disproportionately on programmes supporting equality for women and girls. I make no apology for talking about women and girls; they are the future of the world, not just here but everywhere.
Regarding women, peace and security, an area which I have worked on for many years and will continue to do so as an adviser to the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, I welcome the Government’s decision to protect central funding for the WPS agenda, and for preventing sexual violence in conflict, at 2025-26 levels. However, I note that a planned increase to the women, peace and security programme has itself been cut by 25%, at a time when the Commons International Development Committee has found that:
“The Government’s commitment to … the WPS National Action Plan … appears to be waning”.
Producing a budget at last year’s level, while welcome in the current climate, is not the same as the funding on it. I hope the Minister will confirm that this is a momentary pause.
I also hope that when we are leading the G20, we will continue at its meetings to be powerful on the importance of women being at the peace table, when we can ensure that this will happen. At present, that is not happening anywhere around the world, and we have to take that leadership.
I remind the Committee that these numbers are not hypothetical and have real-world impacts on women and girls around the world. The women’s integrated sexual health programme was described by the Government as “relatively protected”, yet its delivery partner, International Planned Parenthood Federation, now faces a 22% funding reduction for a programme that has helped to avert more than 1,000 maternal deaths. IPPF’s projection is that a cut of this size will put the lives of mothers and babies at risk. I hope that the Minister will say more about how the Government intend to prevent this pattern being repeated elsewhere.
I welcome the commitment that 90% of the FCDO’s bilateral programmes will contribute to gender equality by 2023. As the new communities of expertise model is developed, I hope that women’s rights organisations, particularly those with direct experience in fragile and conflict-affected states, will be consulted as full partners, as we know that the inclusion of local women at every stage of the consulting process leads to a better outcome all round in their society.
Baroness Featherstone (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for bringing this important debate. During my years as International Development Minister and as the Government’s champion for tackling violence against women and girls overseas, people often asked me what I would remember the most. It is not meetings or briefing papers but faces. One face that has never left me still comes back to me whenever we have debates like this. I was visiting a Marie Stopes outreach clinic in Uganda for women who had suffered sexual and domestic violence that we were supporting. It provided family planning and reproductive healthcare, but it was also a place of refuge. Since all the officials and dignitaries who surrounded me were men, I asked them to leave so that I could sit in a circle with the women alone. One woman arrived late carrying her baby. I say “carrying”, but both her arms had been cut off by her husband with a machete, one below the elbow, one above, and she cradled her child with what remained. For that woman, British development assistance was not an abstract policy; it was the difference between hope and despair—the difference between finding help and finding none.
That visit reinforced what I came to believe as a Minister: that women and girls are not a peripheral part of development but its foundation. I learned that, when women and girls thrive, whole communities thrive. Educate a girl and she is more likely to earn, to marry later, to have healthier children and to lift her family out of poverty. Protect a woman from violence, and you do more than change one life; you strengthen a family, a community and ultimately a nation. That is why investing in women and girls has never been an optional extra. It is one of the smartest investments that any country could ever make. That is why today’s debate matters.
The Government’s assessment recognises that reducing official development assistance will have negative effects for women and girls. My concern is that those impacts are not simply figures in a report; they are people. They mean that fewer girls will complete their education, fewer women will access maternal and reproductive health care, fewer survivors of violence will find safety and support, and fewer local women’s organisations will be able to keep their doors open for those with nowhere else to turn. The Government say that women and girls remain a priority, and I welcome that commitment, but I have to say that priorities are measured not only by what we say but by what we sustain. When the Government assess the impact of these reductions, how will they measure the women and girls who will no longer receive the opportunities, protection and support that Britain once helped to provide? Behind every programme we reduce, there is a woman or girl we may never meet whose life will be changed by our decision.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, not for the first time the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, deserves our gratitude for concentrating our minds on victims and survivors of international crimes, especially on women and girls in need of access to life-sustaining support. In my three minutes, I will focus on Sudan and Nigeria.
Sudan is facing a second genocide in two decades. This includes a war on women, which I referred to on Tuesday during Question Time and will do so again on Friday next week in my debate on the Genocide Determination Bill. Targeted, unspeakable violence, systemic use of rape as a weapon of war, extreme famine and catastrophic displacement mean that millions of Sudanese women and girls are plunged into peril. As the noble Baroness told us, 17 million women and girls in Sudan are now in need of assistance.
A truly shocking UN report on CRSV in Sudan reports that women whom it interviewed in West Darfur were being asked, before being raped, which tribe they belonged to. One replied, “Masalit”. The perpetrators said they would kill her. Another, before being subjected to gang rape, was told:
“‘If you are Masalit, we will slaughter you today’ … Others were told, ‘You will be our wives’, ‘You slave’, ‘You are our women,’ and ‘This year, all of you Masalit girls deliver our children’”.
If these women somehow survive, they will need sustained help but also justice, which has been absent since the first genocide in Darfur some 20 years ago.
Meanwhile, in Nigeria, whole communities have been targeted by Boko Haram, Islamic State West Africa Province and Fulani militia. They target girls, often abducting them from schools. The Minister knows and has responded to me about the case of Leah Sharibu, who, eight years ago, aged 14, was kidnapped, impregnated, raped, forcibly married and told to convert. She remains unrescued in captivity. Last November, more than 300 children, many of them girls, and staff, were kidnapped by gunmen from a Catholic school in central Nigeria in one of the worst mass abductions the country has seen. Such attacks are common, but they receive too little attention.
In this context, in 2024, UK officials considered increasing our ambition on support for the protection of civilians, including atrocity prevention. An internal options paper outlined four broad options for scaling up protections of civilians and establishing an international protection mechanism. Of the options, the FCDO opted to take the fourth and least-ambitious option.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry—I know this is unconventional—but that is factually incorrect. That did not happen, and I want to make that clear to the Committee at this point.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
I am grateful to the Minister for her intervention, but what I said is based on information provided to me by officials who work in her department. It is said that the
“FCDO opted to take the fourth – and least ambitious – option … FCDO stakeholders … recognised the value of supporting locally led protection of civilians interventions, but stated that an already overstretched country team did not have the capacity to take on a complex new programming area. This has constrained the UK’s ability to support stronger protection results”,
inevitably.
Clearly, we owe it to girls like Leah and the women and girls of Sudan to be more ambitious. Given the Minister’s intervention just now, I hope that it will be possible to sit down with her and talk through those previous ambitions, which were rejected, and see what can be done for others in the future.
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester
My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for bringing this debate. I will focus on violence against women and girls. As we have heard, the fundamental concern here is whether the reduction in UK ODA can be achieved without significant consequences for women and girls. The Government’s own equality impact assessment acknowledges that the reduction in ODA
“will inevitably have negative impacts for many programme beneficiaries”.
I state the obvious here that women and girls constitute at least 50% of the world’s population. When we talk about these issues, I often feel as though we are talking about something that affects a minority group, which would still not be acceptable, but sometimes we need to state the obvious.
I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to maintain central spending on preventing violence against women and girls, the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative and women, peace and security programmes. However, UN Women reports that global aid cuts totalling an estimated $78 billion are severely impacting efforts to end violence against women and girls, with around one-third of organisations suspending programmes and over 40% reducing vital services such as shelters, legal aid and psychological support. This is tragic.
