House of Commons
Royal Assent
Mr Speaker
I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that His Majesty has signified his Royal Assent to the following Act:
Sovereign Grant Act 2026.
Oral Answers to Questions
(2 days ago)
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Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Angela Rayner)
Earlier this month, at the UK’s first wildfires summit, the Prime Minister and I announced that military aircraft will tackle wildfires that ground crews cannot reach. The RAF Chinook helicopters and other aircraft will be available to fight fires and help crews across the UK. My hon. Friend will be aware that fire and rescue services are devolved in Scotland, but Ministers and officials will work across Government, including with the Cabinet Office, and engage with the Scottish Government to strengthen our collective approach.
Torcuil Crichton
I draw the attention of the House to my role as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for volunteer rescue services. These people are out there on call—on land, sea and mountains—to help the public. The Secretary of State’s statement is very welcome. As recent events, like the wildfires, have shown, these volunteers are a key part of our emergency response and resilience. Does she agree that there should be a dedicated point of contact for volunteer rescue organisations in Government, and that Ministers ought to consider bringing forward a volunteers charter, using the template of the veterans charter, to recognise and acknowledge the contribution of volunteers, their families and their employers in our fourth emergency service?
Angela Rayner
Across the UK, volunteer search and rescue teams are an indispensable part of Britain’s emergency response system. I thank my hon. Friend for his campaigning on this issue. His APPG for volunteer rescue services turns frontline experience into practical policy change—most recently, with the exemption of search and rescue vehicles from vehicle excise duty. I will raise the group’s latest suggestions with ministerial colleagues.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond and Northallerton) (Con)
Following the complex rescue of a lady at Aysgarth Falls earlier this year, I want to pay tribute to Swaledale mountain rescue and the North Yorkshire fire and rescue service. In particular, Swaledale mountain rescue relies on dedicated volunteers to respond to emergencies right across the Yorkshire dales. Will the Secretary of State join me in praising its contribution to our rural community and continuing to support close co-ordination between its volunteer efforts and local statutory emergency services?
Angela Rayner
I am very happy to join the right hon. Member in paying tribute to Swaledale mountain rescue and its dedicated volunteers. The rescue that he references demonstrates the vital work that they do, alongside the fire and rescue service, and I thank them for everything that they do to keep us safe.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
This Government are determined to achieve high and sustainable rates of house building, which is precisely why we have undertaken the most rapid, holistic and radical overhaul of the housing and planning system in decades. The headwinds are without question severe, but there are encouraging signs of progress, not least the 15% increase in housing starts that we saw over the last 12 months, ending in June this year.
John Cooper
Statistics are like bathing costumes: what they reveal is interesting, and what they conceal is absolutely vital. The statistics we heard in that answer conceal the fact that this Government are on line to build fewer houses than the last Conservative Government did in a parliamentary term blighted by covid, when many building sites were completely shut down. When it comes to housing, this Government are drowning, not waving, aren’t they?
Matthew Pennycook
This Government are building, and that 15% increase in starts is a testament to that. I have lost count of the number of times that I have made it clear in this Chamber that our 1.5 million new homes target is an incredibly stretching one, but we remain committed to it. We will not take lectures from a party that fell short of its own distinctly unambitious target of 1 million homes in the last Parliament.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
In coastal communities like mine, the issue is not the rate of house building, but the rate of affordable house building. In 2024-25, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole council built just 89 affordable homes. What plans do the Government have to take back land that developers are banking and to start building the council houses we need?
Matthew Pennycook
My hon. Friend will not have to wait long for a package of build-out transparency measures, which will include the right for local authorities to refuse permission in instances where particular developers repeatedly get planning consent but do not build out the sites.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
In an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper), the Minister said that there were “encouraging signs of progress”, but the truth is that the housing industry faces a bleaker and bleaker future under this Government: housing completions are at their lowest for more than a decade; planning permissions are down 31%; output is down 6%; London is at a standstill; and the Government are just 29% of the way through their target in nearly half the time allotted for it. Does the Minister agree that this broken record of failure needs urgent repair?
Matthew Pennycook
There is no record of failure: there has been a 15% increase in housing starts over the 12 months up to June. We will remain committed to that target. What is the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues’ answer to this problem? It is worth noting that in its recent assessment, the Office for Budget Responsibility made it clear that the changes we have made to the national planning policy framework will, on their own, “boost housebuilding significantly”, yet the Conservatives opposed them. Are they going to change their position in light of the macroeconomic challenges facing house builders across the country?
Gareth Bacon
The Minister wants to talk about the OBR, so let us do that. Last week, the OBR was damning in its assessment of the viability of house building in England. It highlighted how regulatory and fiscal burdens are crushing viability. The Chancellor promised no new building regulations, but that is not enough. The Minister knows that viability—or, rather, the lack of it—is killing the house building sector. The existing environmental and net zero regulations and taxes are causing the viability crisis, so will the Minister join me in supporting the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam), with her plan to cut £50,000 of regulation and taxes from the cost of building new homes to make sites viable again?
Matthew Pennycook
There is no doubt that viability pressures are acute across the country, but I draw the shadow Minister’s attention—I know he agrees with me on this—to the fact that many of the regulations highlighted by the OBR in its recent assessment were introduced by the Conservatives during the last Parliament, and they included measures on building safety and biodiversity net gain. We know that the Conservatives would now scrap the future homes standard, ensuring that customers pay higher bills and that we have to retrofit even more homes in the future. Perhaps the shadow Minister could tell us what other safety, decency or environmental requirements the they now plan to slash.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
The increase in starts is welcome, but the Government’s package of reforms was designed to increase consents. The most recent quarterly figures show that although consent applications are down, the rate of granted consents remains high at 88%—that figure is over 90% when councillors are involved in making the planning decisions. Does that not show that taking away powers to make decisions on major applications—those of over 150 homes—from councillors through the NPPF has made no difference whatsoever to the number of consents? Will the Government give those powers back to councillors, who support over 90% of applications when they come to committee?
Matthew Pennycook
I think the hon. Gentleman is talking about the national scheme of delegation. Those powers were only commenced on Saturday, so he is a bit premature in saying that they have had no impact.
Gideon Amos
The Minister clearly did not hear: I referred to the removal of councillors’ powers to make decisions on applications relating to over 150 homes, which happened at an early stage of the year.
Moving on, the warm homes grant has come in for cuts. We have now discovered that not only is £1 billion being cut from the scheme, but an extra £1.5 billion will be cut from the loan system that goes towards those warm homes. How will people get the renewable energy and efficient homes they need if the scheme is being dismantled in this way?
Matthew Pennycook
I will leave my ministerial colleagues in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero to answer on the warm homes plan specifically. However, I hope the hon. Gentleman agrees that when it comes to decency, safety and quality, this Government have taken a number of steps, including Awaab’s law, a new decent homes standard, new minimum energy efficiency standards and a new future homes standard. I know he agrees that that future homes standard should be kept in place, not abolished as the Conservative party would have us do.
Martin Wrigley (Newton Abbot) (LD)
The Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith (Florence Eshalomi)
We are grateful to everyone who has opened their home to Ukrainians. Over £1.8 billion has supported the scheme. Funding changes for Homes for Ukraine are sustainable; thank you payments continue recognition of a host’s generosity, and host retention depends on individual decisions and cannot be reliably estimated. Our councils retain the funding for re-matching and homelessness prevention.
Martin Wrigley
With the dropping of the thank you payment from £350 to £100 on 1 January, many hosts find that their costs are no longer being covered and are considering evicting their guests. Hosts and guests are being encouraged to move to a lodger scheme using the “rent a room” scheme. I am told that the going rate for a room in my constituency is around £600, and universal credit would pay a lot more than the £350 saved from the thank you payment. In addition, Ukrainian guests would lose the help available from the local authority to move on to a first private rental. All in all, this reduction in the thank you payment looks likely to cost the state more than it might save and to reduce the help on offer to our Ukrainian guests. Will the Minister meet me and local Ukrainian hosts, or would she prefer to think again about the reduction?
Florence Eshalomi
The Government remain committed to supporting Ukrainians in the long term. The funding changes are designed to ensure the long-term sustainability of the scheme. Councils can retain flexibility for funding and re-matching and for looking at homelessness prevention, including by helping guests to find accommodation and overcome any barriers to private renting. Existing host arrangements can move to lodging or rental agreements, and we will continue to monitor any issues around homelessness and will work with councils to respond as pressures emerge.
Ben Goldsborough (South Norfolk) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jim McMahon)
Standards in local government are important. The Localism Act 2011 requires every local authority in England to adopt a code of conduct that conforms to the Nolan principles. The Government are committed to a whole system reform of the local government standards framework to make it stronger and more efficient, including with stronger sanctions, and we will legislate when parliamentary time allows.
Ben Goldsborough
Despite concerns, Reform rushed through the appointment of Norfolk county council’s new CEO, Dennis Bacon. Thanks to Councillor Ben Weston, we now know that Mr Bacon hosted senior Reform councillors at his luxury B&B the day before job applications opened. Norfolk Reform has failed on three Nolan principles: selflessness, integrity and objectivity. Does my hon. Friend agree that a slap-up meal should not get someone a £215,000 job?
Jim McMahon
My hon. Friend raises concerning point. I thank my hon. Friend and Councillor Ben Weston too for highlighting the issue. I obviously cannot get into the specifics of the case—local authorities are independent employers, so individual employment decisions are a matter for them—but I am concerned that there is a pattern of conduct and behaviour in Reform councils that we would not usually find acceptable, and we should not allow it to be normalised.
Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)
Kinver Business Solutions has secured more than £1 million in project management fees from Ashfield district council. It now turns out that one of the project managers is actually the son of the chief executive of Ashfield district council. I thank the Department for arranging an appointment this week, but does the Minister agree that it is time to send the commissioners in to Ashfield district council? There is not a minute to spare.
Jim McMahon
I know that the hon. Gentleman raised the same point at Prime Minister’s questions last week, and it is clearly concerning. There should not be that type of conflict. I have written to him today, and he should have a copy of the letter in his office. We take such matters seriously. I have asked the Department to conduct an urgent best-value assessment of the local authority. Meetings are taking place with officials and the council’s chief executive to find out exactly what is going on.
Michelle Welsh (Sherwood Forest) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for the intervention that his Department has made with the rapid best-value assessment at Ashfield district council, in response to my representations over the past two months. These are extremely serious allegations, and my constituents in Hucknall have been let down badly by the council. Will the Minister confirm that urgent action is being taken? Can he say what more can be done to prevent further inappropriate decisions, especially on planning? Does he agree that the severity of the allegations warrants a referral to the police for an independent investigation?
Jim McMahon
My hon. Friend has raised this matter on a number of occasions, and I hope she received a copy of my letter on Friday after raising it further. The issue is very serious. In addition to the points I have made about the rapid best-value review and the conversations taking place with the council’s chief executive, I can also say that our officials will be contacting the external auditor to understand more details of the case.
Suella Braverman (Fareham and Waterlooville) (Reform)
The Prime Minister has made it clear that Labour councils should end their power-sharing agreements with local Green parties, following the disgracefully antisemitic motion passed by the national Green party that Zionism is racism. However, the Labour leader of Havant borough council has refused to condemn her Green party coalition partners for supporting that motion and has refused to withdraw from the coalition. Does the Minister agree that that is a breach of the Nolan principles, and will he clarify who is right: the Prime Minister, or the Labour leader of Havant borough council?
Jim McMahon
For the avoidance of doubt, I should point out that the Prime Minister is always right.
I will take no lectures from Reform on standards and conduct in local government. We hear repeated complaints about the conduct of Reform-led councils across the country—about the way in which they treat their staff, the way in which they treat each other, and the way in which, quite often, the toxicity that we see online is brought into council chambers.
David Simmonds (Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner) (Con)
The first of the Nolan principles is selflessness—acting solely in the public interest—but, according to feedback from councillors throughout the country, during the botched local government reorganisation process they felt that they were under pressure to put political considerations first: pressure that came from the previous Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed). The new Secretary of State told the House recently that she could not say whether his decision making was even lawful. Can she now tell the House whether the pressure that was put on those councillors to submit to his reorganisation agenda left them at risk of breaching the Nolan principles as well as the law?
Jim McMahon
The only pressure on us is the pressure that we place on ourselves to do the job well. As I said in my statement last week, there are no easy decisions on local reorganisation, and there is no perfect solution for most counties in England. What the Government have to do is balance competing interests and ensure that we assess the evidence base objectively, that we challenge when there may be gaps in the information provided, and, ultimately, that we make the best possible decision, and that is what we are getting on with doing.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
The housing delivery test is an annual measurement of housing delivery in local planning authority areas over a rolling historical three-year period. Chesterfield borough council achieved a housing delivery test result of 168% last year, indicating very strong delivery against the number of homes that the area requires.
Mr Perkins
I thank my hon. Friend for sharing that good news. Chesterfield borough council is keen to assist the Government by achieving those housing targets, but in areas such as Chesterfield where there has been historical industrial blight and coalmining, it is more expensive to complete certain projects than it is in areas without those challenges. Our ability to achieve the housing targets in the east of our town was dependent on the creation of the Staveley bypass, and we were disappointed to hear recently that it would not go ahead at this stage. How is my hon. Friend working with other Departments to ensure that the industrial blight of the past does not make such projects too expensive to proceed with in future?
Matthew Pennycook
I know that my hon. Friend’s council wants to play its full part in our house building ambitions. As he will know, the Government provide financial support for essential infrastructure in areas with the greatest housing demand. While I cannot express an opinion on specific plans or schemes, for reasons that I know he will appreciate, my understanding is that Chesterfield borough council foresaw the site in question coming forward later in the plan period, and in the light of the Department for Transport’s decision in respect of that particular transport upgrade, the authority may need to look again at the allocation when developing its next local plan. However, I would be happy to discuss the matter further with my hon. Friend.
Chris Ward (Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
The Government are committed to improving protections for renters and owners of park homes. On 5 March, my Department published a call for evidence with a view to establishing the rationale for the required payment of a commission of up to 10% of the sale price when a park home is sold. We continue to analyse the feedback received. I hope to be able to publish a detailed summary of the responses in the near future, and, as per the commitments that I have previously given, we will set out the Government’s final position on this matter by the end of the year.
Chris Ward
Tudor Rose Park in Peacehaven is a park home with 107 residents. Many are elderly and vulnerable; all have suffered years of unfair charges, crumbling buildings and poor maintenance. Just this morning at my surgery, two residents told me of the “despair, exploitation and intimidation” that many feel at the hands of park owners. I know that the Minister is looking at this closely, so can he tell me when the Government will act and introduce changes that will end the wild west of park homes and protect my constituents in Tudor Rose Park?
Matthew Pennycook
I am very sorry to hear about the experience of the park home owners and renters at Tudor Rose Park in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We are acting, not least in respect of the commission, and, as I have said, we will confirm the Government’s final position on that by the end of the year. Park home residents who believe that they have been bullied or intimidated should contact the Government-funded Leasehold Advisory Service for free, independent advice on their rights and the most appropriate course of action. I would like to meet my hon. Friend to hear a bit more about why, by the sound of it, some of the powers that local authorities have in this regard are not working in this instance.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
I have over half a dozen park home estates in my constituency, so I welcome the fact that the Minister and the Government are reviewing whether to get rid of the 10% charge that owners have to pay if they sell their park home. No other property owner has to pay such a charge, and my constituents feel very strongly that this is iniquitous. May I make a submission to the review on their behalf? They would be very grateful if the Minister were to abolish the charge.
Matthew Pennycook
I will take that submission. We are outside the consultation period, but I am sure we can gratefully accept it. There are a range of very strongly held views on this issue. The previous Government looked at it; they concluded that they did not have the necessary evidence and that we needed to go out again. We have done that, but as I say, we will make a decision by the end of the year.
Catherine Fookes (Monmouthshire) (Lab)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jim McMahon)
Twenty-two local authorities in Wales, including Monmouthshire, have received £34.5 million through the Pride in Place impact fund, resulting in over 200 projects to support high streets, public spaces and community facilities. The Pride in Place programme will also deliver £280 million to areas in Wales over the next 10 years, with local communities deciding how the money should be spent, helping to restore pride in local places.
Catherine Fookes
I thank the Minister for his answer and for the funding in Monmouthshire. Construction is beginning at Caldicot skate park, and I am delighted that it is just one of the projects that Monmouthshire county council is delivering. It has been made possible by Pride in Place funding from this Labour Government, and we are also going to see new public toilets with Changing Places facilities in Abergavenny and Usk, improvements to Monmouth bus station, and communal gardens at Thornwell in Chepstow. I want to see all Monmouthshire towns thrive, as I am sure the Minister does, and I really hope that this is only the beginning. When will Pride in Place funding be made available to Monmouthshire?
Jim McMahon
My hon. Friend is a fantastic champion for her constituency, and she shows the difference a local MP can make when they have a real vision for their constituency and support local communities to realise their potential. The Government are committed to making sure that communities across the UK have the tools needed to get things done in their areas. In addition to the Pride in Place funding programme, we have announced a further £210 million package to support high streets and community assets. Although that relates to England, the Welsh Government also receive corresponding funding through the Barnett formula that they can allocate on their own priorities.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
The Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith (Florence Eshalomi)
Responsibility for supported accommodation in Northern Ireland is devolved, as the hon. Gentleman knows. In England we are implementing the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 to strengthen local oversight, improve quality and ensure that councils assess local needs, and we will continue to work with our devolved Governments.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister for her answer; she probably knows what my question is going to be. Veterans across this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland suffering trauma find it very difficult to find accommodation. As mental health is so complex, no two people have the same needs, making a case-by-case assessment essential. What discussions has the Minister had with the relevant Department and the Northern Ireland Assembly to ascertain what help can be given to veterans? I understand that the Barnett consequential has set aside moneys for homelessness, so there might be a methodology for providing help.
Florence Eshalomi
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that people have complex mental health needs and that our veterans face various issues. Each case has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. I come back to my original response: as the hon. Gentleman knows, this is a devolved issue in Northern Ireland. However, I am always open to looking at the learning and at options that we can share across England to ensure that we end rough sleeping and homelessness for good.
Antonia Bance (Tipton and Wednesbury) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
The new national planning policy framework, published on 17 August, includes a more flexible and proportionate policy design to provide greater clarity on the circumstances in which article 4 directions may be appropriate, including where there is an overconcentration of small HMOs. We want to ensure that councils can act properly to regulate HMOs where it is necessary to protect the amenity or wellbeing of an area, and we will continue to keep the powers to regulate HMOs under review.
Antonia Bance
I thank the Minister for his answer. Residents in Wednesbury and Tipton are absolutely sick of family homes being turned into HMOs and—now that that is getting more difficult—into supported exempt accommodation, too. I have campaigned for more controls on HMOs since the day I was elected, but supported exempt accommodation is essentially unregulated. When will this Government bring in further controls on supported exempt accommodation?
Matthew Pennycook
I thank my hon. Friend for her question, and for all her campaigning to ensure that an article 4 direction is finally being introduced in Sandwell.
On supported exempt accommodation, we published guidance for local authorities earlier this year on developing supported housing strategies. On 15 October, we launched a consultation on draft regulations for a supported housing licensing regime. That consultation closes on 10 December. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Homelessness, who is responsible for this policy area, will have heard the calls to expedite the laying of those regulations.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
Earlier this year, Liberal Democrat-run Three Rivers district council put in a notice for an article 4 direction. However, it will not come into effect until June 2027, with the council citing financial concerns, despite repeated calls from me and local Conservative councillors to do it sooner and protect my residents from overcrowded and unwanted HMOs. What advice can the Minister offer my residents, such as those who live in Muirfield Road in South Oxhey, who have already been affected by this issue?
Matthew Pennycook
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. All HMOs are obviously subject to management regulations, and local authorities must license HMOs in certain cases. An article 4 direction is often the way for local planning authorities to get control, but by the sound of it, that should have come a lot earlier in his local area.
Mr Speaker
I welcome the Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee.
Ms Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
Many communities, including those in my constituency, are concerned about the concentration of HMOs. There is a perception that local authorities do not have the powers to be able to tackle this. I want to be very clear that I am not against HMOs in principle; this is about how they are abused. I know the Government have carried out a consultation, but do they feel that local authorities are able to strike the right balance between meeting housing needs and maintaining community cohesion?
Matthew Pennycook
I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that question. We do keep the powers to regulate HMOs under review, and I do want to know from any Member of the House where local authorities do not think those powers are adequate. The key to ensuring that HMOs are properly regulated, particularly where that is necessary to protect the amenity or wellbeing of an area, is having strong policies in an up-to-date local plan. I know that our local authority is putting in place strong policies in our area.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
HMOs are the only way many young people can afford to rent, but their unregulated growth leads to the loss of family homes. However, Bath and North East Somerset council has taken action, and has included in its draft local plan a ban on the conversion of homes that would otherwise mean the loss of three-bedroom homes in Southdown, Twerton and Odd Down. Will the Minister congratulate Bath council?
Matthew Pennycook
I will congratulate the hon. Member’s local authority. As I say, it is through up-to-date local plans and strong policies on HMOs that local authorities can ensure that they are properly regulated. After all, development plans are the basis on which decision makers, irrespective of whether they are officers or committees, will make their decisions. There is good practice out there in the country—including in my own local authority area, as I have said—and I encourage any local planning authority with concerns to familiarise itself with that good practice.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
To residents across the country, a standard family home being converted into an HMO for a large number of adults is a material change. It changes the character of an area, and it places pressure on parking and local services. Too many HMOs are being used to house people who come to this country illegally, and we know for a fact that many of these men are dangerous. However, the current rules do not reflect the negative impact an HMO can have, with landlords not needing to apply for planning permission if it is for less than five occupants, and the article 4 direction does not go far enough. What work is the Minister doing to investigate changing the rules so that all HMOs, regardless of size, require planning permission so that local people’s voices can be heard?
Matthew Pennycook
I feel for the shadow Minister in the sense that that question was clearly drafted before the set of answers I have just given. We have acted to strengthen national planning policy in this area. I have made it clear how important it is to have up-to-date local plans in place and to get strong policies. If he has any particular instances of where the existing powers do not go far enough, I am more than happy to hear from him.
Sonia Kumar (Dudley) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Angela Rayner)
Alongside the Budget, we announced our new cross-Government high streets strategy to breathe new life into our town centres, backed by £210 million of new funding to reinvent our high streets with new shops, public services and community spaces. My hon. Friend is a tireless campaigner for her high streets and the traders in her constituency. I am pleased that she managed to secure £3 million for Dudley from our derelict buildings fund.
Sonia Kumar
Dudley high street has enormous potential to thrive and prosper once again, yet years of inaction from the Conservative-led council has left too many empty shops and too many businesses struggling. Will my right hon. Friend outline what steps the Labour Government are taking to revitalise the area and reverse the trend of empty shops dominating our high street?
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to talk about the years of Conservative failure, where we saw boarded-up shops, closed pubs and places feeling in decline. We are turning the page with a £125 million fund that will be invested to bring derelict buildings, like abandoned cinemas and shopping centres, back into use for the community. We are putting power back into the hands of local communities like Dudley, so that they can have a real say over what their high street looks like.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jim McMahon)
We are giving local leaders and communities more control over their high street mix of shops and their high streets through the “Hope on the High Street” strategy, which the Secretary of State just referred to. We are also consulting on requiring planning permission for new vape shops and a new licensing regime for vape shops and tobacco retailers. The Budget confirmed that we will remove business rates relief from vape shops and adult gaming centres to better target that relief on businesses that support thriving high streets. Furthermore, we are investing £30 million per year in funding for agencies such as trading standards to tackle these dodgy shops.
Robbie Moore
This year alone West Yorkshire trading standards has raided 20 premises in Keighley, seizing illegal and counterfeit goods, and yet residents watch those same dodgy shops reopen within days. Our local trading standards has received well over 3,000 intelligence reports about dodgy shops such as minimarts, vape shops, takeaways and barbers, with reports linked to money laundering, drug supplying, modern slavery and illegal working—and that is just within Keighley. Despite the Government’s rhetoric of wanting to take a tough stance on this issue, why was West Yorkshire trading standards not included in the latest round of funding to support local trading standards with law enforcement action against organised criminal activity? Will the Minister look to resolve this issue?
Jim McMahon
The point the hon. Gentleman raises is exactly why the Government are taking action. People look at how our high streets and town centres have been transformed, and they see in plain sight that something just is not right. They see the type of convenience stores he is talking about, and the barber shops and the vape shops, and they know like we know that what is going on inside those premises is not lawful. The connection to human trafficking and other illegal activity is quite clear from the investigations that have taken place. The additional funding we have provided is about targeting it to where the assessed need is, but to be clear every police force and every trading standards department should be prioritising this matter as a matter of course.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes) (Lab)
The Minister will be aware of my campaign, which has the support of over 60 MPs, to shut down dodgy shops. I am aware that the Government have taken steps to extend the powers available to local authorities, which have finally seen my local authority take steps to shut down one shop. There are many more that it can come for in the coming days. Interestingly, when the Conservatives were in power, they changed the rules to require trading standards to give 48 hours’ notice before visiting some premises. Are the Government looking at changing that rule, so that more activity can be taken by trading standards when shops have not prepared?
Jim McMahon
My hon. Friend raises a fair point. There is a world of difference between a routine trading standards visit, which is about assessing routine compliance, and not giving organised criminals a heads-up to clear the store out of any evidence, so I will certainly take away her point and confirm the next steps in writing. I put on record my thanks for the work she has been doing on this issue for a long time.
Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Angela Rayner)
The Government will introduce the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill this year, marking the beginning of the end of the feudal leasehold system. We will continue implementing the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 as quickly as possible, and we will bring forward further legislation for the independent statutory regulation of property agents.
Gregory Stafford
I recently met constituents in Grayshott and Haslemere who face poor communication from managing agents, with little transparency on where the service charges and costs that they are forced to pay go. Meanwhile, Surrey and Hampshire are set to lose out under the Government’s funding review, leaving many of those same residents facing higher council tax bills. Will the Secretary of State finally tell us when the leasehold reform Bill will be published, and give a guarantee that any savings delivered through that reform will not simply be wiped out by the higher council tax bills caused by her Government’s funding decisions?
Angela Rayner
We promised that we would bring that legislation forward soon, possibly in time for it to be a Christmas present—you never know, Mr Speaker. Council tax went up every year under the Conservatives. They left local governments without the funds they needed; we have funded councils on the basis of need. We support the councils; the Opposition did not.
Helen Hayes
Leaseholders living on Barrington Road and St James’s Crescent in my constituency, in buildings owned by Metropolitan Thames Valley housing association and built by the contractor Guildmore, have been trapped in limbo for more than four years. They are unable to sell and worried about fire safety, while MTVH and Guildmore continue to argue between themselves about who is responsible for fire safety defects in the building, who will complete the remediation, and who will pay for it. There is still no plan or timescale, and communication has stalled. The last substantive update that I received was back in May of this year. Can I ask the Secretary of State for her personal support and intervention in unlocking this completely unacceptable dispute, so that my constituents can at last sleep soundly in their homes and make plans for their futures?
Angela Rayner
The building safety crisis must be resolved. Homes must be made safe and residents must be allowed to move on with their lives. We brought forward the remediation acceleration plan, which I discussed on the Floor of the House last week, and I am happy to meet with my hon. Friend. I have met with many organisations as part of that plan: some are doing well, but most are not good enough.
Andrew Cooper (Mid Cheshire) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
The Government remain determined to revive the dream of home ownership. In the Budget, the Chancellor confirmed £4.7 billion for the Your First Home scheme, providing equity loans to help those who cannot rely on the bank of mum and dad to buy their first home. The Chancellor also announced a new first-time buyer ISA and reduced the lifetime ISA withdrawal charge to 20%.
Andrew Cooper
House prices in Mid Cheshire are nearly £20,000 higher than the regional average and have continued to rise over the last year. The Your First Home scheme will be a big help for my constituents, but it is also important that we increase the number of affordable homes being built. The National Housing Federation estimated that we could have delivered an additional 41,000 homes outside of London in the latest round of the social and affordable homes programme. What steps is the Minister taking to increase the funding available in the early years of the social and affordable homes programme?
Matthew Pennycook
As my hon. Friend will be aware, the Chancellor committed an additional £1.5 billion for the social and affordable homes programme at the Budget, taking its total allocation to over £40 billion. In August, we announced initial funding allocations for the programme, with £9.58 billion being awarded to 33 strategic partners outside of London. Over £16 billion remains available outside of London across the lifetime of the programme. Homes England will confirm scheme-by-scheme allocations via the continuous market engagement route in the usual way.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I welcome the Government’s focus on first-time buyers, because so many young people cannot get their first step on the ladder. My concern with the properties that are being built—not on the green belt but within town-centre boundaries—is that first-time buyer properties are being manipulated out of the system, in the same way that affordable homes have been on the green belt. I know the Government have done some stuff around the green belt golden rules, but what are they doing to ensure that we have first-time buyer homes on every development?
Matthew Pennycook
I am not sure that I quite understand what the hon. Lady means by homes being manipulated out of the system, but I am happy to sit down with her and have a conversation about it.
Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
Our transformative Renters’ Rights Act 2026 is changing the experience of private renting for millions of tenants across England, not least by empowering them to challenge unfair or above-market rent increases.
Paula Barker
In Liverpool Wavertree, research by Crisis and Zoopla shows just 3% of homes for private rent are affordable for people who claim local housing allowance. The Office for Budget Responsibility has warned that the increase in tax on property income announced in the Budget could feed through into rents, making an increase in LHA more necessary than ever. What discussions has the Minister had with colleagues in other Departments on that issue, as well as on rent regulation linked to inflation and wages, to relieve the pressure on private renters and reduce the cost of increasing LHA?
Matthew Pennycook
At the Budget last year, the OBR assessed that there would be only a small impact on rental prices of 0.2% as a result of the 2 percentage point increase to property rates from April 2027, and we expect the further increase of 2 percentage points announced in the Budget last week to have a comparably small effect. Households who need additional support can apply to their local authority for help via the crisis and resilience fund. As my hon. Friend knows, the Government do not support the introduction of rent controls.
Sam Carling
Too often, constituents contact me about horrific behaviour from private landlords and lettings agencies. One lady told me recently that she had been left with broken heating for six months, and that, as a result, her daughter had developed pneumonia. Adding insult to injury, the lettings agency has continually refused to provide my constituent with her landlord’s contact details, in violation of the law. Will the Secretary of State set out what this Labour Government are doing to crack down on rogue landlords and lettings agencies that are totally failing in their responsibilities?
Matthew Pennycook
I am really sorry to learn that my hon. Friend’s constituents have been so badly treated by their landlord. Through our Renters’ Right Act 2025, we have strengthened the enforcement powers of local authorities in respect of relevant breaches and offences, and we are extending Awaab’s law and the decent homes standard to that sector. As the Secretary of State has just mentioned, we also intend to legislate to regulate property agents, including by requiring agents to obtain a licence to do the job and appropriate qualifications to operate.
Steve Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility’s “Economic and fiscal outlook”, published alongside the Budget, says on page 77 that the consequence of the 4% hike in property income tax will be fewer rental properties and higher rents as landlords pass on those costs. Does the Minister think the OBR is wrong? If not, does he accept that rents will go up as a result of those measures?
Matthew Pennycook
I refer the right hon. Gentleman to my opening remarks. At the Budget last year, the OBR assessed that there would be a small impact of 0.2% on rental prices as a result of that increase, and we expect a similarly small impact from this increase. The obvious answer to affordability challenges in the private rented sector, as well as everywhere else, is to build more housing supply. That is why it is so disappointing that Opposition Members, despite what those on their Front Bench say, consistently complain about new housing developments coming forward in their constituencies.
Sir Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)
The question is about reducing the cost of renting. What is the contribution of the 4% increase to a reduction in the cost of renting? Mr Speaker, my interest is recorded in the register.
Matthew Pennycook
As I said to the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), affordability is dependent on a number of factors. Ultimately, the only way we can bring greater affordability is by increasing the supply of new homes. I look forward to the full-throated support of the right hon. Member for New Forest West (Sir Desmond Swayne) for new housing developments in his constituency.
Helen Morgan (North Shropshire) (LD)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jim McMahon)
Under this Labour Government, rural authorities in England will see a total increase in core spending power of £958 million from 2024-25 to 2028-29—an increase of 21.1%. As a result of the fair funding reforms, nine in 10 councils will receive funding that more broadly matches their assessed relative need by the end of the multi-year settlement, up from around a third before the reforms took place.
Helen Morgan
Shropshire council is in receipt of exceptional financial support following 16 years of disastrous Conservative mismanagement and a settlement from the Government that reduces its central allocation over the next three years. The issue for the council is that any council tax rises it opts for in future will cover only the repayment terms of that exceptional financial support, and will not allow for any financial restructuring. We are clearly in an unsustainable situation, so will the Minister meet me to discuss the terms of the exceptional financial support?
Jim McMahon
As I said, the average rural council will see an increase in core spending power of 21.1%; Shropshire itself will see an increase of 13.8%. I do understand that councils that find themselves in need of exceptional financial support are at the point at which they need the Government to stand behind them in one way or another. I would be very happy to meet the hon. Lady to talk in further detail about what more we can do.
Markus Campbell-Savours (Penrith and Solway) (Lab)
In rural Cumbria, those without a car struggle to access education and jobs, which is why families on the lowest incomes prioritise car ownership. However, our councils lost out on significant financial support because funding formulas used car ownership as a determinant of income. Will the Secretary of State carry out a review of this approach, and perhaps ask whether civil servants who are privileged enough to travel to work on one of the world’s finest public transport systems are giving us duff advice?
Jim McMahon
The fair funding review deliberately took into account the different types of local authorities that were funded through the settlement, from London authorities and urban authorities to authorities for coastal or rural communities. For the first time we made sure that deprivation was picked up in the funding formula, and the level at which we did that was in the hundreds of households, not the thousands or tens of thousands of households. The idea behind that is to enable us to really home in on where deprivation exists across the country.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Angela Rayner)
There was nothing duff in the Budget last week. It delivers a major boost to council housing with an additional £1.5 billion for the social and affordable homes programme. This investment will take the total funding for the programme to more than £40 billion over 10 years.
Claire Young
The Housing Minister promised me in January that we would see protection from fleecehold exploitation in this Parliament. The Government are running out of time. When can my constituents in freeholds expect unfair service charges to be properly regulated?
Angela Rayner
I am hoping for an early Christmas present for the hon. Lady when we set out our leasehold Bill, and hopefully by the end of this Parliament we will be able, using secondary legislation, to get things through.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
In the Budget, the Chancellor extended the preferential Public Works Loan Board rates for a further year until 2027-28. We will continue to keep under review what more we can do to help councils once again build at scale.
Katie Lam (Weald of Kent) (Con)
Last month, it was reported that money from the Department’s community recovery fund had been funnelled to explicitly partisan groups, and had been used to train activists in how to influence the public to make them pro-migration and against the Conservative party, which was named in training materials. Can the Secretary of State please explain how on earth taxpayer money was spent on this kind of partisan political activity?
Angela Rayner
I am not aware of the Government spending money on that type of partisan material, but I am happy for the hon. Lady to send it to me. I think she might have written to me about this recently, and I will be happy to respond.
Katie Lam
In a statement issued by the Department last month, we were told that this money, which has been spent on partisan political campaigning, can be recovered if it has been used improperly—but that is not the same as doing it. Will the Secretary of State confirm that she will investigate and recoup every penny of taxpayer money funnelled to those partisan groups, either directly or by instructing councils?
Lloyd Hatton (South Dorset) (Lab)
Matthew Pennycook
Local authorities have powers to take action where a designated heritage asset has deteriorated to the extent that its preservation may be at risk. These powers include carrying out urgent works to preserve a listed building, requiring an owner to carry out work and, if appropriate, compulsory purchase. I will be more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss those powers further.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jim McMahon)
The fact is that there is not a community, high street or town centre in any part of the country that is not blighted by a building that stubbornly will not be brought back into use. It is right that if owners are not willing to take action, the Government will do.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
The Minister for Homelessness, Democracy, Communities and Faith (Florence Eshalomi)
I agree with my hon. Friend that our firefighters worked tirelessly to protect lives, homes and critical infrastructure during the wildfires this summer, and they should have the equipment to respond to that risk. That is why at the wildfire summit last month the Government announced £45 million of investment for wildfire-specific personal protective equipment for firefighters in England and UK-wide aerial capability. We will continue to engage with the Treasury post-Budget and ahead of the spending review to ensure that we are working towards meeting the needs of fire and rescue services.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Jim McMahon
The hon. Member has raised that issue a number of times, and the answer is the same as before. The fair funding review, for the first time, took into account the assessed need in each area, the resource available to each council to meet that need, and where the Government had to act as an equaliser in the system. That is what we have done. If there are examples of where it is not quite working and its application is not as it should be, I am happy to receive representations, and I would be happy to meet him.
Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)
My constituent, Mr Welch, and his sister have been left completely trapped by the death of their mother last year. Despite slashing the price of her assisted living flat from £200,000 to £60,000, the flat remains unsellable because the market has collapsed, and the £1,300 a month service charge risks wiping out the estate. Will the Minister urgently review the guidance and support available to bereaved executors in this position, and meet me to discuss the recourse available to such families?
Matthew Pennycook
I am really sorry to hear about the situation that Mr Welch and his sister find themselves in following the death of their mother last year. Our reforms to the leasehold system will make service charges more transparent and easier to challenge. I assure my hon. Friend that work is under way in the Department to better understand the market around poor resale values. I would be happy to meet her to discuss that.
Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)
Jim McMahon
The Department will support local councils going through local government reorganisation to ensure that those partnerships are maintained. The Local Government Association has a good toolkit available for councils to help them ensure that the transition is managed in the way that he describes.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool Riverside) (Lab)
For decades, Liverpool has lived with the consequences of Thatcher’s sell-off of council housing and the large-scale stock transfer of properties leaving too many families without secure and genuinely affordable homes. Mayor Steve Rotheram’s North Docks mayoral development corporation set out a bold vision, with strong public backing. Will the Minister back the work of the MDC to support large-scale council house building in order to reverse the legacy of the past and tackle the housing crisis?
Matthew Pennycook
I know that the mayor is consulting on that mayoral development corporation, so I will not prejudice that consultation by giving my view on it. In general, however, the Government absolutely support the use of mayoral development corporations and locally led development corporations as a means to masterplan, assemble land and regenerate areas.
Dr Kieran Mullan (Bexhill and Battle) (Con)
Matthew Pennycook
The hon. Gentleman has been campaigning on this issue for a long time. I recognise his concerns and am more than happy to meet him. He should have had that confirmation already, but I give it to him now on the Floor of the House.
Naushabah Khan (Gillingham and Rainham) (Lab)
Hundreds of people are being placed in my constituency by London councils. They are being moved away from their support networks through out-of-borough placements and without proper notification. Often these are vulnerable families with high needs, which then have to be met by overstretched services at Medway council. Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we can improve this system and support the authorities that are dealing with the bulk of out-of-borough placements?
Florence Eshalomi
Many hon. Members have raised the issue of local authorities using their temporary accommodation discharge narrative, and I am happy to meet my hon. Friend and other Members to discuss this further.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
Since I last asked the Minister about the Liberal Democrats’ £620 million-worth of debt at Eastleigh borough council, it has got bigger, the external auditors have said that there have been financial misstatements and a lack of management financially, and the Government have now given it £150 million for social housing. What will it take for this Minister to come down on Eastleigh borough council and get that debt down?
Jim McMahon
We have an established best value regime that assesses all councils objectively, based on evidence, and of course we take the audit position very seriously. I will confirm in writing exactly where we are up to with that local authority, but to be clear, just because the status of the local authority is as the hon. Gentleman describes, that does not mean that the community it serves should be denied funding.
Dr Marie Tidball (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
For over a year, I have argued for changes to Sheffield’s local plan, with a fairer distribution of green-belt sites across the authority, greater use of brownfield sites, high streets and retail spaces, densification on transport routes, a better application of the Government’s golden rules, and strengthened powers to utilise long-term empty properties to ease the pressure on Grenoside, Chapeltown and Ecclesfield. Consequently, I am calling for a pause in the local plan process, especially in the light of new evidence demonstrating that all the green-belt parcels in my constituency are now assessed as containing our best agricultural land, including Town End farm. Will the Minister meet me and Sheffield colleagues to discuss the local plan, and to ensure that Sheffield builds more homes, especially the social and affordable homes that we need?
Matthew Pennycook
Due to my quasi-judicial role in the planning system, I cannot comment on the detail of the emerging plan, and I am afraid I cannot meet my hon. Friend to discuss it. The plan, the sites included in it and the proposed main modifications have been subject to several rounds of consultations throughout the examination process. It is for the independent inspectors to consider the responses to the consultations and set out next steps.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
Following this summer’s wildfires, we saw that the devolution of fire policy was no barrier to mutual aid co-operation between the UK Government and the Welsh Government. Can the Minister tell me how any additional air firefighting capability will be allocated fairly across the nations of the United Kingdom?
Angela Rayner
I commend the fire services across Wales, England and Scotland, given the challenges they faced. I know that aerial support was needed in Wales, and we looked at that as part of the wildfire summit that we held. We will continue to work with them and that aerial support will be available across the UK so that people can use it when they need it.
James Asser (West Ham and Beckton) (Lab)
A week ago, three blocks of flats in Canning Town underwent emergency evacuation after serious structural flaws were found. A further two blocks have subsequently been evacuated. With over 300 flats now evacuated, and no timeline or indication of when this will be resolved or when residents can return, this is causing a huge amount of distress and serious financial worry. Will my hon. Friends take whatever action they can to help resolve this appalling situation, with a particular eye on support for the families and businesses who have been displaced?