From a faith perspective, ending gender-based violence is a priority across the Anglican Communion, and many churches and communities are being trained to respond to abuse, support survivors and change harmful social norms. There is much more we can and should do. I pay tribute to the Mothers’ Union, an Anglican, women-led movement of around 4 million members in 83 countries that works at grass-roots level to tackle violence, poverty and injustice. For many vulnerable women, particularly in remote communities, Mothers’ Union branches provide practical support, literacy training, economic empowerment and protection from abuse. Indeed, faith-based organisations are often among the few institutions that are present in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Where age reduction leads to fewer partnerships with trusted local organisations, women and girls may lose access to critical support networks.
Will the Minister say what steps the FCDO is taking to remove barriers to funding for faith-based organisations working to prevent gender-based violence, and what engagement it has had with them on the impact of funding cuts? The measure of our development policy is not simply what we say about gender equality but what women and girls are unable to live—lives marked by greater safety, opportunity and dignity. At a time of significant reductions in aid spending, it is all the more important that we keep those women and girls at the heart of our decision-making and ask whether our choices are helping them to flourish.
Baroness Helic (Con)
My Lords, I too thank my noble friend Lady Sugg for securing this debate and for her steadfast commitment to women and girls affected by conflict. Conscious of the time limit, I will focus on one issue: conflict-related sexual violence. For survivors, the reduction in official development assistance is not merely an accounting exercise; it determines whether a woman who has been raped receives life-saving medical treatment, protection and a chance of justice. The evidence is clear: we are going backwards.
Physicians for Human Rights has documented the consequences of abrupt reductions in international assistance. Across Ethiopia, DRC, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, clinicians report shortages of post-exposure prophylaxis following rape, interruptions to post-rape care, the closure of one-stop centres and the collapse of referral pathways. Survivors are being denied emergency treatment when they need it most. These are not marginal reductions; they are dismantling the system on which survivors depend, leaving women who have been raped searching in vain for life-saving medicines. As a result, they are becoming victims twice over—first at the hands of those who committed these crimes and then through the withdrawal of the assistance on which their recovery entirely depends.
Political leadership matters too. When my noble friend Lord Hague founded the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, he understood that this was not only a humanitarian issue but a strategic one. I had the privilege, as his special adviser, of accompanying him to meetings with Heads of States, Foreign Ministers and other senior leaders. Whatever the purpose of the meeting, he raised this issue. It had an impact, because when a Foreign Secretary speaks, counterparts listen. It becomes a matter of foreign policy and national security. That access to the highest level of government, combined with the authority of the office, gave Britain influence far beyond the resources we committed. It demonstrated that these crimes mattered to our country and that we would work to hold perpetrators to account.
I therefore welcome the Foreign Secretary’s decision to lead the new international coalition to end violence against women and girls, and the recent appointment of the new PSVI special envoy. However, I had hoped that the Foreign Secretary would personally take on this role—not because of the individual appointed, for whom I have the greatest respect, but because the authority of the office sends an unmistakable signal that this remains a foreign policy priority for the United Kingdom. No one disputes the pressures on the public finances, the threat from Russia, the challenges posed by China or the demands on our country at home and abroad, but preventing conflict-related sexual violence is not separate from our foreign policy but an integral part of it. The perpetrators of these crimes watch what we do. When they see retreat, they see opportunity. If we fail to confront this evil where it begins, we will confront its consequences later, with greater instability, displacement, migration and far greater cost. Prevention costs less than crisis management. More importantly, it is the right thing to do.
Baroness Nargund (Lab)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, on securing this important debate and for ensuring that the well-being of vulnerable women and girls remains firmly on our agenda. In my role as a former vice-chair and trustee of the British Red Cross, I was closely involved in programmes supporting mothers and babies affected by conflict.
I begin with the story of Marie, shared in evidence to the International Development Committee on the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Marie, a mother of four and heavily pregnant, was displaced by conflict and separated from her husband. She was told she needed a caesarean section but could not afford the $70 fee at her local clinic. Unable even to feed her family, she walked for days to reach a hospital where the operation would be free, risking both childbirth and armed violence along the way. Marie’s story is not an isolated tragedy; it is what happens when maternal and reproductive healthcare is out of reach.
I recognise the difficult fiscal choices facing the Government. I welcome their commitment to return to spending 0.7% of gross national income on official development assistance when fiscal conditions allow, and their ambition for 90% of bilateral aid programmes to advance gender equality by 2030. The Government deserve credit for holding to that under pressure, yet the need has never been greater. Between 2019 and 2022, women’s rights stagnated or declined in 40% of countries, affecting around 1 billion women and girls. In 2023, around 260,000 women died from complications of pregnancy and childbirth—almost all from preventable causes, with the overwhelming majority occurring in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2024, 92% of verified victims of conflict-related sexual violence were women and girls.
For women like Marie, gender equality is not an abstract policy objective. She experiences it when the caesarean section is free and accessible, when a clinic holds supplies for haemorrhage and infection, and when a skilled midwife or a doctor is available when every minute matters. It is hard to listen to these stories. We all know that—we have heard it from our colleagues. I would therefore be grateful if my noble friend the Minister would consider publishing a disaggregated annual report on sexual and reproductive health outcomes within the UK official development assistance, so that reproductive health for women and girls in conflict zones is treated as the emergency it is.
Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Con)
My Lords, I begin by declaring my interests: I co-chair and run the APPG on Women, Peace and Security, I am on the steering board of the PSVI, I run the Afghan Women’s Support Forum and I am an honorary colonel in CIMIC. I too thank my noble friend Lady Sugg for introducing this important debate today.
As we have heard, in the poorest countries women are always the poorest of the poor. The Red Cross reports over 130 active conflicts in the world today, with women disproportionately affected. Estimates by the WHO indicate that one in three women globally have been subjected to physical or sexual violence.
The international development budget is being cut to less than half of the pre-Covid amount—a political choice—causing much of Britain’s soft power to be abandoned by pitching defence against development. France, Germany and the USA, who, together with the UK, presented two-thirds of global aid spending, are also slashing development spend. Who will fill the gap? Perhaps it will be nations which do not share our idea of democracy.
The UN now estimates that 239 million people will need humanitarian support in 2026. Women and girls in conflict zones, refugee camps and disaster-hit regions are, as ever, among the most exposed when the safety net thins. The FCDO’s own equalities impact assessment found that reductions in bilateral aid will have a negative impact on equalities—in short, the Government already admit that the cuts will hurt women and girls.
The Foreign Secretary’s decision to
“make support for women and girls … a priority for development”
is most welcome, along with the commitment that at least 90% of FCDO bilateral aid programmes will contribute to gender by 2030. However, bilateral aid has been more heavily cut, with multilateral spend being prioritised. This means the UK cannot guarantee how the money will be spent.
This all feels like a broken promise; for years we have called ourselves a global leader on gender equality. Ensuring more women in the workplace helps lift countries out of poverty. Educating girls lowers infant mortality rates and reduces early marriages, but the UK is abandoning the funding of education. It is estimated that globally, 130 million girls are out of school, four times more than boys.
The UK has also reduced its contributions to UNFPA by 85%, risking additional maternal and child deaths and stopping the ability to prevent approximately 14.6 million unintended pregnancies. With education, gender and equality programming spending having fallen by about 42%, Bond, the umbrella organisation for UK development organisations, has said that women and girls will pay the highest price for this Government’s spending choices. As Sarah Champion, chair of the International Development Committee, put it when the Government confirmed their multi-year allocations,
“there will be no winners from unrelenting aid cuts, just different degrees of losers”.
Melinda Gates famously stated that supporting women and girls in international development is essential because they are highly effective catalysts for global change. Britain built its reputation as a global leader on this work over decades. It is being undone in a few budget cycles. The choice of whether that happens is still, in part, ours to make.
Lord Loomba (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for initiating this important debate today. I declare my interest as founder, chairman and trustee of the Loomba Foundation and vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the United Nations Global Goals.
For nearly three decades, the Loomba Foundation has worked to improve the lives of widows and their children, especially girls, through education, skills training, economic empowerment and international advocacy. There are almost 300 million widows worldwide, which is confirmed by UN Women. Many millions live in extreme poverty and face discrimination, dispossession and harmful traditional practices simply because they have lost their husbands. The consequences extend far beyond the widows themselves, disproportionately affecting their children, especially girls, through lost education, reduced opportunity and entrenched poverty. If we are serious about achieving the sustainable development goals on ending poverty and hunger, ensuring good health, quality education, gender equality, decent work, reduced inequalities and peace and justice, we cannot ignore the plight of widows.
I warmly acknowledge the long-standing support that successive UK Governments have given to the Loomba Foundation, including during the successful campaign that led to the United Nations unanimously adopting 23 June as International Widows Day. However, there is no doubt that reductions in overseas development aid have made the task significantly harder at a time of increasing global instability and humanitarian need. Will the Government work with international NGOs, including the Loomba Foundation, to mitigate the impact of reduced funding through greater collaboration, improved data collection and stronger evidence-based policy? On International Widows Day this year, we adopted the Universal Declaration of Widows’ Rights, founded on a simple principle: widowhood is the loss of a spouse; it must not become the loss of rights. I hope the Government will support that principle in both policy and practice.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sugg for this debate and join her in expressing my concern about the impact that reductions in the UK’s ODA will have on women and girls around the world. When aid budgets are reduced, the consequences are not felt equally. Women and girls are almost always the first to lose access to education, healthcare, sexual and reproductive health services, protection from violence and economic opportunities. These are not abstract budget lines; they are the foundations of dignity, security and opportunity.
For decades, the UK has been recognised as a global leader in championing girls’ education, maternal health, ending gender-based violence and supporting women’s rights organisations. That leadership has saved lives, expanded opportunity and strengthened our standing as a trusted international partner. We should be proud of that record. Yet reductions in ODA invariably force difficult choices. Programmes supporting survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, preventing child marriage, improving maternal healthcare and enabling girls to stay in school are often among those scaled back or closed altogether.
Support matters not only because it is the right thing to do, but because investing in women and girls is one of the smartest investments any country can make. When girls complete their education, child marriage declines, maternal and infant mortality falls, household incomes rise and communities become more resilient. When women participate fully in economic and political life, societies are more stable, prosperous and secure.
In 2014, Parliament passed the International Development (Gender Equality) Act, introduced by Sir William Cash as a Private Member’s Bill with cross-party support. That Act requires Ministers, when providing development assistance, to have regard to the desirability of reducing gender inequality and addressing the particular needs of women and girls. That legislation is relevant to today’s debate about whether significant reductions in ODA can be reconciled with the spirit and the purpose of the legislation. Can the Minister therefore explain what assessment has been made of the impact of recent ODA reductions on the Government’s ability to meet the duties and objectives set out in the International Development (Gender Equality) Act 2014?
Our values are measured by not only what we say but where we choose to invest. Supporting women and girls is not an optional extra or a peripheral concern. It is central to poverty reduction, global stability and sustainable development. Even in challenging fiscal circumstances, we must not lose sight of that fundamental truth. I hope the Minister will reaffirm the UK’s commitment to ensuring that women and girls remain at the heart of our international development policy.
Baroness Hussein-Ece (LD)
My Lords, I declare that I am the co-chair of the APPG on Global Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. I, too, thank my friend, the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for securing this important and timely debate. It has truly been a sobering debate with so much expertise around this table.
Wars waged by men are often a death sentence for women and girls. Yet despite carrying much of the burden during war, women remain excluded from peace negotiations and political decision-making. The UN reports that women make up only 7% of negotiators and 14% of mediators in formal peace processes. The dial has hardly moved on those statistics in years. As we have heard, more than 4.3 million women and girls in Sudan are now displaced. The suffering is horrifying. We have heard that in Congo, Afghanistan, Gaza and other places, suffering is equally off the scale.
The reduction in FCDO health spending in 2025-26, including cuts to the women’s integrated sexual health programme, has been described as a cruel proposal at a time of acute crisis for women and girls. For the UNFPA programmes, although core funding has been welcome, 2025 funding cuts from multiple donors have severely disrupted sexual and reproductive health. Even with existing funding, 1,100 health facilities and mobile clinics were forced to close. In many places, the maternal health clinic may still stand, but the midwife is gone. There is no emergency obstetric equipment, no post-rape kits and no contraceptives left on the shelves.
Across conflict settings, we are not witnessing temporary service disruptions, we are watching decades of investment in women’s health being rolled back. The impact cannot be measured simply in budgets; it is measured in lives, as we have heard from some harrowing personal stories here today. The truth in this crisis goes deeper than aid cuts. As the noble Baroness said, we need an impact assessment on the full extent of these cuts.
It was reported recently in the British Medical Journal that as conflicts increase, the UK, the United States and other countries are pulling back support that communities rely on. At its core is a global financial system that starves health services of the funding they need. Until that system is reformed and more women are at the table where these decisions are being taken, women, children and vulnerable people will keep paying with their health and their lives.
The UK must use its influential role globally to champion women’s economic alternatives through the G7, the G20 and the UN, including debt relief. Many countries are paying so much in debt repayment rather than investing in services for their communities. To enable Governments to invest in these gender-responsive services, education and long-term resilience, what is needed, as has been mentioned already, is political leadership, which is vital. I hope that in the coming changes in the Government, this will be on the agenda and considered.
The Earl of Courtown (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Sugg for bringing this debate forward. Her long-standing commitment to international development is respected across the House, and I pay tribute to her for her continued work.
Before I address the issue of overseas development assistance, I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I reflect on the increasingly unstable world in which we live. We know that instability and conflict have unique effects on women and girls. Last month, I asked the Minister about the appalling sexual violence against women in Sudan; this was highlighted by my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Alton. We have seen cases of sexual violence being used as a weapon of war in Ukraine and against Israeli hostages, as well as on 7 October 2023. We have a powerful role to play as a voice against atrocities and war crimes, as well as in holding perpetrators to account. Can the Minister expand on the Government’s broader approach to conflict in the world today, the effect that it is having on women and girls—especially in respect of sexual violence—and how we are responding to it?