Florence Eshalomi
I recognise how distressing this situation will be for the many residents who have had to leave their homes, with the evacuation and the fear that the buildings might collapse. The buildings have been evacuated following defects identified in transverse slabs. My officials are supporting the London borough of Newham and the right-to-manage companies, and we are engaging with the developer, Galliard, and the warranty providers to ensure that they respond to this situation as swiftly as possible.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
How does the abolition of a rural district council such as New Forest, and its absorption into a unitary authority dominated by an urban centre such as Southampton, increase devolution and local democracy?
Jim McMahon
Obviously, we take decisions on local reorganisation on a county-by-county basis. When we are in a position to issue a “minded to” notice, we explain at length how we will balance the competing interests to get the right balance, but I accept the right hon. Gentleman’s point. The identity of place matters, and places that are urban have quite a different character and economy from those that are rural. By and large, I think we try to strike that balance well in the decisions that are taken.
Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)
Earlier this year, a young puppy was found in South Derbyshire, and its suspected mother was discovered in squalid conditions on a farm in Derbyshire Dales, alongside numerous other dogs, some of which were dead. The conditions were so horrific that one environmental officer was physically sick. This incident has stayed with and haunted me and my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire Dales (John Whitby), particularly given that the environmental team officers, after putting animal welfare first, were subsequently suspended and dismissed. Will the Minister meet us to discuss how we can empower local authorities to prioritise animal welfare without fear of jurisdictional disputes, conflicting local policies or the risk of prosecution failure?
Jim McMahon
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the widely varied roles of local government and how connected local government is to communities. Many local authorities take pride in reaching the gold standard from animal welfare charities. I am happy to take up her point and perhaps respond in writing.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
As the Housing and Planning Minister knows, a planning inspector has made some outrageous decisions regarding the national landscape in my constituency over the past few months. Will he therefore please confirm from the Dispatch Box, for the benefit of all the planning inspectors out there, that his intention is to strengthen protections for our national landscapes in the latest edition of the national planning policy framework?
Matthew Pennycook
What I will do for the right hon. Gentleman is go away and review whether further guidance for the Planning Inspectorate in this particular area would be helpful.
Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)
Hyndburn has incredibly high levels of houses in multiple occupation. That is driving up rents, taking family homes off the market and increasing the number of vulnerable people moving to our community. How are the Government acting to enable councils such as Hyndburn borough council to reduce HMOs in their areas?
Matthew Pennycook
My hon. Friend may have heard my answer to a previous question in which I set out how we have strengthened the national planning policy framework in this area. I am more than happy to discuss with her particular policy areas where her council may think more powers are required.
Adrian Ramsay (Waveney Valley) (Green)
Suffolk county council is proposing significant cuts to its healthy child services. That is deeply worrying to new parents such as Chloe, who became a mother at 18 and, without the help of family, relied on the young parent pathway to develop the skills and knowledge to raise her baby boy. What assessment has the Department made of the positive impact of healthy child services, and will the Minister intervene to protect these vital services?
Jim McMahon
The Government do not intervene in local authorities’ individual budget-setting decisions. We also recognise that local authorities are doing their best to try to wrestle competing interests in areas in which there is huge demand, such as adult and children’s social care, special educational needs and disabilities, and temporary accommodation. However, the hon. Gentleman rightly points out the success of that programme, and I hope that all councils look to ensure that the community impact of budget decisions is being adequately managed.
Callum Anderson (Buckingham and Bletchley) (Lab)
Does the Minister share my disappointment that, because of political game playing by the leader of Central Bedfordshire council, Milton Keynes and Bedfordshire will have to wait to enjoy the benefits of devolution? Will she set out how this Government will work to ensure that constituencies such as mine will not miss out on the investment and opportunities that it promises?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Sally Jameson)
The Government are determined to ensure that we have strategic authorities everywhere by the end of 2028, and I and other Ministers in the Department will work with my hon. Friend and council leaders from across the region to ensure that they also get a strategic authority in that time.
Lincoln Jopp (Spelthorne) (Con)
West Surrey unitary authority wrote to the Secretary of State asking her to change the name of that authority to West Surrey and South Middlesex—a move that I thoroughly support. The local government Minister wrote back to them and said, “It’s nothing to do with me; just change your name yourself.” Will the Minister confirm what his spokesman said to the BBC, which was that,
“West Surrey Council has the power to change its own name to include Middlesex if it chooses to do so, and we’ve set this out in a letter to them”?
Jim McMahon
As explained in the letter, it is not for the Secretary of State to determine the names of local authorities; local authorities have the legal right and ability to change them themselves. My advice is to crack on with it.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)
Meur ras, Mr Speaker. The Budget brought welcome news for Cornwall last week by recognising our national minority status through a Cornwall-only single foundation strategic status without a mayor. I understand the principle of a mayoral combined authority with a single figurehead sitting above several authorities, but does the Minister agree that it would be a pointless waste of taxpayers’ money to establish a mayor in parallel with one single strategic authority?
Sally Jameson
We had an excellent meeting with Cornwall leaders and MPs in No. 10 North not long before that decision was taken. I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution to that, and I understand the distinct status that Cornwall has. We will continue to work with him to ensure that Cornwall can make the most of its foundation strategic authority in the future.
Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
Birmingham city council is now officially out of bankruptcy, so will the Government remove the Government-appointed commissioners, who are costing taxpayers millions of pounds—money that could be better used elsewhere?
Jim McMahon
The involvement of commissioners in any local authority, or envoys for that matter, is a last resort after all else has failed, so no Government take such an intervention lightly. We also want to ensure that there is an exit for intervention. We have proven, in Liverpool and other places, that where the council shows sustained improvement, we are happy to review that. Although Birmingham has taken significant steps at improvement, there are still steps yet to take.
Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)
I welcome the news last week that local government reorganisation will finally take place in Oxfordshire and that the Thames valley will have devolution. Can the Minister confirm that it is the Government’s intention that these new authorities will all be in place by the end of this Parliament?
Jim McMahon
It is our intention that all the local government reorganisation areas will have an election in 2028 and a vesting day in April 2029.
Marie Goldman (Chelmsford) (LD)
The issue of restrictive covenants, raised so ably by the hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Dr Mullan), is also affecting my constituents, some of whom have been extorted out of tens of thousands of pounds. Will the Government give any comfort to the residents who are campaigning so hard on this that the commonhold and leasehold reform Bill will contain provisions to stop this awful practice?
Matthew Pennycook
As the hon. Member may be aware, we are looking through that legislation to introduce caps on administration and permission fees. That may help some of her affected residents, but I would be grateful if she could write to me and set out in more detail how this issue is affecting her constituents.
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
For the purposes of the new planning powers and the rates relief exemptions announced in the Budget last week, what does my hon. Friend’s Department define as a vape shop?
Jim McMahon
Well, I would hope that the clue is in the name—a shop that primarily sells vapes.
Danny Kruger (East Wiltshire) (Reform)
Swindon and Wiltshire councils are building a lot of new housing, which is excellent, but the Government have now abolished an essential safeguard for communities against inappropriate planning, which is the power of councillors to call in applications. What steps are the Government taking to review that particular measure, and will they reconsider if it turns out that it is not working?
Matthew Pennycook
That particular reform was commenced only on Saturday. We have already committed to review it after a two-year period, and that is what we will do.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is bringing out a short-term let registration scheme in March. Unfortunately, due to data protection rules, it cannot be more of a licensing scheme, so owners of properties will not be obliged to file liability insurance or fire safety documents. DCMS tells me that MHCLG is the Department that could set up such a licensing scheme. Is that something the Minister will consider?
Jim McMahon
We are bringing forward legislation for the overnight visitor levy, and an essential part of that is to ensure that all short-term lets are on the register and that we know who should pay that taxation in areas where the mayoral or foundation authority agrees to it. We are in conversation with DCMS about what implementation of the register needs to look like.
Ian Roome (North Devon) (LD)
Now that the Government have withdrawn plans for local government reorganisation in Devon, the law still requires councils such as North Devon to change from a committee system to a cabinet system by June 2027. Six months have been lost and the Secretary of State can grant only a year’s extension. Can the Minister tell us whether councils such as North Devon will be given extra time or extra funding to help make that change?
Jim McMahon
We have agreed, as part of the transitional arrangements, that the committee system will be allowed to continue for an extra year in the way that my hon. Friend describes.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the announcement by the Chancellor last week on supporting our high streets, which is welcome. What conversations has the Minister had with Cabinet colleagues about the future of Poundland? We have two shops and one depot in Harlow, so this is hugely important for my constituency.
Jim McMahon
All of us are concerned about the announcement for Poundland and its 30,000 staff members. These are people in every one of our communities. I do not think there is a high street in the country that does not feature a Poundland. As confirmed this morning, the Government are in conversation with Poundland to ensure that it is supported where it can be, but I absolutely understand the community impact that my hon. Friend describes.
Ben Maguire (North Cornwall) (LD)
The Government have now baked the £20 million-a-year second homes council tax premium into their core funding; but business rates loopholes, which were increased in the recent Budget, make those payments easily avoidable, so that revenue cannot be relied on consistently. Will the Minister meet the six Cornish MPs to ensure that Cornwall benefits from the second home council tax premium?
Jim McMahon
There is definitely a pattern, particularly among short-term lets, of transferring to business rates to avoid paying council tax; that is why we need the short-term lets register that Members have spoken about today. I would be happy to meet Cornish MPs as a group to talk this through further.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)
Summer was a difficult time for Nottinghamshire fire service; it battled with wildfires and a lot of heat-related incidents. The firemen and women had to wear protective equipment and clothing in which it was simply unbearable to work in that type of heat. I know that the Secretary of State has made some funding available for this, but will she work to ensure that by next summer, if we have the same hot weather and wildfires, brave firemen and women will have the clothing and protective equipment that they need to work in those conditions?
Angela Rayner
I commend all those who fought wildfires over the summer, and the right hon. Gentleman is right to recognise that the personal protective equipment that firefighters need is different in those circumstances. That is why we have put in £45 million extra for equipment, on top of the £97 million. We are working to ensure that our firefighters have the equipment that they need, and of course we announced aerial support, too.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
Councils spend far more on enforcing against a breach of planning controls than the offender is ever fined—and even then, that money goes to the Treasury. When it is cheaper to break rules than follow them, we lose any sense of deterrence, and there is a perception that breaches have few consequences. Will the Minister look again at the amount of fines, and at whether councils could receive the proceeds of fines, so that they can recover their costs?
Matthew Pennycook
Would the hon. Lady write to me with some further details, to illustrate the precise problem she is trying to get at?
Josh Babarinde (Eastbourne) (LD)
Two brave Eastbourne families are fighting for improved regulation of supported accommodation, after their respective relatives were found dead in the accommodation that was meant to be supporting them. Will the Minister meet them, and me, to discuss how we can better protect vulnerable people in supported accommodation?
Angela Rayner
I am devastated to hear the hon. Gentleman’s description of what happened to his constituents, and I will ensure that he gets a meeting with a Minister.
Immigration: Earned Settlement
(2 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Shabana Mahmood)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on this Government’s policy of earned settlement.
A little over a month ago, at the Labour party conference, I promised that we would adopt a policy on this issue that is guided above all by fairness—fairness towards those who come here legally and play their part, and fairness towards British citizens, already here, who should not be asked to bear a greater burden. Fairness matters to me, because it matters to my family. Over 50 years ago, my parents came to this country from rural Kashmir. They came here knowing one thing above all else: that they would be treated fairly here. They came from a place where power was often arbitrary, and where the dice were always loaded. They came to this country because they knew that we do things differently here, and that we value, above all else, fair play. It is my responsibility to ensure that our migration system lives up to that ideal, and I believe that doing so depends on a contract between those who come, and those already here. This country welcomes those who seek a new and better life within it, but there is an expectation on those who do, which is that they will play their part, contribute to their community, and become a part of our national life. That is what I think, not despite being a Labour politician, but because I am a Labour politician. If we are to ask our fellow citizens to buy into a system of shared taxation and universal public services, they must know that everyone is playing their part. Solidarity is the precondition for social justice.
Creating a fair migration system demands reform to settlement—the ability to live in this country forever. Settlement confers some of the most valuable rights that this country can offer. At settlement, a migrant receives the right to free education and use of our NHS, and, should they need to fall back on it, the welfare state. Until now, settlement rights have come at five years, almost exclusively as a result of time spent in this country. It has therefore been a right accrued with little expectation of responsibility. I do not believe that this represents true fairness. Instead, I believe those considerable rights should come after responsibilities have been met and a contribution has been made. Settlement should not be automatic; it should be earned.
Today the Government publish a policy called “earned settlement”. It ensures that the period for which someone must live in this country before they settle is determined by the contribution that they have made. It starts by setting out clearly what we consider to be disqualifying criteria: first, a criminal record; secondly, a failure to speak English to a high standard; thirdly, any unpaid debt to the British taxpayer; and finally, a failure to have made three years of national insurance contributions. This is the foundation of settlement—our non-negotiable expectations of anyone who seeks to live here permanently. For those who clear those bars, settlement then varies, based on contribution made, rather than simply time served. This contribution is judged, crucially, not just financially, but also in terms of public service.
A five-year path will remain open to all higher earners on salaries of over £50,000, and those who have contributed to healthcare and education, in professions such as doctor, nurse and teacher. For those who make an exceptional contribution, even faster routes are available. The highest-rate taxpayers, earning over £125,000, will, over the course of their lifetime, contribute £1.5 million. This funds the critical services that many, including the poorest in this country, rely on, so under these reforms, they will be able to apply for settlement after three years, as will those who arrive on our highest talent schemes. Everyone else will be placed on a 10-year path, including all those earning less than £50,000. Settlement will still be available to them; they will simply have to show a sustained contribution to this country, and they will be able to renew their existing temporary visas until that point.
Conditionality runs both ways. Those who commit an immigration breach will see settlement pushed back to 20 years, while those who have claimed benefits must have had five continuous years without falling back on the state before they make their application. A number of groups will see their path to settlement remain as it is today. These include Hong Kong British nationals overseas, members of our armed forces, those with a British connection and those on legacy routes, such as Windrush.
Before we finalised this policy, we first took it to the country through a consultation. Over 200,000 people responded, and I thank them for doing so. Many of the responses were focused on one particular group: social care workers. Between 2022 and 2025, 250,000 people and their dependants arrived on, or switched into, the social care route. They came at a time when the sector was under considerable pressure, following the covid-19 pandemic and the unique challenge of that moment.
It is also the case, however, that this route was abused. The last Conservative Government may have talked of restoring control to our borders, but, in truth, they lost control entirely. Never was this more obvious than when the shadow Home Secretary was an immigration Minister in the Home Office. Delegations were sent across the country to encourage ever more businesses to sponsor foreign workers, with little apparent interest in their suitability to do so. As a result, there was significant abuse of the care route, sometimes because of fraudulent and exploitative companies, and sometimes because individuals came here knowing that there was no job that they could fill.
A fair solution must address both sides of this issue by recognising the service of those who cared for our sick and elderly at a time of immense national need, and also addressing the abuse that was present on this route. The Government’s solution does so in two ways—first, by providing a five-year path to settlement for care workers who lived up to the promise that they made on coming to this country, worked hard and answered our call when we needed them. Those who earned £25,000 a year working in the social care sector, which was the condition of their visa, will therefore be able to settle on their existing five-year path.
The second group, who have not fulfilled the conditions of their visa, represent around a quarter of those who came between 2022 and 2025, or who switched into this route. We will offer them a second chance to make the contribution that they came to this country to make. They will be able to apply for another five-year care visa, and they will not be tied to their old employer, allowing those with rogue sponsors to break away from them. The Government have already stripped around 1,800 exploitative employers of their licences, and we are lifting standards in care with our fair pay agreement across the sector. The Government will help workers to find a new position with a legitimate provider, and we will give them a longer period to do so before their existing visa is curtailed.
There remain tens of thousands of legitimate vacancies in the care sector today, so those who seek a new job in care and have the requisite skills should be able to find one. At the completion of their new five-year visa, those workers will be able to apply for settlement once more. Everyone will have a fair shot at making their contribution, and no one will be punished for the sins of their employer, but we will also preserve the critical element of this reform: settlement must be linked to contribution. The same transitional arrangement will be applied to public sector workers in roles identified by the Migration Advisory Committee in healthcare and education, such as auxiliary nurses. This country has been highly dependent on them, and their contribution will be recognised.
These transitional arrangements apply only to those who joined before this Government published the immigration White Paper in May 2025. After that point, as our consultation shows, the Government’s position of a 10-year path to settlement was widely understood. These are exceptional exclusions for exceptional circumstances, and it remains the case that the rules around settlement are determined when a settlement decision is made, not at the point when someone arrives. That is a long-established position in this country, and it has been tested conclusively in our courts.
The responses to our consultation focused also on settlement rights for refugees. I know that the people of this country wish to continue welcoming genuine refugees; however, I also know that there is nothing fair about allowing unsafe and illegal entry to this country. It is not fair that our borders are run by people smugglers. It is not fair that women and children are dying in the channel. It is not fair that, after historic levels of illegal arrivals, British citizens are paying £4 billion a year to fund asylum support. As we open new safe and legal routes for genuine refugees, we must also discourage dangerous, unsafe and illegal crossings, and settlement plays a key part in that.
We will place those who come to this country on one of our new safe and legal routes on a five-year path to settlement. That is as fast a path as the path for higher earners entering Britain today. At the same time, we will discourage the use of unsafe and illegal routes; the standard qualifying period for all refugees who have not come by a safe and legal route will become 20 years. A further 10 years will be added for those who entered the country by an illegal method, such as by small boat.
We want to promote integration into this country for all those who are here. For that reason, those who enter work or study will be able to earn settlement 10 years earlier. That means that a refugee who did not arrive by small boat and who is working or studying could qualify for settlement after 10 years. Let us not forget that, regardless of the question of settlement, for as long as a genuine refugee requires protection in this country, we will provide it. The British people’s sense of fair play means that they welcome refugees and those who seek to contribute to our society once they are here, but there is nothing fair about incentivising unsafe and illegal routes into this country, and I will not do that.
These reforms are the right thing to do, both morally and financially. A full impact assessment will be completed and published as we implement the reforms. Our changes ensure that those who are net contributors are encouraged to come to this country and stay here. Meanwhile, the cohort who are most likely to impose a cost at settlement must instead seek work and meet the conditions of their visa before they can apply. The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that our reforms will reduce the benefits bill by billions of pounds. This solution is fair for those who come here legally and play their part, and it is fair to British citizens already here, who should not be asked to bear a greater burden.
Earned settlement institutes a new paradigm in our migration system that is long overdue. One of the greatest rights that we can offer now depends on a contribution made and responsibilities met. The right to live in this country forever must now be earned; it will no longer be automatic. That is a fair settlement for all, and I commend this statement to the House.
Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)
I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of her statement.
It took a year for the Home Secretary to build her reputation as tough on immigration, but what took a year to build she has just dismantled in 12 short minutes. I do not judge her by the actions we think she should take; I judge her by what she herself has previously said. She made announcements from the Government Dispatch Box on 20 November last year, and doubled down in a speech to the Institute for Public Policy Research on 5 March this year. She repeatedly singled out social care workers as a particular problem. She said on 5 March that fraud in the social care sector was “rife”, with bogus sponsors. She said from the Government Dispatch Box that it was right that “more stringent” restrictions should be applied to social care workers. Now, she stands there and says the exact opposite.
A Home Office document that the Home Secretary published on 5 March said that social care workers alone, because they work on low wages and have brought in many dependants, will cost the taxpayer £10 billion. Those are her figures about social care workers that she specifically chose to publish. She went on to say on 5 March that failing to implement her plans would be
“an affront to the idea of fairness”
in our society. That is exactly what she has done in the changes she has announced today. The Home Secretary now proposes to allow every single care worker and their dependants who arrived prior to May 2025—a number running into hundreds of thousands—to stay in this country beyond the expiry of their visa and, in the case of 75% of them, to stay permanently, even though she acknowledges that many of them arrived fraudulently. How can she justify allowing people who she acknowledges arrived in this country fraudulently to stay forever, at a cost that she herself has admitted is £10 billion? That is the cost of today’s U-turn: £10 billion.
Outside of care workers, many of the so-called highly skilled workers who have arrived recently are not highly skilled at all. The Home Secretary did not mention this in her statement, but in her document she proposes to extend the soft terms on which those workers can stay until 2035, extending the previous sunset by five years. Her own document published today, which she did not refer to, forecasts that a staggering 1.9 million permanent settlement rights will be granted between now and 2030, and a freedom of information request has revealed where some of those people work. German Doner Kebab, a chain of kebab shops, sponsored 106 skilled worker visas. Khans middle eastern restaurant sponsored 28 high-skilled visas. A Domino’s Pizza franchise in South Yorkshire sponsored 78 high-skilled visas—Members get the picture.
Just a year after getting ILR, someone can easily get full citizenship, and we know what that means: benefits, social housing, and free NHS treatment. [Interruption.] When the Home Secretary said in March that failing to implement her changes would be an affront, she was right, but now she has done exactly that. She also plans to give illegal immigrants who have arrived on small boats ILR and citizenship. We disagree with that.
Why has the Home Secretary made those changes? It is because the Housing Secretary—who I notice has run out of the Chamber—the Energy Secretary and the Labour open-borders left oppose what she previously announced. The Home Secretary is no longer running the Government’s immigration policy—the Housing Secretary is—and her position is looking increasingly untenable. The Home Secretary has done no better with her announcements last year than Keir Starmer did with his welfare announcements, and we know what happened to him.
We would go a lot further than the Home Secretary’s previous announcements, although they were a good start. If she wants to implement them in full, we will vote for them, because mass low-skilled migration must end. Those people who came here on a temporary visa and are working in low-skilled, low-wage jobs must leave when their temporary visa expires. We cannot allow them to stay forever, claiming benefits and social housing, yet that is what the proposals today will allow to happen. Ten billion pounds—that is the cost of today’s U-turn.
To those who ask where we will find the workers, I say there are 9 million economically inactive adults in this country. Thanks to this Labour Government’s high-tax, high-regulation policies, there are now a million young people not in education, employment or training. If the Government had the courage to toughen up the welfare system, we would get some of those people into work, instead of relying on mass low-skill migration. If the Home Secretary wants to face down her nemesis, the Communities Secretary, and implement her own plans, we will vote for them. However, if she capitulates to the open borders left, her credibility as Home Secretary will not recover.
Shabana Mahmood
I tell you what is an affront, Mr Speaker, and that is the shadow Home Secretary’s response. He might have amnesia, but given the muted response from those on his Back Benches, they clearly still remember what happened on their watch when they were in government, as does the country. When he was immigration Minister, it was his Government who ran around the country signing up people to become sponsors of foreign workers. He might have complaints about the companies on the register, but it was his Government who signed them up. Perhaps an apology for that would have been appropriate. His Government were responsible for a number of arrivals in four years that we had previously seen in four decades. Before he starts trying to lecture anybody about being tough on immigration, perhaps an apology for his Government’s abject track record would be appropriate.
It is this Government who have cut net migration by 82%, and it is this Government, with me as Home Secretary, who have found a fair solution to the mess left behind by the shadow Home Secretary and his colleagues. He talks about the cost of those who will be settling. If he had been paying attention to my fair solution and the detail in the response to the consultation document, he would know that the cohort most likely to impose a cost will now, as a result of my measures, wait longer for settlement. That is why the DWP says that these measures will save billions in the benefits bill. Half a million people will settle later as a result of these reforms. That is a fair solution to the mess I inherited from the Conservatives.
The shadow Home Secretary talked about the arrangements for those workers on low pay who were allowed by previous Conservative Governments to extend their visas up to 2030. That was in order to allow them to attain settlement in 2030. To honour the promise made by the previous Government, I have extended that period to 2035, reflecting the changes in the earned settlement consultation. Again, that is a fair solution, honouring promises made previously—there are also exceptional cohorts and exceptional circumstances—in order to clean up the mess left behind by the Conservatives.
I could answer more detailed questions, but apart from political rhetoric, the shadow Home Secretary had nothing else to say, so I have nothing more to say to him.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
It is extraordinary that the Opposition see migration issues as some kind of political football. We are talking about people’s lives, and whatever idea one has about policy and programmes, I think people’s lives deserve more seriousness. It is right that care workers are exempted from the new arrangements for ILR, but for the rest of the workforce, the retrospective nature of those new arrangements still seems unfair. People can come in legally and work legally, and then have their residency rights turned upside down. How can that be fair? May I ask the Home Secretary whether she has read the 276-page “lessons learned review” on the Windrush scandal, published by the Home Office in 2018? If she had read it, she would realise that she is in danger of finding herself in the same position as Home Secretaries who were in office at the time of that scandal.
I have heard Members of this House talk about people coming here just to claim welfare. I have heard Members of this House say that people are not making a contribution. I have heard Members of this House say that we have to look at the rights of British nationals as opposed to migrants, as if many British nationals were not themselves immigrants. My parents were immigrants. My mother was a nurse. She was one of that generation who came to this country to build the NHS after the war, and it remains the case that immigrants play a very important role in our NHS. I say to the Home Secretary, and I say to the House, that we should always remember the contribution that immigrants made and continue to make to our society.
Shabana Mahmood
I agree with my right hon. Friend about the contribution made by immigrants. As she knows, and as I said in my statement, I too was a child of migrants, and that experience informs the way in which I think about policy and how to strike the right balance between all the different communities in our country, which is what I have sought to do. As for indefinite leave to remain and what she calls the “retrospective nature” of the changes, she will know that I do not agree with that characterisation. Any Government must be able to make changes in immigration rules to reflect things that are happening, to reflect abuses that we can see in the system, and must also be able to make additional changes based on assessment of numbers and costs. As I said in my statement, that has always been the case. These matters have been litigated before in our courts, and the courts have upheld the principle that the rules that apply to settlement applications are those that apply at the point of application and decision, not the point at which a person entered the country. That is an important principle that will be upheld, and is upheld by the changes that we are making.
I have heard a number of people try to suggest that these settlement changes are akin to what we saw during the Windrush scandal. Again, respectfully, I disagree with my right hon. Friend on that. The issue relating to the people who were caught up in the Windrush scandal made it a scandal precisely because the country already had obligations to those people relating to their right to be in this country, and failed to honour the obligation that we already had. That is different from the position of workers arriving in this country on temporary work visas, and the rules that apply to them for settlement itself. The two are not the same. Let me, however, assure my right hon. Friend that I will always be mindful of the lessons that were revealed during the Windrush scandal, and I will make sure that those lessons are learnt.
Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)
It is a year since the Home Secretary’s initial statement on her immigration reforms, and we still disagree with the Government and with the official Opposition. Just as we predicted, the Government’s immigration reforms are unravelling. By prioritising tough rhetoric rather than a system that works, the Home Secretary has apparently split her party and the Cabinet, and has alienated people on all sides. Viewing immigration simply as a matter of raw numbers and images of small boat arrivals is degrading the nation’s ability to engage in the informed national discussion that we need. Immigration reforms must of course bring greater control, and they must prevent small boat crossings too, but, crucially, they must also serve our economy and public services.
The Home Secretary previously claimed that ILR for care workers will cost us £10 billion. The shadow Home Secretary made much of that today, yet the IPPR, using the same methodology, estimates that the net benefit of skilled migrants settling in the UK under the current rules is £115 billion. Will the Home Secretary publish the full economic impact of the changes that she is suggesting?
As the Prime Minister has acknowledged, being an EU member brought more order to our migration system. It prevented small boat crossings, and it meant that many who came to work here went home again in due course. This is not all down to the Government; they simply would not be considering today’s changes to ILR if it was not for the Conservatives’ botched Brexit deal and the record levels of immigration that they allowed while promising lower numbers. It is no wonder so many people in this country are confused. Now that the Conservatives are the official Opposition, their No. 1 policy on immigration is leaving the European convention on human rights.
But something does not add up. The Conservatives tell us also that their Brexit deal is settled and must never be reviewed. The fact is that the Brexit deal they negotiated with the EU would be ended if this country left the European convention on human rights, which would send the UK into further chaos. [Interruption.] They look confused and are disputing this, but perhaps that is because Conservative MPs have no idea what they are actually arguing for. Either they are misinformed, or they are misleading the public.
I turn back to this Government. Today I have two further questions for the Home Secretary. First, why does she think that so many of her Back Benchers disagree with her about immigration? My second question relates to Europe. Our future clearly lies closer to Europe, which will bring opportunities to fix our migration system, so why does the Home Secretary disagree so strongly with the Prime Minister about this?
Shabana Mahmood
That was a classic Lib Dem response: all very “I agree that this is a problem, this is a problem and this is a problem, but, but, but—”, which leads to no solutions whatsoever. Again, I am not going to engage with ridiculous political rhetoric. We consulted, and I have presented the House with a fair solution that does right by all the different cohorts—those who came to this country and those who are already here—recognising the exceptionality of care workers in particular, given that they arrived at a very specific post-covid moment when they were needed for gaps in our care sector. I think that is a fair settlement, and it has taken place after a genuine consultation. Usually, the Lib Dems are so in favour of consultations. They should be applauding the fact that this was a genuine one. We asked questions, we have considered the responses, and we have formulated the policy as a result of those responses.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned the recent IPPR report. He is right to say that it uses the same methodology that I have used before, but he failed to say that the report looks at a totally different cohort of people in order to talk about the numbers. Perhaps he would like to go back and look at the detail. I am happy to engage with him once he has acknowledged the difference in cohorts.
The hon. Gentleman made some points about the EU. It is another classic Lib Dem thing to assume that all these matters relate only to our post-Brexit reality, but settlement is a policy of this Government and all our predecessor Governments. It is a right conferred on people, who then obtain the right to live in this country permanently. It is right that this Government consider what the rules should be, just as every previous Government have done. He will know that after we left the European Union, over 5 million European citizens settled in this country under the EU settlement scheme. That is another of our post-Brexit consequences. I am always happy to discuss with him the position in relation to the EU, but I do not think that has anything to do with settlement.
Dr Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)
I welcome this statement and its greatly imaginative measures. I particularly welcome the fact that care workers will have a second opportunity to apply for indefinite leave to remain. Does the Home Secretary agree that the care workers whom we welcome to this country are every bit as valuable as the highly paid doctors, entrepreneurs and industrialists who come here with high salaries?
Shabana Mahmood
I agree with my hon. Friend. In acknowledgement of the very specific circumstances of the care worker cohort and their unique position in relation to the covid-19 pandemic, we have the transitional arrangement for care workers who arrived before May 2025. He is right to say that it is appropriate to give a second chance to those who have been unable to meet the requirements of their visa, who would normally be expected to leave the country. They now have a second chance at gaining employment in the care sector with a legitimate employer and a chance to meet the visa conditions, so that they can once again consider settlement in another five years’ time.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The Home Secretary is right to say that government is about a social contract, and I can see where she is coming from. Some of us do not have amnesia. Many of us were putting this to our then Government in that period in 2023, and anybody who was serving as a Home Office Minister at that time should wear sackcloth and ashes. Frankly, as a party, we will never move on until we accept that—although there was a very difficult situation after covid.
I still worry about a couple of things. I am still not entirely clear why, apart from political pressure, the Home Secretary is watering down her proposals from last time, if she is. I can see what she is trying to get at with care workers earning their right, but surely we should establish the firm principle that people have to have come here honestly to work in the care system and go on working. My last point is that I agree with her that, if people come here illegally, they should not be allowed to claim an indefinite right to stay until after 20 years, but are we going to have people in hotels for 20 years? Surely this underlines the fact that we have to arrest people, detain them and return them, otherwise there is no deterrent.
Shabana Mahmood
I agree with the Father of the House: it is high time that his Front Benchers took responsibility for the reality of their Government’s time in office—something that the shadow Home Secretary once again failed to do today.
On care workers in particular, this reflects the consultation responses and the recognition of the unique circumstances of that cohort—not just with what they were asked to do in the post-pandemic period, but that this route was subject to a huge amount of abuse. The Home Office has revoked the sponsor licences of over 1,800 employers, primarily from the care sector. Recognising that, if there are people in this country today who came in on this visa and have fulfilled its terms—they have their £25,000 a year earnings and are with an employer in the care sector—they will be able to settle. That is also why we are providing a second chance to make that contribution to those who have not been able to meet the terms of their visa. I think that is a fair settlement; it gives a second chance to those who were exploited, but does not create a new immediate right to settle for those who were not able to fulfil the terms of their visa.
On those who have arrived in this country illegally, the Father of the House will know that, in addition to the new core protection model, which means that people cannot settle before 20 years, we will be creating the work and study route, which will allow those integrating into this country by working or studying to settle earlier. Again, I think that is the right thing to do.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s focus on fairness. People know that this country has a set of rules, and we all should adhere to them, whether we arrive in this country or are born here.
The Home Secretary raised the matter of English language. Many people have settled already, and some have come in as spouses, without good English. This is a very gendered issue, with many women in particular trapped because they do not have access to English. Is she working with colleagues across Government and society generally to make sure that better English language teaching is available, so that people are not excluded and are able to participate fully?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend raises an incredibly important point, and she is right to talk about the gendered nature of those who are able to access English learning in this country. This Government have raised the English level expected of most migrants coming into this country, including refugees, apart from those on the UK resettlement route, precisely because we believe a good standard of English is absolutely critical to the ability of people to integrate fully into this country. Let me assure her that those cross-Government conversations are happening, and I would be happy to meet her in order to provide her with an update in due course.
Dame Karen Bradley (Staffordshire Moorlands) (Con)
The Home Secretary will know that the Committee conducted a piece of deliberative democracy work, in which we worked with the public to find out their attitudes to people who are coming in on work visas. It was very clear that the public want skills training so that those in the domestic population can take vacancies. Can she confirm what work she is doing across Government to make sure there is appropriate skills training for those who are here to take the jobs available, and can she confirm when she expects the new provisions to start?
Shabana Mahmood
I thank the Chair and the Home Affairs Committee for their work in this area. I will be responding officially to their recent report on settlement. She will know that I have waited until this policy was settled, but I will set out the Government’s full response to the Committee’s very good work in this area, for which I thank it.
The right hon. Lady is absolutely right about the need to make sure that domestic workers can access the skills they need to get jobs that are available in this country. She will know that I am flanked by many members of the Government, including the Secretary of State for Education, who is very alive to the issues of skills and training, as are my colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions and elsewhere. That will be an important piece of work, especially in the care sector where the Government have already recognised that there is a need for an improvement in pay and conditions for care workers, with our fair pay agreement expected by 2028; that is a recognition that things need to change in that sector to make it more attractive to domestic workers as well. So let me assure the right hon. Lady on that point.
The changes that have been announced will begin to be laid from the December immigration rules. They will be implemented over the course of 2027. I will be providing impact assessments and other detailed guidance as the changes are rolled out.
Navendu Mishra (Stockport) (Lab)
A large number of people from Hong Kong have chosen to make Stockport and Greater Manchester their home, and they make an invaluable contribution to our town and city region. Many of them have been worried over the last couple years about potential upcoming changes to indefinite leave to remain. I have met many of them over the last few months. What more can the Secretary of State say to reassure the people from the Hong Kong community who have used the British national overseas visa scheme that they are welcome in this country and that they will have a fair shot in terms of ILR?
Shabana Mahmood
Let me confirm to my hon. Friend that those who arrived on the BNO route are exempt from these changes. He knows that they have to meet the minimum requirements for English language, as well as no criminality and so on, but he should also know that the over-65s are exempt from the change in relation to English, which I think also provides a fair resolution for those who arrived on that route.
Sir James Cleverly (Braintree) (Con)
A Home Secretary clearing up the mess of her immediate predecessor—who would have thought it? When I brought through changes to the visa regime, the chorus of disapproval from the then Opposition, who now sit on the Government Benches, was deafening. She has already conceded that her proposals are not as robust as the announcement she made this time last year, so what confidence can the House or the country have that she will not further water down the proposals she has announced today as they go through the legislative process?
Shabana Mahmood
Let me say to one of my many predecessors as Home Secretary that the proposals I have announced today are far, far more robust than everything he and his Government left behind. It is their mess that this Government have been cleaning up. The right hon. Gentleman will know that both myself and my immediate predecessor as Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), are responsible for a number of changes, including: closing the care worker route to overseas workers; the requirement for sponsors to be Care Quality Commission rated; suspending family reunion for refugees while we settle family migration policy as we go into next year; and raising salary thresholds. This Government —both myself and my predecessor—have been taking the action that is needed and that is why net migration is down 82%.
Mike Tapp (Dover and Deal) (Lab)
Those who come to our country and genuinely work in our care sector, looking after our elderly and vulnerable, do our country a great service. However, some are unfortunately working in poor conditions. They are exploited and underpaid partly due to the current sponsorship system. Will the Home Secretary seriously consider looking at an umbrella sponsor system, working with the Department of Health and Social Care?
Shabana Mahmood
I have had discussions with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. She is also very clear that conditions for employers in the care sector must improve and that there should be minimum standards in future. She is undertaking that work, and it will be part of the wider reforms to the care sector that the Government are undertaking. What I have undertaken to ensure that the immigration system reflects any changes made to improve standards in the care sector and that we will follow those changes. It would be in appropriate for us, as an immigration Department, to change licensed routes ourselves without the wider work required, which the Health Secretary is undertaking, to improve the functioning of the care sector. Once that work is complete, I will make the relevant changes.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
As a member of the Home Affairs Committee, I proposed an amendment to our recent report on earned settlement that included a plea to only make changes to indefinite leave to remain for those not already embarked on the pathway to settlement. While my amendment was defeated, only three Labour MPs on the Committee voted against it, with four other Labour colleagues voting with me or abstaining. In the statement, which I applaud and welcome, the Home Secretary rightly lauds the UK’s reputation for playing fairly, so will she join the Liberal Democrats in agreeing not to make any retrospective changes to the time required to achieve indefinite leave to remain for all those already on pathways to settlement, not only care workers—or do other contributions not count?
Shabana Mahmood
I will repeat for the hon. Member an answer that I have given many times, including to the Home Affairs Committee. I profoundly disagree with the hon. Member’s point: it is a long-established principle that the rules that apply to an application are those that are in place at the point of decision, not at the point when somebody arrived in the country. I am afraid that to go down that road would render this and all future Governments unable to manage the migration system effectively. It would be the wrong step. It is not a step required of us by our legal system and courts, and we will not be taking it.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Because of the nature of my constituency, I work with a large number of people who come here—often on the boats—and their families as well, and the years of waiting for security have an impact on their mental health. I would like some clarity on the third paragraph of page 4 of the Home Secretary’s statement, where she says:
“The standard qualifying period for all refugees who have not come by a safe and legal route will become 20 years. A further 10 years will be added for those who entered the country by an illegal method, such as by small boat.”
I have not misread that. Does it meant that earned settlement could take 30 years for some people?
Shabana Mahmood
Yes, that is right. We consulted on whether an additional period should apply to those who arrive in the country through unlawful means, such as by boat or on the back of a lorry, and there was an overwhelmingly positive response. My right hon. Friend will know that the Government wish to incentivise people to enter the country through safe and legal means. As I said in my statement, there is nothing fair about our border system being run by people smugglers.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I urge colleagues to keep their questions short and for the Home Secretary to be as on point as she can be.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
One of the criteria to gain long-term settlement rights that the Home Secretary set out was no debt being owed to the state. What does that look like in reality? I have advocated for a student loan-style system for debts to be repaid. Will the Home Secretary address what steps she is taking to abolish the impact of rogue sponsors, namely chicken shops, Turkish barbers and vape shops, which all exist in plain sight and are an acute problem in the illegal immigration web?
Shabana Mahmood
The hon. Member is right to acknowledge that there is a huge explosion in the number of people on the sponsorship register—that happened under the previous Government—and I will set out policy for how we resolve issues within the register. The hon. Member will already know that we are revoking licences where appropriate and where somebody should not be able to bring workers into this country. The debt the hon. Member references will include NHS, tax and litigation debt. For refugees, it will also include asylum support—either the payment of asylum support costs or at least for someone to be complying with a payment plan.
Jess Phillips (Birmingham Yardley) (Lab)
Victims of domestic abuse who have come over as dependants can currently apply for settlement immediately. Will that change under the new rules?
Shabana Mahmood
It will not change. Victims of domestic abuse will still be able to obtain immediate settlement.
Sir Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Like the Home Secretary, I come from an immigrant family that came here legally, but I fail to understand why she thinks not being able to get settled status for 20 or even 30 years will deter people from coming here illegally, provided that there is no prospect of them being removed from the country because of laws like the European convention on human rights?
Shabana Mahmood
The right hon. Gentleman and I disagree on the ECHR—a debate we have had many times. The time period in which someone attains settlement should both reflect the means by which they came to the country and incentivise the behaviour that we want to see, which is people working or studying, contributing to society, and taking steps to integrate. That will have an impact on the behaviour of everyone who comes to this country, whether they have come on a work visa or are in the asylum system. It is a fair solution for everyone.
Feryal Clark (Enfield North) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. She will be aware of my ongoing concerns with regard to Turkish businesspeople who have made their life in the UK after entering under the European communities association agreement, also known as the Ankara agreement. Will she set out how today’s announcement affects that group?
Shabana Mahmood
I can confirm that those who arrived under the ECAA, which is a closed route that reflects the particular agreement that we were part of then, will face no changes to their settlement—they are outside the scope of earned settlement.
Sarah Olney (Richmond Park) (LD)
I have constituents who are waiting on the five-year route to ILR, who have brought their spouses and children with them to this country and taken on high-skilled, high-paying roles. Their spouses will now have to apply separately and will be on a 10-year scheme. If their children reach adulthood before both spouses have achieved ILR, they will not be eligible to remain in this country, despite having been here since childhood. Can the Home Secretary give any reassurance to those families in my constituency who are deeply worried about their children being left without citizenship?
Shabana Mahmood
The hon. Member has probably not yet had the opportunity to look at the chapter on dependants within the consultation response, so let me reassure her that we have confirmed that the position on children is largely unchanged. Spouses will normally settle at the same time as the main applicant if they arrive at the same time; if they arrive after the main applicant, they will do the same time period. Looking at income—we consulted specifically on this point—we have also said that for those on lower incomes, or to reflect the fact that one partner might take time out for caring responsibilities, combined household income can be used rather than individual income.
Olivia Bailey (Reading West and Mid Berkshire) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for the changes she has announced today, but questions remain about the impact of these changes on children in particular. Children are not responsible for the choices of their parents, and we must ensure that they do not face greater poverty or instability as a consequence of any changes. The Home Secretary did not say much about children in her statement today. I have had a brief look through the consultation response, but I have a few specific questions. First, will she publish a child rights impact assessment ahead of implementation? Secondly, will she provide greater clarity on the situation for children, including whether the existing private—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Marvellous. I call the Home Secretary.
Shabana Mahmood
Again, I appreciate the fact that not everybody will have had a chance yet to look at the whole consultation response, so I say to my hon. Friend that the position on children is largely unchanged. The rules about whether applicants have been here for seven years or the majority of their life in order to be able to settle still apply, and children will normally settle when both of their parents get ILR, which is the same position as today.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
What a missed opportunity to strengthen the rules, strengthen the illegal immigration policy and strengthen our borders. How can the Home Secretary reasonably think this is fair to the British people?
Shabana Mahmood
I think that was actually a missed opportunity to apologise, which nobody on the Opposition Benches has done.
Ms Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. As she knows, I have written to her about this matter, and I have met migrant workers in my constituency. She has mentioned that the Health Secretary will be carrying out a review looking particularly at fraudulent and exploitative companies, and I urge the Home Secretary to ensure that strong, robust action is taken against these companies to deter their behaviour. I would also like reassurance that the Home Secretary will meet migrant workers as part of this consultation and this review to ensure that their concerns are addressed.
Shabana Mahmood
I thank my hon. Friend for her question. I think I have covered the immigration aspects in today’s statement, but it is the case that exploitative and rogue employers have had their licences revoked. My colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade have agreed that the Fair Work Agency will look specifically at the care sector and the behaviour of employers within it. My colleagues in the Health Department are looking at the wider reforms that are needed for the care sector, and the Minister for Social Care and Mental Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Alison McGovern), has kindly agreed to meet my hon. Friend on that.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
I was hoping when I turned up today that I would hear the Home Secretary say that she was abandoning all the proposals around ILR. While it is positive that she has responded to the cross-party campaign on social care workers, she still has a long way to go to address the unfairness at the heart of these proposals. The un-British retrospectivity is still in place, and those who thought they had a contract with the UK will still be let down. When is she going to be positive about immigration, including its economic benefits and the value that it brings to our communities?
Shabana Mahmood
I have literally been talking about the positive impacts of migration, including for me personally—I would not be in this country were it not for migration into this country. As for what the hon. Gentleman has to say about the ability of the Government to change the rules, no Government would be able to run an effective migration system if they followed his approach. We will not be doing that. This is a long-settled position that has been upheld by the courts, so we are fully compliant with our legal obligations. The Government have set out a fair policy for all.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
I would like to ask a question on behalf of a constituent of mine who has been in touch today. He came across the world from Pakistan to Islington to work as a care worker nearly five years ago, so he is greatly relieved that he will be able to get his ILR quickly and that his family will get some security. But that family has now been joined by a little boy with a rare genetic condition. Can the Home Secretary confirm whether the family will be able to apply for additional support once dad has got his ILR, or will it be necessary for them to wait until he is actually a citizen?
Shabana Mahmood
If my right hon. Friend’s constituent has met the terms of his visa, as I set out in my statement he will be able to apply for indefinite leave to remain at five years. At the point of settlement, people are able to access the benefits system.
Sir Gavin Williamson (Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge) (Con)
Restricting access to public funds to those with settlement rights will most likely require primary legislation. When will such a Bill be brought forward?
Shabana Mahmood
The Government are not restricting benefits for those with settlement rights. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that not only does that require primarily legislation, but it would create two-tier settlement rights. The rules on no access to public funds apply before somebody can achieve settlement to make sure that those who have had to fall on the state to seek assistance are still working for a period before they apply for settlement.
Ms Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
It is heartening to hear the Home Secretary dispel the lump of labour fallacy that people who come to this country simply take jobs. She is talking about the benefits of people coming to this country through immigration, and that is welcome, but if we are to help our constituents understand the new scheme that she is proposing, we do need some clarity. If I understand rightly, around 200,000 people who are working but do not earn more than £50,000, do not have a British spousal connection and are not working in the care sector or public sector—scientists, researchers or skilled technicians, for example—will now face a 10-year wait to get settlement in this country. She says that there is going to be an economic impact assessment. Does she expect these proposals to have a positive or negative impact on our economy?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend mentions number of different professions. It will depend on entry levels and whether they fall within a transitional arrangement, but the default period for settlement has moved from five years to 10 years. I do expect there to be economic benefits, not least the billions saved to the Department for Work and Pensions from people waiting longer before they are able to access benefits.
Hannah Spencer (Gorton and Denton) (Green)
By allowing those with more money to jump the queue and receive earned settlement status faster, these changes amount to an attack on lower-paid workers and, by extension, lower-paid British-born people too. Time and again the working classes, whatever their nationality or migration status, have been looked down on and left behind. Does the Home Secretary agree that her changes send a clear message to people who have come here or people who have been born here that they are worth less if they do not earn enough?
Shabana Mahmood
I reject that entirely. First of all, lower-paid British workers are already British; they do not need settlement in their own country. In this policy, including with all its transitional arrangements, the Government have recognised public service alongside earnings for faster pathways to settlement. I ask her to bear in mind that the highest earners pay the highest in tax, and it is our taxpayers’ money that funds the public services that we all rely on. We have found a solution that is fair for everybody, rewarding those who make the biggest contribution, including in public service roles.
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
I welcome the fair solution for existing migrant care workers, because they did nothing but respond to a need for their labour that was caused by our care recruitment crisis, which was caused by low wages and inadequate training. What are the Government doing cross-departmentally to prevent future care recruitment crises? How will the contribution of care workers be weighted in the framework in future for those who have arrived or will arrive after May 2025?
Shabana Mahmood
I thank my hon. Friend for that. The Health Secretary and her team are working hard on all the reforms needed to ensure that the care sector is functioning properly, including a workforce plan, which I believe is due before Christmas, and the fair pay agreement that will be in place in 2028. My hon. Friend knows that the Government also have the wider Louise Casey review on the country’s care needs and how they can be met. Taken together, all that work means a fundamental change to how the care sector works in this country.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
It is weeks since I wrote to the immigration Minister, but I have not had a response—out of generosity of spirit, I will say that the Government have been busy—so I will take this opportunity to invite the Home Secretary to come to the proposed site in Linton-on-Ouse. It is an integrated village. If the Home Secretary were to come and see it for herself, I think she would be quite shocked. I do so in the full, open spirit of working co-operatively—I do not even mind if I cannot be there on the day. I really want the Home Secretary to come to site with the Linton-on-Ouse action group and to see for herself just how inappropriate it is.
Shabana Mahmood
I hear the passionate point that the right hon. Member makes as a constituency Member of Parliament. He will know that no decision has yet been made, and I will ensure that his letter is responded to promptly. He will also know that the Government have saved a billion pounds a year by closing asylum hotels and that we will go further to close all asylum hotels in this Parliament. As we do so, it is important that we move to a new model of providing asylum accommodation that includes more use of military sites. However, as I said in relation to the specific site he mentioned, no decision has yet been made.
Will Stone (Swindon North) (Lab)
This country owes those in the Gurkha regiment a debt of thanks for their continued service. Will the Secretary of State outline what will happen to them and their dependants with these changes?
Shabana Mahmood
I can confirm that the position for Gurkhas is the same as for all of those in our armed forces—they have their own bespoke route to settlement, which is usually four years after service—and they are exempt from the changes we have made today.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
Does the Home Secretary believe that it is fair to change the rules retrospectively for people who are not earning in excess of £50,000 but nevertheless have built careers, raised families and paid taxes based on the settlement pathway that existed when they arrived? Does this not violate the British value of fairness and risk real damage to our economy and our social fabric?
Shabana Mahmood
I absolutely disagree. I simply repeat the point that I have made to many hon. Members on the Lib Dem Benches: a Government need to be able to change the immigration system rules to reflect emerging circumstances. If they had their way, the immigration system would be in absolute chaos. The resolution that we have found between the different cohorts, including those who will now be eligible for a transitional arrangement, represents a fair solution for everyone.
Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
I commend my right hon. Friend for consulting so widely in developing the earned settlement proposals and for listening to the representations of care workers in particular. I must express my astonishment at the refusal of Conservative Members to accept moral, social, financial or political responsibility for their failed immigration policies.
These proposals will nevertheless adversely affect many. May I raise in particular early career researchers—postdocs and so on—who will not be earning £50,000 a year but will be contributing to our scientific understanding? Will my right hon. Friend meet me to discuss the impact on our science base?
Shabana Mahmood
I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend and will happily discuss those issues with her, but with the proposals that the Government have set out—including the transitional arrangements for those cohorts in health and education, given our reliance on foreign labour in those two sectors and the Migration Advisory Committee’s specific treatment of them—I think that we have found a fair resolution for everyone.
Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The list of public sector jobs eligible to apply for the five-year settlement route does not appear to include prison officers. What assessment has the Home Secretary made of the effect that these changes will have on the crisis-hit Prison Service?
Shabana Mahmood
The list does not include prison officers, because the transitional arrangements apply to those cohorts of workers that the Migration Advisory Committee recognises on national pay scales in health and education for the purposes of the immigration rules. The right hon. Lady will know that it is a very small number of prison officers who will settle at 10 years, but let me confirm to her and the House that I have been discussing these measures with the Secretary of State for Justice and I will do everything I can to make sure that the Prison Service has the labour it needs in the future.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. The previous Conservative Government’s approach to net migration can at best be described as marrying in haste and repenting at leisure, so will the Home Secretary please assure my Carlisle constituents that the new settlement rules will ensure that future immigration is built on a long-term commitment and not on impulsive short-term fixes?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let me also say that “repent at leisure” would apply if there was, in fact, any repentance from the Conservatives.
Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
The Home Secretary has said that anyone exploiting or abusing the system must be penalised, and I suspect the whole House would agree with that. Prestige Dental Services has more than 500,000 patients across the west midlands region and sponsors more than 40 skilled dental workers. Last week, it had its licence revoked, not because of exploitation or abuse but because of an admin error in relation to three of the 40 employees. Will the Home Secretary please look into this matter urgently, so that those 500,000 patients are not put at risk?
Shabana Mahmood
If the hon. Gentleman wishes to write to me about that specific case, he is welcome to do so. I would caution anybody about making assumptions on why a licence is revoked. I am sure that if it was a mere admin error, that will be looked at, but licence revocations have happened in record numbers because, under the approach taken by the previous Government, there was a desire to sign people up without much expectation of what standards they should meet.
Derek Twigg (Widnes and Halewood) (Lab)
I supported the Home Secretary’s original proposals and the tougher measures she has been taking since she came into post. I am also pleased that she made the point clearly about disqualification because of a criminal record. Has any assessment been made by the Department of how many of these care workers will remain in the care sector after the qualifying period?
Shabana Mahmood
The majority of visa holders who responded to the consultation were care workers, and roughly 50% of them said that once they had achieved settlement, they would look to leave the care sector. I think that that is down to a recognition that they would be able to get higher-paid jobs elsewhere. That is why colleagues across Government, including in the Department of Health and Social Care, are looking carefully at lifting standards in the care sector in such a way that people will wish to remain in the sector and we will be able to recruit other workers into the sector.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
Will migrants who come to this country and set up legitimate small businesses that employ people who pay taxes be advantaged under the scheme that the Home Secretary has announced for earned settlement, or will they be excluded because they are not working people, according to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s definition announced this weekend?
Shabana Mahmood
They will need to meet the terms of their visa, which is the most important measure in ensuring that people who have come here on certain terms fulfil the contribution they were supposed to make.
Alex McIntyre (Gloucester) (Lab)
There was a certain irony in the shadow Home Secretary lecturing the House on who should be defined as highly skilled. He was certainly highly skilled at opening asylum hotels, including the one in my constituency. Can the Home Secretary confirm that the proposals she has made today, along with the other work she is doing in the Department, will mean that that hotel is closed by the end of this Parliament?
Shabana Mahmood
Let me assure my hon. Friend that the Government have already closed a number of asylum hotels. We have made £1 billion-worth of savings in asylum accommodation, and we will fulfil our manifesto commitment to close all hotels in this Parliament.
Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Reform)
I respect the Home Secretary, but these are not the reforms that she wanted. When she said that the Boris wave was destabilising and unprecedented, and that it would cause incalculable damage, she was absolutely right. The Boris wave was the worst public policy failure of the 21st century, and now she risks locking it in for generations to come. When the last Conservative Prime Minister—my Prime Minister—ignored my advice on immigration, I resigned. Her Prime Minister has ignored her advice on immigration, and the damage is going to be disastrous for this country. Why has she not considered her position?
Shabana Mahmood
The right hon. Gentleman could also do with more honesty and contrition about his track record, including on the difference between some of the positions he took when he was a Minister in the Tory Government and those that he takes now. I simply say to him that the package of reforms I have announced today, as set out in the consultation document, represent a fair solution for all the cohorts that are caught by the new earned settlement proposals. We have made targeted exemptions where the circumstances justify them. It is this Government that are cleaning up the mess we inherited from the previous lot.
Barry Gardiner (Brent West) (Lab)
The Home Secretary is right to set out fairness as the guiding principle for her reforms. Does she accept that contribution and integration, which will be taken into account as a means of reducing the wait time, are subjective criteria on which caseworkers might come to different conclusions, and that that would not be fair? Does she agree that the unfairness for the British people comes from the gradual erosion of the difference between settlement and citizenship, such that all the benefits come with settlement and the only thing people get with citizenship is a blue passport and the right to return to the country after two years?
Shabana Mahmood
Many rights do accrue at the point of settlement, and that has been the policy under successive Governments over many decades. I do not wish to create a new system with a two-tier approach to what settlement means—one for historical cohorts and a new one for future cohorts—not least because some in this country, including some on the Opposition Benches, wish to rip up the status of indefinite leave to remain altogether. That would be the wrong thing to do. It would be unconscionable to throw into chaos the long-term residency arrangements of millions of people in this country, and this Government will not do that. On contribution and integration, the tests that need to be met are made clear in the consultation document. They are not subjective criteria, but detailed criteria that will be applied by caseworkers in the future.
Ben Obese-Jecty (Huntingdon) (Con)
The Home Secretary did not address the issue of the dependants of armed forces personnel. In June, the majority of Government Members voted down my amendment to the Armed Forces Bill, which included the waiving of visa fees. That has now been overturned in the House of Lords, and the Bill will be coming back here, but will she clarify exactly what will happen to the spouses and children of armed forces personnel? Will their visa fees be waived? If they earn less than £50,000 and do not work in healthcare or a professional job, will they have to find themselves—sorry, I have lost my train of thought.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I think you made your point. Well done.
Shabana Mahmood
I know what the hon. Gentleman means. Let me assure him that the situation in relation to all members of the armed forces is unchanged by the package of earned settlement measures. They have their own bespoke regime. I will meet him to discuss the matter of fee waivers.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Home Secretary set out what internal changes she will make in the Home Office? One complaint I often get from people waiting for their ILR decision is about the length of time it takes to get that outcome from the point of application. As part of this new package to improve the system, what will happen to reduce the waiting time for applicants?
Shabana Mahmood
We have already made significant progress in improving Home Office processes, as evidenced by the fact that the backlog for initial decisions after an asylum application has decreased considerably. Since this Government have been in power, we have got removals up to over 80,000, alongside many other changes. Let me assure my hon. Friend that as these changes are rolled out—they will be rolled out over a period of time, so that the systems are ready for each of the changes as they are made—I will ensure that the Home Office is equipped to make timely decisions under the new rules.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Your Party)
Where is the fairness in prioritising very wealthy people and very high earners over much lower-paid care workers who are obviously doing a valuable job and helping all our communities?
Shabana Mahmood
Perhaps the right hon. Member missed the bit of my statement where I set out transitional arrangements for care workers.
Pamela Nash (Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke) (Lab)
The Home Secretary will be well aware that the need for migrant workers varies throughout the country. What assessment has the Home Office made of the impact that these rule changes will make on areas such as mine in Lanarkshire, where the gap between the numbers of healthy working-age people and retirees is widening exponentially?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend will know that immigration policy is a reserved matter and applies UK-wide, so the rules that we have announced today apply to everyone everywhere. The Government will publish an impact assessment in the normal way, around the same time as when the immigration rules are laid.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
Although I welcome the earned progression model, it is disappointing that the Home Secretary has watered down her original proposals under pressure from Cabinet colleagues. Her plan to make illegal migrants wait 30 years for permission to remain will not deter any small boat crossings. Does she agree that the only way to stop the boats is to deport all those who arrive illegally?
Shabana Mahmood
First, it was a genuine consultation and we have listened to the unique circumstances of those who came to work in the care sector. I think it is right that we have arrangements recognising those unique circumstances. On illegal migrants, it is this Government who this year have overseen a 40% decrease in the number of people arriving by small boat. We have made a huge amount of progress, especially through our deal with the French Government and the law enforcement response, trying to go after the gangs that, in the end, put people in those boats. We will not rest until we have stopped people arriving in this country by boat in that way. I think that the settlement offer that people get when they arrive does make a material difference.
Dan Carden (Liverpool Walton) (Lab)
I just want to say something that I think everybody in this House recognises, which is that the Home Secretary is probably the first person in this job for two decades or more who has really got to grips with this system, and she has achieved a great deal. She also puts up with people projecting on to her what they think her views about immigration should be. Will she say why rebuilding public confidence in the immigration system is so important for social cohesion?
Shabana Mahmood
I thank my hon. Friend for those remarks. He is absolutely right: there is quite a lot of projection that happens when you are a brown Muslim woman in the world of politics, but I am, alas, used to it. On rebuilding public trust, as I said in my statement, solidarity is a precondition of social justice. If we are to have a system based on taxation for universal public services, people need to know that everyone is contributing into the same collective pot that we can all then rely upon when we need to. That is how we maintain social cohesion in this country. A managed system where the Government are in control—where it is not people smugglers who decide who gets to come into our country, but the Government who make that choice, with the consent of the British people—is absolutely the way to ensure that we have social cohesion and strong communities all over our country.
Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
I am aware that businesses not offering high-quality employment, such as mini-marts, barber shops, vape shops and nail bars, are still able to get sponsorship licences. Will the Home Secretary commit to reviewing the types of businesses that can access those licences and stop these people being able to exploit people who are not high-quality employees?
Shabana Mahmood
I am already reviewing the way in which the sponsorship register works and the conditions required of companies before they can sponsor workers coming into this country, and I will report to the House on that.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I will read the detail in the consultation, but I am concerned about retrospective changes because our word should be our bond to people coming here. Also, in an economy where skills and contribution do not correlate with wages, I find the Home Secretary’s proposals prejudicial on that basis. Will she look at that again in the light of the consultation, so that we can put fairness at the heart of this?
Shabana Mahmood
I disagree with my hon. Friend, as she knows from my statement today, which has listened to the consultation responses in detail. As I have set out in answer to other hon. Members, the position for settlement applications is that the rules apply at the point at which the decision is made, not when someone has come into the country. That has been settled law and settled policy for a very long time, and it will not change.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
In her statement, the Home Secretary used the word “fair”, or different iterations of it, 20 times. She said that her own parents left a place where “power was often arbitrary,” and the “dice were always loaded”, and they came here because they would be “treated fairly.” Now, a worker earning £40,000, who came here legally, paid their taxes and played their part, has been moved from five to 10 years, halfway through. Is changing the rules mid-game fair, or is that exactly what loaded dice look like?
Shabana Mahmood
It is absolutely fair. The hon. Gentleman will know that for people who arrived around the time my parents and grandad did, the rules often changed regularly. As I said, it has been settled policy that the rules that apply to an application are those at the point of decision, not the point when someone arrives in the country, and it is made clear to people arriving on a temporary work visa that that does not necessarily indicate that settlement rights will follow. In my statement, and in our document responding to the consultation we carried out, there is a fair resolution for all the different cohorts that are affected by earned settlement, reflecting unique circumstances where appropriate, and ensuring that the default period moves to 10 years, which has been settled policy since last summer.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I welcome the change for care workers, but may I ask more about those whose five years have not worked out, for one reason or another? The Home Secretary says there will be another five-year route, but I met a care worker the other day who has injured her back because her employer did not respect health and safety rules, and she now cannot do that job. She has a master’s degree in financial management and is a specialist in AI. She knows that she has to work as a care worker, but will she really have to start again once her back has healed?
Shabana Mahmood
The position for those who arrived on the care visa was that they needed to work within the care sector, and I think it is fair to expect those who were unable to meet the terms of that visa to have a second shot at working in the care sector again. A number of jobs are available in the care sector, not all of which require heavy lifting, and I am sure that can be taken into account. The Government will assist care workers who have been unable to meet the terms of their visa to have that second chance at finding appropriate work with a legitimate provider.
Tessa Munt (Wells and Mendip Hills) (LD)
The 2009 Gurkha justice campaign, spearheaded by Joanna Lumley, achieved settlement rights for British Army Gurkha veterans, and my understanding is that many progressed to settlement here by virtue of the access to indefinite leave to remain. Will the Home Secretary reassure the House that none of these changes will adversely affect the ability of those heroes to settle in the UK when they retire?
Shabana Mahmood
Yes, as I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Swindon North (Will Stone), Gurkhas will have settlement under the armed forces rules, which are entirely exempt and different from earned settlement.
Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)
I welcome the principle of earned settlement, whereby contribution to our society is rewarded, and it is right that we reward our care workers. In our schools, our teachers need the support of their assistants. Will the Home Secretary say what support there will be for our teaching assistants?
Shabana Mahmood
Those in the health and education sectors on below degree-level jobs with national pay scales, such as teaching assistants, will be subject to the same transitional arrangements that I have set out for care workers who have met the terms of their visa.
Sarah Pochin (Runcorn and Helsby) (Reform)
In August last year the Government admitted that they had no idea how many people who came in on care worker visas were still working in the care sector. How can the Home Secretary make an informed decision on their earned settlement when she has no idea whether they are still here doing the jobs they came in to do?
Shabana Mahmood
When applying for settlement, people will need to provide evidence that they have been working and earning within the care sector. Based on analysis of HM Revenue and Customs data, we expect that three quarters of care workers will meet the test and conditions of their visa and will be able to settle at five years.
Gurinder Singh Josan (Smethwick) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement, particularly the provision for care workers to obtain settlement on their existing five-year route. What support and provision are being offered to those who came here on a care visa and are tied to exploitative sponsors, or those who have been unable to continue working as care workers because of exploitative sponsors?
Shabana Mahmood
The individuals my hon. Friend refers to will have a second chance, as they will be able to apply for a new five-year visa in the care sector. The Government will double the amount of time normally allowed so that those people can find another job with a legitimate employer, and the Government will help those individuals to be matched with legitimate employers so that they can work in the care sector.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
Everybody I have met and spoken to in my constituency opposes any kind of illegal immigration into our country. However, many people are in desperate need of help and they are forced to come via illegal routes. Just as there is a workaround providing a dispensation for care workers who have been exploited to have a second chance at getting earned status, will genuine refugees who came here in the absence of safe and legal routes be offered the same?
Shabana Mahmood
No, the position in relation to those who enter the country unlawfully is different, not least because those who are arriving on a boat are doing so from the north of France, which is a safe country underpinned by the European convention on human rights. It is right to treat those different cohorts differently because their method of entry into the country is different, and it is right that the Government are able to incentivise the behaviour we wish to see and disincentivise those who pay people smugglers and who risk their lives in the channel. I would have hoped that we could agree on that.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
We continue to have acute workforce pressures in social care in Scotland, which often leaves people stranded in hospital when they are fit to go home. What conversations has the Home Secretary had with the Scottish Government about the need for robust workforce planning, which has been absent for so long, to ensure that existing skills gaps are not exacerbated by these changes?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend raises an important point. She will know that the Home Office is not responsible for workforce planning, but Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care are working carefully on a workforce response, and I am sure that they are discussing these matters with their counterparts in the devolved Administrations.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I broadly welcome the principle that permanent residency in our United Kingdom must be properly earned. The Home Secretary has rightly drawn a differential between those who immigrate, pay their taxes and national insurance and make a contribution, and those usually very healthy economic migrants who jump in a rubber raft at Calais and come across. Our public services, particularly the health and social care trusts in Northern Ireland, rely heavily on dedicated international workers who pay their taxes and play by the rules. Will she reassure my constituents that the policy will firmly reward legal, working contribution, while cracking down on those who jump the queue?
Shabana Mahmood
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The point of earned settlement is to reflect and provide settlement for those who contribute to this country and who meet the new minimum requirements, which include no criminality and no debt. That is a fair deal for all concerned, not least the taxpayer, whose money underpins all the public services that we rely on.
Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)
I look forward to chewing through the details of what the Home Secretary has published today, but it is good to hear her talk about the role of societal contribution as a route to residency and about the allowances for care workers. Some 4.2 million economic migrants came to this country under the previous Government, while we have hundreds of thousands of British young people not in education, employment or training. What conversations is she having across Government so that our immigration intake marries up to what we need in our labour market and economy?
Shabana Mahmood
It is absolutely right that while we should be able to bring in workers from abroad when we need to in order to fill market gaps in this country, of course we have to ensure that we are always providing opportunities for domestic workers, not least the 1 million young people who are not in education, employment or training. We have an obligation to them too and it is important that we strike the right balance. I believe the earned settlement reforms strike the right balance for migrant workers and British taxpayers. I assure my hon. Friend that I am talking to colleagues across Government. Immigration is not the only part of the answer—skills and training here at home are also necessary.
Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)
I welcome the Home Secretary’s recognition of the crucial work done by overseas care workers. Does she agree not only that this approach is needed not just practically, but that it is the right thing to do in principle to ensure that those who contribute the most in the most under-served professions in our country are rewarded?
Shabana Mahmood
It was clear from the response to the consultation that the position of care workers was unique. They came at a specific moment post-covid, when there were very real challenges in the care sector, and it is right to reflect that and provide a five-year path to settlement for those who met the terms of their visa.
Markus Campbell-Savours (Penrith and Solway) (Lab)
I thank the Home Secretary for her leadership on this issue. In the Lake district, due to housing shortages, there is a long-established policy of social housing being subject to local occupancy restrictions; only those with a local link—for example, local employment—are eligible for housing. Looking beyond the Home Office, does she agree that her Cabinet colleagues—not least those responsible for the fairness of housing policy—also have the power and a responsibility to reduce immigration pull factors?
Shabana Mahmood
I was not aware of those arrangements in the Lake district. My hon. Friend is right about the broader point; it is incumbent on all Government Departments to think about these issues in the round and to strike a fair balance. All the conversations that I have had with my colleagues in Cabinet reflect that, as the Government position.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. Could she consider the disparity that sometimes arises across the UK in salaries? I point her to information published by the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland just last month, which indicated that those in Scotland were likely to be earning up to 9% less than their counterparts in the rest of the UK. We clearly would not want people in the immigration system to be caught out by that anomaly, too.
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend makes an important point. She will know that those who are already in the country on lower salaries were given an exemption by the previous Government, and so can extend their visa on the same salary. We have agreed that we will extend that further to 2035, to enable those people to achieve settlement. More broadly, she will know that some of the changes in the Budget reflect advice from the Migration Advisory Committee on regional pay.
Neil Duncan-Jordan (Poole) (Lab)
Given that those earning more than £50,000 will have a five-year route to settled status, while those earning less than £50,000 will have a 10-year route, how will we assess whether a lawyer offers more value to our society than a teaching assistant, setting aside how much they earn?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend will know that there is a specific transitional arrangement for teaching assistants, because they are defined by the Migration Advisory Committee as being in the health and education sector, on national pay scales. They will have a five-year path if they arrived before May 2025.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement and her distinction between illegal migrants and those who came legally to work and contribute. We must confront the mess left by the Conservatives, whose failure to manage our immigration system is nothing short of a national scandal. Settlement should be earned through contribution, and in Portsmouth, I have seen that at first hand from our care workers, who look after our most vulnerable. Will the Home Secretary reassure those who have already contributed so much that their contributions will be recognised, and that those who have not contributed and have tried to play the system will need to contribute to remain?
Shabana Mahmood
Let me reiterate to my hon. Friend that the transitional arrangement agreed for care workers reflects the unique circumstances of that cohort. Those who have met the terms of their visa will be able to settle at five years, and those who have not will get a second chance to make the contribution that they originally came to make.
Chris Curtis (Milton Keynes North) (Lab)
I welcome the changes announced today, and thank the Home Secretary for the way that she reached out during the consultation. In particular, when it comes to our responsibility to BNO visa holders, she has listened. In the past, one of the challenges in seeking to move towards a contributory system has been that the Office for Budget Responsibility has struggled to model correctly the importance of contribution in our welfare system. It has made some changes, but that change should continue. Will the Home Secretary call on the OBR to continue to improve the way that it models the economics of migration?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend tempts me, but he knows that the OBR is independent. I am sure that it has heard his point about how the contribution of migrants is measured, for the purposes of its forecasts and the scoring decisions that it makes ahead of fiscal events. He will know that the Home Office’s approach is to look at settlement as a lifetime benefit, so we have considered lifetime cost, as well as unique circumstances of particular cohorts. He mentions the BNOs; he will know that they are exempt from any of these income changes. That reflects our long-standing commitment to them, but they have to meet the new minimum requirements.
Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)
I welcome the retention of the five-year pathway for indefinite leave to remain. I have met Nigerian and Zimbabwean social care workers in Newtown and the Dee valley who will be greatly reassured and relieved by today’s statement. Will my right hon. Friend join me in celebrating the huge contribution that these workers make to our health and social care system every day?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. These workers have been making a contribution. Given their unique circumstances, and the fact that many of them have met the terms of their visas, they will be able to settle at five years.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
The Home Secretary is absolutely right to talk about the British people’s sense of fairness; I heard about exactly that on the doorstep in Cannock Chase just this weekend. Not only did the Conservatives let millions into Britain over just a few years, but they left indefinite leave to remain at five years, regardless of someone’s contribution. Does the Home Secretary agree that these changes will introduce fairness, and that those who want to settle here will have to make a fair and positive contribution?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Fairness to all is what underpins these reforms—not just to those who arrived here lawfully to work, but to those who are already here, and who pay for the systems we all depend on.
Chris Hinchliff (North East Hertfordshire) (Lab)
Almost everyone in my constituency who speaks to me about immigration says that they welcome those who come to work hard in our country and play by the rules. As the Home Secretary knows, though, many of those workers across multiple sectors of the economy face significant exploitation from their visa sponsors. She referred to helping workers break away from rogue employers; will she meet those of us who are interested in introducing a certificate of common sponsorship to resolve this problem?
Shabana Mahmood
As I have said, the Government will assist people who have been with a rogue employer in the care sector to get legitimate work in that sector for the renewal of their five-year care visa. The Home Office will, of course, amend sponsorship regimes, following changes made by the Health Secretary and her team. They are looking carefully at what the minimum conditions and standards in this sector should be, and I have already undertaken that we will follow those changes, once they are made.
Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
Framing today’s statement is the fact that under this Labour Government and this Home Secretary, net migration is down 82% from its peak under the previous Conservative Government. However, can she confirm that alongside the changes that she is making to legal migration, there will be serious consequences for settlement for those entering our country by dangerous and illegal means?
Shabana Mahmood
My hon. Friend is right that migration is down under this Government, and we are taking steps to make sure that we bring coherence and rationality to the migration system and fix the mess left behind by the previous Government. On his point about illegal migration, that is why there is an additional waiting period of 10 years for those who enter illegally; we consulted on this matter, and there was a plurality of support for that measure. It reflects the fact that in the end, the Government and their people have to be in control of our migration system, not people-smuggling gangs.
Bill Presented
Animal Shelters (Licensing) Bill
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Richard Holden, supported by Rebecca Harris, Mr Mark Francois, John Lamont, Dan Carden, Dame Caroline Dinenage, Simon Hoare, Dr Peter Prinsley, John Glen, Mims Davies, Greg Smith and Dr Neil Hudson, presented a Bill to make provision for the licensing of animal shelters; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 15 January 2027, and to be printed (Bill 168).
Submarine Recycling Strategy
Monday 2nd November 2026
(2 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Submarine Recycling Strategy Bill 2026-27 View all Submarine Recycling Strategy Bill 2026-27 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate
A Ten Minute Rule Bill is a First Reading of a Private Members Bill, but with the sponsor permitted to make a ten minute speech outlining the reasons for the proposed legislation.
There is little chance of the Bill proceeding further unless there is unanimous consent for the Bill or the Government elects to support the Bill directly.
For more information see: Ten Minute Bills
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish a strategy for recycling decommissioned submarines; and for connected purposes.
Every time I drive back to my constituency, there is one sight that tells me I am nearly home. It is not a cathedral or a castle; it is the Goliath crane that stands above Babcock’s dockyard at Rosyth. That crane came to the area just over 15 years ago to help put together the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, and it has been part of the west Fife skyline ever since. The dockyard underneath the crane has been there for a good deal longer—more than a century—and the people who work there are some of the most skilled that I have the privilege to represent. Right now, they are doing something nobody in this country or any other has done before. HMS Swiftsure, a cold war hunter-killer submarine that left service in 1992, is on track to become the first Royal Navy nuclear submarine ever to be fully dismantled, with the work due to finish by the end of this year. Around 90% of her is expected to be reused or recycled. More than 500 tonnes of material has already been stripped out and recycled, with cabling, circuit boards, insulation and electrical equipment each sorted into its own waste stream. Her fin has been lifted off whole, so that its steel can be recovered. The best of the high-quality steel from these boats is already being turned into components for future Royal Navy submarines, such as those in the Dreadnought class.
Put simply, the submarines that kept us safe through the cold war are helping to build the ones that will keep us safe for decades to come. I have been to see the work for myself; I have been inside HMS Swiftsure and have seen the incredible care, diligence and professionalism that the workforce bring to their jobs. I thank everyone involved in the work, in particular Ken Dyke, the nuclear operations director; Gary Thomson, who supervises the lifting; and Dean McGuiness, one of the welders on the project. They and their colleagues have made an incredibly complex process look straightforward when it is anything but.
Other countries are watching our work. Australia, our AUKUS partner, will one day have to retire its own nuclear submarines, and it will not be the only one. If we get this right, what is being learned at Rosyth is something that we can sell and export to the world. In the end, this is a story more about people than these old boats. It is about the apprentice starting out, the engineer picking up skills that very few people have, and the families who can find a good job without ever having to leave Fife.
Governments of every colour have known about this problem for a very long time, going back to the commissioning of the first nuclear submarines. In 1995, a Conservative Defence Minister stood in Rosyth and promised that the dockyard would not become a graveyard for old submarines. Some 31 years on, six submarines are still waiting to be recycled, and recycling of the seventh is only now being finished. Dreadnought, Britain’s very first nuclear submarine, has been tied up at Rosyth since 1980. She has now spent far longer waiting to be recycled than she ever spent at sea. In 2019, the National Audit Office found that not one of the 20 submarines retired since 1980 had been disposed of. The Ministry of Defence had hoped to have begun this process by 2011, but it has missed that by years. We have had promise after promise, and far too little delivered. This Bill seeks to close that gap.
Alongside Swiftsure, six boats at Rosyth are waiting their turn: Dreadnought, Churchill, Resolution, Repulse, Renown and Revenge. Another 16 are at Devonport. About 200 people are working on the programme at Rosyth today. Carry that work on to the next phase, and Rosyth could support around 300 skilled jobs for 20 to 30 years, and perhaps even longer. That is not an offer we get in many areas of industrial policy.
Since I was elected, I have raised this matter with Ministers more times than I can count. I am sure that they are fed up with answering written questions on this topic, but I will keep raising the matter, because Rosyth should be the place that the country and the world turn to for this work. We talk a lot in this place about growth, usually in percentages and forecasts, but growth should not be abstract. Growth is a young person getting an apprenticeship; somebody landing a skilled job; a family feeling secure enough to buy a home; and a community knowing that investment is coming and jobs are being maintained. Every boat dismantled means work for welders, engineers, project managers and technicians; orders for local suppliers; and places on courses at Fife college and Forth Valley college. However, I am sad to say that some Opposition Members have opposed this work.
At the very moment when the Rosyth workforce is showing that this work can be done safely and to the highest standards, some in the Scottish National party have chosen to peddle unnecessary scare stories, instead of trusting the skill and dedication of local people doing incredible work. That is scandalous. Those SNP representatives are turning their backs on hundreds of skilled jobs, and on apprenticeships for young people in Fife. The men and women at Rosyth are not a risk to be managed; they are the reason this is working. I say to anyone in the SNP who opposes this programme: come to Rosyth, meet the workforce and then explain why they would rather those jobs went somewhere else. Some other country will attempt to crack this problem.
What the Rosyth workforce needs more than anything is certainty. Such skills cannot be switched on and off. If we leave a long gap between one boat and the next, the experienced people will retire or move on, the apprentices will find work elsewhere, and we will end up starting again from scratch, with further delay, further cost and more nuclear submarines sitting in Rosyth, not being handled. The Bill would place a duty on the Secretary of State to publish a strategy for recycling the UK’s decommissioned submarines. It would have to include a timetable for the boats waiting at Rosyth and Devonport, a plan for the skills and supply chain on which the work relies, arrangements for safe regulation and waste, and regular reports back to the House. We do not need any more open-ended promises; we need a published plan, and Ministers answerable to Parliament for delivering it.
There is a security argument as well. Being able to look after a nuclear submarine from the day it is built until the day the last piece of it is recycled is part of having a sovereign nuclear capability, and we should keep that capability in this country. For more than a century, Rosyth has helped to keep this country safe. The six submarines still sitting in the Forth represent years of work, hundreds of careers, and a chance to build something here that the rest of the world is going to need.
This Bill is for Ken, Gary, Dean, and the people they work alongside, and for the young people of Fife who could follow in their footsteps. I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Graeme Downie, Mike Martin, Sarah Hall, Damien Egan, Alex Baker, Alex Ballinger, Richard Baker, Michelle Scrogham, Lincoln Jopp, Al Carns, David Taylor and Luke Akehurst present the Bill.
Graeme Downie accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 4 December, and to be printed (Bill 170).
Ways and Means
Budget Resolutions
(2 days ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Angela Rayner)
This is a Budget with immediate action today and clear direction for the future. If we want to build a Britain where all people can live a good life and live it well, where everyone has control to shape their own lives for themselves, and where no one’s future is limited by where they are from, because the only ceiling is their own ambition, what we need is good growth in every postcode. However, we also know that people need a bit of breathing space right now, which is why we have announced targeted support for households this winter, and action to bring down the cost of essentials.
We are a Government with a clear theory of growth: retake control, and devolve power to places. We are fundamentally shifting where and how decisions are made by transferring powers, resources and functions to mayors, strategic authorities and local authorities across England, and we are working with the devolved Administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. That shift means that local leaders with skin in the game can target spending towards the biggest issues in their communities: new housing projects, infrastructure that cuts workers’ commutes, and investment in our town centres.
The fiscal devolution road map published alongside the Budget sets out a new funding model so that local leaders can rise to this challenge: by the end of the decade, local and regional government will retain 100% of the business rates income. It sets out plans for mayoral strategic authorities to receive a share of local income tax revenues from 2028, and details how the overnight visitor levy will work, as well as our plans to explore further fiscal devolution.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
The right hon. Lady has said that she wants to ensure that there is good growth in every postcode and has referred to the business rating system, but in the Budget the Chancellor extended the tax loophole available to holiday lets in postcodes in Cornwall and other tourist areas. Is the right hon. Lady aware that billions of pounds are handed out to second-home owners who flip their properties to holiday letting in order to take advantage of a tax loophole? Would it not be far better to invest that money in social housing for local people in desperate housing need?
Angela Rayner
I know the hon. Gentleman has a private Member’s Bill on this issue, but the Budget provides an extra £1.5 billion for social housing, which I welcome. That takes the overall amount up to £40 billion in the next 10 years. We should welcome that investment.
At the Budget, we also announced £285 million of good growth funding, including incubator funding for areas that are yet to have a mayor, and plans for a £1.5 billion borrowing facility for mayors from 2028. This will give them access to the capital needed to back their local priorities and deliver growth in every postcode. We have also confirmed a £150 million uplift to mayoral capacity funding in 2027-28, to give them the resources they need as their range of powers grow. To support mayors, we are publishing guidance on place-based business cases. This represents a new approach to appraisal that puts local objectives and potential at the heart of decision making.
We recognise that too much of England is not covered by strategic authorities, so we remain committed to filling the gap. This is why I was delighted that we announced at the Budget that we are in the final stages of agreeing devolution deals in Devon, Plymouth and Torbay; Hertfordshire; Lancashire; Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland; Stoke and Staffordshire; Surrey; Thames Valley; Kent and Medway; Wessex; and Cornwall. These areas will join Cheshire and Warrington; Cumbria; Sussex and Brighton; Hampshire and the Solent; Greater Essex; and Norfolk and Suffolk at the forefront of the Government’s ambitious programme to expand devolution.
Together, these agreements will mean that over 90% of England’s population is covered by a devolution agreement, with mayoral devolution reaching every part of the north. We will continue working with all remaining areas, including Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes, where there is broad agreement but not yet local consensus.
Alison Griffiths (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
The one county that the Secretary of State did not mention in her very long list is West Sussex, which has been waiting through two and a half years of dither and delay. Will she take this opportunity to tell me the plan for West Sussex?
Angela Rayner
I did just say that we are working with all remaining areas. We will continue to do so where we can find local consensus, because we are the party of devolution and believe in working with local leaders.