I turn to the overseas development assistance budget. As has been mentioned by most noble Lords, in the face of growing fiscal and defence challenges, our spending has reduced significantly as a percentage of gross national income. Given the challenges that we face today, the Official Opposition understand and support that. I appreciate that there are a range of views on funding in this Committee, of course, but the Government’s work on supporting the rights of women and girls across the world need not be constrained by our redefined ODA budget. We can also continue to use our reputation as a respected nation on the international stage to promote that progress.
That is, I think, what the Government have sought to do in appointing the noble Baroness, Lady Harman, as the UK Special Envoy for Women and Girls. Can the Minister update the Committee on the progress made during those visits? Can she also say whether championing the contribution that women and girls can make internationally has been discussed at the UK Soft Power Council? If not, will it be discussed at its next meeting?
In closing, although there are a range of views on our spending on overseas development assistance, I hope that we can all be united in our ambition to see an end to violence against women and girls, equality before the law and freedom for all, as well as recognition of the value of the contribution that women can make in every society across the world. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)
I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, for bringing us together to have this discussion. It is incredibly important that we do so, and it speaks to the level of interest and concern across our House that so many noble Lords have chosen to come and take part in this Committee this afternoon. I know personally how committed the noble Baroness is to improving the lives of women and girls around the world. This is not a new thing for her; she has spent many years doing this, and I value and respect her work. I know how much everybody here cares about this issue.
I have to respond to the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I understand where the noble Lord read what he spoke about; it was recently raised with me, too, at the International Development Committee. I have responded formally in writing to the committee specifically on the issues raised by the noble Lord. I can categorically assure him that no such proposal ever came to any Minister and that the least effective options were not selected. That did not happen. I am very happy to meet the noble Lord and whoever he wishes to bring along to discuss these matters in as much detail as he would like, because I know that his aim is true and that what he wants is the same as what I want, which is to see a resolution to this heinous conflict.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
I do not doubt the Minister’s sincerity at all—she knows that. I did not say that proposals had been sent to her. I said there had been four sets of proposals and stakeholders had been involved in them. What I said was that a particular, most ambitious proposal was put to one side and the least ambitious proposal was the one that was adopted. Which Ministers agreed to see those proposals in the first place, I do not know, but as she said, this was said at a Select Committee of the House of Commons, and it has been said in the national media. This was not something I pulled out of thin air. I am grateful to her as it would be good to have sight of the letter she has written. She knows that before the Genocide Determination Bill is considered next Friday, a request was made by her noble friend Lady Kennedy of The Shaws and me to see the Foreign Secretary. I hope the Minister will relay that request again.
Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)
I would be very happy to do that. I know that the noble Lord does not pull these things out of thin air; I am familiar with where this has come from. I have said what I have said, we can get into it in more depth, and I would be very happy to do that.
The Government have put the safety and rights of women and girls at the heart of the UK’s development and international work more generally. We have done this because, as many noble Lords have said, advancing gender equality is the right thing to do, but it is also the best way to alleviate poverty, build economies and support women leaders, and countries need women leaders in order to thrive. I think everybody here understands and agrees with that. Women strengthen democracies, advance peace and security, and drive prosperity. That is why the Foreign Secretary made women and girls a stand-alone priority for the FCDO. It is also why I am a SheDecides champion, supporting sexual and reproductive health and rights, and women’s rights to choose.
We now have the framework in place to turn our ambitions into reality. I would like more money for this agenda, and I think that contributions that highlight the ODA budget cuts are absolutely legitimate and fair. What is less fair, I think, is any suggestion that we have somehow not understood the impact that this could have, that we have not been open and transparent about the decisions that we have made, or that we have not consciously and deliberately amended those choices in order to, as far as we possibly can, within the budget that we have, make sure that women and girls, within the constraints that exist, remain central to everything we do. At the end of the day, development is all about women and girls. They benefit from every penny that we spend, and we have to make sure that that continues.
In May, we launched the UK’s international strategic framework on women and girls. This sets out how we will advance the safety, prosperity, voice—that is vital—and choice of women and girls, bringing together our diplomatic, development and multilateral efforts behind a clear set of priorities.
I was asked about mainstreaming. I completely understand the misgivings that were raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, about this. I agree with her—we have to be alert to that—but we have committed that by 2030, at least 90% of the UK’s bilateral ODA programmes will contribute to gender equality, ensuring that women and girls remain central to our work even as our budget is reduced. We are making progress. In 2024, 81% of FCDO bilateral ODA projects were marked as making a principal or significant contribution to gender equality. That is up from 58% in 2022. This means that we are designing programmes that better address the barriers faced by women and girls across our portfolio while continuing targeted action where that is needed. I will say a little bit about that as well.
A number of contributions raised concerns about the impact of the reduction in spending. These cuts are a reality. They were significant, which is why—I think this is the first time this has been done—we took the decision to publish the equalities impact assessments for our allocations for the next three years. They tell us that there is no disproportionate negative impact on women and girls across our multilateral and central spending.
I will be honest about how this came about. We made a set of decisions and commissioned the equalities impact assessment. It came back and I did not like what I was reading, so we changed some decisions as a consequence and published the assessment. That is why noble Lords will see some programmes protected, even though in their essence they go against some of the changes and modernisation moves that we wanted to make in our development spend, because they are centrally managed programmes. They are run in a way which is about service provision. They could be accused—it seems an odd thing to say—of generating dependency or being duplicate systems. But if we were not looking at giving out contraception in areas of the Sahel, then the idea that you could strengthen a government system that would be willing to do that work is, I think, just not realistic or practical at this stage, so those things continue.
We have protected central programme spending both on violence against women and girls and on women, peace and security, where our work continues to support women peacebuilders and women’s rights organisations in some of the world’s most dangerous and fragile places. We have protected funding for Education Cannot Wait, ensuring that girls continue to get an education in even the most difficult conditions, and we have increased the proportion of country and regional spending in fragile and conflict-affected states, where women and girls are often at the most risk. This will rise to over 70% of our portfolio by 2028-29.
Like noble Lords, including—I am so sorry, I want to call her Lynne, which I know is highly inappropriate—the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, I have had the privilege to serve as a Development Minister, as others have too. I have been there in makeshift shelters listening to women who have endured the worst experiences that most of us could ever imagine: in Chad, with women fleeing the war in Sudan; with Rohingya women in Bangladesh; and with those escaping hideous conflict in DRC. I have heard their stories, held their children and their hands, and I know, as many have rightly said, that they are not numbers or names on a list. In the words that we have heard this afternoon and which were said to me by women on these occasions, they are our sisters. We support these women, though not just with aid. We must do more. We have to make ourselves really focus on the outcomes that we achieve, not just what we put into the system. We have to be responsible for the outcome of everything that we spend.
As the UK shifts from being a donor to a long-term partner and investor, we have got to focus on strengthening the systems that countries rely on, so that they can thrive even when aid is cut. The modern partnerships we are seeking to build will use investment and economic growth to expand opportunity for women and girls. That is one reason why British International Investment’s new strategy will increase investments supporting women’s economic empowerment from 25% to 30% of its core portfolio. This investment will support more women for longer, and in a more sustainable way, than traditional programming ever could.