Later this year, we will publish our full plan for rewiring the state, which will outline a vision for devolution in England. The changes that we have announced are about devolution, not delegation. Where powers and functions are transferred, they will not be duplicated at the centre. This means that, over time, central Government will become smaller but more strategic.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
The Secretary of State mentioned Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland. Can she please give a date for when this devolution will happen? We are severely missing out on the funds and pots of money that are going elsewhere.
Angela Rayner
Again, we are working with local areas to make sure that we progress as quickly as possible. We are happy to engage with local leaders as part of that programme.
As we move towards a local government finance settlement, we will continue working with local leaders to plan and invest for the long term. I am clear that local government is the foundation of the public services on which neighbourhoods and communities rely, which are essential to our wider ambition to rewire the state.
Ayoub Khan (Birmingham Perry Barr) (Ind)
I wholeheartedly support regional mayors delivering for local communities. This Labour Government always promote localisation and devolution, but how will the Secretary of State ensure that regional mayors interact and work with local councillors? After all, local councillors are elected to represent their local neighbourhoods.
Angela Rayner
Our plans are about making sure that mayors work with local authorities. In fact, in my area in Greater Manchester, we have seen the combined authority have really good pulling power, with our economy doing better than other areas, so we want to see that across the whole nation.
That is why the Cabinet statement on rewiring the state committed to the financial sustainability of local authorities, and this Budget is the next step towards that. The upcoming local government finance policy statement will set out our next steps alongside the rewiring the state delivery plan. Good growth is growth that we can see and feel. We need to draw a line under a decade of drift during which the public realm was seen as sideshow to politics—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans) should know about sideshows.
Our high streets are where we catch up with friends for a coffee, and those businesses provide solid jobs at the heart of our communities. Those small moments of joy give us real hope, and that is why our strategy is giving hope back to the high streets. New powers, new funding and changes to the business rates system will provide much-needed relief for thousands of cafés, pubs and high street shops. We are freezing all retail, hospitality and leisure bills in real terms to protect them from above inflation increases for the next two years, and we are lifting the small business rate relief threshold for qualifying properties.
Connor Naismith (Crewe and Nantwich) (Lab)
My constituents will strongly welcome the decision to extend small business rate relief to many more businesses in the Crewe and Nantwich constituency, but they will also welcome the decision to remove small business rate relief from adult gaming centres and vape shops. Will my right hon. Friend join me in saying that this is an important step to incentivise the kind of businesses we want to see and disincentivise those we do not?
Angela Rayner
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are removing business rate relief for vape shops and adult gaming centres, and giving local authorities stronger tools to tackle business rates avoidance. At the Budget, we announced an extra 20% business rate cut for pubs and all but the largest live music venues. We will also introducing a general anti-avoidance rule for business rates at the earliest opportunity, and expanding what legal costs local authorities can claim when they are unsuccessful.
Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)
I really welcome the change to the business rates threshold, which will take hundreds of businesses in Bournemouth town centre out of paying rates. However, has my right hon. Friend considered the knock-on impact on business improvement districts, which often step up to fill the gap when councils cannot keep the streets clean or keep shopfronts looking nice? As more areas are coming out of rates, what are the Government doing to look at the impact on BIDs?
Angela Rayner
We have been taking forward a number of measures, such as the overnight visitor levy, and working with businesses. As devolution pushes down into local communities, I hope there will be a role for the public realm as well as for businesses and innovators and for those in the community and voluntary sector who do so much as volunteers in our local community.
More broadly, we are also moving Government buildings on to high streets and improving design standards, with a whole-of-Government plan to show the public that the best days of our high streets are yet to come.
Dr Lauren Sullivan (Gravesham) (Lab)
Gravesham is one of the youngest boroughs in Kent, but it is the fourth highest in the south-east for young people not in education, employment or training. Will the Secretary of State join me in welcoming the youth hubs on our high streets in Gravesham, so that young people can find a way back into education, employment and training?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Before the Secretary of State responds, more than 84 Members are hoping to speak, so every minute we can give Back Benchers will go down well.
Angela Rayner
Noted, Madam Deputy Speaker. I really applaud what Gravesham is doing, especially for its young people.
The strategy is backed by £125 million to transform derelict buildings in our high streets, £65 million for community ownership funding and £10 million to deliver high street rental auctions. Alongside this, we are cracking down on illegitimate and illegal businesses, giving councils powers to limit vape shops and adult gaming centres, and reforming licensing.
The state of our town and city centres says so much about us, who we are as a country and whether we are on the right path. Getting our high streets back on track is a crucial step to giving Britain hope again. But this strategy is just one part of our plan to make people proud of their local area. Alongside it, we have confirmed plans for a new No. 10 North priority projects programme. This will unlock homes, jobs, investment and long-term economic growth, with No. 10 North working directly with new strategic authorities. The Budget will also accelerate the delivery of priority projects in West Yorkshire, the West of England and South Yorkshire. These include investment to expand the Leeds College of Building to accommodate over 2,000 new learners, crowding in around £350 million of private investment into Bristol Temple Quarter, and match-funding incubator space in the Don Valley Corridor.
We will continue to support growth in London, as one of the world’s most important cities, working with the Mayor of London to bring forward improvements to the transport network and towards a global city productivity plan. More widely, we have also confirmed that all 20 strategic authorities will be eligible for funding in the new co-operative development programme. This £10 billion programme is the biggest Government-backed boost to co-operatives for decades and shows how we are meeting our commitment to our sister party to double the size of the co-operative economy.
In the years ahead, we will continue to deliver the £5.8 billion Pride in Place programme, putting local residents in charge of change across almost 300 neighbourhoods. This month, we will see the next major milestone of the programme as we reach the deadline for phase 2 neighbourhoods to submit their 10-year plan. We will continue to work with the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, confirming at the Budget the investment in the Edinburgh-Glasgow central belt, funding for the expansion of the M-SParc science park in Anglesey and of Cardiff Parkway station, and the £7.5 million of investment to grow AI and cyber industries in Belfast.
Our plans for good growth will shape the future of this country, but we also know that people need breathing space right now. Alongside radical reforms to reduce bills in the future, we have also announced a series of measures to tackle the cost of living and help make everyday life easier. We know that rising energy costs are going to be tough for a lot of households this winter. That is why we are removing VAT and standing charges from bills, freezing fuel duty and providing £100 per household for energy payments in council tax bands A to D in England. The measures are supporting up to 80% of households in England, and local authorities will get a discretionary fund of £100 million to provide further support to households most in need.
On top of that, we have taken action to make groceries cheaper by cutting import duties; increased the living wage and the minimum wage; extended parental leave; and ended the carer’s allowance cliff edge. We brought in higher tax-free mileage rates and boosted support for nurses, and we are making sure that pensioners in receipt of the full state pension will not have to pay tax.
Britain is a kind, caring nation where people take pride in looking out for each other. In 2026, in the world’s fifth-richest economy, everyone should have a roof over their head. That is why we will make sure that by Christmas this year everyone sleeping rough will be offered a route off the streets. Earlier this year, I announced £442 million for a new rough sleeping programme to meet that milestone. Support off the streets should not just be for Christmas, though, so we are almost doubling that figure with £432 million to keep that offer going for the next two years. That means continuing to help people off the streets, while preventing people from returning and giving them the support that they need. That is why we will make sure there is wraparound support for those people as well.
The Budget makes progress towards our commitment to deliver the biggest boost in council house building since the post-war period. We have announced that we will extend the preferential borrowing rate for councils on top of the £1.5 billion that I mentioned earlier. Our message to local leaders is, “Get ambitious, and we will back you all the way.”
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s planned AI tool, Assist, will be available to all councils in England by the end of 2027. We also announced the Your First Home scheme to help around 70,000 first-time buyers to get on the ladder. Good growth in every postcode is not just about fairness; it is the simple point that Britain is at its best when every area of the country can play its part. I am proud of this Government’s action, I am proud of our history, and I am proud of this Budget. I commend this statement to the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the shadow Secretary of State.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
Growth in every postcode and breathing space—that is apparently the theme of this debate. That is what we are told the Budget will deliver. The sad fact is that it really could have been an opportunity to focus on growth and to support British businesses and people. It really was an opportunity to fix the mistakes of the past two years, to back business and unleash Britain—but the Government did not take it. All we appear to have had from the Secretary of State is the belief that more government will solve all of our problems.
The Budget was an opportunity to end the smash-and-grab tax policies on working people—that includes employers, by the way—but Labour doubled down. The Chancellor could have demonstrated that when he resigned as Defence Secretary he did so out of principle and set out a road to 3% of GDP on defence, but we did not get that either. The Government could have taken steps to cut welfare and get Britain working, but, too scared of their Back Benchers, the Government are allowing the welfare budget to continue to spiral out of control.
The Budget was a total missed opportunity. Far from growth in every postcode and breathing space, we saw a steady-as-she-goes Budget: a change of captain, a rearranging of the deckchairs, but no change of course—which would be fine if the vessel we were on were not the Titanic.
One area we did see some action in the Budget—one issue that was mentioned considerably—was on the cost of energy and our energy security, or lack thereof. There was a slight but definite acknowledgment that the energy policies enacted by the Labour Government up to this point had been having a negative impact on the people and businesses of Great Britain.
That was why I was more than a little surprised not to see energy as a theme of this Budget debate, and why I was surprised not to see the Secretary of State for Energy speaking as part of it. Or is she not too keen on this change of direction, and this moderate shift from the Government towards something resembling common sense does not sit well with her? Where is she? Absent from Parliament when they announced Jackdaw and absent from the Budget debate, she is either in hiding or being kept hidden. The words of the Chancellor last week that the Energy Secretary has “opposed” rather than approved Jackdaw was not so much a slip of the tongue as a lifting of the veil into the division at the heart of this Government when it comes to energy policy.
The truth is that we have a Government totally divided on energy policy, between a Chancellor and a Treasury desperate for growth and some good news, and an Energy Secretary and parliamentary party still wholly signed up to a Milibandism approach to energy that values net zero and clean power 2030 above all else—above jobs, cost and our security. We have an Energy Secretary briefing out that she is inclined not to approve Rosebank, presumably on the basis that growth in every postcode does not include postcodes that begin with AB, and a Chancellor briefing that it will be approved soon. We have Labour Back Benchers claiming that Rosebank is oh so different to Jackdaw because it is oil, which is exported, not like gas, which we use at home—as if, somehow, generating revenue from exports, displacing Russian oil from the European market and backing British jobs are bad things.
We also have the Office for Budget Responsibility including revenue from Rosebank and future discoveries as part of its projections for Government revenue over the next year. We have the Treasury cutting funding from carbon capture, utilisation and storage projects, Energy Ministers scrambling over themselves to insist that funding has not been cut, the Treasury announcing a cut to the warm homes fund of £1 billion, and the Energy Department insisting that the warm homes fund remains at the heart of the Government’s plans to support those on the lowest incomes insulate and decarbonise. This is utterly chaotic—no wonder the Energy Secretary is being hidden away or is in hiding.
For over two years, we have been listening to various Ministers lecture and patronise those of us on the Conservative Benches that we were wrong, that we did not need more gas from the North sea, that it was clean power that mattered over the cost of energy, and that we must have consensus on energy policies. The Conservatives have been clear from day one that the cost of energy, the security of our energy supply, and the future of our North sea are the issues that should guide and shape our energy policies. It is good to see that that consensus may be returning, and not just on the entirely reasonable and sensible step of ensuring that one has a well-stocked fridge of sauvignon blanc ready for emergencies.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
Does the hon. Member agree that, unlike Norway, which kept its crown jewels—North sea oil and gas—and is funding public services with them, it was absolutely disastrous and wrong for the Tory Government to sell off the North sea? It belonged to the people who are now paying through their nose for energy.
Andrew Bowie
It will not surprise the hon. Gentleman to learn that I do not agree with him. In fact, what we have seen are billions of pounds generated for this country since the 1960s, driven by the private sector investing in jobs, investing in this country, creating wealth and making the North sea one of the cleanest and safest basins in the world in which to invest. I am very proud of the companies, and the men and women, who have driven that oil and gas industry to be the best in the world. Unlike the hon. Gentleman, and unlike the Government, we want to see that go further—we want to see further investment in our North sea oil and gas industry.
As I was saying, consensus is welcome, because we are in an energy crisis and there is no escaping that. The people and businesses of this country face some of the highest energy bills, domestic and industrial, in the developed world, and it is getting worse. Under Labour, our energy system is becoming increasingly unreliable and intermittent, and more reliant on imported energy. The burden of expensive energy is bearing down on Britain in households, businesses and industry, and having severe consequences. While the Chancellor acknowledged that, which was as welcome as it was surprising, it was entirely underwhelming.
Some of the announcements in the Budget may have seemed impressive, but they will not even touch the sides. There may be £100 for certain households, but when people’s bills are set to increase by over £500 in January, many will ask what was the point—will people even notice it? It is clear, however, that the Chancellor had at least noticed the Conservatives’ cheap power plan. Cutting VAT and scrapping levies on energy bills—I wonder where he might have got that idea?
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
With respect to the Labour Government, one of the things that was missing in the Budget was the working middle class, who are caught in a devastating pincer movement between frozen thresholds and rising surcharges. They have worked extra shifts, been responsible in the way they have lived and managed to put some savings aside. In the Budget, the working middle class find themselves penalised for their aspiration, forced to pay out more of their hard-earned money, while watching inflation erode their savings. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that what is missing is any consideration for the working middle class?
Andrew Bowie
The hon. Member is absolutely right, but, as usual, the Labour party gives no regard to those with aspiration or who want to succeed and get on. All it cares about is handouts and subsidies for “Benefits Street”. The Conservatives are the party that will support those who are working hard to do the right thing and move forward.
Connor Naismith
The hon. Member talked about the Opposition’s clean power plan, and how marvellous it is, but if those ideas are so good, why did the Conservatives not implement them when they had 14 years in government to do so?
Andrew Bowie
It is the cheap power plan, not the clean power plan, but I do not want to be too much of a stickler for detail. It may have escaped the hon. Gentleman’s notice that we are under new management now in the Conservative party, and I look forward to implementing our plan when we win the election.
There was also the surprise announcement of the removal of standing charges on gas bills—well, only surprising for the SNP group leader, the hon. Member for Angus and Perthshire Glens (Dave Doogan), who did not know whether he still supported the move that he called for in 2024. On the face of it the measure may appear to lower bills, but as ever, the devil is in the detail. If someone is a higher consumer—someone who uses gas for heating, cooking or hot water—then their energy bill is going to go up. Across Britain, temperatures are beginning to drop as we head into winter, and in large parts of this country—in the north of England and Scotland—it has just got more expensive to turn the heating on, thanks to Labour.
Some 80% of households in Britain rely on gas to keep them warm, which is why the delay before making a decision on Jackdaw was so maddening. When the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero approved the decision, through gritted teeth, it was rightly justified on the basis of energy security. Getting gas out of the Jackdaw field is what is best for Britain, because every bit of gas from that field will go directly into the British gas network.
However, the devil is in the detail. As I have said, we were all very surprised to see that revenue from Rosebank is still being accounted for in the OBR’s projections for revenue. Considering that the Secretary of State has suggested to the press that she is not minded to approve Rosebank, despite it being a quasi-judicial decision, does that mean that the forecasts are possibly misleading or wrong—or is the Chancellor about to get his way again, and Rosebank is about to get the go-ahead? We need to have that cleared up. We need to understand.
The theme of today’s debate is growth in every postcode and breathing space. This Budget, however, did nothing for growth and gave no breathing space, save for a couple of gasps of cold air from those who will be too scared to turn on their heating this Christmas. It could have done, though. We could have seen a bold Budget: a Budget that said, without equivocation, that we support our North sea oil and gas industry; a Budget that got Britain drilling by removing the energy profits levy today, not in three years; a Budget that reduced the cost of energy by slashing the levies, charges and taxes that still make up too much of an individual’s or business’s energy bill; and a Budget that reindustrialised our country by incentivising investment and growth, not one that doubles down on net zero and linking the emissions trading scheme with Europe. That is the Budget we needed to see. It is the Budget the Conservatives would have presented, and it is the Budget we will present when we win the next general election.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Because so many colleagues wish to contribute, Back Benchers are on a five-minute speaking limit.
Helen Hayes (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)
The Government’s commitment to children and young people is clear in the scale of the education reforms they are bringing forward, from the restoration of early years services through Best Start family hubs to the expansion of childcare, the roll-out of free breakfast clubs, curriculum reform, special educational needs and disabilities reform, technical and vocational qualifications from the age of 14, work experience, social media regulation and apprenticeships. It is the Education Committee’s role to scrutinise the detail of the Government’s policies and their delivery, but there can be no doubt as to the scale of their ambition for children and young people across our country.
I welcome the announcement in the Budget of the establishment of a new parental allowance for self-employed fathers, partners and adopters. This will enable parents who have previously been excluded from parental leave and pay to have precious bonding time together as a family with their baby or adopted child.
Earlier this year, my Committee published a report on reading for pleasure, which documented the immense benefits it brings children and young people in the development of empathy and compassion, good mental health and wellbeing, language skills and attainment at school. We also highlighted the concerning drop in the number of children and young people choosing to read for pleasure and a range of interventions that are needed to turn the situation around. I therefore welcome the additional £15 million that the Government have allocated in the Budget to increase access to books for young children.
I would add, however, that the most concerning decline in reading for pleasure is seen among teenagers, and that school libraries can play a hugely valuable role in supporting children to sustain reading at secondary school. My Committee has called on the Government to extend their important pledge to deliver a library in every primary school to secondary schools, which could be done with an investment of £15 million. I hope that the Government will continue to look at how that important pledge can be extended.
On examining the delivery of apprenticeships, my Committee noted that children and young people are not provided with nearly enough information about apprenticeships, and that this information often does not come in time for them to properly consider apprenticeships as an alternative to university. I therefore welcome the expansion of the mayoral apprenticeship brokerage pilots, which have the potential to ensure both that employers are supported to offer more apprenticeships and that young people have access to information about these fantastic opportunities in their local area.
I further welcome the increase of £60 million a year for new PE and sport partnerships. This will increase the availability of high-quality opportunities for children and young people to participate in sport and physical activity in school and in their local area, directly contributing to better physical and mental health.
However, the Committee remains concerned about some areas of interest to us that were not covered by the Budget. Our report on higher education and funding raised concerns about the impact of the international student levy on higher education institutions and a lack of join-up between the Home Office and the Department for Education. The Government’s impact analysis for the proposed international student levy now suggests a loss of income to the higher education sector of £280 million —more than £100 million higher over three years than originally estimated. Universities consistently told us that the international student levy would prove to be relatively inelastic to increases in fees, and the impact analysis supports that.
We can be enormously proud of our universities; they are internationally renowned powerhouses of economic growth and anchor institutions in their communities that offer life-changing opportunities to thousands of young people and mature students every year. However, they are facing extreme precarity in their financial sustainability, and it is vital that Government policy seeks to bolster them, not to push them over a cliff edge. I urge the Government to look carefully again at the international student levy to ensure that it is both proportionate and fit for purpose.
My Committee has long raised concerns about the disparity in the treatment of further education colleges and schools with regard to VAT. Further education colleges have a critical role to play in the Government’s important objective of tackling the scandal of almost 1 million young people not being in education, employment or training. Colleges are places of hope, inspiration, support and inclusion where young people can find their passion and gain the skills they need to pursue it, yet unlike schools, they cannot reclaim VAT. Ministers have written to me with a technical explanation of the rules on VAT exemptions, but they are looking at this issue the wrong way round. Whatever the technical justification, the reality is that schools and colleges are not on a level playing field with regard to VAT. The response should not be, “This is what the rules say,” but, “How can we change the system to make the rules fair?”
This Budget represents the Government’s excellent commitment to children and young people, but there is further to go. My Committee will continue to press the Government and scrutinise their commitments.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.
Zöe Franklin (Guildford) (LD)
I welcome the Government’s recognition that economic growth cannot be driven solely from Whitehall and that local leaders and communities must have a greater say in shaping their future. The Liberal Democrats have long argued that decisions should be taken as close as possible to the people they affect. We support genuine devolution, greater fiscal autonomy for local government and the empowerment of communities to shape their own future. The real question before us today, however, is whether this Budget will actually deliver the Government’s ambition of good growth in every postcode.
Sarah Gibson (Chippenham) (LD)
I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that rural economies rely on transport. In my constituency, colleges have had to cut their hours because the bus does not come late enough and employers have had to put on their own buses in order to get shift workers. Does my hon. Friend agree that for rural economies to thrive, we really need to look at transport?
Zöe Franklin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need that support to ensure that people can get from where they live in rural constituencies to other areas for work and education.
Growth is measured not by the number of new governance structures we create, but by whether people can find an affordable home, access GP appointments, travel to work, start a business and build a secure future in the place that they call home. For the Liberal Democrats, this Budget must meet three tests: democratic consent, sustainable local government finances and tangible improvements in everyday lives.
The first test is democratic consent. Devolution should bring power closer to communities. We should be careful not to mistake devolution for decentralisation. Power removed from Whitehall but concentrated in a single regional office, such as a mayor, is not necessarily power shared with local communities.
In Surrey, the home of my Guildford constituency, that distinction is becoming increasingly apparent. The Budget confirmed that the Government are in the final stages of agreeing arrangements for a mayoral strategic authority in Surrey, despite Ministers previously assuring the House that no area would be forced into a mayoral model. What has changed? There has been no vote of the councils that will have to operate within this structure, and residents have not been given an opportunity to express a view on what model they want. In fact, the bulk of the discussions appear to have been had with Surrey county council—a council that will be defunct in just six months—rather than the new east and west unitaries. How can the Government claim to be bringing power closer to communities when those same communities have had so little say?
Of course, a mayor is democratically elected, but representing an entire county or region is very different to representing a specific town, village or ward. Local councillors understand the character, challenges and priorities of the communities they serve; they are often the first people residents turn to when problems arise. I ask the Minister what meaningful influence locally elected leaders will retain and how the voices of villages and rural communities will be protected under the new arrangements. Devolution should not be forced on communities; it should happen with them.
My second test is whether the Budget delivers sustainable local government finances. The Budget contains announcements on strategic authorities, borrowing powers, business rates retention and new fiscal freedoms. Some of those measures may prove beneficial, but we must not confuse devolution with funding reform. Local government’s central challenge is not governance but financial sustainability. While Ministers talk enthusiastically about new structures and powers, councils across England face profound financial pressure. The Local Government Association has warned of a billion-pound funding gap over the coming years. Against that backdrop, many councils are struggling simply to maintain core services.
To return to my area of Surrey, the six councils coming together to form West Surrey will inherit £4.5 billion of debt while simultaneously facing rising demand for adult social care, children’s services and support for children with special educational needs and disabilities. My concern is about how implementing measures without funding reform solves any of those problems. How does the new governance structure address historical debt? How does it ease pressure on social care budgets? How does it help councils meet rising demand for frontline services?
The Budget includes a £1.5 billion borrowing facility for the strategic authorities. While borrowing may help investment, it is no substitute for financial stability. We must learn lessons from councils such as Woking, where serious financial failures—failures caused by previous Conservative administrations—have left residents paying the price. Nowhere is the gap between structural reform and real-life outcomes clearer than in special educational needs.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Lady is right to talk about local government finances. My local council of Harlow faced 70% cuts to core funding made by the Conservative Government, but does she recognise that when the Lib Dems were in coalition Government the funding was cut by nearly 30%? Does she also recognise that the Labour Government are introducing multi-year funding for local councils, which council leaders and officers in Harlow have been crying out for for a long time?
Zöe Franklin
I think we need to recognise that we are looking forward. Multi-year settlements are a positive step, but there is still ultimately no fix for local government finances, which is causing enormous problems for local councils.
Returning to the issue of SEND, families do not lie awake worrying about governance models. They worry about whether their child will receive the support they need, about delays to assessments and about whether an education, health and care plan will be delivered in time. I welcome the Government’s commitment to cover 90% of eligible historical high needs deficits accrued by March, but uncertainty remains about whether deficits accumulated in subsequent years will also be covered. This Budget also does not provide the scale of additional adult social care funding needed to address rising demand.
Finally on local government finance, I want to address business rates. I welcome the principle that more locally generated revenue should remain in local areas. Giving councils a stronger stake in local economic success is sensible. However, retaining more revenue does not necessarily mean receiving more funding. The reality is that councils only benefit from the share of business rates that they are allowed to retain. If a national policy decision reduces revenues, local government must be appropriately compensated. We must ensure that areas with fewer opportunities for growth are not left behind. Rural communities in particular should not find themselves disadvantaged by a system that increasingly relies on locally generated revenue. On my second test, the jury very much remains out.
My third test is whether the Budget will deliver tangible improvements to people’s lives. Good growth should mean growth that people can actually see and feel. It means a young family being able to afford a home and people being able to secure a GP appointment. It means reliable public transport and thriving town centres. It means ensuring that infrastructure arrives alongside development, rather than the reality we see, which is that the infrastructure arrives years afterwards.
My constituency of Guildford is home to a strong local economy, world-leading innovation and enormous potential, but beneath that prosperity, families are struggling with housing costs, children are growing up in poverty, and residents are frustrated by pressures on local services and infrastructure. That experience is not unique; it is being felt across the country.
If the Government genuinely want growth in every postcode, investment must translate into improvements. That means ensuring that the delivery of infrastructure comes with housing development, because people will support the development if they can see it. It also means growth beyond our major cities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Sarah Gibson) mentioned, it has to include our rural communities. Our high streets, of course, must also be central to that vision of growth.
In conclusion, the Liberal Democrats believe that genuine devolution must mean more than transferring powers from Whitehall to an equally centralised regional mayor. We want decisions to be taken closer to communities, and we want growth that reaches every community. The Government recognise those things, but there is still so far to go. We want to see tangible change for our residents.
Jonathan Hinder (Pendle and Clitheroe) (Lab)
Like many of my colleagues, I am delighted with the new Prime Minister’s clear ambition to reindustrialise Britain, which can drive economic prosperity in areas that really need it. My constituency is an example of somewhere that can drive and reap the benefits from this reindustrialisation. In Pendle and Clitheroe we do not trade financial derivatives; we make aeroplanes, furniture, chemicals and cement, and we produce food. Not only does manufacturing make up over a quarter of the jobs, but they are often the best jobs, too. However, the truth is that, as I speak, Britain is still deindustrialising. We are as vulnerable to global supply shocks as any major economy without the sovereign capability in key sectors to look after our basic needs.
I am glad to see the Chancellor deliver immediate relief for households, but in the long run we must not just treat the symptoms of this failed economic model—with fiscal transfers patching up the gaps—but overhaul it entirely. The British economy remains too reliant on the City, foreign money and importing increasingly expensive essentials. True economic security can only come from the British economy being productive enough to convert world-leading innovation and research into valuable industrial output.
I was pleased to see some of the announcements at the Budget last week reflect this challenge, with measures including: serious public investment into productive British industries via the National Wealth Fund and the British Business Bank; an acknowledgement of the need for cheaper power and protections offered to energy-intensive manufacturers; support for vocational apprenticeships, which is essential for skills development in manufacturing and aligned sectors; and a long-term partnership with Rolls-Royce, whose Barnoldswick site in my constituency provides well-paid jobs for hundreds of my constituents—a reminder that Britain could still be home to world-leading industrial champions in highly competitive sectors.
But there is a lot more to be done. We must be clear about what we mean when we talk about reindustrialisation. The clue is in the name—it is about industry. Reindustrialisation must mean increasing physical production of goods needed at home and abroad. I hope that we will see more detail on how we will achieve this in the forthcoming 10-year plan.
As a short-term measure, I would like to see an expansion of the British industrial competitiveness scheme to a much wider range of manufacturing firms in Britain. We cannot expect our productive sectors to thrive and grow with energy costs as high as they currently are. Over the long term, we must improve our energy sovereignty by making it cheaper to build nuclear power stations urgently and reducing our reliance on gas imports by using our own North sea supply.
I would also urge the Government to include in the 10-year plan an ambitious plan for rebuilding our defence industrial base, alongside a continued commitment to British procurement. Building our domestic capacity for defence and other critical sectors can be supported beyond procurement through investment in equity stakes, taking control of essential inputs, as the Government did with British Steel, and accelerating planning decisions for key sectors.
So many of our challenges stem from a lack of quality work in productive industries. That is not talked about enough.
Ayoub Khan
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point about reindustrialisation. All the different jobs he talked about require students who have degrees. Does he agree that the Budget should have contained something about student loans, because students are suffering at this moment in time?
Jonathan Hinder
I definitely think that the House needs to come back to plan 2 loans. That will become a bigger and bigger issue.
So many of our challenges stem from a lack of quality work in productive industries. We do not talk about the link enough, but high streets are crippled by a lack of good jobs that provide a decent income and give people money in their pockets to spend in their area. Young people are stuck at home, unable to get a place of their own and start a family, and we see the selling-off of British assets to fund a current account deficit.
There is something even more fundamental at play when we talk about reindustrialisation. Sometimes in these economic policy debates we lose a sense of what really matters in life. Why is it that so often those jobs that appear to be the most socially useless are paid the most and those that contribute something so important to our society are often paid the least? If our economy is driving those perverse incentives that push bright young people into careers trading securities—some people call them “BS jobs”—we had better change those incentives, had we not? We need an economic framework that, instead of incentivising rent seeking, incentivises productive, meaningful work, providing people with not just a sense of satisfaction, pride and a good living but something useful to society—imagine that?
I know that this is not easy, but our economy cannot go on consuming too much and producing too little. I urge the Chancellor and his Ministers to ensure that reindustrialisation, which has struck such a chord with the British people, is turned into a fully-fledged plan for national reconstruction.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
I agree with the hon. Member for Pendle and Clitheroe (Jonathan Hinder) about reindustrialisation, but we will not reindustrialise Scunthorpe in my neighbouring constituency by screwing it with the highest energy costs in Europe, and nor will we reindustrialise simply by exporting our carbon by importing oil. That is why we need to get on with Rosebank.
I came to the House with a load of figures about the rising tide of debt, the tax burden rising to 38% of GDP and the £4.3 billion tax raid on landlords, but we know all those figures. What are we going to do about it? Traditionally, Governments—I have seen so many come and go—get the bad news out first. This Government still have three years to go, but I do not quite know why we have got over 100 tiny policy changes but are not actually fixing the fundamental problems now. We should get the bad news out now.
A colleague told me today that actually the Prime Minister is being very shrewd about this: we live in a TikTok generation, so he can let out a little policy announcement every week to keep people happy and delay decisions. That may be good politics, but is it good government?
We all know that society is breaking down because people feel that some are abusing the system. We had the statement this afternoon about legal and illegal migration, and we know how strongly people feel about that, but in working-class constituencies people feel strongly about so many abusing the system. They feel particularly strongly about young people who are not in work, education or training.
I agree with the Government that we cannot solve that problem with what they call crude benefit cuts, but there has to be some balance; work and training have to be worthwhile. Therefore, we cannot dodge the issue of the amount and level of benefits paid to young people.
I was reassured by the front page of The Times today, which said that the Government are looking at what is going on in the Netherlands. So, great, we will not have crude cuts, but we have got to get these young people into training, given medical help and helped into work. We need them to be not dismissed by the system in a tick-box exercise, filling in paper, but seen by a real person and helped into education or training—or, if they cannot get into that, some form of workfare.
The trouble is that half the benefit bill is taken up with the state pension. For years, I have been one of the few people who has questioned the triple lock. It is amazing how Ministers defend the triple lock, but the moment they cease to be Ministers they say it is unaffordable. The Government have listened to all the economic advice, but eventually the triple lot will have to come to an end. Again, why delay it?
The Government cannot imagine that getting rid of the triple lock will pay for the vast cost of a national care service—the NHS writ large. It would be better to say to pensioners—this is a fair deal, which I think they would accept—that their state pension should, as a proportion of the economy, stay roughly the same. We would not be bankrupting the nation, and the state pension would go up by how much the economy grows every year, which is fair.
If we want to save money, we do not want to delay these decisions till 2030. Surely what we need now is to get old and frail people out of expensive hospitals and into new cottage hospitals. They need not be in “all singing, all dancing”, hugely expensive private finance initiative hospitals. We should have more cottage hospitals where old people can be looked after, in a caring and loving way, and relieve the health service, if we are to save the national health service.
On saving one thing, the average price of a house in my constituency is just £200,000, and what really upsets people is seeing how their whole inheritance, which they want to pass to their children, will go on care costs. Let us go back to the old idea of having a cap on the total amount paid for care.
There is a way forward. I think we can work together to get young people back into work and training, and we can reassure old people that they will be looked after in their old age.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
The Budget was great news for Derby—particularly the £2.5 billion investment with Rolls-Royce to develop the next generation of aircraft engine and keep us at the forefront of this country’s reindustrialisation—but I rise to speak about justice. Whether it is growth in every postcode, high streets being brought back to life or getting everyone in and off the streets for Christmas, none can be achieved without investment in and reform of our justice system.
The Prime Minister’s first instruction on entering Downing Street was to end rough sleeping, an objective that is inspiring, ambitious and right. The near doubling of the £442 million to £874 million for those measures in the Budget showed intent, but here is where our justice system comes in: every month, 1,000 people go straight from prison to homelessness, with many rough sleeping. That figure has gone up and outpaced the increase in the number leaving prison. Being homeless doubles the risk of reoffending and makes the goal of ending rough sleeping unobtainable. That is why we need a duty for rehabilitation services to ensure that, on leaving prison, people do not go on to the streets and into worklessness.
Jim Shannon
I commend the hon. Lady for the point she is making and the Government for what they are doing on homelessness in particular. Does she agree that there should be priority for veterans in the homelessness scheme? They come out of prison, get lost in the system and nobody catches them where they are. I see that happening regularly in my constituency. Should they be given priority to address that?
Catherine Atkinson
I thank the hon. Member for his contribution. I acknowledge that there are many categories of people who we want to ensure have real priority. The Government already have the ambition to halve the number of prisoners who are released into homelessness, but, if we are to end rough sleeping and break cycles of offending, that ambition is not ambitious enough.
Just as it is morally offensive to us when we see someone sleeping rough in the doorway of a really high-end hotel, it should also offend us when we see the global elite and blue chip companies coming to Britain for our world-class justice while our own citizens are often left outside that justice system, getting rough justice. We should be rightly proud—and the Treasury mindful—of the huge contribution that international cases make to our country’s economy. In 2024 alone, the UK legal sector contributed £42.6 billion to the economy, and the UK is the largest legal services market in Europe and second only to the US globally, but we should be using some of that revenue to improve access to early legal advice and to legal aid, and to address the dire shortage in duty solicitors for our own people.
Lastly, there was positive news for our high streets, with the Budget taking many of our cafés, pubs and beauty salons completely out of business rates. The Home Secretary is putting police back on the frontline, and we have reversed the effective decriminalisation of shoplifting under the previous Government, but the justice system needs to work much faster for all of us, including on our high streets and in our town and city centres, where people need to feel safe if they are to want to be there and spend money.
But as well as fast, justice needs to be fair. It is not right for people on the minimum wage to face custodial sentences—potentially going up to two years’ custody—and not qualify for legal aid, leaving them unrepresented in court.
Catherine Atkinson
I am conscious of the number of people who want to speak in this debate, so I will continue.
It is not said often enough that this country’s dogged belief in fair rules for everyone is also a secret ingredient to business success—if your assets are protected, your contracts are enforced and your disputes are decided, that is one less risk—but there must be access to justice for our smaller businesses, as well as the larger multinationals.
There is more to do in our justice system. More is needed. I acknowledge that in the last spending review, the Budget for justice was increased by an average of 2.4%, but in the 2010s, justice spending was cut by 33% in real terms. Spending today is only on a par with what it was 24 years ago, in 2002, and it is lower per person than it was then. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has said that the Ministry of Justice would need an additional £3.6 billion just to equal its spending per person before austerity. Many of the challenges facing the justice system today have their roots in that period of austerity. I will be knocking on the Treasury Ministers’ door as hard as my children were knocking on our neighbours’ doors last week at Halloween. This is not trick or treat; it is common sense. It is essential that we act now to avoid a jump-scare later on.
Bradley Thomas (Bromsgrove) (Con)
This Budget was a missed opportunity for the residents of Bromsgrove and the villages. There was next to nothing in it for my residents, or for the hard-working business owners and businesses across the constituency. The frank reality is that businesses across the country and in my area are really struggling right now. In recent months, we have seen Labour Ministers’ true colours. Over the weekend, we heard the Chief Secretary to the Treasury stating that those who employ people are not workers themselves. I am not sure that the carpenters, plumbers, café owners and florists in my constituency would agree with that. They are frankly insulted by it. We also heard the Work and Pensions Secretary reveal earlier this year that all Labour MPs wanted to do was ask the question, “Who can we tax more to spend more money on welfare?”. Inflation is up, Government spending is up, unemployment is up, welfare is up and debt is up. How people and businesses feel is what matters, and that will be the ultimate litmus test for the Government.
Following the Budget, UKHospitality told us the reality. Despite the Government’s announcement on business rates, only one in 10 pubs will be affected. The Government need to go further. They need to endorse the Conservatives’ full exemption for hundreds of thousands of retailers, pubs and hospitality businesses. Wherever I go in my constituency, I am repeatedly told that businesses operating in these sectors are not recruiting because red tape and the cost of employment have gone up dramatically.
The voices of business are clear. Make UK has said that the Budget was a failed opportunity to reindustrialise, and the Federation of Small Business has said that the Budget contained
“nothing to make hiring someone more affordable”.
Unemployment has gone up by 276,000 in the last two years, and we are destined to see it go up even more. The Government need to get off the backs of businesses and get on their side.
I would like to briefly touch on the Government’s proposals for devolution and local government reorganisation. The Government announced something last week for Worcestershire that will not improve the quality of people’s lives. It will increase the cost and bureaucracy of delivering local government services. It is not in Worcestershire’s interests. Worcestershire does not have a Mayor and it does not want a Mayor. It is not a geography that would best suit a mayoralty. We do not need more politicians in this country; we need fewer—[Interruption.] I say that as a politician. We need fewer politicians in this country, and we need the system to work better.
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
The Government’s local government reorganisation will abolish the two-tier system in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency of Bromsgrove, thereby reducing the number of local councillors and so the number of politicians. Which part of that did he miss in the announcements that have been made over the last 12 months?
Bradley Thomas
If the hon. Lady had listened to what I was saying, she would have heard me say that Worcestershire does not want a Mayor.
The Government’s proposals for devolution are nothing more than a cop-out to absolve Westminster of its failure to tackle the big issues facing this country, and that is the theme that runs through this Budget. Politicians do not create jobs. I read in The Times this morning that the Government believe that mayors and local leaders can be empowered to create jobs. That is absolute rubbish. It is businesses that create jobs. Every single penny and pound of taxation received by the Government is generated, ultimately, through the endeavours of private enterprise. We have to get to the point, once again, where risk taking and entrepreneurialism are not frowned on. They should be embraced and encouraged. If the Government want to tax something, they have to create wealth and prosperity first. They need to get off the backs of businesses and get on their side.
Sagal Abdi-Wali (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to make my maiden speech during a Budget debate—a Labour Budget that speaks directly to some of the challenges that first brought me into politics and public service. It is a profound honour to rise for the first time in this House as the Member of Parliament for Holborn and St Pancras, the place that has been home for most of my life.
I came to Camden with my family as a child refugee. It is where I grew up and where I went to school, made friends and discovered the opportunities that would shape my life. This Budget speaks to the issues that matter deeply to the people I represent, from the security of a home to the opportunities available to the next generation. Like so many young people growing up in Camden, I spent my time making friends through the universal language of football. On the football pitch, you quickly learn that it does not matter where someone comes from, what language they speak or what their family does for a living. What matters is whether they turn up for their team mates. Those friendships taught me something important about community, long before I entered politics: that we are stronger when we look beyond our differences and recognise what we have in common.
As I came of age, Camden continued to give me opportunities and a sense of belonging, and it gave me the responsibility to give something back. For more than 20 years, I have tried to honour that responsibility through community work and public service, campaigning for change and serving in local government, ultimately as leader of Camden council. That experience has taught me that beyond every policy, every budget line and every statistic is a person whose life can be changed by the decisions made in this House.
Holborn and St Pancras is a place of extraordinary character. What makes our constituency so special is not just the landmarks, but the extraordinary variety of places and people. From the leafy streets and village feel of Primrose Hill, the independent spirit and community life of Kentish Town and the neighbourhoods and estates of Haverstock to the historic streets, theatres and cultural institutions of Covent Garden, every part has its own story to tell. We are home to thriving local businesses, historic markets, places of faith and community centres. We have students and academics, artists and entrepreneurs, families who have lived here for generations, and people who have made this place their home from every corner of the world. That diversity is our strength. It is one of our greatest strengths. It is reflected in our languages, our food, our festivals and our music, and in the everyday way that we all come together to look out for one another. It is what makes Holborn and St Pancras not simply a collection of neighbourhoods but a community.
The Roundhouse in Chalk Farm began life as a railway engine shed before becoming one of the country’s most well-known cultural venues that also provides creative access to young people. Legends from Led Zeppelin to David Bowie have played there. It is a reminder that places, just like people, can be given new opportunities and go on to achieve remarkable things. In King’s Cross stands the historic German gymnasium, where sporting events were held at the national Olympian games in 1866, long before the modern Olympic games came into being.
My constituency has a sporting legacy stretching back over a century, and I am pleased to make a little history of my own, as Holborn and St Pancras’s first Tottenham Hotspur supporter MP, bringing an end to a rather lengthy period of Arsenal and West Ham dominance in our representation in this House. If supporting Spurs had a dictionary definition, it would read something like this: “To remain eternally hopeful despite overwhelming evidence, and to return, every season, convinced that this will finally be your year.” I hope that combination of optimism and sheer refusal to give up will serve me well in this House.
Of course, the West Ham and Arsenal dominance that I mentioned came from the distinguished Labour MPs who represented the constituency before me. I am immensely proud to follow in the footsteps of two men who have given so much to Holborn and St Pancras, and whose contributions to our community and my party deserve to be celebrated. The late, great Frank Dobson represented Holborn and St Pancras for more than 33 years. He was a tireless champion for local people, a proud defender of our NHS and public services, and a politician who never lost sight of the people who were behind the policies. I have a childhood memory of meeting Frank at a community event. I had no idea at the time how much of an important political figure he was; to me, he was simply a nice bearded man who took the time to speak to a child. Looking back, that small encounter captured something important about his connection with the community. He was a familiar face to generations of residents—someone who understood the challenges facing working people and was never afraid to stand up for them.
Sir Keir Starmer continued that tradition, representing our constituency for more than a decade, leading the Labour party from opposition back into government, introducing generational reforms to renters’ and workers’ rights, and lifting half a million children out of poverty. I have had the privilege of working alongside Keir through our local Labour movement, and have seen another side of his public service: watching him quietly console bereaved families who have lost young loved ones, and hearing his determination to end youth violence. I pay tribute to both men, with enormous gratitude and respect. I will do my utmost to honour the trust that generations have placed in them, and that the residents have now placed in me.
It is also an extraordinary honour to become the first woman, black person and Muslim to represent Holborn and St Pancras in Parliament, and the first British Somali woman to sit in this House. I take great pride in those milestones, and in being elected during Black History Month in a constituency whose town hall proudly commemorates Claudia Jones, the pioneering black woman who founded and hosted Britain’s first Caribbean carnival there. I take pride in those milestones because of what they might mean to a young woman or a young girl growing up in our constituency today. I want her to see that her background does not define the limits of her ambition, that there is no ceiling to what she can achieve, and that public life belongs to her, too.
One of the issues that first drove me into politics 10 years ago was the rise in homelessness. Alongside people sleeping rough on our streets, families and young people are facing a housing crisis that leaves too many struggling to find a secure, affordable place to call home. That is why I strongly welcome my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister’s determination to end rough sleeping. This Budget turns that determination into action, with nearly £900 million to tackle rough sleeping and an additional £1.5 billion to support the delivery of social and affordable homes. For constituencies such as mine, this investment is essential.
There is another issue that matters deeply to me: the strength of our communities and the bonds that hold us together. Growing up in Camden, I saw different people from different backgrounds, cultures and faiths build support networks and look out for one another. I saw how diversity enriches our lives and how cohesion is built through everyday acts of kindness, friendship and solidarity. But that cohesion is hard won, and we cannot take it for granted. During the election campaign, I experienced attempts to question people’s belonging, sow division, and turn differences into reasons for suspicion and hostility. We must stand firmly against the hateful and divisive forces that seek to pull our communities apart. Hope is not naive; it is what gives us the courage to change lives for the better.
My parents taught me to work hard and always give something back to the community that has given me so much. I want every young person in our constituency to have the opportunities that I had. I want families to have secure homes, young people to have access to good jobs and apprenticeships, and our public services to always be there for people when they need them most. To represent this community in Parliament is an extraordinary privilege. Camden gave me hope and opportunity. Now, as the MP for Holborn and St Pancras, I will pass that hope and opportunity to others, and give them the same chance.
Sir Alec Shelbrooke (Wetherby and Easingwold) (Con)
May I say that it is a genuine pleasure to follow the excellent maiden speech of the hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Sagal Abdi-Wali)? As a West Ham fan, I understand that it is the optimism that kills you; she is a Spurs fan, so after last season, I think I will leave that there. I congratulate her: it is not easy to follow in the footsteps of a Prime Minister and to fight against the leader of another national party. As she pointed out, the racial attacks on her in the lead-up to that election were absolutely disgraceful. I am sure that the vast majority of people in this House stand in solidarity with her. I wish her a successful career in this House; I am sure that she will be a great asset to it.
Today’s debate is about growth in every postcode, but I will focus on the genuine threat of war to this country. The Budget does not deal with the defence issues that must be addressed. We could carry on saying that we have a plan to have a plan, and kicking things down the road, but that would be to hide from the reality of what is going on in the world. Just today we saw a cyber-attack that destroyed hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of frozen and refrigerated stock across at least six European countries. We know that such cyber-attacks are taking place every day, yet we are still delaying the real investment that needs to take place.
I was recently in Australia with the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. In Australia, inflation is 4%, cost of living is the No. 1 priority and 55% say immigration is too high, yet the Australians have decided to invest in defence. In the 1980s, they felt that their geography gave them the security, and now they have recognised that it does not. They are in the process of doubling their navy, with three air defence destroyers, six frigate submarine hunters, 11 general purpose frigates, six large missile barges and eight launching vessels to protect army capability. Of course, with AUKUS, they also have a built-in 50% contingency.
Germany is going to have 15 extra frigates by 2035, Finland is going to have four new corvettes by 2035, and Norway is going to have five new frigates, six new submarines and 28 standard vessels by 2035, yet we say that we are aiming to get to 3.5% by 2035. I have said this before, and I will say it again: targeting a percentage of GDP is false and wrong. The target was only brought in to satisfy the Americans in 2014. Plenty of us have a lot of complaints about President Trump, but at least he got European countries spending. As far back as Eisenhower, the Americans were saying that Europe needed to spend more on defence. George Bush made such a speech in 2007, and Barack Obama made one in 2014 when the target came in.
What really matters is article 3. Everybody talks about article 5 and defence. If article 5 is triggered, nations have a choice as to what they contribute to collective defence. Everybody thinks that America will pile in with its troops, tanks, planes and warships, but it could simply say, “We will provide the intelligence,” and that would satisfy article 5. Article 3 states that a country must be able to defend its borders for three weeks. NATO is a reinforcement. We simply cannot carry on saying, “We are going to do a defence investment review in a year’s time”—not actually investing in a year’s time, but doing a review! I welcome today’s news that double shifts might be done at the dockyards to produce more frigates, but that should be happening now.
In the time I have remaining, let me say this. I said before in this House that when we cut spending from 5% of GDP—that level was just a consequence of what we needed to spend—the 3% went into health and welfare, and that it would be a brave politician who stood up and said that we should cut those things, especially welfare, to invest in defence. Well, that is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition is now saying. The time has more than passed. The threat of war in this country is on the horizon. We do not want it to happen, so we bury our heads in the sand and say that we can delay the spending. That cannot carry on. The threat is imminent.
Lorraine Beavers (Blackpool North and Fleetwood) (Lab)
When I ask people in my constituency how they feel about the economy, they tell me that their bills are too high and their rent or mortgage take too much of their pay. I am glad that the Budget takes some first steps to address those issues.
Four years ago, the Conservatives, led by Liz, crashed the economy and sent mortgages and bills soaring. Before that, they spent more than a decade cutting our armed forces and public services—they left us poorly defended in every sense. The Chancellor’s Budget makes a good start in addressing those problems. The immediate help for 20 million households towards their energy bills this winter is a welcome relief. The changes to business rates will have a huge impact on businesses in my constituency.
On devolution, I can only hope that Lancashire will have a mayor by 2028 to share in the proposals that were announced. I urge Reform-led Lancashire county council to grab this amazing opportunity for Lancashire. We have been left behind for too long. The council needs to stop infighting and start fighting for Lancashire instead.
I want to come back to how much further we need to go to rebuild Britain. The Prime Minister rightly identified the deindustrialisation of Britain as one of the reasons places such as Blackpool North and Fleetwood have not shared in the proceeds of growth as much as they should have done. He is right that a change of policy is required, but right now Britain is deindustrialising faster than any of our neighbours. Domestic manufacturing capacity is an essential source of our national security. British manufacturers face the highest electricity prices in Europe. I know many Labour colleagues have asked the Chancellor to look at the merits of extending the British industrial competitiveness scheme to all manufacturing firms. I hope the Front-Bench team look carefully again at the proposals and sit down with the TUC and others to discuss how that could be implemented.
This Budget offers practical help with people’s bills this winter. The 10-year plan and the spending review must do the same for their jobs.
Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) (LD)
As we head into winter with bills rising again in January, households and businesses across the country are worried. This Budget needed to match the scale of the energy and climate challenges, but we as Liberal Democrats are concerned that it does not. While the standing charge removal and the proposed energy bill cost control framework are welcome, struggling households cannot wait until the next spending review in 2027 for policy costs to be taken off bills—one of the quickest ways to reduce bills while supporting electrification.
The Government could have introduced the Liberal Democrat essential energy guarantee to protect basic household energy needs. If we are truly to break free from the volatile fossil fuel prices driven by despots and Trump’s stupid wars, we must accelerate renewables, grid connections and electrification. That is why I am disturbed by the seeming inconsistencies in the approach taken in the Budget.
First, the Treasury says that it is setting an entirely new path on energy, while Ministers tell us that their clean energy ambitions remain unchanged. With the allocation round 8 auction budget due within weeks, Ministers must urgently clarify what that means for investment certainty in floating offshore wind and port regeneration, which is critical for supply costs and supply chains.
Secondly, cheaper energy does not automatically lead to electrification on its own. As winter approaches, why is the Treasury cutting the flagship warm homes plan—the surest way to electrify heating in our homes and reduce wasted wind energy? The Budget slashes £1 billion of capital funding from the programme and reintroduces VAT on clean technologies from 2027, effectively creating a solar panel and heat pump tax. I ask the Minister to confirm or deny reports that a further £1.5 billion could be removed from the warm homes plan’s financial transactions funding. That is the very zero-interest loan schemes that have just been launched and lauded.
With 90% of domestic bill increases since 2020 linked to wholesale gas price spikes, despite and contrary to all the protestations from the Conservatives and Reform, the answer is clear: a national electrification strategy, making it easier, not harder, for households to move away from fossil fuels. This Budget should have advanced that mission; instead, it risks setting Britain back.
Dame Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate, and let me add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Sagal Abdi-Wali) on her excellent maiden speech.
This is a Budget to create growth in every postcode, and nowhere is better placed than Newcastle to manufacture, innovate and grow if given the tools and opportunities to do so. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has clearly recognised this, allocating funding for investment and giving welcome attention to our region’s economic potential with the announcement of the international investment summit in Gateshead next spring.
We have always been a city that builds, that innovates, that delivers, whether it is in advanced manufacturing, engineering, digital technology, energy or professional services. It was growing up in Newcastle surrounded by the legacy of great Geordie engineers and inventors, in a culture that championed making and building things, that inspired me to become an engineer.
The north-east hosts world-leading companies and research institutions, but after 14 years of Conservative austerity, my constituents still find significant barriers to social mobility and opportunity. Newcastle Central and West ranked bottom of 543 constituencies for attainment and outcomes in the “Crossing Paths” 2026 report. Having grown up on a council estate myself, I am heartbroken that the life chances of disadvantaged young people are so curtailed. One fifth of those aged 16 to 24 are characterised as NEET in the north-east, and I echo the Chancellor in saying that I refuse to write them off, unlike the last Conservative Government. I look forward to the upcoming publication of Alan Milburn’s report. He was recently in Newcastle, and I know that he seeks to make a real difference for the intelligent and ambitious young people I meet regularly across Newcastle Central and West.
It is a difficult time for so many families across my constituency, squeezed by increasing bills in energy, housing and so on, so it is great to see the Budget directly address that. Some 60,000 properties in the constituency will receive £100 towards their energy bills this winter, and I welcome the £1.5 billion in additional funding to deliver social and affordable housing and, of course, the £20 million in Pride in Place funding for Elswick in my constituency. After years of fighting for the investment we deserve, our region will no longer have to pick up the crumbs from the Whitehall table, with the new north-east good growth fund helping our fantastic mayor, Kim McGuinness, to improve our public transport and deliver major regional projects directly. I hope that giving £20 billion to the National Wealth Fund and the British Business Bank will support start-ups, spin-outs and research facilities in the north-east, not simply in the golden triangle.
I wish the Chancellor had provided more support in two further areas. The attainment gap in education between the north-east and London is the highest since records began. To challenge that, I would like to see further investment in the incredible young people of Newcastle Central and West, on the scale of the London Challenge from 2003. Secondly, there was significant support for businesses, particularly small businesses, in the Budget, but I would like to have seen even more. Growing businesses will provide jobs for our young people, and small businesses have been heavily hit by higher taxes and less disposable income from many constituents.
Finally, I hope that the Chancellor’s £15 billion defence investment plan will be used to support regional growth and investment, as he has promised, and in particular to address the unacceptable truth that the north-east sends the highest proportion of young people into the armed forces, yet receives the lowest proportion of defence investment spending. That is something I will be thinking about this Remembrance week.
Young people and, indeed, everyone in the north-east deserves growth in every postcode, and I am grateful to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for providing the first steps to achieving that.
Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)
The Budget was a missed opportunity for our rural economy, which yet again this Government have failed to back. My message to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor is simple: stop saying that every postcode matters, and start showing it. In Chester South and Eddisbury, around our farms sit the contractors, vets, farm shops, pubs and family businesses that keep our villages alive.
Jim Shannon
I commend the hon. Lady for bringing agriculture and the farming life to this debate. That is important, and I congratulate her on being the first person today to mention it. The family farm inheritance tax will have a destructive impact on farming in Northern Ireland. The Ulster Farmers’ Union—I declare an interest as a member—says that people will be forced into a tax bracket not because a family is wealthy, but because the value of the land and buildings has risen on paper. Hard-working families are asset rich but cash poor, and the family farms that I live among and represent in Northern Ireland will be those that feel the pain caused by this Government.
Aphra Brandreth
The hon. Gentleman is a champion for farmers in his community, and he is right—the Chancellor had the chance to repeal the vindictive family farms tax and family business tax, but he chose not to.
Nearly nine in 10 rural businesses have paused investment, and when investment stops, the consequences ripple through the whole rural economy. Conservatives would scrap those damaging taxes. The Government also had the chance to give small businesses some much-needed breathing space. They did not. Our rural businesses, particularly in hospitality and tourism, are being squeezed by rising costs, higher taxes and more regulation.
When businesses are struggling they stop investing, they stop expanding and, crucially, they stop taking on staff. These are the businesses that give so many young people their first step into work, and we should be making that easier, not harder. That is the difference between this Government and the Conservatives: we would halve the jobs tax for under-25s and create 100,000 new apprenticeships, because the best way to get young people into work is to back the businesses willing to employ them. This Budget did neither.
Then there is the cost of fuel. The fuel duty freeze is welcome, but the Conservatives kept it frozen for 14 years because we understand how much rural communities rely on their cars. This is not just about fuel for transport. On Saturday, I was out chatting to residents in Audlem, and so many of the people I spoke to are living off-grid. The price of heating oil has nearly doubled this year, and families are wondering whether they can afford to fill their tanks before winter.
Rural communities are being left out in the cold, quite literally, and the Budget offered them nothing. That is the real cost of this Budget in the countryside: investment on pause, young people not taken on, homes going cold, and family farms wondering whether they will survive. The contrast could not be clearer. The Conservatives would back our family farms, cut taxes on jobs, bring down energy bills through our cheap power plan, and get our rural economy growing again.
The president of the National Farmers’ Union described this Budget as
“tinkering while Rome is burning”,
and he was right. Our farmers, rural businesses and families do not need more promises, more consultations or more plans for the future. Rural Britain needs action now, and this Budget has failed to deliver it.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
If I may, I will speak on behalf of the Scottish Affairs Committee, but I wish to make one point from the perspective of my constituency. Glasgow West, which I am proud to represent, has a relatively high level of youth unemployment, a lower than average level of educational qualifications, and a fairly high number of unemployment-related benefit claimants. We also do not have access to a youth hub. There are three in the city of Glasgow, but none anywhere near my constituency. My plea to the Government is this: can we please have a youth hub?
Today’s debate is about good growth in every postcode, and I want to consider an issue that the Scottish Affairs Committee spent some time on, namely Scotland’s space launch sector. Last year we visited the SaxaVord spaceport on the island of Unst in Shetland, and saw for ourselves the potential of the UK’s first fully licensed vertical spaceport. What we heard reinforced our view that Scotland is uniquely placed to further the UK’s space ambitions, while delivering economic growth. Unst’s northerly location allows for launch routes over the north Atlantic ocean, making it particularly well suited to putting satellites into polar orbits. That is combined with our expertise in satellite manufacturing—hon. Members might be surprised to hear that the city of Glasgow produces more satellites than anywhere else in Europe, and Edinburgh’s expertise in data in space makes us uniquely placed to benefit from that. SaxaVord also provides a strong foundation for end-to-end space services.
For Shetland, the economic opportunity is hugely significant. The Budget talks about the importance of creating jobs across every nation and region of the UK. SaxaVord could help to sustain an island community by creating skilled jobs and giving young people more opportunities to establish careers locally. In a remote community where unreliable connectivity makes economic development, and life in general, more difficult, that new industry could deliver growth in Shetland’s postcodes. However, the economic growth potential of a space launch capability in Shetland would extend beyond Scotland. A successful spaceport could attract international investment and create opportunities for suppliers across the whole UK.
There is also a national security interest here. Developing a sovereign launch capability would reduce our reliance on overseas providers. However, we cannot afford to be complacent, and SaxaVord has yet to achieve a successful orbital launch. In September this year, Norway’s spaceport at Andøya successfully launched satellites into orbit. We should welcome that because it is progress for the European sector, but it raises important questions about whether Scotland has lost its first-mover advantage, and what more the Government can do to support innovative businesses such as SaxaVord to realise their economic potential.
During our inquiry, we heard that there is sufficient demand to sustain more than one European spaceport. A successful launch from Scotland will be important, but the real test will be whether it can be scaled up into a commercial launch service. That is why I welcome the Government’s space strategy and their £30 million investment in SaxaVord. It is a significant public investment, but it must be spent wisely.
The Committee also looked at fixed links. Despite the island having such great ambitions, there are two ferry journeys before anyone gets to SaxaVord. Given that those ferries are not always reliable and the weather is often against us, the islands in Shetland have been looking at whether fixed links would work for them. Working in conjunction with the Scottish Government and the Shetland Islands council, we think that that is absolutely the kind of thing the Government should be looking at to meet their ambition.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
With an immediate three-minute time limit, I call James MacCleary.
James MacCleary (Lewes) (LD)
The Chancellor has promised growth in every postcode, but those of us in the south-east could be forgiven for thinking that the Government have forgotten us altogether. Take London out of the equation, and the south-east, and Sussex in particular, does not seem to be part of the Government’s infrastructure strategy at all. While London has the highest per capita public transport investment in the country, by contrast the south-east has the lowest of any English region, at 11% below the national average.
Where I live in Newhaven, nothing stands out more than the A259—the main coastal road that runs the length of East Sussex, passing through Seaford and Newhaven, as well as serving the hugely popular Seven Sisters country park, which attracts visitors from around the world. The road is vital to the local economy. Department for Transport figures show that more than 19,000 vehicles squeeze along South Way in Newhaven every day, which has a massive impact on neighbourhoods and businesses. The traffic system, designed in the 1970s, is now fundamentally failing our coastal communities.
Newhaven is a strategic port and Seaford is a town of over 25,000 residents that attracts tens of thousands of visitors to its beautiful beach and serves as a major access point to the famous Seven Sisters cliffs. The road is a critical artery for our area and, like all coast roads, it is hard to expand it in its current location. In 2023, a multi-year major road network study recommended a package of upgrades, including safety improvements to junctions like Bishopstone Road. The county council submitted its business case to the Government to fund the upgrade package, but that is where it stopped. Will the Minister say whether the Government will commit the money necessary to get the A259 finally moving, and press the Reform-Conservative administration at East Sussex county council to get on with funding immediate improvements, like the Bishopstone Road junction, to boost roads in our area?
The Chancellor has said that he wants more houses to be built as a result of this Budget, but building more houses without the necessary infrastructure is a road to nowhere. I am very clear about this: it is not reasonable or fair to ask residents in my community to just accept more and more housing, while they watch their roads clog up and their public services deteriorate and while they cannot get access to a GP.
Take Ringmer, a beautiful village in my constituency, where over 1,600 new homes have been proposed as part of the district council’s local plan process. It is worth noting that the village currently has only 2,000 households. I have heard Ministers refer to people in villages like Ringmer, who are concerned about how their communities can possibly cope with so much new housing, as nimbys. That is grossly unfair and frankly insulting. If we want house building and growth, the Government need to offer communities a fair deal, not call them names.
Housing plans must be led by need. Too much house building is just waved through and sometimes it is not even built at all. If the Chancellor wants to build Britain, he needs to invest in roads, schools, health facilities and public transport to make the new houses and the communities in which they are built truly sustainable, otherwise we are just building problems for the future. This Budget contains many warm words. However, the residents of Lewes, Seaford, Newhaven, Polegate and our local villages will judge it based on what actually changes for them.
Gurinder Singh Josan (Smethwick) (Lab)
I am pleased that this Budget sets a clear priority to address the cost of living. More than 44,000 households in my Smethwick constituency will receive the £100 payment to help with their energy bills, and the business rates freeze will benefit 52% of retail, hospitality and leisure properties in the west midlands, including 1,198 properties in my constituency.
It is clear that decisions taken by this Labour Government, the current Chancellor and the previous Chancellor have been instrumental in keeping UK growth at the top end of growth in all G7 countries. Furthermore, in the past two years the Government have set out an ambitious programme of investment in key industries, including in nuclear energy, green energy and defence industries to name a few. Alongside that public investment, those industries will need crucial private investment to grow to their full potential. For that reason, I would have liked to see the restoration of the 30% up-front income tax relief for venture capital trusts, which was reduced to 20% at the last Budget, as that relief is vital in supporting British small and medium-sized enterprises in their early stages of development.
Venture capital trusts already support over 1,100 British companies, predominantly in tech sectors, employing over 100,000 people and generating £21.8 billion in revenue in the last year alone. Those businesses often have high up-front costs, long development cycles and uncertain terms that can make conventional finance difficult to secure. In 2006, when the relief was reduced from 40% to 30%, fundraising reduced by around 65%, and it took 16 years for it to recover. At last year’s Budget, the relief was reduced further from 30% to 20%, and as a result, industry estimates suggest a decline in fundraising of anywhere between 30% and 60%, which is equivalent to between £1.25 billion and £2.5 billion less growth equity for UK scale-ups over the next five years.
Restoring the 30% relief would incentivise investment in SMEs across the country to support Government investment. It would allow investment into firms that are crucial to the supply chains that will help to secure our place as a global leader, build our national resilience and deliver growth in every postcode. Every pound invested by VCTs unlocks an additional £2.33 in funding from additional sources. The Treasury has already shown a willingness to support small businesses. Indeed, last year the then Chancellor listened to the industry and implemented changes that it had been requesting for many years. I hope that the Treasury will consider restoring the relief to 30% as part of a wider industry strategy that supports our ambition for growth in every postcode.
Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)
Scottish voters were promised change, but instead this Budget delivers a real-terms cut of £650 million to Scotland’s block budget. It treats Scotland as an afterthought, syphons off our energy wealth and fails to protect hard-working families facing a bitter cost of living crisis this winter. Rather than delivering economic growth or protecting the vulnerable, this is a Budget of broken promises.
Turning first to the cost of living crisis, during the election campaign Labour explicitly promised to cut household energy bills by £300, yet under its watch, energy bills are forecast to surge by 27% this coming January, taking average annual bills to £2,192, before climbing further to £2,389 by April. Scottish families will face energy bills a whopping £1,275 higher than Labour promised.
Even worse, the Chancellor’s decision to replace standing charges with higher gas unit prices creates a deeply unfair geographical penalty. Recent YouGov polling shows that 84% of people in Scotland already had to turn their heating on this year, compared to 59% in London, and independent analysis from the Scottish Parliament confirms that over 800,000 Scottish households face higher gas bills under these changes. Scots are effectively being forced to pay higher bills to subsidise warmer homes in the south of England. This Budget ignores the 142,000 Scottish households who rely on heating oil, leaving them exposed to soaring fuel costs with negligible support.
At the pumps, drivers face a similar squeeze. Since July, diesel has rocketed by 34p per litre to over £2 a litre in many locations, leaving diesel drivers £130 worse off each year. Regrettably, the Prime Minister and Chancellor are frankly asleep at the wheel.
Nowhere is Westminster’s contempt for Scotland’s economic future clearer than in the decision to axe grant funding for the Acorn carbon capture project in Peterhead. Despite explicit promises that capital was secured, the Government have removed Acorn grant funding. Out of the £200 million promised by Ministers, a mere £12 million in grant funding was delivered, with the rest now being converted to a loan or—possibly, maybe—equity proposals. This continues a 20-year history of Westminster betrayals, from Gordon Brown to the Tories, and Acorn being snubbed, with carbon capture projects being left on the scrap heap all over the place.
The decision deals a direct blow to a just transition. In its Budget documents, the Treasury has banked £5.1 billion in revenue from Scottish oil and gasfields. Over decades, more than £400 billion in oil and gas revenue flowed from Scotland’s waters into Westminster’s hands, with the Chancellor admitting that a Scottish sovereign wealth fund would today be worth £1 trillion, had that wealth been properly invested, as Norway chose to do. Every single penny generated from Scotland’s natural resources should be reinvested in Scotland to secure a genuinely just transition to a renewables future.
Deirdre Costigan (Ealing Southall) (Lab)
It is fair to say that my constituents in Ealing Southall will not all have been glued to the telly last Wednesday to watch the Chancellor’s speech. Instead, due to wars abroad, many of them will have been trying their best to feed hungry kids, who were off for half term, or stressing about whether to turn the heating on or not. After years of austerity, my constituents have spent more than a decade too worried about their daily lives to be able to pay much attention to Budget day, and all the talk of GDP, OBR and CPI does not seem to have any impact on their lives.
This Budget changes that. By cutting energy bills and giving 34,300 households in my constituency a £100 council tax rebate, this Budget recognises the families in Ealing Southall worried about getting through this winter and the next. By reducing tariffs on everyday items, this Budget recognises the hard choices that mums in Ealing Southall have to make every day. By permanently raising the tax-free mileage rate to 55p, this Budget recognises the many nurses, plumbers and care workers in Ealing Southall who use their car for work. By allowing carers to work more hours without losing their entire benefits, this Budget recognises the situation of many carers in Ealing Southall. The Leader of the Opposition dismisses those changes, but in doing so she simply shows how out of touch she is with the reality of working people’s lives. Small changes such as those matter.
As well as giving people breathing space, this Budget takes the big decisions needed to finally undo the damage of 14 years of the Conservatives. Investing in skills and apprenticeships so that my constituents can get better-paid jobs is the best way to protect them from the uncertainties of foreign wars and global crises. This Budget’s £15 million investment to restore the union learning fund is one example of that.
The Leader of the Opposition dismissed the union learning fund as a “random new scheme employers don’t want”, but in fact it is a brilliant old scheme that 78% of employers said they were hugely supportive of until the Tories got rid of it. Yet again, the Leader of the Opposition shows how out of touch she is. The new union learning fund will address the challenges of today and help to reskill the workforce to take on jobs in AI and advanced manufacturing. It will help the Somali Uber drivers in my constituency to get help from their union, the GMB, when they fear losing their jobs to driverless cars.
This Budget also invests in apprentices such as Jack and Aidan, who I met when I visited West London College earlier this year. They can see buildings being built outside their window, and the new apprenticeship brokering scheme will help them to work on those sites.
Although they might not have been glued to the telly last week, when the kids had all been fed, the elderly parents had been looked after and the working day was done, people in Ealing Southall switched on their telly and their heating, and they saw a Government who are giving them not just the breathing space they need to make their lives a little easier right now, but the tools they need to face the future with confidence.
Blake Stephenson (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
“What incentive is there for hard-working families and young entrepreneurs to remain in Britain after this Budget?” That is the question that a constituent put to me at a community meeting I held in Wixams in Mid Bedfordshire last week.
Let me start with what I think is the main test that really matters for any Budget: will it make my constituents richer in five years’ time than they are today? Having listened to the Chancellor and the reaction over the weekend, I am afraid that the answer is no. There is simply no confidence whatsoever that this Budget will deliver growth in their postcodes, and it certainly does not give hope in their hearts.
Given that the Prime Minister is extremely comfortable looking to the past, whether it is to the 1970s or 2016, but not to the future, I did a little reflecting myself over the weekend. It is fitting that we debate this Budget 40 years on from the big bang in 1986, when regulations that were strangling our economy were swept away, making London into the powerhouse of global finance that it remains today, opening the City of London to the world and delivering prosperity here at home. The courage of that decision in 1986 benefited every corner of Britain, delivering more jobs, investment and tax revenues that paid for schools, hospitals and public services.
During my 15 years in the City before coming to this place, I saw at first hand how EU regulations after the credit crunch steadily ratcheted up costs and de-risked our entire economy. The courage and ambition of 1986 have slowly given way to the caution and complexity of 2026. That is why my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition is right to say that Britain needs a new economic revolution even bigger than the big bang.
Where are we today? The OBR says that the tax burden will reach a record 38.6% of GDP. The Budget raises tax on savings and rental income—again. It doubles the bank surcharge and leaves Labour’s damaging jobs tax untouched. After Labour’s first Budget, I told the House that it was “a job-cutting Budget”. Some 1.7 million people older than 16 are now unemployed—up by 276,000 under this Government—and vacancies are at their lowest level since 2014. Last year, about 136,000 more British nationals left the country than came home, with two thirds of them under the age of 35.
The Prime Minister and the Chancellor may have changed, but this Budget makes it clear that Labour has not. It is still picking the pockets of working people to pay for welfare. That was plain to hear this weekend, as the Chief Secretary to the Treasury redefined working people to exclude employees. It may be a new team at the Dispatch Box, but their contempt for British business and British business owners in this Budget is as strong as ever.
Peter Dowd (Bootle) (Lab)
The motto of my constituency —the old Bootle county borough—was “Respice, Aspice, Prospice”. In English, that means reflecting on the past, considering the present and looking to the future.
I want to look a little to the past. In 2010 David Cameron said, “I’ll cut the deficit, not the NHS.” Well, that did not age well, did it? In 2010 the national debt was 64.7% of GDP; by 2024 it was 96.5% of GDP. What about the NHS? Waiting lists in 2010 stood at 2.4 million; in 2024 they stood at 7.6 million. Satisfaction ratings were down. Rough sleeping was up. Wage growth was down and did not recover for many years under the Tories. On food bank use, there were 100,000 food parcels in 2010, and more than 3 million by 2024. Some 3.6 million children were in poverty in 2010, and 4.3 million by 2024. There were 168,000 zero-hours contracts in 2010; by 2024 there were more than 1 million of them.
Let us look to the present. We have more than 4,500 more secondary, further education and special school teachers. More than 1,300 schools have joined the free breakfast club programme. That impacts on my constituency in a very practical and positive way. Waiting lists are down. The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 protects 11 million renters. We have created Great British Energy—cutting bills for schools and hospitals, and planning clean power for 10 million homes. We have raised the national minimum wage to £13.21, which is a 3.9% increase. We have a £100 discount on energy bills for homes in council tax bands A to D, which impacts 20 million households, and 99.8% of homes in my constituency will be affected by that. Standing charges on household gas have been scrapped. The list goes on.
What about the future? We are decreasing annual borrowing, with borrowing forecast to drop from £134 billion to £67 billion by 2031. On the share of GDP, annual net borrowing is expected to decline from 4.2%. We are on track with the fiscal rules. We have real wage growth—and so on, and so on. Child poverty is down. That is what we get from a Labour Budget. That is in addition to the impact of devolution in all our communities, which will be of great benefit to my constituency.
Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)
I cannot begin without congratulating the hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Sagal Abdi-Wali) on her speech. I know her constituency well, and she is a distinguished former colleague of mine on Camden council.
I am here today to speak about council housing. The Government’s priorities are still not right on this issue, despite the Chancellor explicitly naming in his Budget speech the loss of more than 2 million council homes since the 1980s and the Prime Minister’s focus on rough sleeping. We have millions of people waiting in overcrowded homes, rented homes that they cannot afford and temporary accommodation that councils cannot afford. That goes well beyond a crisis.
What have the Government given us in this Budget? We have new money, with £1.5 billion added to the pot for councils to bid on for affordable home building. In paragraph 5.4 of the Budget, the Chancellor says that that will help to build potentially 10,000 more real council homes over the next four years. That is not terrible, but in paragraph 5.5 in the same document we get £4.7 billion for the Government’s new version of the Help to Buy scheme. The Chancellor explains that that will support private, profit-making developers to sell an extra 20,000 new builds. I presume that is without expecting developers to cut their prices or profits—it is possible that they will increase them.
I note that the Government plan to collect some small fees from the house builders, but I assume that they have been agreed with them. I also note that one impact of the previous Government’s Help to Buy scheme was to keep house prices rising out of many people’s reach and to boost profits and profit margins for developers, as the recent Government evaluation of the scheme concludes. Can Ministers tell us whether £4.7 billion for loans that they do not expect to be paid back for many years to support 20,000 extra private sales by developers really represents better short-term or long-term value for the public purse than £1.5 billion to enable 10,000 new build council homes? That is three times more funding out of the door for just twice as many new homes. Even under the Government’s broad house building target, is that really the best use of public money? It may not be that simple, so I ask the Government to give us their workings on these choices, especially if I am wrong in my assumptions. Can they commit to publishing, for comparison, the Green Book assumptions and appraisals for each of these investment decisions, and the time it takes for money to move out of their loan scheme and back into it? We need much more investment in real council housing. We need “buy the supply”—the funding of acquisitions. I cannot see why the Government are not putting together an equity loan scheme for councils to help them buy the supply, instead of going with another help to buy scheme, just as the last Conservative Government did.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
I start by thanking the Chancellor for presenting us with the Budget, and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government for introducing today’s debate on growth in every postcode. When the Prime Minister began his tour of the country in August, he started in Ilkeston. There, he, the Secretary of State and I listened to people talk about the loss that they feel, having watched our town centre decline over decades. Whether I am in Ilkeston or Long Eaton, people in my constituency share that sense of loss. They remember how our town centres used to be. They had vibrant high streets and markets and great pubs. They were bustling centres of commerce and the beating heart of our community, all at the same time.
The Chancellor is absolutely right to help level the playing field by recognising the fundamental shifts in our economy, and helping out struggling small local businesses while asking thriving online giants to finally pay their fair share. Following the Chancellor’s announcement, almost 400 Erewash businesses will no longer need to pay a penny in business rates. That is money that they can now spend on creating jobs, pass back to their customers, reinvest, or keep hold of to reacquire some breathing space. More than 80 additional shops in my constituency no longer pay any business rates at all, and I know that the Chancellor will be very glad to hear that 10 great pubs have been given full business rates relief, including the fantastic Dewdrop in Ilkeston, and the Mill and Brook in Long Eaton.
Adam Thompson
I will not, because so many people want to speak tonight. If the Chancellor is looking for somewhere to celebrate his first Budget, I invite him to Erewash to try out the newly done-up function room at the Mill and Brook, or perhaps enjoy one of the Dewdrop’s famous cheese and onion cobs.
I turn to the measures that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has introduced for families. I was heartened to hear him present such an extensive raft of measures to help pull back the cost of living for so many people across Erewash and the country. Alongside the removal of VAT from electricity costs and scrapping standing charges on gas, there is the direct £100 payment this winter. It is an enormous step that pulls down energy bills for more than 40,000 families, from Sawley to Sandiacre and Shipley View.
I also thank the Chancellor for his continued investment in Rolls-Royce. Royce’s is a huge employer in my constituency, and it is a great point of pride for us in Derbyshire that the most groundbreaking innovation in the world happens on our doorstep. The Chancellor has recognised how much Rolls-Royce and my constituents have to offer our country. That is what a Labour Budget is all about—rooting our economy in society and making them both fairer, and supporting working families, pensioners, carers and small businesses. It is great to have a Chancellor and a Government who listen to people, who will allow our communities to hope again, and who will put our communities back at the heart of our economy.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
It is worth reflecting on three things. As we have very little time, I make just one comment about welfare. It is necessary for the Government to reduce welfare spending, because we can see what the Government’s own forecast says will happen if they do not do so: debt and borrowing will be higher in every single year. That is hugely down to the fact that the growth in welfare spending is running out of control. I was astonished that the point was avoided during the Budget, and then we had confusion when the Chancellor went on the radio the following morning and said that welfare would be reduced during the course of this Government. He was overridden by the Treasury, which said, “No, it won’t, and he didn’t say that,” but he did. That is the confusion. I do not doubt that the Chancellor wants to reduce welfare spending, but it appears that he will not be able to.
The main thing I want to say is that this Budget has not been good for working families, middle-income earners, and those who bother to save. It is really hard on them. Tax is at the highest level on record; the tax burden will hit a historic high next year of 37% of GDP, nearly 38%, and will surge to over 38.6% by 2031. Growth next year has been cut from 1.6% to 1%, and as a result of this Budget, real household disposable income per person is forecast to fall by 0.8% this year. Those are stark figures, figures that economists have produced in their forecasts.
The effect of that is to give Government fewer choices. I want to talk about defence, which is important because the threat we face now—from China and North Korea, from Iran and Russia, all linked together along an axis of totalitarian states—is astonishing. That means that our defence spending needs to rise. Every other Government in Europe is raising defence spending. We used to be the leader on this; they would all look to us, but not any more, because we have avoided raising our defence spending. Even the defence review will not take place until well into next year, and who knows what will happen next. This is a failure of the Government—an opportunity that has been missed. To quote Helen Miller, the economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the Budget
“feels like lots of fiddling, short-term things, new complications—a ‘new entrepreneurs allowance’, ‘starter ISA’…etc. I don’t hear a clear, coherent vision or a simplification of tax system”,
which is necessary. The reality is that this Budget was an opportunity missed, and future generations will look back at this moment and say, “Where were you? Why didn’t you take the decisions that were necessary?”.
Baggy Shanker (Derby South) (Lab/Co-op)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, specifically as it relates to Rolls-Royce.
This is a Budget that backs grafters, not just in Derby but in towns and cities across the whole country. It backs hard-working families who are struggling to make ends meet with £100 of breathing space on their energy bills. It backs the landlords behind the pubs we know and love through changes to business rates that will help them balance their books, and it backs good growth—not just in DE1 and DE2, not just in our great city of Derby, but in postcodes all over the country. At the heart of that is good growth and reindustrialisation, driving the jobs, investment and opportunities our communities need.
In Derby, we know a thing or two about making things. For generations, we have built, engineered and supplied the technologies that keep our country powered. We are proud of that heritage, but we know that our industrial future cannot be built on nostalgia; we need investments that match the scale of our ambition for British workers and British industry, such as the whopping £2.5 billion joint investment delivered in the Budget to keep the next generation of narrow-body aircraft engines right here on our home soil. Last week, I was proud to welcome the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, and our brilliant Business Secretary to Derby to meet the people making that possible—people such as Rolls-Royce apprentices Will, Elliot and Lucy, young people putting in the hard yards, learning their trade and building the skills that will secure not just their own futures, but the future of British manufacturing. That investment will create thousands more opportunities like theirs, be it in the design office, on the factory floor, or in our brilliant small and medium-sized businesses right across the supply chain.
Reindustrialisation is not just a headline; it is about creating good, stable jobs close to home. It is about opportunities for our suppliers, services and skilled craftspeople who support our growing factories, and it is about giving local communities a share in the manufacturing success that they help to create. As we in Derby know better than most, that has not always been the case. The manufacturing success that Derby residents have helped to create has not been shared with them, but things are changing, because with £10 million of Government investment behind Team Derby, we are putting that right. We are making sure that every pound of investment works as hard as it can, and makes things better for our city and our residents. Reindustrialisation is about making sure that the people and the place benefit from that work, which is why this Budget backs our communities.
Chris Coghlan (Dorking and Horley) (LD)
When my grandfather Lieutenant Austin Coghlan, a naval officer, served in the battle of the Atlantic, he did not expect to survive. That he did was in no small part due to the codebreakers at Bletchley Park, who diverted convoys away from U-boats. In the process, the codebreakers invented the world’s first computer, Colossus, which powered the economic development of the post-war world. The spill-over effect from military technology to civilian use is one of the most powerful forces for economic growth, and we can use it now.
Many have said that there is not much that is transformative in this Budget, but that overlooks the Chancellor’s decision to invest up to £5 billion in dual-use military technology through the British Business Bank and the National Wealth Fund, and to borrow jointly with our allies through the multilateral defence mechanism. I have called for that for the past two years on the Treasury Committee, so I am grateful that the Government and the Liberal Democrats have embraced that policy. Academics now recognise that the economic dominance of the United States has been powered by public research and development, especially in defence. In my Budget speech last year, I called for £5 billion more on public research and development, so that we spend the same share of GDP on that as the US does. The £5 billion in this Budget, while over four years, is a start.
Public investment in research in universities and laboratories is powerful because it de-risks the cost of developing new technologies, and enables private investment to take that research forward in start-ups. The London Business School’s Paolo Surico has found that innovation that is funded by the Government, but taken forward by the private sector, generates productivity and growth that is eight times larger than innovation taken forward by the private sector alone. More borrowing is of course a concern in the current fiscal environment, but as the Government have correctly identified, borrowing jointly with allies can remove most of the credit risk. The latest academic research enables us to forecast the returns with confidence. If this programme was scaled in increments of £2 billion a year annually over the next 10 years, it could lead to: growth finally returning to pre-2008 levels, transforming living standards; a debt-to-GDP ratio that is 2 percentage points or £60 billion lower; and meeting our NATO defence spending commitments.
British politicians in the 1930s were labelled the guilty men, because they failed to prioritise defence over the deficit. My grandfather’s generation paid the price. As a reservist, an infantry officer and an MP, I want to ensure that our generation does not.
Ashley Dalton (West Lancashire) (Lab)
I welcome the measures taken by the Chancellor in this Budget, which is clear-eyed about the pressures that people and businesses continue to face, but equally clear about our plan of action to support households so that they keep more of their money; to reduce costs for businesses; and to create the conditions for economic growth.