We must have some humility about the limit of what our traditional aid spending could ever achieve. The world spends around $70 billion ODA in Africa; the development gap is $1.3 trillion, so there is a lot more that needs to be done. There is money in markets in Europe and North America that never goes anywhere near Africa. Part of our role, the leadership that the UK can provide, is about making sure that that money can get into those developing economies and do real good in the longer term.
As noble Lords have said, we must not just contend with cuts in ODA. There was a real issue with rollback and political hostility to this agenda. Our commitment to this agenda is reflected not just in the choices we have made here but in our wider diplomatic work. In May, the Foreign Secretary announced a new international coalition to end violence against women and girls, to prevent violence, protect women and girls, and hold perpetrators to account. Next year, the UK will convene a major summit on tackling violence against women and girls, providing a platform for countries to set out further commitments and report on progress so that we can learn from each other.
As noble Baronesses—mostly—have said, we want the multilateral system to raise its standards and build coalitions, defending the global consensus on women’s rights in international conventions and agreements, and in our partnerships with multilateral institutions. I could go on a lot more about our commitment to Gavi and the Global Fund and how we are now the biggest contributor to UNFPA, but we are probably short of time.
Women and girls’ rights are fundamental to global stability, prosperity and sustainable development. That is why we have taken decisions on where we spend our ODA mindfully. While budgets have changed, our commitment absolutely has not, and we will continue to champion the safety and rights of women and girls around the world because it is the right thing to do and is fundamental to the prosperity, security and stability that we seek for every woman and every girl everywhere.
Modern Service Framework for Dementia and Frailty
(1 month ago)
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Lord Weir of Ballyholme
To ask His Majesty’s Government how the Modern Service Framework for Dementia and Frailty will improve dementia diagnosis, ensure robust and acceptable clinical data and performance metrics, and enable access to innovative treatments.
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (DUP)
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to raise what is both an important and timely issue. There is a truism which certainly affects my family, indeed most families: many years ago, it would have been said that the terrible scourge of cancer had touched pretty much every family in the country and that most had lost at least one loved one. With dementia now being the single largest cause of death in the United Kingdom, that truism about cancer is becoming more and more relevant and accurate for describing dementia as well.
Given what I think is the universal nature of the dementia issue, we should all be on the same side and the same page on this, and I believe that we are. To that extent, the modern service framework offers a golden opportunity to set the strategic direction, and its practical implementation, for the future of dementia services within the United Kingdom. I am encouraged to learn of a number of groups with which there has been co-operation from the department in drawing up that document. It would be helpful for the Minister to give us a little more detail today of the extent of the co-design of the modern service framework, and to update the Committee on the timescale for the interim and final reports of the framework. It is therefore important that we get this right, because none of us want to see the modern service framework become a missed opportunity. That is why the details need to be right.
In the brief time available to me today, I will touch on four areas which are critical to the modern service framework. First, there is reduction of risk. A recent survey carried out by Alzheimer’s Research UK indicated that 84% of people wanted to know more about what they could do to reduce the risk of dementia, but, in that same poll, only 8% had any level of confidence that anything they could do could help to avoid or delay it. We know from international global studies that, currently, about 14 risk factors have been identified. I think this will become more and more relevant as our medical knowledge develops over the years to come.
It is important that reduction of risk is built into the modern service framework. That means looking at practical steps and at what is being done to try to identify high-risk groups—for example, how we will incorporate positive brain-health messaging into NHS health checks—and at how we can increase access to secondary prevention, through methodologies such as the memory assessment services and emerging brain health clinics, and integrate these with neighbourhood health centres. Reducing risk therefore has a critical role.
Secondly, there is the critical issue of diagnosis. We know it is estimated that perhaps a little over one-third of people with dementia are as yet undiagnosed. When we delve into that for early-onset dementia, the figures fall to probably less than half currently being diagnosed. There is a wide variety—a very patchy provision—across the country in the speed and extent of diagnosis. For example, if we look at early-onset dementia, the time taken for diagnosis is, generally speaking, about twice the length of time as for anybody else with dementia.
There is also an issue about the quality of the data generated from that diagnosis and the specificity that is able to be provided in the diagnosis. Therefore, it is important that the modern service framework looks at what the pre-existing options are for diagnosing Alzheimer’s. For example, if we look at PET scans and CSF testing, how can we embed those more and then embrace the next-generation technology of blood tests? Having commitments to that within the MSF is important, but it is also the case that we need to standardise coding across health and care settings, so that we can have standardised data in that regard. I say to the Government that it is important that they look, through the modern service framework, towards increasing the rate of diagnosis and ensuring that there is a greater level of consistency of diagnosis across the country.
Thirdly, and related to that, is the issue of research. We know that research and diagnosis in many ways go hand in hand, because if we do not have the volume of people being diagnosed, or if it is slower, that obviously impacts on the ability for clinical trials but will also impact the individual’s ability to get that early intervention as quickly as possible. Many of us see a golden opportunity in the years ahead. We are hopefully at the cusp or dawn of a new era of medical advances as regards dementia, which could either delay or even at some stage, we hope, prevent dementia in many cases. I commend to the Government the very recent publication of Ready for the Cure, which has been produced by the Alzheimer’s Research Society. I urge them to look at it. Within that, we need to learn how the Government see additional commitment to research through the modern service framework. Will it be focused on strengthening the research pipeline, and perhaps on creating a national dementia innovation team and national dementia datasets, so that we do not have a wide variety of those?
There is also a challenge, when looking at treatments, with the current position of NICE. There is a concern that its cost-benefit analysis does not take fully into account the extent of the burden on carers, even from the financial point of view. That needs to be fed a lot better into the system. As part of that, we need to ensure that not only do we get the research, but that the NHS is research-ready, so that whenever we have it available it can be implemented quickly.
Finally, I want to touch on the issue of pathways. Obviously, diagnosis is just the start rather than the end of a journey. Again, we have somewhat patchy quality in the pathways across the country. We need to standardise that and create a pathway applicable to everyone, probably with a level of variation—we would need something slightly different for those with early-onset dementia. Arising out of that, we will need to address gaps in infrastructure and staffing levels. In looking at pathways, we should not forget end-of-life palliative care and how we can invest in that. I welcome the debate and look forward to the contributions of others and the response of the Minister.
Baroness Nargund (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, for securing this important debate, and I welcome the Government’s commitment to delivering the modern service framework for dementia and frailty. Dementia is not gender neutral. We may not have a cure at the moment, but we can cure the inequity in access to research, clinical trials, early diagnosis and effective treatments.
In England, more than 500,000 people now have a recorded diagnosis of dementia, and nearly two-thirds of them are women. Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease have been the leading cause of death for women in England and Wales since 2011. Almost two-thirds of unpaid carers for people with dementia are also women. Women live longer, but longevity alone does not explain this disparity. The APOE4 gene increases women’s risk of Alzheimer’s disease more than men’s.