People across West Lancashire are working hard to make ends meet. There is no dearth of ambition and talent in our local communities, but when conflict in the middle east drives up global energy prices, my constituents feel the effects in their household budget. The extension of the 0% VAT rate on electricity until July 2027, the removal of standing charges from household gas bills and the £2.6 billion on the energy bills breathing space scheme are all welcome steps. In West Lancashire, 37,000-plus households will benefit from the £100 payment this winter.
The costs of global volatility are not only felt in the home, however. The conflict in the middle east has once again demonstrated how vulnerable motorists are to fluctuations in global fuel prices. I therefore welcome the extension of fuel duty tax cuts until July next year. I have spoken repeatedly about the need to improve public transport and rail connectivity in Skelmersdale in my constituency. We need to ensure that our communities are better connected to neighbouring towns, cities and economic opportunities. While I continue to encourage Reform-led Lancashire county council to work constructively with me to improve local transport for my constituents, I also recognise that in many parts of a rural constituency like mine, owning a car is currently a necessity. Measures to ease the pressure on motorists are particularly welcome in such rural constituencies, where the price at the pump is piling additional pressure on already overstretched families.
This Budget is not only for families. Our high streets are at the heart of our communities. They bring employment opportunities, economic growth and a sense of community, character and identity. As co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on theatre, I am particularly conscious of the important role that our cultural venues, and particularly touring productions, play in supporting our local economy. The economic contribution of touring theatre extends well beyond the theatre itself; every pound spent on the theatre ticket generates a further £1.40 in local spending. I look forward to seeing how the Government can further support the touring sector and creative industries, and can ensure that theatres reach audiences across the country.
I welcome this Budget, which recognises the importance of our high streets and the contribution of small businesses. This is how we create jobs, strengthen our communities and deliver growth that people feel in every postcode, every day of their life.
Iqbal Mohamed (Dewsbury and Batley) (Ind)
The most critical issue facing my constituents is affordability and the cost of living. The Budget should not be an annual announcement to appease markets and to protect and enrich corporations, executive shareholders, the rich and the super-rich, or even those in this place. It should not look after the wealthy at the expense of the poor; it should be about making the lives of the vast majority of people in our country better and more affordable and, for some, just bearable.
I met one such person. She lives in Batley, works full time, pays her taxes and does everything that we tell people they should do. She showed me her budget and asked a question that no one in modern Britain should have to ask: “Should I pay my rent, should I pay my bills, or should I buy food?” She asked that not because she is unemployed, not because she has mismanaged her finances and not because she lacks ambition, but because the weekly shop costs more, the gas bill costs more, the rent costs more and the journey to work costs more. Everything that a human being needs to live a simple, dignified life costs much more, and her wages simply do not keep up. That is the reality of the cost of living crisis. This Budget, although there are some welcome measures, does not do anywhere near enough to make life bearable, let alone affordable, for the many by making the few contribute a bit more.
We in this place earn more than £98,000. We will not feel the impact of energy prices that are 70% higher than 2020, and that will rise by 4% this month and by a quarter in January. The 60% to 70% increase in petrol and diesel prices will be a blip that will have little impact on our driving or lifestyle. Grocery prices have increased by 38.6% since 2020, according to the Commons Library, meaning that what was a weekly £100 shop now costs roughly £138.60. Car insurance rose by 82% between 2021 and 2024, and insurance premium indexes have increased by 126% since 2020. Nationally, average rents have climbed from roughly £975 a month to £1,375 a month.
Too often, Ministers speak about future economic improvements, while households wonder how they will get through the next week. Parliament must take some responsibility, because our duty is not simply to debate suffering, and not merely to acknowledge hardship. It is not enough to express concern. Our duty is to act, and this Government have let the people down.
Mary Glindon (Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend) (Lab)
I welcome the positives in the Chancellor’s Budget, some of which include the freeze on fuel duty, increases in the minimum and national living wage and the small business rate relief threshold for retail, hospitality and leisure properties. There is also the fact that almost 56,000 households in my constituency will benefit from the £100 payment for properties in council tax bands A to D.
However, I must advise the Chancellor that there will not be good growth in NE6 and NE28 postcodes unless Ministers pull every lever at their disposal to support industry on the Tyne. The overhead electric cables are a constraint on investment, as they prevent the movement of large structures used in the offshore energy sector. News that the project to underground the cables is now effectively paused will push the 2034 completion date even further into the future. International yards are already capitalising on our offshore wind leasing rounds. Fixed-bottom assets are increasing in size and investment in floating offshore wind, which will see integrated units towed to sea, is set to overtake fixed-bottom by the early 2030s.
My constituency has the skills and infrastructure to sit at the forefront of the UK’s green future. It is home to a cluster of offshore supply chain firms and an expanding energy skills academy, and it is less than 100 nautical miles from the world’s largest offshore wind farm. Ofgem, National Grid and Ministers must act decisively, so that Tyneside can seize the opportunities that the green transition offers.
Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)
For all the positives in this Budget, the real disappointment is that it does not match the radicalism and the claims of the now endless Government social media and TikTok barrage. It is extraordinary, given everything that he said when he was Secretary of State for Defence, that the Chancellor has kicked the big defence spending decisions down the road. There are warm words, but there is no plan for helping people back into work—and, of course, nothing concrete on Europe, something that even the previous Chancellor acknowledged over the weekend needs to be addressed.
A big theme for my constituents is the need for infrastructure to support housing. I believe that there would be less despair and opposition to new houses if central Government listened to calls for transparency and ambition when it comes to infrastructure and public services to support housing growth. Setting and publishing targets for the amount of primary healthcare, transport, large-scale leisure or policing per head of population, based on an analysis of local demographic needs, and showing progress or otherwise against those metrics, would help to restore trust and would highlight where investment is needed. That is all the more important as local councils do not have direct control of most of these areas. The lack of acknowledgment of such challenges, let alone action on them, in the Budget is disappointing.
It is also regrettable that there are no rolling funds or investment programmes for major transport improvements. Without them, no hope has been created for a new railway station serving Grove and Wantage, accessibility improvements to Cholsey station, or electrification from Didcot to Oxford. We have to hope that the Government’s slow embrace of devolution, amid the utter shambles of local government reorganisation, will fill this void, but that very much remains to be seen given the number of unanswered questions.
There are some welcome measures to support hospitality, but small producer relief for small-scale producers of alcohol still excludes vineyards such as Hendred vineyard, which produces a few thousand bottles a year. That makes little sense: the alcohol intensity of a drink does not inherently correlate with how much it is abused, and English wine has a promising future.
Let me end by referring to what the Budget says about science and high tech. Despite some positive measures on AI safety and capital gains tax founders’ relief, the Government’s previous decisions on science mean that this is the biggest area of disappointment. My constituency contains a wide range of science and technology organisations, and the Government’s decision to cut Science and Technology Facilities Council funding significantly is incomprehensible and unforgivable. No wonder that after three months the Government have still not had the basis courtesy to reply to my letters about that. The 15% funding cuts in Harwell’s three national and globally significant research facilities—Diamond Light Source, the ISIS Neutron and Muon Source and the Central Laser Facility—will lead to significant decreases in operating time, of up to 25%.
I am used to the Government ignoring me, but perhaps they will listen to the deputy general secretary of Prospect, Sue Ferns, the Liverpool city region mayor, Steve Rotherham, and the physicist Brian Cox, all of whom have warned that the cuts would
“cause lasting and possibly irreparable damage to the UK’s scientific capabilities”.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
The real tests of this Budget are the families who notice every extra penny at the petrol station, every increase in the energy bill, and the pounds adding to the price of the weekly shop. The war in Iran carries a price tag for the globe, and that is clear at the petrol pump and in our energy bills. For motorists, and for more than 3,500 workers in transport and logistics in my constituency, the price at the pump matters. I therefore welcome the continued freeze in the fuel duty cut until July 2027, a measure that I have called for throughout the year.
I also welcome the end to standing charges for gas, and the £100 payment to those in council tax bands A to D. That will make the thought of bills during the upcoming winter that bit less stressful. If the Scottish Government do the same, more than 119,000 households in the West Lothian and Falkirk council areas will benefit. That money must be passed on. Our constituents cannot afford for it to disappear into the black hole created by the Scottish National party’s mismanagement of Scotland’s finances. These measures mean real reductions in bills, shifting the brunt of levies and standing charges away from the consumer just as the worst hits.
Kirsteen Sullivan
I will continue my speech, so that others can get in.
I am mindful that many people have high energy usage owing to health conditions and disabilities, so I would be grateful if the Minister outlined the support that those with health vulnerabilities will receive. I am also aware that many businesses continue to struggle with the high level of energy costs, especially manufacturers in energy-intensive sectors, so I would have liked to have seen an expansion of eligibility for the British industrial competitiveness scheme, and I hope the Chancellor will consider that. I also hope that the Scottish Government will take a leaf out of the Chancellor’s book, and replicate the cuts in business rates to give our high street businesses a boost.
The Budget delivers a further £600 million for Scotland, amounting to over £18 billion more since Labour was elected in July 2024. I am calling on the Scottish Government to use that £600 million extra and invest in the services on which my constituents rely and which they use day in, day out.
While we cannot predict every shock that comes from overseas, we can choose how we respond to them. We choose to protect families at the petrol pump and in their energy bills, and we choose to back British workers, British businesses and British manufacturing. That is what this Budget is about: giving my constituents greater security today, while building a stronger and more resilient economy for tomorrow.
Charlie Maynard (Witney) (LD)
The Chancellor said in his speech last week that people were looking to Government
“not to solve all their problems but to give them a bit of breathing space”.—[Official Report, 28 October 2026; Vol. 792, c. 304.]
That may be partly true, but I think it demonstrates the lack of ambition that sits behind this Budget. The Government should be solving the systemic problems in our economy, or at least making a much more serious attempt to do so than we saw last week. Those problems are at the root of why so many families are struggling to make ends meet and so many businesses are failing. When the economy is as damaged as it is, when public sector debt sits at 104% of debt to GDP—according to the International Monetary Fund—when productivity is decreasing, when consumer confidence is down and when housing costs continue to rise, I think it is the Government’s job to do something substantial towards solving the country’s problems.
Make no mistake: the various incremental measures that the Chancellor announced, such as those on household energy bills, will be welcome, but they are not sufficient to
“move the dial on growth”,
in the words of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. As bigger, more difficult decisions are kicked down the road for another time, what my constituents want to know is how they are to absorb another year of no real earnings growth, while mortgage increases are coming down the pipe on the back of a likely Bank of England rate rise this week. My constituents want to know that the public services on which we all rely are safe, and they are not. My constituents want to see genuine hope for a future with better jobs and more opportunities, and they want to know that our food supply is secure and our rural economy will be supported. Across the board, however, this Budget was too unambitious, and ducked the big decisions that our country is crying out for.
Let me give two examples that could “move the dial”. First, the Chancellor’s speech was silent on Britain’s relationship with our biggest trading partner, the European Union. Our country prospers when fair, dynamic markets for goods, services, capital and labour operate effectively. If the Government are serious about our economy and want growth, they should get on with opening negotiations for our country to rejoin the EU now. Secondly, if we are serious about getting our national debt under control, we must look at reforming our fiscal rules. Why? Because they do not work. That is demonstrated by the fact that for the last 25 years there has not been a single year in which tax receipts exceeded spending. Our fiscal rules front-load spending in the early years, and difficult decisions—as epitomised by last week’s Budget—are put off, frequently to the other side of an election. There are good international examples from which we can learn. Other countries, such as Switzerland and Sweden, do this better. I therefore urge the Chancellor to take steps to rejoin the EU, and to establish a cross-party commission exploring more prudent fiscal rules.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
We live in an ever-changing world where global issues impact on our everyday lives, so I am pleased that this Budget is about making a difference to working people and families in Portsmouth North, with little changes that make a big difference. People in my city are worried about the cost of energy. This Budget responds by extending the removal of VAT on electricity until 27 July, removing gas standing charges and putting £100 directly into the bank accounts of 40,000 households across Portsmouth North. That sits alongside the new British industrial competitive scheme for businesses.
However, energy is not the only cost putting pressure on families. For many people in Portsmouth North, getting to work or school means getting in the car, and the cost of filling up hits hard. Extending the 5p fuel duty cut and keeping fuel duty frozen helps motorists and businesses to manage these costs every day. Cost of living measures are also about allowing people to keep enjoying life and coming together, so I am pleased to see that changes in this Budget will mean that half of the retail, leisure and hospitality businesses in our region will no longer pay business rates at all.
We must invest in our future. The Your First Home scheme means lower deposits and more opportunities for young people, and I look forward to seeing more details.
We must also keep our country safe. In Portsmouth—our naval city—defence means more than national security; it means jobs, skills and opportunities for local people. The Government are spending £14 billion more on defence than the previous Government did, and the £3.9 billion for the naval dockyard is brilliant. That, alongside the investment from previous Governments, is great.
One announcement is especially close to my heart: paternity pay for the self-employed. For too long, self-employed men have faced an impossible choice between spending those precious first few days with their newborns and returning to work because their bills will not wait. Labour introduced paternity leave, but self-employed dads and non-birthing partners were left behind. This Budget takes an important step: for the first time, they will be able to receive paternity pay—that is a point of principle. For a builder, a plumber, a taxi driver, a shopkeeper or a farmer, this means real support at the most important moment of their life. Up to £194 a week for two weeks might not be enough, and the Minister will not be surprised to hear that I want to see longer leave and more generous pay, but for someone who currently gets nothing, this change means real help with their bills, less financial pressure and, more importantly, more time with their new-born child. Being there for your child should not be a luxury that is reserved to those who can afford it.
I want to quickly thank the incredible campaigners who have helped deliver this change, including all at the Dad Shift, On The Tools and Movember. Most importantly, I thank the hard-working tradespeople across the country who have made their voice heard and trusted me to bring their voice to this place. This victory is theirs, and they should be so very proud, just as I am so very proud of them. How can we ask young men to take up apprenticeships in our trades if we do not protect their future and their families? This is personal for me: my dad was a tradie, my brother is a tradie, and so was my grandad. I am incredibly proud of all of them, and I want something different for my own sons.
Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)
I was disappointed that the Chancellor did nothing to change the gift aid rules, which would have helped the Bridgwater carnival and many other community organisations and charities. The Bridgwater Guy Fawkes carnival is the most magnificent spectacle. It is Britain’s oldest carnival and the largest illuminated carnival in Europe, and it is taking place on Saturday. Like so many good causes, the carnival raises much of its funds in small cash donations, often loose change collected in a bucket on the night, yet it can only claim gift aid for a maximum of £2,000 on those small donations—a figure that has not been increased for 10 years. Will the Chancellor please consider increasing the limit? That would make a huge difference to organisations that collect so much of their funds in small cash donations.
Despite making so many changes in his Budget, the Chancellor has not reinstated the listed places of worship grant scheme, which his predecessor abolished. This means that communities who worship in a listed building, such as the parish of St Andrews in Burnham-on-Sea, will have to bear the full cost of VAT on the repairs that their historic church requires. The scheme that replaced the old one is less generous and has a capped budget. We should cherish our beautiful listed churches and take care of them for future generations. I will continue to press the Chancellor to renew the scheme in full, to make sure that our congregations are not charged an extra 20% for vital repairs.
There are 98 separate measures in the Red Book, and many of them will further complicate Britain’s already byzantine tax code. Do we really need a new founders’ relief from capital gains tax? We are told that it will be for
“qualifying founders of high-growth, innovative companies”.
That perhaps sounds good for a Labour tax relief, but would it not be better to lower the rate of CGT for everyone, rather than add another carve-out for accountants and lawyers to argue about? Britain needs lower tax rates with fewer exemptions, not additional complications that drive up the cost of compliance.
The fundamental problem that Britain faces today is simple: we are running out of money. Unless we change course soon, every other problem will become harder to solve. Our national debt is now £3 trillion, and every year Labour is adding tens of billions more. At a time of international uncertainty, we must spend more on defence, but this Government cannot do so because they refuse to cut welfare. We need a plan to cut debt, fund defence and get Britain growing again.
Chris Curtis (Milton Keynes North) (Lab)
I will speak about the devolution measures announced in the Budget and the fiscal devolution pathway that has been set out. We normally hear two arguments for devolution: first, that decisions should be made closer to the people they affect rather than in Whitehall, and secondly, that investment should be spread more fairly beyond London and certain pockets of the south-east. I agree with both those arguments, but I think there is a more important argument: devolution can help us grow the economy and make the British state work better.
After nearly two decades of stagnation, we desperately need to raise productivity, build infrastructure more quickly and unlock growth across the country. I believe that devolution can be one of the best ways of doing that, but it needs to come with fiscal devolution. Some 95% of tax revenue in Britain is raised by central Government, rather than at a regional or local level. Meanwhile, France raises three times as much at a sub-national level, and in Germany it is much higher still. The Centre for Cities has found that there is a strong relationship between fiscal devolution and wages across devolved economies. Correlation is not always causation, but there are obvious economic reasons why that relationship exists.
Today, when councils approve new housing, attract employers or build infrastructure, they take the political risk and bear many of the up-front costs, but much of the additional tax revenue goes straight to the Treasury and eventually gets redistributed elsewhere. Even when councils retain that money, it can disappear at the next funding reset, as we saw earlier this year. Local leaders bear the cost of growth, while the Treasury collects the proceeds. That is why I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment to increase business rates retention, giving mayors a share of business rates growth from next year, and to give mayors a share of income tax receipts from 2028. If we want local leaders to take difficult decisions in favour of growth, their communities need to share in the rewards.
Stable future revenues can also allow local areas to borrow against future growth to pay for the infrastructure needed today, and it is good to see the Government looking at how that can happen through bodies such as the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation. I hope that is something we can look at in Milton Keynes in the future.
I want to finish by saying that although many areas across the country will benefit from the proceeds of the Government’s announcements on devolution, I am disappointed that it was announced this week that my local area will not be one of them. That is despite the hard work and determination of many MPs across this Chamber to get devolution across Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes. Indeed, the Government came forward with a package of nearly £1 billion to get this over the line. It was unfortunately vetoed by one local government leader in Central Bedfordshire, who decided to put politics ahead of the people he was elected to represent. He has let the local area down, and I hope the Government will continue to work with all local leaders in the area to see if they can find a solution.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
Taken as a whole, this Budget is really rather insipid, because it deliberately avoids many of the big-ticket areas, such as our runaway benefits budget, which it does nothing at all about, and the need to put together a properly funded programme to adequately build the defence of this nation—again, an issue that this Budget leaves untouched.
But at least we have a Budget. I say that because in my part of the United Kingdom, we are entering the eighth month when, because of a catastrophic failure of devolution in Northern Ireland, we do not even have a budget for this year, never mind next year. I say to the Treasury and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that this cannot go on. They need to bring that budget through this House so that there is the money to pay for the public service pay rises and everything else, which is now at risk because of the dysfunctional failure of the Stormont Executive.
One of the other things this Budget is silent about—yet it is something that, if the Government have their way, will be very important—is the cost of the Government’s intended reset with the EU. I will take but one example, which is the proposition that the United Kingdom should participate in the EU’s electricity market. When we look at the European Council decision that created the mandate for the EU to negotiate with the United Kingdom about the UK entering the EU’s electricity market, we find that the mandate includes the words
“an agreement on the financial contribution of the United Kingdom towards reducing economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union”.
In other words, the United Kingdom, as a cost of joining the EU’s electricity market, will be required to make a contribution—no doubt a sizeable contribution—to the EU’s cohesion fund.
It is the same with the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement and with all the other targets of the reset, yet this Budget fails to tell us what the cost of any of that will be. The Government need to front up and tell the public not the glossy impression they like to create of advantage from the reset, which is phoney, but the actual monetary cost. What is it, Minister?
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
Milton Keynes MPs are like buses: you wait a long time, and two come at once.
It costs us £133 billion every year because women are excluded from paid work on equal terms with men. I have worked closely with Members from across these Benches, as well as the Women’s Budget Group and the Good Growth Foundation, to put together an unashamedly female agenda for how we can realise the £113 billion of gross value added that we would see every year if women could fully participate in the economy. I want to thank my right hon. and hon. Friends the Treasury Ministers for their engagement on this really important document.
I want to talk about what this Budget delivers for women. It bolsters us, it promotes us and it protects us. It bolsters us with paternity leave and adoption leave for self-employed people, with breakfast clubs and with VAT cuts in energy bills. We know that, more often than not, it is women who are trying to make the household bills add up at the end of the month and women who are the first people in the family to go without when there is not enough.
The commitment to the gender pay gap and pay transparency is so important, but women are business owners too, particularly on our high streets, where our hairdressers and nail technicians are seeing business rate cuts. High-tech, high-investment, science-based industries will also have fair investment practices, with tech-forward standards to improve workplace culture, £200 million—double the previous commitment—for women-led businesses through the British Business Bank and a scale-up programme to help them flourish.
Finally, this Budget protects women and girls. It establishes for the first time a misogyny taskforce to tackle the core issues that are holding women back, keeping them scared and destroying equality in our society, with £55 million of funding over two years to meet the commitment to halve violence against women and girls in a decade. It will strengthen our law enforcement activity, improve protection for victims, and identify and disrupt harmful behaviours.
This is a Budget for women, because if women succeed, our country succeeds.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. Members have been very disciplined with interventions, but they may wish to note that several Members have absented themselves from the Chamber without any notice.
Charlotte Cane (Ely and East Cambridgeshire) (LD)
On growth in every postcode, the Chancellor seems to have forgotten the people in Ely and East Cambridgeshire. There was nothing in the Budget and no funding for the Ely junction improvements, which would increase capacity on that rail line for freight and for passengers and make it more reliable. There was nothing to reduce rail fares, which are getting out of many people’s reach.
There was nothing to help the county council with the phenomenal cost of mending our soil-affected roads. It estimates the cost to be £500 million, an amount that no county council can find. It is roughly 10 times its annual budget for road repairs. We have roads that, over this summer, actually had no earth underneath them any more, and when people go out to repair them, they instead have to close the road, because there is no earth on top of which to repair it.
On buses, it is great that we have capped bus fares, but many of my villages do not have buses at all. There was nothing in the Budget about improving bus routes and getting more buses. There was nothing on the A10. The money for that has been removed, and nothing has been put back in the Budget. So is growth really for every postcode? Not for mine.
As for the farmers, who had that catastrophic sustainable farming incentive process that closed within hours, there is nothing for them. There is nothing to recognise the problems they had over this long, hot, dry summer. We need to back our farmers. They are in my postcodes, and they feed all of us.
On the breathing space, there are some good things in the Budget to help people with the cost of living, but not for people on heating oil. I have had a letter from a young mum who tells me that she has to find £650 just to buy the minimum amount of oil that can be delivered, and that would not last her the winter. She cannot ask for money from the crisis and resilience fund, because she had that back in the spring, and she has been told she cannot ask again. Yes, she will probably get £100 in January, but she needs £650 now. To add insult to injury, the Chancellor has cut the budgets for helping people get away from their dependence on oil heating, so I cannot even be sure that all my constituents can take advantage of moving on to heat pumps or other technology. At the very least, will the Chancellor please look again at how he can help people on oil central heating, because they desperately need it this winter, and please can we not just tell them to eat gherkins?
Samantha Niblett (South Derbyshire) (Lab)
There were many welcome announcements in this Budget to help give people a little breathing space—from the £100 for households in council tax bands A to D to paternity leave payments for self-employed fathers. I personally really welcome the investment in getting more women into tech, as recommended by the Government’s women in tech taskforce. At a time when trust in the tech industry is low, we need women in tech more than ever. I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, because I have quite a focus on that.
However, following a meeting yesterday at Gresley Old Hall with members of the mineworkers’ pension scheme in South Derbyshire, I want to focus on them. I speak today on behalf of 1,141 scheme members and their families in my constituency. These men spent their working lives doing some of the hardest and most dangerous jobs in our country. They kept our lights on, our homes warm and our industries running. Their pensions are deferred wages earned through years of dangerous work, not taxpayer handouts.
I welcome the transfer of the £1.5 billion investment reserve in 2024, and the Chancellor’s announcement to end surplus sharing so that 100% of future surpluses go to members, but the job is not finished. There is still approximately £1.2 billion in the guarantor’s fund, and members need certainty that it will be transferred in full without further delay. Yesterday, what I had hoped would be a meeting to celebrate progress became one where I found myself apologising, because people who have waited decades for justice are once again being asked to wait again, and time is running out. About 100 former miners die every week, and some will never live to see the justice they have spent years campaigning for.
This is also about our former coalfield communities. That money will be spent in our towns and villages in supporting local shops, businesses and families, and in helping growth in postcodes in South Derbyshire. I have raised this directly with Treasury Ministers and the Prime Minister’s office. I have also pledged to donate my next annual parliamentary salary increase to charity until miners and their families receive what they are owed. I stand in solidarity with them, not just in words but in deeds too.
I want to finish with words from Gary Chamberlain, who I met yesterday:
“If you think this is a storm in a teacup, think again. This is just the start of it.”
Gary is right. For Gary, for my 1,141 MPS member constituents and their families, and for mining communities across the country, I say this to the Government: please release the remaining £1.2 billion, give members the certainty they deserve and ensure that their bonus payment arrives on 23 December, as originally planned, in time for Christmas.
We are the Labour party. It is only a Labour Government who will deliver justice for our miners. We must not be a Labour Government who ask them to wait yet again. Our miners have given enough to this country. It is time this country gave them what they are owed.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett). She refers to the fact that this is a Labour Budget, but I want to highlight how it does not contribute as I would hope it would—of course, good growth in every postcode is a good thing—to combating widening inequality. I am not sure it lives up to what I believe the Labour party argues for.
I submitted early-day motions 939, 940 and 963, which provide constructive proposals to the Chancellor on addressing widening inequality. They were constructive proposals, as one would expect me to provide. The Conservatives want to focus on the benefits bill, and of course we should, but they do not seem to want to focus quite so much on the benefits bill of tax benefits for the wealthy. It is that area that I wish to concentrate on most.
Some 23% of the Government tax take—£217.5 billion —is available in tax reliefs, as Treasury Ministers know full well. The Treasury Committee has identified that 80% of those tax reliefs have never been publicly costed or evaluated. I hope the Government will look at these matters. I will come on to one on housing in a moment.
The Secretary of State referred to my private Member’s Bill, which is up for debate on Friday 13 November. It addresses both the need for first homes before second homes, and need before greed in the planning system. I hope that Labour Members will come along to support the Bill. What concerns me in particular is the business rates relief system. The Red Book, on page 130, refers to the availability to small businesses of rates relief for the retail, hospitality and leisure sector. That includes, of course, holiday lets. The problem is that, because holiday lets have invariably been second homes, people have flipped their property from council tax to business rates, applied for small business rates relief and then paid nothing at all. The Government have extended the valuation from £12,000 to £18,000, which has then made a larger group of people, who are wealthy enough with their second properties, now able to take advantage of this particular loophole.
In areas like mine, with large numbers of second homes, we would like the half a billion pounds that has gone from the taxpayer into the pockets of second home owners, to be put into social and affordable housing. It is driving inflation in the system and creating further inequality. I do hope the Government will look at this issue again, think again and address it.
Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)
This Budget contains a series of practical measures that will make a real difference to families across Amber Valley. While some may dismiss individual announcements as small measures, it is their combined effect that matters. Taken together, they provide genuine breathing space for thousands of people across Amber Valley. They include: expanded childcare and free breakfast clubs for families; support for households worried about energy bills; and measures to help people with transport costs for work and leisure.
Becky Gittins
What my hon. Friend has just said, about the cumulative effect of lots of announcements making a difference, is really important. In my constituency of Clwyd East in north Wales, we pay some of the highest standing charges anywhere in the country, with people in north Wales paying a standing charge of 68p a day, in comparison to the 43p paid each day by people in London. Does she agree with me that not only is that measure welcome but, as well creating that breathing space, it is a huge step to fairness in our energy system?
Linsey Farnsworth
I do agree with my hon. Friend. It is very important that there is breathing space right across the country, just like growth in every postcode.
The Budget is only one part of a much wider programme of reform. The high streets strategy, the modern service framework for dementia and frailty, reforming social care, bringing decision making closer to our communities through devolution, and of course our 10-year plan, will all be transformative for my constituents.
I want to turn to another matter addressed by the Budget, which echoes the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett). It is a big issue in our local community. It is extremely personal to me and to hundreds of people in my constituency.
I am proud to be a former coalminer’s daughter, and I am proud to be a Labour MP with a Government committed to finally delivering justice for mineworkers, because—let us face it—only a Labour Government will do so. Since Labour came into office in 2024, we have seen real progress on this topic. The MPS investment reserve has been transferred to scheme members, increasing annual pensions by around £29 per week. Last week the Chancellor announced that every penny of the surplus from the MPS will remain with the members rather than being split with the Government and the standstill rule has been abolished. Those are important improvements, but as the Chancellor himself said last week, the job is not done.
My dad suffers from emphysema, white fingers and damaged knees from years of working at the coalface, and now also late-stage dementia. When I learned that a final settlement for MPS members would not be reached in this Budget, I made it clear to Ministers what that means. It means there is a very real possibility that my dad will not live to see the justice he deserves. That is not unique to our family. Around 19 former miners die every single day. That means that since the Budget, 85 miners will already have passed away without seeing this issue resolved. Let us be clear: this is not Government money, and this is not taxpayers’ money; this is the miners’ money.
The Chancellor committed to ensuring the full transfer of the guarantor’s fund and I welcome that completely, but we cannot wait any longer. We cannot wait until a new fiscal event. We must finish the job and we must do it now.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
I am sure that hon. Members will be delighted to know that I am putting the time limit back up to four minutes.
Manuela Perteghella (Stratford-on-Avon) (LD)
I welcome aspects of this breathing space Budget. Additional investment in council housing, support for rough sleeping programmes and some positive news on business rates with action to revive our high streets are all steps in the right direction. But for many families, businesses and communities, such as those in my constituency, the Budget does not go far enough to address the pressure they face every day, including the brutal cost of living. People in Stratford-on-Avon worry about the future of their local high streets, about heating their homes this winter, and about whether their favourite shop, pub, café or restaurant—businesses that give our towns their character—will still be there next year. That is why I believe that the Budget misses opportunities in a number of important areas.
Our small businesses on high streets—the independent businesses that make our towns unique and create jobs for local people—face pressure from every direction. Under this Government, rising employment costs, energy costs, business rates and regulatory burdens are all taking their toll, and empty units are blighting our streets up and down the country. We need stronger powers for councils to bring long-term vacant properties back into use, and more support for the independent businesses that give our towns their character. The business rates discount will help some, but many will be left in the cold.
Hospitality is of particular importance to Stratford-on-Avon; one in nine constituents are employed in the sector. That is why I am disappointed that the Government did not go further on VAT for hospitality. A temporary reduction in VAT would have provided immediate help to businesses, while helping consumers who are also feeling the squeeze. Businesses in my constituency tell me that a VAT reduction for hospitality would have allowed them to keep the lights on after the busy Christmas period.
On fuel poverty, while the payment of £100 is welcome, we know from the Resolution Foundation that 1.4 million low-income households are in higher council tax bands, and they will miss out on that untargeted payment. Will the Minister look at that cohort urgently, so that they do not fall through the cracks? While I am on the subject, council tax is a deeply unfair tax—we know it, and the Minister knows it, and it needs to change.
Many households remain vulnerable to high energy costs, which is why I am concerned about the reduction in funding for the warm homes plan. Investing in warmer homes cuts bills and reduces carbon emissions; it is one of the smartest investments that any Government can make, particularly for families and older residents already struggling with the cost of living.
The Budget and the Government’s wider plan place considerable emphasis on devolution. Warwickshire is a long way away from a mayor. People in my constituency want local services that are responsibly rooted in the places that they serve. Any organisational devolution must strengthen local democracy and voices, because whether we are talking about high streets, fuel poverty, housing or hospitality, the people closest to those challenges are often those best placed to solve them. For my constituents, the Budget does not go far enough to support small businesses, tackle fuel poverty and help communities thrive.
Rachel Taylor (North Warwickshire and Bedworth) (Lab)
This Budget puts families and businesses at its heart. It provides a breathing space on the cost of living today, while giving people fresh hope for the future.
I am proud to be the granddaughter of a coalminer, and this Government have done so much already to right historical injustices in the mineworkers’ pension scheme. I welcome the commitment to ending the surplus sharing arrangement and standstill mechanism, but that only rights part of the injustice. Since 1994, successive Governments have taken more than £4.4 billion from the scheme, in return for a guarantee that has cost the public purse nothing. It cannot be right that the remaining £1.2 billion in the guarantor fund has still not been released to benefit former miners and their widows. For many, time is running out. I ask again, as I have asked before, that the Chancellor looks at this and delivers justice for mineworkers across the country.
I particularly welcome the measures in the Budget to tackle rising energy bills. With conflicts overseas pushing up prices at home, families are understandably worried about how much it costs to heat their home. That is why the £100 household energy payment is so important. In North Warwickshire and Bedworth, around 37,920 properties will benefit.
In a constituency like mine, driving is not a luxury. For so many people, it is the only reliable option for getting to work, taking the children to school and going about daily life. It is why my parents made me learn to drive as soon as I turned 17. I ensured that residents’ concerns about fuel costs were heard, and I am delighted that the Chancellor listened, extending the 5p fuel duty cut until July 2027. For a family already struggling to make ends meet, every extra pound at the pump matters. The impact of fuel duty goes beyond families filling up their cars; it affects the lorry drivers delivering food to our supermarkets, the businesses transporting goods across the country and, ultimately, the prices that we all pay at the check-out.
Before coming to Parliament, I spent 20 years working as a property solicitor in a high street firm in my constituency. One of the things that I loved most about that job was helping first-time buyers. I remember the happiness of seeing young people come through my door, proud of the amount that they had saved for their deposit. They would tell me about their plans for the future. These were people putting down roots in our communities, and there was nothing quite like the moment when they finally collected their keys.
However, the longer I did that job, the fewer first-time buyers came through my door. I watched as owning a home became increasingly out of reach for young people, particularly those who did not have the bank of mum and dad to fall back on. That is not the future I want for the next generation in North Warwickshire and Bedworth. That is why I am delighted that the Chancellor has announced the new £4.7 billion Your First Home scheme, which is expected to help around 70,000 first-time buyers on to the property ladder.
This Budget is taking action on the very issues that my constituents have raised with me: the cost of heating their home and filling up their car; supporting the industries they work in; and helping their children and grandchildren on to the housing ladder. It is a Budget that gives families breathing space today, supports the businesses and workers who keep our country moving, and offers young people fresh hope for the future.
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
I want to thank Nick Coombes from my office for his help on this speech.
Unsurprisingly, I am disappointed by the Chancellor’s first Budget. From a new Administration who spent a by-election and leadership campaign claiming that they had all sorts of plans and ambitions to fix the economy after the previous Labour Administration constantly talked us down, we have a “do no harm” Budget that does decidedly little to help pensioners, fund our armed forces, support young people or back the businesses that are essential to creating jobs. The tax burden has continued to rise above record levels; inflation has not been at the 2% target since before the first Budget of this Labour Government; and the welfare bill is set to go up by another £60 billion—and neither the Prime Minister nor the Chancellor is willing to commit to reducing it in this Parliament.
As the Leader of the House has said, we are now spending more on debt interest than on the Army and schools combined, which is clearly wrong, especially when we face some of the biggest and most rapidly evolving threats since the cold war. Yet the Chancellor, who resigned as Defence Secretary over the previous Administration’s refusal to increase defence spending to 3% of GDP, has delivered a Budget that has deferred the difficult choices necessary to keep our country safe until next year, in favour of the Prime Minister’s plan to prioritise social security over national security.
Young people are already struggling for support to get into education, employment or training. The increase in employer national insurance contributions, and now the further increase in the minimum wage, will make young people even more expensive for small businesses to hire, while pushing more and more workers into higher tax brackets.
This was the Chancellor’s first opportunity to take bold steps to correct the errors of the previous Labour Budgets, and to provide support for businesses and entrepreneurs, which would have been a notable break from the massive tax hikes and regulatory burdens that have so far fallen on businesses under this Government. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor needed to use this opportunity to take drastic action to slash the size of the state, and to get Britain working again—to support those who are working, and to encourage into work those who are not working, but who are able to. My constituents are happy to support those in genuine need, but this Labour Government have come back every year for more money from the same hard-working people they promised not to raise taxes on to fund an ever-increasing welfare state.
This “do no harm” Budget has led to the worsening of the OBR forecasts on inflation, economic growth, unemployment and living standards, and has left my constituents disappointed. I hope that the Prime Minister’s 10-year plan and the upcoming spending review have some much-needed good news and serious economic support for businesses and young people in South West Hertfordshire.
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
First, I want to rebut some of the nonsense that we heard from the SNP earlier. Scotland’s budget is going up by £600 million because of the choices made in this Budget for Scotland’s public services—that is up by £18 billion since Labour came into office—and talking of a £650 million cut is inadvertently misleading this House. I may say something a wee bit ruder outside the House.
This Budget will abolish gas standing charges, abolish VAT on electricity bills and give £100 to 1.8 million Scottish households between council tax bands A and D —if it is confirmed that the SNP will choose to hand it over in that way. The prices at the pumps that our constituents complain about have been brought about directly by the US and Israel’s war in Iran, but we have made a choice to freeze fuel duty, which I welcome, and maintain the 5p fuel duty cut till June. That is alongside the red diesel duty cut, which will be welcome in the many eligible sectors, especially agriculture.
As for working people in Falkirk, the permanent increase to the tax-free mileage should help traders who use their own vans for work. I also welcome the tripling of the trading allowance to £3,000. This Budget also rightly supports pensioners. Many pensioners in my constituency live on the state pension alone; as it has risen, too many have ended up with the administrative irritation of paying small amounts of income tax, with all the paperwork and worry that that brings. I welcome the new pension tax allowance from April 2027, which addresses that directly. It means that pensioners whose income is no more than the full state pension will not pay income tax.
To deliver good growth in my postcode, it is vital that we invest in the Grangemouth industrial complex, as I said last week. I welcome the British industrial competitiveness scheme, and the back-payment to 2026, but while I acknowledge the heightened cost of extending it to every manufacturing business—I believe that would be about £3.5 billion—I think, as do other colleagues, that we should look at extending it, especially for manufacturing businesses that are reliant on gas, and that have decarbonisation timescales that are not as quick as we might like.
I welcome the restatement of the Government’s intent to include refined products in the carbon border adjustment mechanism. It will be a vital tool in levelling the playing field, after the undermining of domestic refining. The same un-level playing field led to the closure of Grangemouth, because it was not dealt with over multiple years. A cross-party group wrote to the Treasury regarding this. I think it is important that we put a deadline on when we will introduce this, because this positive signal needs to be translated into real protection for our existing refining sector, as well as for the bio-refining sector that the Prime Minister rightly believes has huge potential to deliver for Grangemouth.
Turning to the Acorn project, I agree with the principle of getting better value for taxpayers’ money across Government capital plans, so that we can free up money for defence. I agree that that should include energy projects in our constituencies. Some of the rhetoric that we have heard from the SNP and their Ministers on supporting the project has been downright reckless and self-defeating. However, I hope that the Minister can acknowledge that much of the reasonable scrutiny on this has not been met with the clearest of answers. I would like to hear confirmation that the new route for previously committed funding has the support of all existing and committed commercial partners, and confirmation about the amount of funding committed already that is not being changed. I would also like to know why funding has been changed for Acorn but not for other carbon capture, usage and storage projects, such as Viking in Humberside, and, more broadly, what the changes will mean for reindustrialisation in communities like Grangemouth that are supposed to benefit from this infrastructure, especially considering that they have not had a fantastic experience with the debt equity model of the National Wealth Fund.
This Budget creates breathing space for families in Falkirk who are worried about the end of the month, and for the poorest pensioners who dread getting a tax letter. It lifts some of the pressure. This Government have shown in the Budget that they will act for working people, pensioners and industry. I ask Ministers to turn that breathing space into future certainty, particularly for an industry that can define the next 50 years positively, through new jobs, as it has defined the last 50.
John Milne (Horsham) (LD)
This Budget has around 100 separate measures, but most would never have featured in the previous Chancellor’s Budgets—not because of any particular policy difference, but because they are just too small. It is less “Steady as she goes”, and more “Let this grind to a complete halt.”
As far as taxation goes, by far the biggest impact comes from a policy that was not even mentioned: the continued freeze on personal tax thresholds. This year alone, it means another half a million people will start paying tax for the first time, and a further half a million will be pushed into a higher tax bracket—all a function of that handy Chancellor’s trick: fiscal drag. Understandably, the Conservatives give the Government an easy ride on this, as it was their idea in the first place.
When it comes to welfare, the critical Milburn and Timms reviews have both been conveniently kicked to the other side of the Budget, but the issues that we face are not what people think they are. It has been said so many times that everyone assumes it must be true that millions of people are getting personal independence payment or universal credit health awards for mild anxiety. The appeal of this story is that it makes people think that we can slash social support for vulnerable people and feel morally good about it. Unfortunately, it is just not true. In reality, absolutely no one gets PIP for mild or severe anxiety, or for any form of mental health condition. That is because PIP is not awarded according to condition. Rather, applicants are assessed according to their daily abilities or lack of them—whether they can wash themselves, cook for themselves or manage short distances walking. There is not even a category for mild anxiety.
I find it incredible that politicians, including Members who are the welfare spokespeople for their parties, can continue to ask for something that they must know by now is not possible. What chance have we got of making smart reforms to the economy if politicians cannot even get the basic facts straight?
While we continue to wait for all the missing parts of the Budget over the coming weeks and months, I urge caution. Welfare cuts are just a right-wing version of the magic money tree. As a proportion of GDP, today’s spend on non-pension welfare is roughly the same as it was in the mid-80s, when a certain Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. At that time, the Defence budget was twice what it is today, so clearly the current level of welfare spend is perfectly compatible with meeting our defence targets, and welfare is not the reason why our defence budget is in such trouble. The peace dividend did not go to UC and PIP; it went to the NHS and pensions.
Above all, this is a challenge caused by a general decline in the economy, not welfare. Yes, it is always important to control welfare spend, and I support that, but slashing welfare on the basis of an arbitrary financial target invented simply to raise enough to pay for some dramatic manifesto pledge is not a credible path to anything. What we have is a Budget that does not seek to do anything very much about anything; the real battles have yet to come.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
For my constituents and those across the country, life is hard, and it has not shown signs of getting easier. The previous Government were the first in decades to preside over a fall in the standard of living and, with Trump’s war in the middle east, things are unlikely to get better as quickly as we would like. That is why I welcome the support being provided to households facing higher energy costs. For many families, an extra £100 will not transform their circumstances overnight—no one is pretending otherwise—but every pound matters, and that support matters, too.
In Calderdale, almost nine out of 10 houses are expected to be eligible for the £100 household energy payment. That means that the overwhelming majority of my constituents will receive direct support this winter. For many people, the support will ease some of the pressures on their household budgets at exactly the moment they need that the most.
I welcome the expansion of the warm home discount, too. By widening eligibility, the Government have almost doubled the number of households in the scheme to 6 million. That means millions more families receiving £150 off their energy bills this winter.
Too often, those on the lowest incomes have faced what is known as the poverty premium, made famous by Terry Pratchett with his “Captain Vimes’s Boots” theory of economics: the less money you have, the more things cost. We see that in our insurance costs, in the costs of credit and, importantly, in the cost of fuel. That is why ending standing charges will make a difference, as those who use less energy will pay less.
Helping those households is not simply about fairness; it is also good economics as the money from these measures will not sit unused, stored thousands of miles away in the Cayman Islands, but be spent in local communities on local high streets, helping local people. People will use it to pay bills, buy essentials and support local businesses, which will contribute to their high streets.
The same principle applies to our businesses across Calder Valley. Business owners are ambitious to innovate, are determined to succeed and want it to be easier to invest, grow and create jobs. Whether because of energy costs, red tape or being locked out of Government contracts, for many of them the main concern has been staying afloat, not growing or taking on new people. That is why I welcome some of the changes to business rates announced in the Budget. Raising the threshold for small business rate relief for retail, hospitality and leisure from £12,000 to £18,000 means that 70,000 additional businesses will pay no business rates at all. In Calder Valley, that will make a huge difference to our collection of independent shops, cafés and pubs.
Speaking of pubs, I am proud to see support for Britain’s small independent breweries. Calder Valley is home to fantastic independent breweries including Eagles Crag and Vocation. I am proud to have made a significant contribution to them over the years, but finding room to grow has not been easy. The support announced in the Budget will be welcomed across the brewing sector.
While some Budgets look worse as time goes on—the famous omnishambles Budget and the Liz Truss Budget among them—this is one that will look better, with its help for small businesses and support for households. This Budget backs working people. This Budget backs British industry. It backs communities in Calder Valley, and I am proud to back it.
Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)
The Chancellor’s big phrase in this Budget has been “breathing space”. It has been said time and again, but it is utterly false, because the Chancellor has not given businesses any breathing space at all. There is no breathing space on employer national insurance. Labour’s job tax stays exactly where it is, punishing employers for yet another year. There is no breathing space on wages. The national living wage has actually gone up by 3.9% from April, on top of the Employment Rights Act 2025, with nothing announced to help employers meet the costs.
Even the Office for Budget Responsibility warns that these policies will seriously damage job creation in this country. There has been no real breathing space on business rates. The Chancellor says that he is freezing business rates for retail, hospitality and leisure in real terms, but the British Retail Consortium has rightly pointed out that this is just “smoke and mirrors”. This is not breathing space at all. This is our businesses being stifled yet again by this Labour Government. I ask the Minister: what are their ambitions for British businesses? It seems evident from this Budget that they do not have any. They are taxing our British businesses again and again.
All this matters because it is impacting my constituency, which is full of hard-working people. I think of the independent shops on Cavendish Street and Low Street fighting to keep Keighley a thriving place, as well as the cafés, boutiques and family businesses on the Grove and Brook Street in Ilkley, and those businesses right across Silsden, Steeton and Riddlesden and our wider area who are working incredibly hard. The pubs, the tradespeople, the hairdressers, the start-ups—they are all hard-working people, yet this Government think that employers in those small independent businesses are not workers. They put out that narrative as if those employers need to be taxed more.
Let me tell the House about one of those businesses, which I visited just yesterday. The Turkey Inn in Goose Eye is a pub that is much loved by locals and visitors alike, and I called in there last night to have a meal. The owners of that pub are grafters. They produce excellent food that is second to none and they support our local community with many local activities. They do everything right, working day in, day out to support the community, but yesterday, on the back of this Budget, they announced that they were cutting their opening hours from seven days a week to just four, and they were clear about why. In their own words, they said:
“With no measures in the budget to help small hospitality businesses and local pubs like ours, we must take this step”.
That is the verdict not of a politician or of a Labour think-tank but of hard-working people in my constituency who have been impacted by this third Labour Budget.
The Turkey Inn is not alone. I speak to pubs and small independent businesses every single week in my constituency and they are telling me the same thing. Labour is not on the side of our hard-working businesses, and that is impacting them. This Labour Budget has not provided any breathing space at all. This Government must wake up and listen to our small and medium-sized businesses, who are the backbone of our communities and our local economies, because they are pushing them to breaking point. If the Government do not wake up and listen, I fear for all of them. A simple policy of tax, tax, tax on our businesses with more regulation is stifling those businesses, not helping them thrive.
Sureena Brackenridge (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
For most people in Wolverhampton and Willenhall, the real test of a Budget is simple: does it make life a little easier? I hear about and absolutely understand the pressure of household bills, the cost of raising a family and the challenges facing our local businesses. That is why I will continue to raise their concerns right here in Parliament and make sure that their voices are heard at every level of Government, at every opportunity that I get.
Of course, everyone would like more giveaways in a Budget, but many people also understand that the Government have a responsibility for the state of our public finances. We have seen the consequences of getting the balance wrong. The wider energy and cost of living support package during the 2022 energy crisis cost taxpayers around £51 billion net in one year alone. That required extraordinary borrowing, adding to our national debt and the interest payments that taxpayers, including future generations, will continue to carry.
This Budget takes a very different approach to providing immediate support. Around 44,900 properties in Wolverhampton North East—almost 99%—are in council tax bands A to D, and that means a large number of local households will benefit from the £100 household energy payment from January. Alongside the extension of 0% VAT on electricity, which is expected to take around £50 off the annual Ofgem price cap, that means around £150 in combined support. Martin Lewis, the famous consumer champion, has highlighted that the £100 payment could broadly cover the forecast increase in energy costs for a typical household over the three winter months. I am also pleased to see the end of gas standing charges, especially for low gas usage households. Importantly, the Government are asking banks to contribute more to help to pay for that support, rather than relying on borrowing.
I particularly welcome the help for our high street. Raising the small business rates relief threshold from £12,000 to £18,000 means that many more independent shops, cafés and restaurants will pay no business rates at all. For some owners, that could mean a saving of around £300 a month. Across the west midlands, around 52% of retail, hospitality and leisure properties will pay no business rates. For qualifying businesses that still have a bill, there will be a real-terms freeze in the business rates multiplier. In Wolverhampton North East, around 975 premises will benefit.
I am also pleased that 10 schools in Wolverhampton North East have now secured free breakfast club funding. That means more children starting the school day with a good breakfast, ready to learn, and parents having a little more help with the pressures of family life.
People are still feeling the pressure, and no one pretends otherwise, but we have to be able to afford the support that we offer and pay for it responsibly. There is more to do, and I will keep making that case in Parliament.
Claire Young (Thornbury and Yate) (LD)
The Chancellor called this a “breathing space” Budget, but it seems only to be breathing space for the Government to put off the hard decisions. It is not a breathing space for my constituents, with frozen tax and student loan repayment thresholds. It is not a breathing space for my local businesses: the rise in employer national insurance contributions has not been reversed, there is no emergency VAT cut for hospitality to help our high streets, and on business rates, which I have repeatedly raised in this House, the Budget just tinkers with a system that needs wholesale reform.
The Budget is not a breathing space for farmers. There is no change in the family farm tax. The cut to fertiliser tariffs will make little difference when, as the NFU has pointed out, much already arrives tariff-free. I am disappointed that the Budget does not treat food security as national security.
The Budget is not a breathing space for local transport users. In a Budget that mentions the north repeatedly, the west barely gets a look in. South Gloucestershire is mentioned once—a brief reference to a mass transit system that we have been hearing about for decades and that is unlikely to touch our rural villages. A £1 bus fare cap and discounted rail fares would have helped families in the short term, and investment in rural transport would help them in the longer term. The west of England is a growth engine outside of London. It deserves more ambition than that.
The Budget is not a breathing space for energy bill payers. Suppliers forecast that the price cap will rise by around a quarter in January. Although welcome, the £100 for this winter and the promise of scrapping gas standing charges in the future do not touch the sides. Scrapping the standing charge will save people just £45 on average—and only those who actually use gas. One in five properties in Thornbury and Yate is heated by oil. Those households have no price cap at all, and there is nothing to ensure that the removal of import tariffs on kerosene is passed to consumers. The surest way to bring down bills is to insulate homes and move people off volatile oil and gas, so why is there a £1 billion cut in the warm homes plan?
What of the promised growth? When will we hear about plans for new nuclear at Oldbury? The outcome of Great British Energy Nuclear’s review was promised this autumn. If data centres that meet the new British data centre covenant are to get priority grid connections, then, given the problem with providing nuclear connections, where is the grid capacity for new homes to meet the Government’s own housing targets? Where is the investment in skills in the rural west of England so that our local young people can access the technical jobs available? This Budget is a missed opportunity to provide real breathing space for our constituents, our businesses and our economy.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving us breathing space with a little bit more time. It is a pleasure to respond to this Budget by talking about growth in every postcode.
North West Leicestershire is a former mining area, so I welcome the progress made on the miners’ pension. I welcome the confirmation that surplus sharing and the standstill will be abolished to protect bonus pensions, helping members to benefit from the success of their pensions. No Government have ever done more on pensions for former mineworkers than this one, but as the Chancellor said himself, the job is not finished. It is clear that more work is needed to resolve the substantial undistributed guarantor fund surplus currently held within the mineworkers’ pension scheme. The miners who powered our country and our homes and who supported us deserve our support now, and I want to reassure my constituents that I will do just that.
North West Leicestershire is home to one of the three sites in the only inland freeport in the UK. The site in Leicestershire has created considerable concern, which I share, particularly for Diseworth—an 825-year-old village with heritage status. While the new data centre covenant is helpful, I worry that it will apply only to AI and not to the creation of new mega-sheds more broadly, which impacts communities such as mine. The other two sites in the freeport are covered by the Mayor of the East Midlands, so I welcome the Chancellor’s announcement on devolution and the settlement for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland—something I have long called for. I look forward to continuing the discussions on how devolution will deliver greater benefits and strategic powers to ensure that the freeport site for Leicestershire has a mayor fighting its corner.
The powers offered to mayors on transport could be transformational for Leicestershire. Transport connectivity is a significant barrier to growth locally. My constituent Eli spoke to me recently about the impact that poor public transport has on their access to further education. They said:
“I wake up before six in the morning to catch a 7 am bus to college, which is always packed, standing room only due to there being too many students for the capacity of the public bus services. Even if I do everything right, the buses are unreliable—either being late or completely absent—which is treated as my responsibility by my college”.
A lot is said about demand in rural areas. In fact, Arriva increased its patronage by 30% for one of my local routes because it started one bus stop earlier, connecting the route to another village and allowing more kids to get to college. Just think about what we could achieve if we want to grow even more. North West Leicestershire still has no passenger rail service anywhere in the constituency, making it home to the two largest towns in the country without any access to rail, which restricts growth and investment. If we want growth in every postcode, transport has to be a priority.
North West Leicestershire has so much potential, including in our SME sector. I know that this will surprise you, Madam Deputy Speaker, but nearly 30 years ago I wrote my dissertation on small business support, so I know how much we limit our growth if we fail to invest in small businesses. I have always advocated for dedicated business support, just like we saw in the universal offer we had from Business Link. We now have a patchwork that is devolution dependent—another reason why devolution for Leicestershire is so vital.
Samantha Niblett
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way—we are neighbours and friends in our neck of the woods, but I benefit from being part of a mayoralty that can have money devolved to my region, and she does not. Does she agree that, as well as we work together now, it would be even better if we could be part of the same funding pot and overall leadership?
Amanda Hack
I thank my hon. Friend for making that incredibly important point. The Mayor of the East Midlands does not cover the whole of the east midlands, and I think that gives us the opportunity to continue to talk.
Because I now have a bit of time left, I note that the Chancellor confirmed that land sold to social housing providers will now be VAT free. After two decades working in the social housing sector, I cannot express the difference that that will make to social homes and growth in our communities. House building is also a massive builder of growth; it helps brick manufacturers in my constituency, and it helps builders and local tradespeople to grow. We should not underestimate that important step forward.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate; thank you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wish to welcome some of the good things in the Budget, because it is not all bad news, by the way—[Interruption.] Members should not put their thumbs up just yet—I am coming to the parts about which I have important Northern Ireland-based concerns.
I am concerned for the squeezed families of Strangford, who look at the Budget and have little cause for celebration. Look at the uncertainty facing the local business community in Northern Ireland. Standard small business rates relief is being permanently expanded in England, yet there is zero certainty that our small and medium-sized enterprises back home will see an equivalent benefit. Our highly capable SMEs, which form the bedrock of the Northern Irish economy, need iron-clad guarantees, not vague hopes.
The working middle class go to work and pay their taxes. They try to build something for their children, yet they are treated like a bottomless well of revenue by the Treasury. Take, for example, a hard-working family in my constituency of Strangford—a schoolteacher and a mid-level nurse. They have managed to put away a modest amount of savings to help fund their children’s university education. They will get no help for their children’s education and future, yet they will be forced to work on past retirement to ensure that their child has a chance at a future.
Nowhere is that clearer than in the cruel and punitive approach to family inheritance tax. Our agricultural sector in Northern Ireland is in a state of absolute panic. I have spoken with the Ulster Farmers’ Union, which tells me that generations of family farms—the very lifeblood of our rural communities—are now halting investment decisions because of inheritance tax fears. Passing a family business or a family farm down to the next generation is not a luxury; it is a way of life, and the Budget threatens to dismantle that.
On the Barnett formula, let us be realistic: the Barnett consequentials are totally inadequate. Why is that the case? Throwing a general lump sum at the Northern Ireland Executive and hoping that it covers police, health and education is a failure of governance. We need an allocation method equivalent to that for Wales, not a funding system that is not fit for purpose. That must be sorted out. Funding must be based on genuine local need, not a rigid, detached mathematical formula. We must protect our middle class, safeguard our family farms, and give Northern Ireland the specific, targeted support that it desperately needs.
Our hard-working middle class see no benefit for themselves, and even less for their children. When a parent works 50 hours a week, pays their taxes—big taxes—plays by the rules and still cannot see a path to a better future or a stable inheritance for the next generation, the social contract is broken. If the Government continue to bleed the middle class dry to paper over the cracks of their own fiscal failures, they will destroy the very aspiration that keeps this nation, this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, moving forward. The Budget offers no security on defence, and no reason to build a business and to work hard. It relies on the ethic of some to make up for the lack of ethic in too many. The Government must look closely at the people it punishes, because they need to breathe, and I do not believe the Budget provides that.
David Burton-Sampson (Southend West and Leigh) (Lab)
I start by thanking my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for the measures that he laid out in his Budget last week, and for his focus on giving my constituents breathing space as we navigate through tough global headwinds. Like him, I pay tribute and offer my thanks to the former Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West and Pudsey (Rachel Reeves). It is clear that through her work and clear focus on fiscal discipline, she helped to stabilise the economy, despite the significant headwinds, and to create the headroom that has enabled us to take the positive actions set out in this Budget.
I am lucky to have my office on Leigh Road in Leigh-on-Sea. Along with Leigh Broadway, it is a thriving high street, full of small independent shops and hospitality businesses, including Tiny, a sandwich shop, Juice Bay, which does fantastic smoothies and juices, and Float On Records. They are all new businesses and it is great to see so many new businesses opening despite the challenges we have faced of late. That shows me that there is confidence in our economy and belief in our country. And it is not just in Leigh: Mez, a delicious Turkish restaurant, recently opened in Westcliff—I can vouch for that as I had my dinner there on Saturday.
However, I have listened to businesses in my constituency that tell me that sometimes things can be challenging. That is why I am delighted by the Government’s announcement that more retail, hospitality and leisure businesses will be completely exempt from business rates, meaning that around 52% of those types of business in the east of England will pay absolutely no business rates whatsoever. That is help for businesses. An additional 484 businesses in my constituency will have their business rates frozen in real terms until 2029, giving business owners time to plan ahead, while many others will see their business rates reduced.
When my constituents get home from their days out shopping, they will know that they have support with paying their bills. In addition to extending the 0% rate of VAT on electricity, an enormous 39,520 households in my constituency will benefit from the £100 payment to combat rising energy costs. I know that will help many people, from young families through to pensioners.
Speaking of pensioners, I welcome the excellent news that pensioners on low incomes will not have to pay income tax on their state pension. I am glad to hear the announcement that pensioners who rely solely on their state pension income will get to keep all of it. The Budget also provides the security that comes with knowing that pensions will continue to rise in line with earnings, while the adjusted triple lock will mean we can focus on providing a high-quality national care service.
Finally, I was really glad to hear that self-employed fathers and partners will now get statutory paternity pay. I have personally championed that, alongside many colleagues, and I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) for her work in this area and in championing this cause.
This Budget shows that the Government are listening to people in my constituency and taking action to fix the issues they have raised. The constituents I spoke to at the weekend know that the times that we are in and that we face are difficult, and they are grateful for everything this Government are doing to support them.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
This country faces fundamental problems: the faces at the top may have changed, but once again Labour has shown itself incapable of making the tough calls. This morning, I hosted a post-Budget roundtable for local employers in my constituency. I regret to report that the business community in Wimbledon shares my concern about this short-term, lacklustre Budget. By kicking the can down the road, this mañana Budget has failed the businesses that are critical to growing the economy. Rather than providing businesses with breathing space, the Chancellor has many of them drowning in crippling taxes and excessive regulation.
Raising the business rates relief threshold to £18,000 is, of course, welcome, but high streets across my constituency, in Wimbledon, Raynes Park, New Malden and Morden, will see little benefit. Craig Hurring, the chief executive officer of Love Wimbledon, informed me today that the change will benefit an estimated 1% of the businesses in his business improvement district. Other changes that are in the pipeline are making matters worse. A company that manages fantastic serviced office space for new businesses in Wimbledon tells me that new restrictions on business rates relief mean that it will have to increase rents by up to 25%—a huge cost to start-ups.
Business rates are crippling my local businesses. Gina Conway runs an award-winning hair and beauty salon in Wimbledon. She employs 38 people and trains up to 20 apprentices every year, but she tells me that
“the pressure for most salon owners is too much to bear”.
The long shadow of covid, soaring energy bills, VAT and crippling business rates are killing high street businesses.
I was honoured to be present for the excellent maiden speech by the hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Sagal Abdi-Wali). I own a bar in Covent Garden in her constituency, so it feels a bit like she is my MP—I will invite her to it one day. That means that I know at first hand how the night-time economy is suffering. Since 2020, the UK has lost almost three in 10 late-night venues, and across the sector we continue to lose the equivalent of 13 businesses every week.
The changes for self-assessment taxpayers are just as worrying. The Chancellor said that he would champion
“the small British firms that give character to our communities”.—[Official Report, 28 October 2026; Vol. 792, c. 305.]
Instead, 2029 risks becoming a brutal cash crunch, with 18 months of tax squeezed into 12 months. Increasing the tax on rental income is misguided. As the OBR has outlined, it will inevitably result in fewer homes to rent and higher rents.
I fear that the new Prime Minister is repeating his predecessor’s mistakes. His only plan is to have a plan. The Budget makes no substantive progress on addressing welfare spending, social care or defence readiness. The only glimmer of hope is the Prime Minister’s recent comments on Europe, but even here my constituents still do not know what he really intends. According to Goldman Sachs, a close relationship with the EU could boost our economy by at least £60 billion per year.
The Prime Minister must be bold. He must tear up his predecessor’s red lines, seek unfettered access to the world’s largest market and let British business realise its full potential.
Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)
In this third day of the Budget debate, I worry about repeating what has already been said, so I will focus on two issues of particular importance to my communities in Cannock Chase. Before I do so, briefly, I welcome the cost of living support in this Budget—£100 back on council tax, VAT kept off electricity bills for longer, standing charges taken off gas and the continuation of the fuel duty freeze. Those measures will not solve every financial pressure, but they will provide welcome relief at a time when it is needed most.
Let me turn to my beautiful home county of Staffordshire, which, thanks to this Government, will soon be able to catch up with the likes of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire with the announcement of a mayoral strategic authority. That is a massive opportunity, particularly for our towns, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Leigh Ingham) always says, must be at the heart of the national growth and renewal that this Government stand for. Our big cities have done well, but it is the turn of the towns, and having those powers and the funding that comes with devolution gives us the tools we need to turn our potential into reality.
Perhaps surprisingly to many, our towns have, on average, more than twice the proportion of their workforce employed in manufacturing as our cities, at around 9% compared with 4%, yet employment growth over the past decade has been almost twice as high in cities, at 10.7%, compared with just 5.4% in our towns. We cannot seriously talk about rebalancing our economy while allowing that gap to persist, but that requires investment and, crucially, proper transport connections.
For too many people, particularly young people and those without access to a car, getting to work, college or an apprenticeship remains unnecessarily difficult. That is where devolution matters, because a mayoral authority with meaningful powers over transport, skills and economic development gives Staffordshire the opportunity to join those things up and be the masters of our own destiny. I hope that it will also bring some much-needed stability to our county’s leadership. Since last May, Staffordshire county council has had not one, not two, not three, but four leaders, courtesy of the chaos of Reform UK. Staffordshire needs a little less political musical chairs and a lot more long-term focus on the priorities of our communities.
Let me turn to the second issue: the mineworkers’ pension scheme. As the proud representative of nearly 1,000 MPS members, I will always raise my voice in support of those who risked their lives to power our nation. Alongside them and my fellow coalfield Labour MPs, we pressed the Government to release the £1.2 billion guarantor’s fund, end the standstill mechanism and ensure that all future surpluses go to those who earned that money in the first place.
The MPS investment reserve was returned to members by this Labour Government two years ago, and the Chancellor’s decision in this Budget to end surplus sharing and the standstill are major steps forward. However, we are deeply disappointed that the Budget did not include the transfer of the guarantor’s fund—a measure that would have put money back into the pockets of our retired miners. There was a clear expectation that this would be done, finally righting the wrongs of the past 32 years. I welcome the Chancellor saying from the Dispatch Box that it will be done, but we must never forget that this money came from the graft of our miners —it is their deferred wages, and it belongs in their bank accounts. With 100 MPS members passing away every week, we must move as quickly as possible, and we certainly cannot wait for next year’s Budget.
This Budget brought forward support with the cost of living, and it is allowing Staffordshire to take control of its own destiny. I wish it had sealed full justice for our MPS members, but we are now so close to ending their fight, and they can count me as an ally right until the very end.
Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
The cost of living is the No. 1 issue that is raised with me on the doorstep by constituents across Paisley and Renfrewshire South, so there is much to welcome in this Budget, which gives much-needed breathing space for many working households. We Labour Members do not think that the increase in the national minimum wage is a bad thing—it is a good thing. The increase in the mileage rate will help working people, and I am glad that the Chancellor has extended the VAT cut for energy bills and will look to abolish gas standing charges. I also welcome the £100 household energy payment for households in council tax bands A to D, and I am hopeful that the SNP will pass this on to people across my constituency.
Euan Stainbank
Does my hon. Friend also call on the SNP to extend the business rates relief that our Labour Government have provided, especially considering that they have historically maintained a stricter system for high streets such as those in Paisley and Falkirk?
Johanna Baxter
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that the SNP should pass on that much-needed change. I also note that the Budget provides an additional £600 million for the Scottish Government, and I hope that they will actually spend it on improving our public services.
Today’s debate focuses on achieving good growth in every postcode, an ambition I wholeheartedly support. One route to growth in postcodes PA1, PA2, PA3 and PA4—I could go on, but Members get my drift—is revitalising our high street in Paisley. Paisley is Scotland’s largest town, and we have a shovel-ready project in the middle of our high street that received planning permission four years ago, which is regenerating the Paisley Centre. Realising that ambition needs Governments to come together, but it could bring 330 jobs to our area and breathe life into our high street. If Treasury colleagues would like to see that potential for themselves, I would be very happy to show them around the area.
Our Government were elected on a clear manifesto commitment to end the need for emergency food parcels. As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on ending the need for food banks, I know that food banks provide a lifeline when people have nowhere else to turn, but emergency food provision should never become a normal part of life in Britain. A report published last week by the Trussell Trust laid out the scale of the challenge. Some 9 million people across the UK—more than the entire populations of Wales and Scotland combined—are at severe risk of hardship and needing to turn to a food bank. Hardship does not happen in isolation; it is driven by inadequate incomes, the high cost of essentials, and a lack of the support that people need in their communities. We also know that some groups of people are at higher risk of hunger and hardship than others. People who have disabilities, those who are in low-paid or insecure work, and children remain disproportionately affected by severe hardship. As such, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will reaffirm this Government’s commitment to end the need for emergency food parcels, and ensure that the upcoming 10-year plan sets out a clear path towards tackling the severe hardship that blights our communities.
The Government are rightly steadfast in our support for Ukraine. This House will be aware that I have campaigned extensively on the forcible deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia, and it was a pleasure to work with my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) when he was the Minister responsible for that issue. We worked on establishing a tracing pilot that provided vital intelligence on the whereabouts of thousands of Ukrainian children who had been taken by Russia. Save Ukraine is the leading non-governmental organisation working on the return and rehabilitation of Ukrainian children. When I met Save Ukraine representatives in September, they told me that the UK has been a leading partner. As of this morning, that practical support has helped them return 1,887 children. I therefore warmly welcome the announcement in the Budget that the Government have committed an additional £3 million to support the tracing programme until at least 2028, because the defence of Ukraine must also ensure the defence of its future. By committing to this vital work, we are doing just that. I thank the Chancellor for those measures.
Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth) (Lab/Co-op)
This Labour Government are helping families in Cornwall with their energy and fuel bills. Nearly 37,500 households in Truro and Falmouth will get £100 directly into their bank accounts. The drop in VAT and standing charges going will also help. In a rural and coastal constituency, where a car is not a luxury, the extension of the 5p fuel duty cut will help, as will the rise in travel rates, and the extension of the red diesel cut will help our farmers.
We are also tackling the specific challenges facing rural, off-grid communities. Some 14% of Cornish households rely on heating oil, including 5,000 families in Truro and Falmouth, which is well above the national average. Suspending those tariffs alongside more than £50 million of support for low-income households that use heating oil will make a real difference to those homes, as will regulating the market. By pairing that short-term relief with the warm homes plan, this Government are helping rural families to move towards cleaner, cheaper heating on their own terms. I have been working with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero on a medium-term solution to license hydrotreated vegetable oil for use in heating. It has been trialled in Kehelland village in Cornwall with great success, and I hope to engage with DESNZ to get that rolled out further.
On devolution, Cornwall will be designated a single strategic authority. That will hopefully bring growth, funding and further devolution on top of the £30 million Kernow industrial growth fund announced last year. A delivery plan will now be worked up, and I look forward to seeing the further devolution of powers to unlock housing, skills and economic growth.
Truro and Falmouth enjoys a vibrant local tourist economy, with independent shops, bakeries, cafés and pubs. Raising small business rate relief to £18,000 means that 56% of retail, hospitality and leisure properties in the south-west will pay no business rates at all. Together with that real-terms business rates freeze, 6,500 hospitality, retail and leisure properties in Cornwall will benefit.
Crucially for Truro and Falmouth, the right to buy community assets scheme, support for co-ops and high street rental auctions will give local people the tools to take back vacant units and bring empty shops back into use. I would like to see those powers rolled out to our town and city councils. The unitary authority has limited resources and our town councils have grown to fill that gap. They are very capable and they could run those schemes in the absence of appetite from the unitary, and they know their high streets far better. We have many towns of approximately 20,000 people, each with an expanded town council.
In Cornwall, only 11% of our housing is social housing, against a national average of 18%. We have 26,000 households on the social housing waiting list. I therefore welcome extending preferential borrowing rates for councils. But Cornwall’s housing revenue account is struggling to put more investment into repairs, and rents are low in Cornwall, so rent convergence will take time. It means that the HRA has had to reduce the annual funds available for new homes. One of the barriers is the £90 million debt from the self-financing arrangements dating back to 2012. If that debt was reduced, Cornwall could do more. HRA and debt reform would allow council houses to be built once again in Cornwall.
There are root causes of our housing crisis in Truro and Falmouth. We have many holiday lets, which are a good thing for Cornwall, but I welcome the Government’s plans for a registration system. We need to go further to look at licensing, too, to check that insurance and fire safety documents are seen and that local authorities can inspect properties.
Tom Collins (Worcester) (Lab)
I know that people in Worcester will be looking for two things: some let-up in the endless pressure on bills and the public services that keep letting us down, and a genuine sense that there is a plan for things to improve— that there is hope. Let me start by recognising that those two aims have been front and centre as the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have developed this Budget. I believe in politics that is focused on people, and I believe that the Budget aims to focus on people. However, the challenges that we face require a deeper shift—not just adjustments to budgets, but something far more fundamental: an approach that recognises people’s real lived experiences, and puts them at the heart of our decisions and systems.
Digital technology is reshaping our world, and we need a fresh approach to digital safety. The Chancellor is right to say that we should build the data centres and artificial intelligence models that keep us secure, but we should also be insisting on safety by design for AI and online social platforms, and should be holding providers responsible.
We need an answer that matches the desperate urgency of the climate crisis. The Budget starts to recognise gaps in our energy policy, but it also risks creating new ones. It is right to recognise the importance of gas, but by casting hydrogen projects into further delay and insecurity, we risk our energy future altogether. The Government have accepted new gas extraction in the North sea at Jackdaw, but it is concerning to see that they are hesitating on providing support for the most powerful technology in decarbonising gas at the same time. I was watching David Attenborough before it was cool—
Tom Collins
Thank you!
My career has been spent developing green technology systems. I urge the Secretary of State to work rapidly to resource, accelerate and provide certainty for the core hydrogen projects that the UK needs for reindustrialisation and for a viable energy future. We are competing with other countries for investment, and we are at risk of losing. If we get it right, though, the UK can not only be more energy-resilient; we can even become energy-rich, and bring about a true renewal that would see the UK selling to Europe and the world.
There are other challenges across our system, and the crisis in Worcester’s A&E is stark evidence of that. I recently hosted a rough sleeping summit, bringing 30 organisations together to end rough sleeping in Worcester, and that will create new forms of joint working. However, we need this approach across the board, in health, social care, education, skills and justice, alongside the ambitious funding and goal-setting announced by the Chancellor. I welcome the Government’s provision of £163 million in the Budget to write off 90% of the debt that Worcestershire county council accumulated in making provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities—it creates the breathing room that we need to recover delivery in Worcester—but I am determined to work for deep reform of the system in our county, reform that puts families at the centre.
I urge the Chancellor to work with the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, and members of industry, to address the shortfall in funding for hydrogen projects as a matter of urgency. However, with those corrections secured, and with ambitious action taken, I believe that we will have the opportunity to not only create room to breathe, but begin a journey that will give every single person real cause to hope again.
Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab)
At the close of the third day of debate on the Budget, I will not go into all the detail that I might have gone into. I will concentrate on support for our high streets, and the transfer of power from Westminster and Whitehall.
Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to go to our high street and talk to business owners. I talked, for instance, to Tom Berry, who owns probably the coolest record shop in Stroud, Sound Records. His business rates have been reduced from £400 a month to nothing. A great many businesses have had all their business rates removed because of the change to the small business rate relief threshold. A number of pubs now pay no business rates. For properties worth over £18,000, there will be a two-year real-terms rates freeze, providing much-needed stability at a time of great global economic uncertainty. I was delighted that the small producer relief on alcohol duty became more generous. Stroud Brewery and, in particular, my village brewery, Uley Brewery, have benefited. Uley Brewery’s famous pint of Old Spot ale will soon be available in the Strangers’ Bar, so I hope that Members will sample it. I would also like to say a little about pubs and VAT. This was not in the Budget, but we are looking at trying to reduce VAT on hospitality. A blanket cut to 10% would cost £12 billion and benefit organisations such as McDonald’s, but having a targeted approach would really help pubs.
On devolution, I strongly welcome this Government’s intention to shift power out of Westminster and Whitehall. We have one of the most centralised countries in the world, with over 95% of tax revenues going to central Government. We in Gloucestershire do not have a devolution deal at the moment, and I ask all parties involved to form a consensus, so that we can benefit from devolution. That is one of the best things that this Budget delivers.
The Budget has 98 measures to help with the cost of living. There is also £65 million for a community asset programme, which will help with community buy-outs. A little hidden thing is probably the most important thing in this Budget: prevention is ringfenced. That will be transformative for preventive therapies, particularly in health and elsewhere.
I really welcome this Budget. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for including me.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
That brings us to the Front-Bench contributions. I call the shadow Minister.
Gareth Davies (Grantham and Bourne) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank all Members from across the House for their contributions tonight, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas), for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), for Mid Bedfordshire (Blake Stephenson) and for South West Hertfordshire (Mr Mohindra). I am also grateful for the very thoughtful contributions, particularly on welfare spending, from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), and from my constituency neighbour and the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh). I particularly enjoyed his contribution.
Most of all, let me congratulate the hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Sagal Abdi-Wali) on delivering her maiden speech. I gave my maiden speech in a Budget debate, and it is a hard thing to do. I still remember how nervous I was, and I can tell her that it does not quite go away, I am afraid. I enjoyed her speech, which was excellent, and I know that her constituents and her family will be very proud to see her sat where she is. I wish her the very best for the future.
It is a genuine pleasure to close this day of the Budget debate on behalf of the official Opposition. Ironically, this has been billed as a “breathing space” Budget by the same people who have taken all the air out of the economy. The British people do not just want a breather. They want to get on, and there is little in this Budget for them.
The subject of today’s debate is growth—a subject that was apparently chosen voluntarily by the Government. That is interesting, because paragraph 2.48 of the OBR’s assessment of this Budget clearly says that next year’s growth has been downgraded to 1%—cut by a third. The Chancellor said that this Budget would deliver “growth in every postcode”, but the OBR has read it and found that there will be lower growth across the country. [Interruption.] I have got to know the hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Dan Tomlinson), who is chuntering away, and I know that he is about to stand up and say that the OBR has upgraded growth for this year by 0.1%. That is great, and I am delighted for him, but in March 2024, the OBR did not expect growth under a Conservative Government to be 1.2% this year. It expected the Conservatives to deliver 2% in 2026, so I am afraid to say that the OBR has downgraded its growth expectations and projections for this year, too.
The Secretary of State, who was very energised, said that the Government have cut business rates, but these are the guys who inherited high-street relief at 75%, cut it to 40% and then abolished it altogether. Under pressure from high-street businesses across the country, they are handing a little bit back and think it is all fine. It is like a burglar returning your TV and asking for a thank you. My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley was absolutely right to highlight that point.
Then there is the high-street bank tax. This is a tax on lending, mortgages and the high-street branches that people rely on in constituencies across the country. I thought this Government wanted to see more bank branches, not fewer, but fewer branches is exactly what will happen. The Minister is probably going to stand up and claim that this Budget is delivering for working families on the cost of living, but that is not the whole picture, is it? Living standards this year, across every postcode, are set to fall under a Labour Government, but it is okay because they can all live off cheaper gherkins.
The Government do not like to hear this, and no doubt I will be accused of talking down the economy, so let me be very clear: I talk up my country, but I talk down this Labour Government. I am not the only one; there are plenty of us. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that the Budget has
“very little that will move the dial on growth”.
The CBI said that the Budget
“lacks the bold moves that would have made it easier for firms to invest, hire and grow.”
The British Retail Consortium said costs will
“keep climbing as the Chancellor failed to provide the breathing space he promised.”
Even the Government’s friends in the Resolution Foundation said the Budget
“did not rise to the scale of the challenges”.
Do not get me wrong: I do not believe that the Government are bad people. I just do not think they have any grasp of basic economics and reality. Just this weekend, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove said, we heard that they do not even think that employers are working people.
In all of this, let us spare a thought for poor old Keir Starmer, who must have been sat watching the TV on Lord Alli’s sofa and wondering, “What was it all for?” The new Prime Minister booted him out with a story of transformation, almost revolution. After years and years of trying, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) finally becomes First Lord of the Treasury, and we all eagerly awaited his first Budget—his first chance to mould the country to his Mancunian grand vision—but what we got was the same old Labour: higher taxes, no action on welfare, and no real answers to the challenges facing our country today. This is continuity Keir without the mandate. Tinkering with little policies like the £2 bus cap is not going to keep us safe from Putin. It is not going to take a family out of poverty; it will just get them to the bank branch, which is closing, near the house that they cannot afford, with a mortgage that they will not be lent. When will Labour learn?
It does not have to be this way. Instead of fuelling a rise in unemployment and overseeing a spiralling benefits bill, the Government could reduce costs to businesses and cut the regulatory burden. We could get people off welfare and into work. We will happily work with the Chancellor in the national interest, if only he is brave enough to stand up to the Members chuntering behind him. Nothing has changed—not the tax hikes, not the welfare bill, not the excuses. All that has changed is the person holding the microphone.
I accept that the Prime Minister has been busy. We have watched him bounce from the Downing Street desk to the “Gogglebox” sofa and back home to Manchester. We know his favourite crisps, but we do not know his plan for the economy. He is a TikTok Prime Minister who chose a Chancellor on a tuk tuk. He has had a ride, and now he has taken the British people for one, too. A Chancellor who, for some reason, carried a miner’s lantern to the Labour party conference is now leading the economy down a dark tunnel, with no plan to get out. Back during the days of the coup, the Prime Minister told us, with a nauseating dose of cheddar cheese, that he wanted “hope in every heart”, but we got a hand in every pocket, with tax at record levels, debt higher, debt interest higher and youth unemployment spiralling. This is not just a missed opportunity; it is a dereliction of duty.
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Dan Tomlinson)
It is a pleasure to close this Budget debate on good growth in every postcode. I thank Members from across the House for their contributions in today’s debate. In particular, I want to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Sagal Abdi-Wali) for her fantastic maiden speech. She spoke powerfully of the “everyday way”, in her words, that people in her part of London look out for each other. I know that she will look out for her constituents every single day. I, along with Members from across the House, I am sure, warmly welcome her to the Labour Benches.
The Budget last week was a Budget to provide breathing space now and fresh hope for the future. It backed British business to unleash growth in every postcode and it kick-started the changes needed to put our country on a better course. It was also a Budget set against the backdrop of global economic storms, with trade tensions acting as a drag on global growth and Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine approaching the end of its fifth year. These shocks may be global, but the effects are being felt here at home.
According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, we will spend £14 billion more each year on debt interest compared with the previous forecast. The Government’s responsibility is, of course, to determine how to respond to that. We have chosen to respond by using some of the headroom, which was built up last year, to absorb the impacts of the war and to protect the economy and family budgets as much as possible. We have also chosen, crucially, to meet the fiscal rules in full, with borrowing falling in every year of the forecast.
Britain’s economic reputation was badly damaged under the Conservatives—so badly damaged, in fact, that the IMF publicly warned them to change course. The contrast now could not be clearer. The IMF said recently that the UK “stands out” as a country where we are taking
“action to reduce the debt and deficit”
and that action “has been taken decisively”. Despite the warnings from forecasters and the gloomsters on the Opposition Benches that our economy would slow down, Britain has defied expectations this year. The OBR has upgraded the UK’s growth forecast and in the first half of this year we had the joint-fastest growth in the G7. Productivity growth is up at 2.2% a year, compared with an average growth rate of 0.5% a year between 2015 and 2024.
Sir Ashley Fox
If everything is going so well, why is Britain paying more to borrow money than any other country in Europe?
Dan Tomlinson
The hon. Member is right to raise the fact that we are spending a large share of our budget on debt interest costs; £1 in every £10 is spent paying the interest on our debt. That was an increase that took place under the Conservatives after the spike in interest rates in 2022 under Liz Truss’s mini-budget, and the apprentice to Liz Truss is now the shadow Chancellor.
Real wages have risen more since the election than in the first 10 years of the Conservative Government. Opposition Members talked about the private sector in the economy. I would point out to them that whole-economy investment and business investment have grown by more in this Parliament so far than they did in the entirety of the last Parliament. We are turning the economy around from the hellscape it was under the previous Government.
We are building on our recent economic resilience through this Budget. We are delivering immediate measures to help with rising energy bills: a £100 household energy payment directly to those living in property bands A to D in England, alongside a reduction to 0% VAT on electricity until July. We are also abolishing gas standing charges on household energy bills, while extending the 5p fuel duty cut and the cut to red diesel. We are reducing bills by up to 25% for more than 10,000 eligible businesses from next April through the British industrial competitiveness scheme.
Bradley Thomas
If the picture is so rosy, can the Minister explain to me why, a couple of weeks ago, when I visited six businesses in my constituency, all in the hospitality sector, every single one of them said that they are not recruiting and nor have they recruited since the Government increased national insurance contributions? Why is he painting a picture that is different to reality? Why does he think they are not recruiting?