The emerging evidence suggests that the hormonal changes associated with menopause may increase vulnerability. The hormone oestrogen is vital for memory formation, as it is essential for effective communication between neurons in the part of the brain involved in memory. The link between dementia and menopause extends beyond misdiagnosis, yet until recently, the relationship between menopause and dementia received remarkably little scientific attention. We need more research about the risks of developing dementia in women who undergo early or premature menopause. As the noble Lord, Lord Weir, mentioned, we need to work on reducing risk and, where possible, identify who is at high risk of developing dementia. Part of that involves identifying the risk in women going through early or premature menopause.
This has a human cost. Karen Barber from Essex devoted more than a decade of her life to public service at HM Passport Office and HMRC. In her 50s, her memory and organisational skills began to deteriorate. Her symptoms were repeatedly attributed to menopause and stress. She was repeatedly told that her symptoms were “in her mind”. Without a diagnosis, she was dismissed from her job for poor performance. More than 10 years later, and only after paying privately for a specialist assessment, she was finally diagnosed with young-onset dementia. Karen’s story is not simply one of illness; it is a story of delayed diagnosis, lost employment, financial hardship for the family and a system that failed to recognise the disease at the time.
For too long, medicine has been built around a male standard. Women’s underrepresentation in research and the failure to analyse differences between the sexes have left important gaps in our understanding of dementia. As we have known for a long time, studies show that women are underrepresented in dementia clinical trials relative to the burden of disease they bear. One review found that, among 118 dementia trials, only eight reported outcomes separately for women and men. In several studies, treatment benefits appeared greater in men, reminding us that biological sex may influence how medicines work. If we do not measure these differences, we cannot deliver gender-based care and the truly personalised, precision medicine that everyone deserves. I therefore warmly welcome the framework’s commitment to expanding dementia clinical trials, which is absolutely necessary and urgent, and the confirmation that participation will increase to 2,000 people over the next five years.
Innovation reduces inequalities only if it is designed for everyone. This is not only a health challenge for women, it is also an economic one. Women already face a substantial gender pension gap, and many leave the workforce prematurely because of caring responsibilities or their own ill health. For women with young-onset dementia, like Karen Barber, years of lost earnings, delayed diagnosis and interrupted careers compound lifetime financial disadvantage. Preventing dementia becoming a pathway into poverty should be part of our national ambition. Women bear a double burden when it comes to dementia, as I said earlier—I repeat it. They constitute the majority of those living with dementia and the majority of those caring for people with dementia. Too often, they also constitute the majority of those overlooked by research, clinical trials and clinicians.
If this modern service framework is truly to be once in a generation, it must place women not at the margins but at its very heart when it comes to clinical trials and early diagnosis. As the noble Lord, Lord Weir, said, this is a huge opportunity to achieve that. Can my noble friend the Minister assure the Committee that sex and gender differences will be embedded throughout the modern service framework, from research funding and clinical trial design to the adoption of new diagnostics and treatments with proportionate representation of women? That includes ethnic minority women, because there are some differences in clinical trials and mandatory reporting of sex-disaggregated outcomes. If we are serious about precision medicine, which we should be, it must be precision medicine for all women.
Baroness Wyld (Con)
My Lords, I too thank the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, for securing this debate and for setting out the issues, as he did so comprehensively and with great expertise. We are very grateful to him.
Like so many people up and down the country—and, as I know, in your Lordships’ House—I too have experience of helping to care for relatives with dementia. The first time was over 20 years ago, and now our family joins many others in trying to navigate the challenge of a recent diagnosis. I have been reflecting on what has changed since I first tried to help a relative over 20 years ago, and I want to start on an optimistic note, because the medical landscape is different.
As we have heard, we have entered an era where the first disease-modifying therapies have been licensed. Innovation in diagnostics is enabling us to accurately identify disease earlier in the trajectory, and blood tests in NHS trials could make the diagnostic pathway easier. So, recent breakthroughs have at last delivered hope, if we build a healthcare and research system that is ready to adopt and deliver these innovations at scale as soon as they become available.
I am grateful for the briefings I have received. The joint letter from Dementia UK, Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Alzheimer’s Society in the very helpful Library briefing confirmed that there is
“a clear opportunity to change the trajectory of dementia—if the system is ready to act”.
However, it also stressed that
“we must recognise that the health and care system is failing to deliver the outcomes that people with dementia deserve today”.
The contrast between scientific progress and the daily reality faced by many patients can be jarring. Every dementia experience is of course unique to the individual, but the vast majority of families face similar hurdles: the emotional toll, the labyrinth of health and social care services and the struggle to access specialised support. It can be a very lonely journey, and I know that for many families, it takes a crisis for help to arrive, so I ask the Government to ensure that the framework is built on a true understanding of the experience of patients and carers.
In a debate on Alzheimer’s in October 2025, the Minister described the framework as taking “a whole view”. My hope is that this means it will take a whole view of the person and indeed of the system. The title of the report from Alzheimer’s Research UK, which the noble Lord, Lord Weir, rightly referred to, is Ready for the Cure. It also highlights that dementia is one of the most feared health conditions, as we have heard. Yet we may also have a once-in-a-generation chance to move to a more preventive treatment model. We must ensure that the UK’s scientific excellence is translated into impact for patients and their families. I would be most grateful if the noble Baroness could set out how she envisages the framework achieving this.
We have so many strengths in the UK: there has been political will from past Governments and from this Government and many global leaders in the field are based here. As part of the 2012 Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia, the UK established the UK Dementia Research Institute, a beacon of scientific innovation, and the last Government established the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme.
We are also gaining a better understanding of prevention. The Lancet commission suggested that 45% of cases of dementia are preventable, as the noble Lord, Lord Weir, referred to. We know that it is about managing risks where we can through lifestyle interventions—what is good for the heart is good for the head—and through better health system management, particularly of conditions such as diabetes. I also want to flag that recent successive studies have shown that people who have had the shingles vaccine have a low incidence of dementia. The shingles vaccine is one of a number of vaccines where studies have suggested some preventive cognitive benefit. Understanding the science behind this better will help shape future vaccine advice, and I wonder whether the Government have thought about this as part of the strategy and whether the Minister can comment.
Finally, but most importantly, let us remember the importance of kindness and empathy. I think about the number of people I have known who have sat in a room to hear a diagnosis and, indeed, the times when I have heard news about a family member. Each time, the reaction has been: where do we go next and who can help us? The Secretary of State has set out the importance of enabling patients to live well in their own neighbourhoods. This relies on a properly resourced workforce across health and social care, with the skills and kindness to help patients and their families manage a heartbreaking disease. Navigating post-diagnostic support is difficult, even with an advocate. I hope the Minister will be able to comment on the Government’s approach to care plans. This framework must move us away from a fragmented approach which too often let-down patients and families. We stand at an inflection point. I hope the Government recognise the urgency, because decisions taken now will shape how millions of people experience the hardest chapter of their lives. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Pidgeon (LD)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, for tabling this Question for Short Debate and for his comprehensive opening words which set the tone for this short but perfectly formed debate, giving us the opportunity to consider what the modern service framework for dementia and frailty needs to deliver. If it is to succeed, it should set clear national standards backed by funding and accountability so that a diagnosis opens the door to real support and access to new treatments as they become available.
As we have heard, dementia is the UK’s leading cause of death, with almost 1 million people currently living with the condition. This is projected to rise to 1.4 million by 2040. The noble Baroness, Lady Nargund, pointed out that two-thirds of them are women and referred to the interesting research on hormonal changes, the menopause and its links to developing dementia. That is important and something that we need to consider.
Research is advancing rapidly. There are, I understand, 158 drugs in 192 clinical trials globally. The first disease-modifying treatments are now licensed in the UK. However, people can access trials for innovative treatments only when they are diagnosed early—making diagnosis at the earliest stages increasingly important. It would be good to hear from the Minister what work the Government are undertaking to ensure easier access to trials. Alzheimer’s Research UK estimates that close to one-third of people over 65 living with dementia in England still do not have a recorded diagnosis, so closing that diagnostic gap is critical.
A UCL-led trial—supported by the Alzheimer’s Society, Alzheimer’s Research UK, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Gates Ventures and players of the Postcode Lottery—began testing a blood test for Alzheimer’s disease in NHS memory services last year, offering a simpler, less invasive route to diagnosis than current methods. If this proves reliable, the framework should be ready to support its rollout across the NHS.
As we have heard, Alzheimer’s Research UK has launched a new policy report today, Ready for the Cure: A Blueprint for UK Leadership in Dementia Research, which sets out a series of recommendations to address the key structural barriers to advancing dementia research. I hope to hear, perhaps, an initial reflection on that report when we hear from the Minister.
However, a diagnosis on its own is not enough. NHS England’s data shows that more than one-quarter of people living with a dementia diagnosis did not receive a care plan in the past year and that specialist support, such as Admiral nurses, remains patchy and dependent on where someone lives. That gap matters most in the weeks after diagnosis, when families are trying to understand what has changed and what support is available to them. The noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, set out her family’s personal experience. As for others, with that diagnosis of dementia, the question is: where should we turn? What happens next? It is a picture about which we hear so often from many families.
Dementia UK and others have called for specialist dementia nursing to be part of every neighbourhood health team. If the framework is genuinely to modernise dementia care, diagnosis, treatment, care planning and support for carers, which is so important, it must be designed and funded as a single pathway. As the ageing population grows and new dementia treatments emerge, the demand for diagnosis will inevitably rise. The forthcoming framework presents a clear opportunity for standardising the pathways for referral, assessment and treatment, for robust data capture and reporting and for reducing the variation in service across the country, which we hear about so often. As the noble Lord, Lord Weir, rightly stressed, we need to get this right. Our discussion on prevention is also an important part of this.
I turn to frailty, which makes up the other half of this framework. Around one in 10 people over 65 live with it, and the figure rises to as many as half of those aged over 85. Last month, the Commons Public Accounts Committee reported that only 17% of patients aged over 65 had had a frailty assessment recorded by their GP in the past year, well short of what is needed to ensure that those living with frailty have access to treatment. For those already identified as being most at risk, only 16% had had a medication review and 18% had had a falls risk assessment. This is in a service that is meant to reach everyone in that group. If frailty is to sit alongside dementia in the framework, it deserves the same focus on early identification, consistent standards and timely intervention. Bringing these two conditions together in one framework creates a real opportunity to establish common principles across both. If the framework is going to achieve everything, it must make a meaningful difference to people living with dementia and frailty, as well as to their families and the support networks that care for them.
I look forward to the Minister’s reply to this debate and hope to hear of a timescale and resource commitment to this important area.
Lord Kamall (Con)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Weir of Ballyholme, for securing this important debate. I also thank all those who sent us briefings, as well as all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate.
Dementia remains one of the greatest health and social care challenges facing our country. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, rightly said, and as other noble Lords agreed, dementia is said to be the leading cause of death in the UK, with nearly 1 million people in the UK currently living with dementia, a figure that is expected to rise significantly over coming decades as our population ages. As the noble Lord, Lord Weir, said, this is a condition that touches most, if not all, families. My noble friend Lady Wyld spoke movingly about her experience. I have started to experience it in my own family because my mother is in the early stages; I have to fly over every so often to give her some sort of respite, as it were.
That demonstrates that behind every diagnosis is not only the individual but their families, their friends and their carers, whose lives are profoundly affected. As my noble friend Lady Wyld said, it calls for a whole view of the person as much as a whole view of the system. Against that backdrop, I think we all welcome the modern service framework and see it as an important opportunity. However, for it to succeed, it must do more than simply list aspirations. It must provide a practical road map on, first, improving diagnosis, secondly, strengthening the evidence base, and, thirdly, ensuring that the NHS and other healthcare providers are prepared to adopt new innovations as they emerge.
If we look at the current state of diagnosis, we find that around one in three people living with dementia remains undiagnosed. Even when someone receives a diagnosis, the precise type of dementia—such as Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal dementia or any other rare type of dementia—is often unspecified. That makes a huge difference because it helps you determine the most appropriate treatments. How can you do that if the type of dementia is not diagnosed?
Early diagnosis not only allows patients and their families to plan and access support sooner; thanks to the continuous advances in research, about which noble Lords have spoken, it will allow patients to access treatments that could possibly slow disease progression. Can the Minister tell us how the modern service framework will support more consistent diagnostic pathways across England? Given the significant regional variation that currently exists, how will resources be targeted to those areas with lower dementia diagnosis rates? What role does the Minister’s department see community diagnostic centres, neighbourhood health centres and primary care playing in this early diagnosis?
I turn to the evidence base, which is the crux of the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Weir. It refers to
“robust and acceptable clinical data and performance metrics”,
which will be key to improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment. Without good-quality, consistent data, we cannot know whether patients are receiving appropriate care, where services are improving or where additional support is needed. Can the Minister tell the Committee how the modern service framework will establish a consistent national approach to collecting dementia data? Will it include meaningful outcome measures that reflect patients’ experiences as well as clinical activity? How will that data be used to drive improvement, rather than being simply about reporting requirements?
I turn to innovation. As other noble Lords have said, we are entering a transformative period in dementia research. Scientific understanding has advanced considerably in recent years, with disease-modifying treatments emerging and more therapies under investigation. This gives us cause for some optimism, particularly when it comes to prevention. Growing evidence suggests that around 45% of dementia cases may be preventable or delayed by addressing modifiable risk factors. Given the mantra “from sickness to prevention”, with which all noble Lords would agree, can the Minister explain how the modern service framework will embed brain health and dementia prevention across our system of healthcare, whether through NHS health checks or other public health initiatives? It would be useful for us to know which particular initiatives will play a role.
As the Minister will be aware, preventing or delaying dementia where possible would improve quality of life for individuals. It would also reduce pressure on not only them and their families but our systems of health and social care. Can the Minister explain how the modern service framework will prepare the NHS, first, to adopt new diagnostic tests and innovative treatments as the evidence develops; and, secondly, to try to reduce those delays as much as possible while maintaining safety?
We know that innovation is driven by research. The Secretary of State has accepted the recommendation of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, to increase participation in dementia clinical trials to 2,000 people over the next few years. That is welcome but, as other noble Lords have said, participation in dementia research remains strikingly low despite the growing number of clinical trials now under way internationally. I was very much struck by the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Nargund, who spoke about the underrepresentation of women in clinical trials. We must also do more to understand the links between dementia and other conditions, which are interesting; one mentioned by the noble Baroness is that between the menopause and dementia. Can the Minister say how the Government intend not only to achieve the target of 2,000 trialists but to create a generally research-ready, research-led system of healthcare?
The UK is already a leader in some areas of health research, but, in recent meetings with life sciences companies, I have heard some of them talk about how much more difficult it is becoming to conduct clinical trials in this country. The UK is still a leader, but we must always look behind us as well as looking ahead because, clearly, there are some concerns among life sciences companies. If the United Kingdom is to realise its ambition of becoming a world leader in dementia research, participation in clinical trials cannot be viewed as an optional extra; it must become an integral part of high-quality dementia care.
While we are here, I ask the Minister for her views, as the noble Lord, Lord Weir, said, on NICE’s health technology assessments, including whether there is a way in which we could start to consider the contribution that a treatment could make to society and others. I understand that we had a separate debate and that there were some concerns from the Government, but I would like to hear the Minister’s views on this.
The challenge of dementia extends far beyond healthcare alone. It affects social care, housing, research and innovation, and it is itself affected by these factors. At the human level, it affects not only the individual but their families every single day. The modern service framework is an important opportunity to ensure that our health system is ready for the remarkable scientific advances that are beginning to emerge.
I realise that, in my usual Socratic way, I have asked the Minister many questions, some of which will be answered today, and others which she will diligently respond to in writing. But the gist of all these questions from me and other noble Lords is to remind her that the framework will be judged not simply by its ambitions but by whether research gives us better understanding of prevention and treatment. It will be judged by whether more people receive an earlier diagnosis and gain faster access to innovative treatments—and by whether people in England diagnosed with or at risk of dementia will one day be able to live longer lives in good health.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Baroness Merron) (Lab)
My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Weir, on securing this debate. It has clearly engaged so many and I, for one, am pleased about the positive reaction. He mentioned at the outset that we are all agreed. I am sure that this outbreak of unanimity is always helpful when trying to make progress.
A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, and the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, just now, spoke about the personal impact—as did the noble Lord, Lord Weir, and all other noble Lords—on the person but also on their families, their communities and those around them. That is very much at the core of the modern service framework. The noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, described the challenge of a lonely, crisis-driven system. That is not how it should be, and it is not serving as it should.
I want to set out at the beginning that everyone with dementia and frailty, and their loved ones, deserves high-quality, compassionate, joined-up care and support. Indeed, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, that the framework will take a view of the whole person and the whole system. That is the way in which we will deliver. I am grateful, not just for the welcome but for the description of this as a golden opportunity, which the noble Lord, Lord Weir, talked about, and as a once-in-a-generation opportunity, as the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, said. We absolutely recognise the points being raised by all noble Lords because the system we have has to, and will, change.
That is why we are developing and will deliver the first ever modern service framework for frailty and dementia. It will be all about the outcomes—to pick up some of the points asked. It will be a blueprint for how we develop that shift that we are all seeking. It will also work across both health and care settings, which is absolutely crucial. It is important that the MSF is delivered in this way because it acknowledges that dementia and frailty so often coexist. They are hard to distinguish and there is no need to do so. The MSF will also outline, when we look to the future, how we harness the innovations that have the potential to transform care.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Weir, that I am grateful for the engagement that we have had with such a wide range of stakeholders, including those with lived experience, and carers, without whom we could not develop this in the right way. They also include clinicians, adult social care, the NHS and charity partners. As noble Lords will have seen, the immediate findings from the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, on social care made some immediate recommendations on dementia, and we have embraced them straight away. That includes the establishment of a new dementia leadership role in the department with the power to drive action forward. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, on the tests that he set; I am totally on board with those. It is only by action, outcomes and change for the better that we will be able to judge it. Otherwise, it is just a piece of paper, and there is no point in doing that.
On the question about timelines from the noble Lord, Lord Weir, we seek to publish the full modern service framework by the end of the year, as recommended by the noble Baroness, Lady Casey; we are glad to accept that. To answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, it will set national standards and redirect NHS priorities, because we cannot pretend that we can do this as things are.
There has rightly been a discussion about clinical data, which the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, raised, and performance matrix. There are many interventions to consider as we improve dementia and frailty care. That is why we are considering all options—I emphasise that. We want to look at the interventions with the best evidence and outcomes. Through the MSF, we will set standards, so we can measure against them, on how interventions should be used, and we will review the metrics and performance data necessary to monitor these standards.
I turn to the question of timely and accurate diagnosis, which we know is vital to delivering excellent care. It is, in effect, a gateway to vital advice, information and support. That is why we are committed to recovering the dementia diagnosis rate to the national figure of 66.7%. Importantly, that includes a validated diagnosis of dementia subtype—it is important not to just lump everything together. The framework will look at how we improve diagnosis waiting times, which are too long in many areas, as well as addressing unwanted variation in dementia diagnosis rates across the country and across different groups, as raised by the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, and my noble friend Lady Nargund.
The noble Lord, Lord Weir, referred to the Ready for the Cure report, which deals with research and access to treatments and is very pertinent to the immediate recommendations of the noble Baroness, Lady Casey. I can say in response that, through government funders such as NIHR, we continue to invest in dementia research, including speeding up the development of potential treatments, which was also much called for in today’s debate.
The noble Lord, Lord Weir, rightly raised the risk factors and the noble Baroness, Lady Wyld, talked about the Lancet commission, which has been very helpful in identifying global risk factors for dementia and the extent to which they are reducible. The NIHR-funded dementia and neurodegeneration policy research units are supporting the development of our understanding of where we have an opportunity to reduce risk. I will be pleased to keep updating the House on that ongoing work.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pidgeon, asked about easier access to trials. We are working to fast-track clinical trials, because we want to drive global investment in life sciences as well as provide opportunities for individuals. I have spoken about the acceleration of the development of medicines. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, that we have made the UK an infinitely more attractive place for clinical trials, not least by stripping out bureaucracy and unnecessary obstacles. We have reduced the period to way below the 150-day ambition that we set.
We are ensuring, as my noble friend Lady Nargund asked, that research opportunities are available, irrespective of who people are and where they live. The women’s health strategy makes particular reference to the point she raised on the link between menopause and dementia. The NIHR continues to work on funding for applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including that link. Our investment continues. We have already adopted the target of 2,000 people participating in dementia trials within the next five years; it currently stands at 377. I believe that by improving the UK’s attractiveness for dementia trials, we will be able to drive forward improvements beyond what we have currently.
There was a number of particular points, and I will be very pleased to write to noble Lords on specifics. All the specifics raised today are key to how we improve the potential of the MSF, and we are keen to continue to work on that.
The Government absolutely recognise, and are with noble Lords on, the need to improve diagnosis and to have that robust data and the access to innovative treatments. I believe that the modern service framework will deliver that and drive them forward, as well as the other provisions, in a way that we do not have access to now. It is a time to be positive, and I am glad noble Lords spoke in that way, because I, too, share that feeling.