Dan Tomlinson
I cannot speak to the individual businesses in the hon. Member’s constituency, but I can point him to the forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility that revises up employment by 200,000—employment increases every year of that forecast.
We are also making changes to support workers by increasing the national minimum wage and national living wage. We are increasing the higher mileage rate and making permanent the increase to the standard mileage rate announced earlier in the year, and we are backing our high street businesses, with retail, hospitality and leisure properties seeing their business rates either frozen in real terms, reduced or cut to zero next year.
The Secretary of State spoke powerfully and convincingly of the changes that this Government are making on devolution to drive good growth in every postcode, so I will not run through the points that she opened with. I was glad to hear that hon. Friends in constituencies where we will be extending devolution in England, particularly those towns and communities that missed out on the first wave of devolution under the previous Government, welcome that continued roll-out. It will mean that over 90% of England’s population is now on track to be covered by a strategic authority in the next couple of years.
The Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie), raised the issue of energy when opening the debate for the Opposition, and it is worth covering before we wrap up. At the Budget, the Chancellor set out a new pathway for energy that the 10-year plan will build on. Our priority is to bring energy costs down, to help business compete and to help families cope. Cheaper electricity will also boost electrification, increase our energy security and help decarbonise the whole economy.
First, we are addressing levies and policy costs on bills. The Opposition loaded £100 on to bills via levies; this Labour Government have already taken £150 off energy bills at the last Budget. The Chancellor when further last week, by drawing a line in the sand on levies. He has confirmed that there will be no new costs added to energy bills, with a comprehensive cost-control framework to follow at the spending review. He is also abolishing plans, first set out by the Opposition when in government, to add a further £10 a year to bills for hydrogen projects.
Secondly, we are backing network investment, adding new generation only if it is affordable and the grid can keep up. Between 2016 and 2020, network investment declined in real terms under the previous Government, just when it was clear that more intermittent power would mean that we need more capacity. Now that they are in opposition, the Conservatives have no serious energy policy left. Their only real answer is to retreat in full from net zero, banning people from being parliamentary candidates for the Conservative party if they support net zero by 2050. That is a big mistake, and one that I am confident the British people will reject at the next election.
In the Budget, we also committed to procuring clean power through the next auction round only if we are confident that it will lower bills. We will reform contracts for difference by allocation round 9 to support the lowest-cost system, fixing market distortions and siting assets in the right place. To Members who are committed to net zero on both the Government and Liberal Democrat Benches, let me be clear that it is only by getting electricity prices down, and ensuring that new clean power does not run ahead of the grid, that we can credibly achieve our net zero goals.
I will turn to a couple of points made by Members before I conclude. My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) asked a number of questions about the Acorn project; I reassure him and Members on both sides of the House that the Government remain committed to Acorn and want to see it succeed. The change announced last week switches funding from grants to loans or equity stakes, which we hope will provide better value for money for the taxpayer. The existing partners confirmed that approach last week, setting out that the Budget announcement does not change Acorn’s current development programme. The relevant Minister in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will be meeting the developers later this week. Acorn is not the only scheme to be affected by recent prioritisation decisions. In fact, some schemes in England have been stopped entirely.
A number of Members on the Government Benches also raised the mineworkers’ pension scheme; they and others on these Benches have been relentless in their advocacy for mining communities. I particularly note the speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth). It was a powerful contribution, and it was heard loud and clear by those on the Treasury Bench. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said last week, he knows that the job is not done, and he will go on to ensure the full transfer of the guarantor’s fund. I know that he is working at pace to agree a way forward.
This is a Budget to deliver good growth in every postcode. It is underpinned by fiscal discipline, with borrowing falling in every year. It is the most decentralising Budget in modern British history, pushing power and resources out across the country. It marks an important moment in the history of UK energy policy, with a firm commitment to putting cheap electricity first. The Opposition added £100 to bills; we have taken £150 off. We are also drawing a line in the sand when it comes to new build costs.
This Budget supports businesses on the high street, taking 70,000 smaller high street properties out of business rates altogether; and in industry, by implementing a 25% discount to electricity bills for heavy users. Of course, we have also prioritised helping families now, with £100 off energy bills this winter for 20 million homes, funded through higher bank taxes, which the Opposition oppose. This is a big Labour Budget built on strong Labour choices—breathing space for today and fresh hope for the future.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Rachel Hopkins.)
Debate to be resumed tomorrow.
Business without Debate
Hair and Beauty Sector Regulation
(2 days ago)
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Vikki Slade (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
More than 60 years ago, this House passed legislation establishing a register for hairdressers. The purpose was clear: to encourage professional standards; to support qualifications and training; to provide consumers with confidence; and to recognise hairdressing as a skilled profession. The principle was right then, and it remains right today—what has changed is the world around it. The high street has changed. The labour market has changed. Increasingly, the sector itself is warning us that the voluntary system, put in place in 1964, is no longer enough to ensure a sustainable future for hairdressing and barbering.
Tonight, I want to make the case that moving from a voluntary register to a mandatory one is not a radical step, but a natural next step. Crucially, it is not a proposal to create a new register. Parliament has already established that principle; the register already exists. I am simply seeking through mandatory registration to strengthen a framework that Parliament itself put in place when Harold Wilson was first Prime Minister.
The proposal would help to tackle the collapse in apprenticeships, strengthen public safety and support the legitimate businesses that form the backbone of our local high streets. What is perhaps most striking is that the sector itself has now reached this conclusion. The British Hair Consortium, the National Hair and Beauty Federation, the Hair and Barber Council, employers, educators and industry leaders are all increasingly united in calling for a mandatory registration scheme. This is not Government regulation being imposed on an unwilling industry, but a solution designed by the industry for an increasingly urgent problem.
As I am sure you are aware, Madam Deputy Speaker, hairdressers and barbers are far more important than many people appreciate. We all know the feeling of walking out of a salon or barber shop feeling better than when we walked in. Many people value the relationship they have with their hairdresser, such as my cousin Jayne and her daughter, Lucy, who travel several hours every couple of months to see their stylist after he moved to Dorset. Nick supported my mum, Lin, as she lost her hair through chemotherapy, and still managed to make her feel a million dollars.
These professionals improve confidence, wellbeing and self-esteem. These businesses provide social connection. In an increasingly isolated society, they often offer something that technology never can—genuine human interaction. One survey found that 42% of young men had experienced weeks when visiting a barber or personal care professional was the only in-person interaction they had.
Vikki Slade
In my constituency, one such barber is Mike Taylor of Bond’s in Broadstone. He recently created a retro-style, one-to-one barbering space, specifically recognising the role that barbers play in supporting men’s wellbeing and mental health.
Barbering and hairdressing are not just socially valuable but economically vital. The wider beauty and personal care sector contributes more than £28 billion to the UK economy and supports almost 600,000 jobs. These are jobs that cannot be offshored or replaced by artificial intelligence, and they drive footfall to our town centres. When people visit a barber or salon, they often spend money elsewhere on the high street too. They are anchors of our local economies in villages, market towns and city centres. For generations, hair and beauty has acted as a ladder of opportunity. It has provided first jobs for young people, offered flexible careers for parents and carers, and enabled thousands of people to build businesses of their own.
Following the introduction of my private Member’s Bill in September, I was contacted by Nova who owns NovaLux salon in Poole. She reminded me that when we first met 25 years ago, she was an apprentice at Karen’s Hair Design in Broadstone where I was a customer. I ran a business on the same high street. She trained, qualified, gained experience and, ultimately, has built a successful business of her own. Hers is exactly the sort of journey that this sector has made possible for generations.
Nova’s story is the story of hair and beauty, but she shared with me that professional qualified business owners who follow the rules increasingly feel that they are competing against businesses that do not. People like Nova increasingly tell me that the profession that they love is becoming harder to sustain. The concern I hear repeatedly is not about competition but about unfair competition.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
The hon. Lady is doing the House a great service. My late sister Joan was a hairdresser. She did an apprenticeship of exactly the kind the hon. Lady describes at the London school of hairdressing—before I was born, actually. She was proud of the skills that she acquired and then used for many years, but in recent years there has been the emergence of some extremely strange and, I would argue, dodgy barber shops, largely foreign, that I suspect have much less to do with hairdressing than with many other nefarious purposes.
Vikki Slade
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Indeed, the number of barber shops on our high streets has doubled in the last decade or so, and I am fairly sure that the number of us requiring a weekly haircut has not.
The point is not about competition but about unfair competition, alongside what are, it has to be said, quite impossible trading conditions.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I am one of those fortunate people who never has to go to a barber. I do not even use a comb; I just use a chamois, and it keeps me okay.
In recent years, there have been increasing reports across the UK of so-called beauticians carrying out invasive procedures without the necessary medical qualifications. Doctors across the country have warned of the serious, potentially life-threatening consequences of botched treatments. Does the hon. Lady agree that stronger regulation of the cosmetic industry is urgently needed, particularly given that some are carrying out invasive and, in some cases, surgical procedures without the appropriate qualifications or training? The Government must hold these individuals criminally responsible for the damage that they are causing to public health.
Vikki Slade
It is interesting; although this campaign is specifically about hair and barbering, there have been calls for a similar registration system for those industries that do piercings, tattoos and that sort of thing, but the industry itself is struggling to work out exactly what it should look like. There is a big issue around insurance, which I will come on to.
According to analysis commissioned by the British Hair Consortium, employee numbers in the sector fell by about 23% in 2025, which is equivalent to the loss of 20,000 jobs. To put it another way, that is the equivalent of 20 employing salons making all their staff redundant every working day for a year.
Industry estimates suggest that more than 70% of those working in the sector are now classified as self-employed. Of course, genuine self-employment is not a problem—many talented stylists and barbers have always chosen to rent a chair as a stepping stone towards their own business—but the concern is about places where self-employment exists entirely on paper.
When I met representatives of the National Hair and Beauty Federation a couple of weeks ago, they described workers who were, in their own words, employees on Friday and self-employed on Monday. Nothing about their work or the business had changed; only their employment status had changed. They continue to work at the same chair in a single salon with no control over their prices and unable to determine their own working practices, but they no longer have sickness cover, pensions or any rights. The change involves reduced tax receipts for the Government and, crucially, fewer apprenticeships—without workers, a business cannot hire apprentices.
It is in apprenticeships where the consequences are most serious. Hairdressing apprenticeship starts in England fell from more than 13,000 in 2015 to just 4,000 in 2023, and forecasts suggest that recruitment could completely collapse within a couple of years if current trends continue. That should concern every Member of the House, because those are not just statistics but lost opportunities for young people, for social mobility and for skills development. The sector reports that about a quarter of its apprentices have special educational needs, which is a significantly higher rate than the wider apprenticeship sector. Many of them have also spent time not in education, employment or training. For thousands of young people who struggle to access traditional academic pathways, the sector has provided a route to qualifications, employment and independence.
Kevin McKenna (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for securing this really important debate. I recently visited Bodylines, a salon and spa in the middle of Sittingbourne, which is run by Liza—with a z, not an s, just to confuse everyone—who made this point very strongly. Bodylines is a great salon that has been there for about 40 years—it is a well-embedded business in the town—and she used to offer lots of training places, but now she simply cannot because she is out-competed by venues that rent chairs by the hour to the pseudo self-employed.
Liza told me how that is a real threat to the future of the industry. My mother trained as a hairdresser in the ’60s before becoming a social worker. As the hon. Member said, these roles are vital for getting people into a whole range of employment opportunities, but without businesses that can support them, they will be gone forever. The pseudo self-employed roles will not persist, either.
The biggest thing Liza raised with me was how much money from VAT the Government are losing. Those other venues are not charging VAT and the responsible self-employed are not paying it, so we are losing money in that way as well. This is something that, on every front, we have to change.
Vikki Slade
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. This issue is about tax receipts. I am not talking about stopping people cutting their family members’ hair or stopping genuinely self-employed people running a start-up from home. This is not about where people trade; it is about whether they trade legitimately and how we sustain the next generation of the industry.
I am really glad that the hon. Member mentioned that point, because I want to tell a story that was shared with me by Mike Taylor about an apprentice who has taken up his programme. Mike has an incredible academy that takes on about a dozen young people—mostly NEETS—aged 16 to 18 in Broadstone, where I live. He has an apprentice who every week is travelling from Kent—it is a long way from Kent to Dorset, but he could not find a local training placement—to stay with his aunty in Dorchester for his training so that he can develop his skills. He could not get an apprenticeship close to home. The only opportunity available to him was working for an unscrupulous barber, who paid him just £1 an hour, despite the employer charging customers for his services. That is not entrepreneurship; that is not business. That is exploitation. That young man wants to learn a trade and build a career, and he should not have to choose between exploitation and abandoning his ambitions. Legitimate businesses, like those mentioned by the hon. Member for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Kevin McKenna), should not have to compete with such people.
That brings me to the issue of public safety. The House of Commons Library notes that anyone can practise as a hairdresser or barber without holding any recognised qualifications. In a profession involving chemicals, blades and close physical contact with the public, that is increasingly difficult to justify. Most practitioners are highly skilled professionals who take enormous pride in their work, but consumers deserve confidence that those offering professional services have met the appropriate standards and wield their scissors safely. Most members of the public would reasonably assume that someone advertising themselves as a professional hairdresser or barber had demonstrated some level of competence, but that assumption cannot always be made. Poorly applied chemicals can cause burns, overuse of bleach can lead to hair loss and poor hygiene standards can contribute to skin conditions such as ringworm.
A mandatory register would help provide the public with confidence that practitioners had achieved recognised qualifications and, just as importantly, it would enhance the reputation of those who already meet those standards every day. This proposal is practical, proportionate and achievable. We are not trying to create a system from scratch. The register already exists, and the Hair and Barber Council already administers it. The infrastructure is in place. We want to build on the infrastructure that is already there. Mandatory registration would simply strengthen and modernise an existing statutory framework for the realities of today.
The sector estimates that costs to hairdressers would be likely to fall if registration was universal, and that registration could become a recognised prerequisite for securing insurance and demonstrating professional competence. It would improve standards for consumers and it would support legitimate businesses. It could help enforcement agencies to tackle the tax evasion, illegal working, employment status abuse and criminal activity associated with rogue businesses. Indeed, support for the proposal now extends beyond the industry itself. The all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, chaired by the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell), has highlighted concerns about the extraordinary growth in barbering alongside declining tax enforcement activity.
Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Lady for mentioning the APPG that I chair and the work that we are doing. Does she agree that the Government cannot simply enforce their way out of the problem of illicit activity on the high street and in the sector? When the National Crime Agency conducted its Operation Machinize in November 2025, it visited 2,734 premises up and down the length of the country, but it only closed down 10 of them. Of course, not all of those were hairdressers or barbering salons. Does she agree that a proportionate licensing regime is therefore the right step forward, akin to what the Dutch have done with their Bibob Act, and that that is the right way to seize control of who operates in these sectors and to give the public confidence about who is cutting their hair and who is operating on the high street?
Vikki Slade
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The vast majority of people in the sector are doing the right thing. The problem is that they are watching other people in the sector with empty chairs all day, and wondering how on earth they support five or six employees or other people working in the space.
The sector has said that it is happy to share the information so that we can know the scale of the industry, how many hairdressers are working in it and where we need more training places. This is a means of using a register that already exists to professionalise the system and help the Government to move it forward for the future. Rather than relying solely on expensive raids and investigations after problems have emerged, the register could allow for standards to be established from the outset, and for the scale and shape of the sector to be mapped, with sufficient training providers in the right place to help people such as the young man who needs to have training available in Kent.
A survey by the National Hair and Beauty Federation found that support for a mandatory register in the sector is at around 80%. That figure should give Ministers pause. Industries do not often ask Parliament for regulation, yet this one is—not because it wants bureaucracy, but because it wants a sustainable future. Some critics suggest that registration could increase costs or unnecessary burdens, but I disagree. The greatest threat to consumers and the industry is not professionalisation, but the continued erosion of standards, legitimate businesses being forced from our high streets by those willing to ignore the rules, the loss of apprenticeships, the loss of public confidence and the gradual devaluation of a skilled professional.
When the Hairdressers (Registration) Act 1964 was debated, its promoter described hairdressing as both an art and a science. The Government of the day recognised the need for standards, qualifications and public confidence. They were right then, and those principles remain just as relevant today. Making the register mandatory would not create a new principle; it would just bring what was considered a pioneering proposal in 1964 into the 21st century. It has the potential to increase revenues and make it harder for illegal businesses to operate in our town centres. Ultimately, it would support the next generation of hairdressers and barbers. If it succeeds, perhaps that would mean fewer bad hair days for all of us.
When a profession, its employers, its training providers and its representative bodies are all asking Parliament to act, Parliament should listen. Parliament recognised the importance of standards in hairdressing in 1964. The time has come to finish the job that Parliament started more than 60 years ago. I commend these proposals to the House, and I look forward to working with the Minister to deliver them.
The Minister for the Future of Work (Kate Dearden)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) on securing the debate, and I thank her for the constructive and determined way in which she has championed this issue in the House and through her presentation Bill. I also recognise her close work with her constituent Mike Taylor, whom she mentioned this evening, and whose business is an accredited outstanding provider of barbering apprenticeships. I pay tribute to him, and to the hairdressers and barbers whose experiences the hon. Member has shared with the House this evening.
I was brought up around this industry. My mum was a hairdresser—I am very lucky that I can still persuade her to do my hair today—so I recognise how important it is to be a voice in Parliament for hair and beauty, which is an absolute powerhouse of an industry. I am proud to be the Minister responsible for personal care.
Hair and beauty does not just make a significant £28 billion contribution to the economy and provide almost 600,000 jobs; it is also about the salon on the high street that brings people into town, as the hon. Member said. It supports our local communities, helping them to thrive. For many women, it often starts as a passion, a set of professional skills and the ambition to build something of their own, and that can grow into a successful business, creating employment and opportunities for others. With more than 85% of businesses in our sector owned by women, hair and beauty is a powerful example of female entrepreneurship, independence and resilience. Behind every salon is a story of hard work, skill, creativity and determination. I recognise the significance of our industry, which is made up mainly of women, and I thank them for all the support that they give to women across the country. The hon. Member mentioned that, when we get our hair done, they are often our therapists, and we walk out feeling amazing.
Let me turn to where we agree. The harms that the hon. Member described are real. Customers should feel safe and protected in a salon chair, and good employers should not be undercut by those who cheat and do not play by the same rules. Young people need a route into the profession, and criminals should not be hiding behind barber shopfronts on our high streets. The question before the House is not whether those problems matter—of course they do—but whether a mandatory register is the right way to fix them. I will take a number of her arguments in turn, explain where I would like to hear more evidence about what would work instead, and explain what we are prioritising.
It is first worth being clear about what a register is. As the hon. Member mentioned, the Hairdressers (Registration) Act 1964 already provides for a register of qualified hairdressers and barbers. Making it mandatory would record that an individual holds a qualification. Although that would improve visibility, it would not inspect a salon, check who owns a business or where its money comes from, or decide whether somebody is genuinely self-employed. It would not create a single new apprenticeship place. That matters, because each of the harms that she and many other hon. Members have discussed comes from something other than a missing qualification.
On consumer safety, I want to highlight two examples: ringworm and chemical burns, because these are distressing and I do not want to dismiss them for a moment. Ringworm comes from poor hygiene and infection control. A qualified stylist working with unclean equipment poses the same risk as an unqualified one. Chemical burns come from the unsafe use of hazardous products. Every salon—whoever works in it—is already legally required to control these risks under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the associated regulations, such as the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002.
Local authorities already have the powers to enforce health and safety legislation and are responsible for managing hygiene standards in businesses. Where there is evidence that risks are not being properly managed, local authorities can intervene and take appropriate enforcement action to ensure that employers and customers are protected. A register would not send anyone through the door to check, but enforcement does, and where the evidence has shown serious risks of harm, the Government have acted. Last month we launched a consultation proposing that high-risk cosmetic procedures should be carried out only by qualified, regulated healthcare professionals, with providers registered with the Care Quality Commission and criminal penalties for breaches. We have also committed to a licensing scheme for lower-risk cosmetic procedures and have acted because there was strong evidence showing a scale of harm. So far we have not seen comparable evidence for hairdressing, but if the hon. Member has cases—she has raised some tonight—I want my officials to see them.
The hon. Member is right that bogus self-employment, too, is unacceptable. Self-employment, as she mentioned, is a legitimate and long-standing part of the sector, and many workers value that flexibility in their way of working. But no employer should deny the basic rights of people by calling them self-employed when they are not. Here, too, it is not clear how a register might help. A fully qualified registered barber could still be falsely self-employed. What will make a difference is fixing the employment status framework itself. We have published a consultation on targeted reforms, including a proposal of worker status and stronger enforcement. These proposals are designed with workers like those in hairdressing in mind.
Alongside that, the important work of the Fair Work Agency now brings together employment rights enforcement into one place with a dedicated hidden economy team. I know that Fair Work Agency officials have met the sector. His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will investigate where people have been misclassified for tax purposes and take action to recover the tax and national insurance owed. I am of course happy to keep the hon. Member updated on the employment status consultation and to discuss it further with her.
The hon. Member spoke powerfully about apprenticeships. I will not pretend that the recent figures that she alluded to and that decline we have seen in apprenticeship starts is comforting—it is not. As she mentioned, hairdressing businesses play such an important role in employment and training opportunities, particularly for young people. That is why it is important to strengthen the sector’s skills pipeline for those opportunities for social mobility and career progression. The challenge that employers describe is the cost and capacity to take on and train a young person. It is not clear how a register that requires qualifications may help, and we are mindful of the costs for small businesses that do the training, which she referred to.
Vikki Slade
The various agencies, in my discussions with them, have said that the cost of being in the voluntary register is currently about £75. They have suggested that if a mandatory register was extended to all people working in the area, that would reduce the cost to £25. It would cost probably less than the cost of a haircut to be on a register with an organisation, which then itself would be involved in some of those enforcement activities that would benefit the Government.
Kate Dearden
I thank the hon. Member for sharing those examples from the representatives she meets. We are keen to engage with those and understand the impact. I have given my reflections on those concerns today, but it adds to my wider point that we want to hear that evidence and pick that up.
That is why our focus in the meantime has been on helping those employers directly on apprenticeships, whether that is the £2,000 hiring payment for smaller employers taking on 16 to 24-year-old apprentices, a £3,000 youth jobs grant, no employer national insurance for apprentices under 25, or fully funded apprenticeship training for eligible under-25s. Those measures are important for driving up apprenticeships across the country. In particular, we are working with the sector on assessment reforms so that hair and beauty apprenticeships are rigorous, proportionate and trusted by employers.
On money laundering, serious and organised crime damages our high streets and undermines honest businesses. I thank the hon. Member and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) for raising that issue, as tackling it is a priority for the Government. A criminal front can employ a registered barber as easily as anyone else, and a register with reflections on who owns a business, where the money comes from and whether that could even lend a business respectability that it does not deserve, is a key consideration. My hon. Friend mentioned Operation Machinize, which since March 2025 has been led by the National Crime Agency. That has seen over 3,000 suspect high-street premises visited, and nearly 1,000 people arrested. We are building on that with a £30 million crackdown on cash-intensive businesses, including barber shops. That also includes £20 million for law enforcement, £6 million for trading standards, and a new cross-Government high street organised crime unit.
Phil Brickell
Will the Minister heed my earlier comment that, although that is all good, the scale of the issue is such that the Government cannot enforce their way out of it? There has to be another way that prevents enforcement agencies from playing whack-a-mole when trying to close down premises that are operating illicitly?
Kate Dearden
I know that my hon. Friend is working closely with colleagues across Government on this issue, and I thank him for his continued campaigning and advocacy. We must double the maximum duration of closure orders so that criminal businesses cannot simply reopen while investigations continue.
Kevin McKenna
It has been interesting to listen to all the points that the Minister made about the potential negatives of a mandatory registration scheme, and the things that might not work. In terms of evidence, I would offer the fact that about 100 years ago, in the early 20th century, nursing was not a registered profession. All those arguments are very familiar, and although people as notable as Florence Nightingale were opposed to nursing registration, it was seen as essential. A lot of the challenges that the Minister has identified were overcome—we would not conceive of nursing not being registered now, and I think that is true for other intimate professions such as beauty and hair.
Kate Dearden
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and I hope that he and other colleagues hear that we want the same things. We want customers to be safe, workers to get the rights they are entitled to, young people to have a route into this brilliant profession, and criminals to have nowhere to hide on our high streets. As colleagues will have heard, I am not yet persuaded that a mandatory register would deliver those things, but I am open to evidence and I thank hon. Members for their offers this evening.
I am also persuaded that enforcement, employment reform and direct support for employers will deliver. As the Barbers and Hairdressers (Registration) Bill is before the House, it would not be right for me to comment on its specific provisions this evening, but if the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole has evidence of harms that existing powers are not reaching, I would like my officials to look closely at that. I thank her for securing this debate, and all colleagues for their contributions and for championing a sector that matters so much to our communities.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Housing (Tenancy Deposit Schemes) Order 2026
(2 days ago)
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The Committee divided: - Ayes: 11 / Noes: 4 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Matthew Pennycook)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Housing (Tenancy Deposit Schemes) Order 2026.
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. The draft order was laid before the House on 8 September 2026. This Government promised in our manifesto to transform the experience of private renting. In addition to the greater security, rights and protections that we have given private tenants through our transformative Renters’ Rights Act 2025, improving how tenancy deposit schemes work is a way that we can further deliver on that promise.
As things stand, when tenants provide a deposit as a security for any breach of tenancy terms, the landlord is required to protect it through a Government-approved tenancy deposit scheme. That means that renters can feel confident that their deposit is safe and secure, and that at the end of the tenancy, it is returned to the tenant and/or landlord in accordance with the appropriate outcome under the scheme. When tenants and landlords disagree over the amount due to each party, the schemes also offer free and independent dispute resolution.
Custodial tenancy deposit schemes are delivered via concessionary contracts, whereby administrators fund the service from interest earned on deposits, rather than receiving payment from Government. Custodial schemes hold more than £2.5 billion-worth of tenants’ money on which they accrue interest. The interest is retained by the scheme administrators as revenue, unless arrangements are in place for part of it to be paid to the tenant. As part of improving the tenancy deposit system, the Government want to unlock the value generated by the schemes and expand the ways in which it can benefit tenants in the private rented sector. Ultimately, that will mean better value for both tenants and the taxpayer.
The draft order will enable the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to receive part of the interest accrued on tenancy deposits protected under a custodial tenancy deposit scheme. Currently, the legislation allows interest to be retained by the scheme administrator, subject to scheme arrangements, providing for part of it to be paid to tenants and/or landlords. I want to be clear that the order does not remove those options. It adds flexibility by introducing a new power that may be used in combination with one or both of the existing options, for example where high interest rates mean that the interest generated by the scheme as a whole considerably exceeds the costs of running the scheme, after allowing reasonable returns to scheme administrators.
The draft order does not itself require any payment to be made to the Secretary of State, nor does it prescribe how such amounts must be determined. Those matters will be determined through future scheme arrangements established via procurement and contractual processes. What the measures do is to allow the Secretary of State to take account of market conditions, scheme performance, operating costs, value for money and the need to maintain an effective, free service for tenants and landlords, while avoiding disproportionately high profits being made by scheme administrators.
The draft statutory instrument is intended to provide flexibility for future arrangements with administrators of custodial schemes. The Secretary of State’s intention is that, if the new power is exercised, the Secretary of State would use any funds received towards programmes or activities that benefit tenants in the private rented sector. The Secretary of State will be transparent in publishing the amount received from the scheme, the programme or programmes funded, and any metrics demonstrating the value delivered. Any arrangement for interest to be paid directly to the Secretary of State will be subject to agreement from His Majesty’s Treasury.
Future arrangements will continue to allow scheme administrators to keep part of the accrued interest to cover the cost of the free service that they provide to tenants and landlords. That amount should be sufficient to enable the scheme to provide a safe and effective service that safeguards tenants’ deposits, to meet its key performance indicators and to make a reasonable profit if it is a private sector entity. Future arrangements may also provide for part of the accrued interest to be paid directly to tenants, where it is decided that that is appropriate. To conclude, the draft order will give the Government additional flexibility to determine how the interest accrued by custodial tenancy deposit schemes is distributed, so as to ensure a fit-for-purpose scheme that will ultimately benefit tenants in the private rented sector and the taxpayer.
Gareth Bacon (Orpington) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Desmond. I welcome the opportunity to sit opposite the Minister again, whom I have seen more often in the past few days than my own wife. I appreciate the remarks that he has made, and I welcome the opportunity on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition to address this measure, but I must be frank: we do not like the draft order very much, because it appears to be little more than an act of state-sponsored thievery. In this Halloween season, lurking in the shadows is not a vampire or a monster, but the larcenous light fingers of Marsham Street.
The draft order seeks to give the Secretary of State the power to hive off a portion of the interest accrued on someone else’s money and pocket it on behalf of the Government. As a Conservative—as a believer in private property—I am astounded to find the Government pushing through yet another stealth tax just days after the Budget. I know I should not be—after all, it is not the first, and I doubt it will be the last stealth tax we see in this Parliament—but the brazen lack of respect for other people’s money beggars belief. That is why the Opposition will seek to divide the Committee and will vote against the draft order today.
As the Deposit Protection Service has stated, at present interest goes towards the effective running of the scheme, back to tenants or landlords, or in some cases to charity. In siphoning off funds to pay for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s litany of costly policies, the Government’s action raises a number of questions—some of which, to be fair, the Minister may have just answered. For example, will the draft order leave the deposit protection schemes financially exposed? What assessment has been made of the funding needed to keep these schemes running so that tenants and landlords are protected with certainty, along with the jobs that these companies provide?
The draft instrument has no clear purpose, outlines no formula and sets no clear cap. We are being asked to approve a power without knowing how much money the Government are seeking to take, nor what limit the Secretary of State will impose on herself in a scheme that lets the Government profit from other people’s money.
I also want to raise concerns about the relationship between this policy and the planned abolition of insured tenancy deposit schemes. Taken together, hiving off the interest on deposits for the Government’s benefit and moving all deposits into the custodial schemes will create a perverse incentive. If the Government take income from the same custodial deposits that they are forcing the whole market towards, how can they demonstrate that profiting from interest on other people’s money has played no part in their decision-making process?
That is a very serious concern and it deserves far greater parliamentary scrutiny than hon. Members have been afforded today. We believe that there is a convincing argument that these changes should be made not through a statutory instrument, but in primary legislation. We can make no amendments today, we have little time to probe the details and we are being asked to approve a new tax outside the place best suited constitutionally to scrutinise financial legislation. The draft order lets the Secretary of State, on behalf of the Government, take a share of the interest earned on tenants’ deposits. It does not say how much, it does not say what the money is for, and it sets no cap and no formula. The Government are asking the House for a blank cheque to draw down on other people’s money. That money does not belong to the Government.
By changing the system a week after a tax hike on landlords, the Government are creating another stealth tax. That comes on top of a new database fee and a rewritten tenancy system, in a sector in which landlords are already considering the viability of their portfolios. Every cost eventually lands on renters. The Opposition’s tests are simple. Is this a stealth tax? Yes, it is. Is it the Government’s money? No, it is not. Does it deliver for renters? Clearly not. For all those reasons, we will divide the Committee and vote against this instrument.
Sarah Edwards (Tamworth) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. This is one of those occasions when a piece of legislation seems rather niche, but is completely obvious once we examine its purpose. The private rental sector has been broken for decades. In Tamworth and around the whole country we have seen skyrocketing rents for poor-quality and substandard housing. Tenants have been living in houses or flats that feel neglected by their landlords, in areas that often say that they feel neglected by Westminster. Community spaces have vanished and been left neglected. Where people cannot own their own home, areas are left without strong advocacy for change.
The Government’s Renters’ Rights Act has overhauled the entire sector, restoring fairness between tenants and landlords by giving over 5,000 tenants in Tamworth alone, and over 11 million renters across the country, greater security, rights and protections. The new rules mean that renters no longer have to fear last-minute no-fault evictions. Future rules brought forward by the Act mean that rented homes will have to meet higher standards, especially when it comes to tackling damp and mould. Renters have certainty that they can stay for longer in safe, good-quality homes and are no longer locked into contracts and unable to move for years.
People with greater housing security can be further empowered to start building lives in the communities they live in. With that comes the need for serious investment in their local areas. The draft order means that the interest accruing on the estimated £5.5 billion already in the tenancy deposit schemes will not just go into the pockets of those administering that scheme, which is meant to be non-profit, but could instead be invested into local projects that align with what renters want to see in their areas. After all, that interest is generated from the tenants’ own money. It is only right that the renters and their communities can see the benefit. We estimate that the interest earned on a pot would be around £550 million. That is a lot of money that could help to restore libraries, reopen community centres, improve local facilities and create places where people want to live, not places where they have to live. Renters deserve more than just a secure roof over their heads. They deserve thriving communities, decent local facilities and a stake in the place they call home.
We can already see the trajectory that the Government are plotting with the Renters’ Rights Act, and we can already see the difference they are making to communities such as Glascote Heath and Stonydelph through their £20 million Pride in Place programme. I urge the Minister to consider this opportunity to boost funds that communities can spend.
Mr Andrew Snowden (Fylde) (Con)
The hon. Member highlighted the statistic that around £550 million will be potentially raised in interest. How much of that interest does she think would be appropriate to go into the investments that she has outlined, given that we do not have any numbers for what we are supposed to be approving? As the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington, said, this is in effect a blank cheque.
Sarah Edwards
The purpose here is to outline the possibility for its use. That is not to negate the fact that tenants can also still claim against the scheme if they need to, but there is money here that is not currently doing anything for our communities. We need to look at what is needed to administer the scheme and support the ebb and flow of what it does; what I am asking from the Minister is to define how we can use the rest of the money more creatively. I would like him to be creative with it, and would urge that those living in these communities who have bold ideas should be involved in that problem solving. It is quite a lot of money, and although it may be undefined, it has been underutilised to date, and it could offer a lot for communities. I therefore support the order. I hope that the money will be reinvested into communities’ big ideas and boost hope, play, knowledge, safety and joy.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve the Committee with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond, and to continue the almost daily tradition of meeting the Minister and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, in these Committee Rooms.
The Liberal Democrats support the principle of directing interest payments towards tenants and the schemes that they want to see for their communities. The 9,000 private tenants in Taunton and Wellington would very much like to see the proceeds of these profits being directed in that way, although we do not see any guarantee in the order that the funds will be ringfenced for the use of private tenants. Paragraph 5.6 of the draft explanatory memorandum says it is an “expectation” that
“The Secretary of State would use the funds received towards programmes or activities that benefit tenants in the private rented sector”.
Paragraph 5.8 says, as an example, that the Secretary of State could require funds to be
“used to fund a programme supporting vulnerable tenants.”
We would like to these funds to be ringfenced, so that they are used for the benefit of tenants and do not disappear into some Treasury coffer. At this stage, without that guarantee, we have difficulty supporting the order.
Matthew Pennycook
I thank the shadow Minister, the Liberal Democrat spokesman and my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth for their contributions. I will clear up a few misconceptions on a couple of points, and then I will respond to the other discrete points that have been put to me.
First, it is worth pointing out that the Government have already improved the value that tenancy deposit schemes deliver for tenants and landlords. The current administrators of custodial schemes are already expected to pay part of the interests accrued, in addition to the original value of the deposits, to tenants. The allocation mechanism is different for each of the three current schemes, but requiring administrators to pay interest to tenants and landlords will continue to be an option for future arrangements.
As I tried to make clear in my opening speech, the order is not intended to enable Government to profit from tenants’ deposits. It enables future scheme arrangements to provide for part of the interests accrued on protected deposits to be paid to the Secretary of State. That additional flexibility, as I said, will be particularly relevant where high interest rates mean that scheme returns on the deposits held considerably exceed the administrators’ costs of providing the scheme and wider ancillary services. The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, is perfectly at liberty to take issue with the principle of that and to take the view that administrators should benefit from the entirety of the interest accrued on the deposits. We take a different view. We think we should have the flexibility to provide for other uses.
I hope I can provide the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington, with some assurances on that point. Our intention is that the funds received would be used towards programmes or activities that benefit tenants in the private rented sector. They would not be, as he asserted, siphoned off into some Treasury fund that does not deliver on that purpose.
Gareth Bacon
If that is so, why not simply put that into this statutory instrument? I share the suspicion of the hon. Member for Taunton and Wellington—he and I seem to be agreeing a lot these days, which I am sure makes us both feel uncomfortable. The Minister has used this phrase again, “the Government expect”, which we have heard so many times over the years. An expectation is not the same thing as something actually happening. It needs to be put into the law. Why not simply put it into the SI?
Matthew Pennycook
Simply because—I was coming on to make this point—this order is enabling in nature. It does not require any payment to be made to the Secretary of State, nor does it prescribe how any payment amounts would be determined. Those matters would be determined through future scheme arrangements established via procurement and contractual processes. I have said it before, and I will say it again for reassurance: the Department will publish information about any amounts received, the programmes funded and any metrics demonstrating the value delivered, so there will be full transparency on the use of funds.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
I thank the Minister for giving way; he is always very generous with his time. Could he provide us with some examples of what MHCLG could use this money for to support renters? He has not listed any yet, and obviously there are none in the SI. I am a bit concerned about where this money is going to be used.
Matthew Pennycook
Forgive me, I think I did give an example in my opening remarks, but I do not want to stand here and speculate on the precise programmes that might be funded through those interest payments, if we make a decision to take a portion of them in future. I am being very clear that they would be directed to support private rented sector tenants; they could not be siphoned off for other Government activities. Any payments made to MHCLG would be subject to future agreement via contractual and procurement processes.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister for giving way and for his explanation. Can he at this stage give any indication of the thresholds at which this mechanism would kick in and allow the Department to make those directions? It is perfectly right that a windfall on interest can be put to good public use, but I am interested in where the Department currently considers the threshold for that windfall to start, so that we can know when those schemes might start making a contribution.
Matthew Pennycook
My hon. Friend helpfully brings me on to the two further points I wanted to respond to, which the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Orpington, rightly probed: essentially, how will the amounts due to the Secretary of State be determined, and what specifically do we intend to spend them on? I cannot confirm to my hon. Friend today what the amounts due to the Secretary of State will be. As I have said, the order allows for the distribution mechanism to vary, taking into account market conditions such as interest rates. Specific arrangements would depend on commercial negotiations with prospective scheme administrators.
I can commit that, first and foremost, the distribution mechanism will prioritise ensuring that the deposit protection and dispute resolution services offered to tenants and landlords continue to be free and effective. I assume we would all agree that that is particularly important. My Department will set key performance indicators and cost-efficiency metrics to monitor the scheme administrators’ delivery. If the interest accrued exceeds the minimum cost of meeting the key performance indicators, the additional amount of interest will be distributed between the administrator of the scheme, tenants and/or landlords, and the Secretary of State. When setting the distribution mechanism, the Secretary of State intends to allow the scheme administrator to keep a reasonable amount of profit as a reward for the service delivered. It is not the Secretary of State’s intention to exploit the tenancy deposit system and agree to arrangements that leave tenants and landlords worse off.
As for what we intend to spend any money received on, the Government have demonstrated their commitment to improve conditions for tenants in the private rented sector. Although a specific programme or programmes cannot be confirmed at this stage, it is our intention to use any receipts to fund Government programmes to benefit tenants in the sector. It is important to say that it will take time for interest to accumulate and be paid to the Secretary of State under future arrangements, if we decide to make use of the power. Those arrangements will depend on market conditions and priorities for the private rented sector, and will be subject to agreement from the Treasury.
Mr Snowden
Going back to the threshold point, can the Minister give any indication of what level interest rates would have to reach to trigger this, based on the Department’s calculations in crafting this statutory instrument? If it is a windfall from high interest rates generating additional revenue, what general ballpark does the Minister think interest rates would have to be at to trigger this?
Matthew Pennycook
I commend the hon. Gentleman for the attempt, but I am not going to stand here and give him a general ballpark estimate of what interest rates might be. As I said, any payments to MHCLG will be subject to future agreement via contractual and procurement processes.
I want to clear up one specific point that the shadow Minister made about insured schemes. No final decision has been made in that regard. The Department is assessing the benefits and risks of both insured and custodial models.
To conclude, the Government continue to deliver improvements for tenants in the private rented sector. This order will provide additional flexibility in how interest accrued on deposits held under custodial tenancy deposit schemes may be distributed, so that excess returns that may be generated by the schemes are used effectively. It will enable my Department to deliver an improved tenancy deposit scheme that is fit for purpose and that will, as I have said, deliver better value for money for tenants in the private rented sector and the general taxpayer. Notwithstanding the shadow Minister’s very clear intention to push for a Division, I hope the rest of the Committee will welcome this amendment to the Housing Act 2004.
Question put.
Bearwood and Merley Green Belt
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Social Media: Ban for Under-16s
(2 days ago)
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Tony Vaughan (Folkestone and Hythe) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 757233 relating to the proposed ban on social media for under 16s.
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I declare an interest as the parent of a 15-year-old and an 11-year-old. These are issues that we, as a family, are dealing with, so this is a timely debate.
I thank Leo Rhodes from Thirsk and Malton, who started this petition, as well as the 217,682 who signed it, including 267 in Folkestone and Hythe. I also pay tribute to the Smartphone Free Childhood group in my constituency for its tireless organising and campaigning on this issue, as well as the headteachers, students, parents and others in my constituency who have engaged with me on this issue and driven change in our schools.
In June, the previous Prime Minister announced that social media companies would be prohibited from offering their services to under-16s. Because of this Labour Government, the power now exists under section 214A of the Online Safety Act 2023. Regulations are due before the end of the year, and the first rules are expected to apply from spring next year. The published model uses a banned list of platforms, similar to the measures in Australia.
Leo, the petitioner, does not support a ban. He believes that,
“for many young people social media is how they communicate with their friends. Some…view social media as a lifeline. A community, a supportive network.”
He is making a serious argument about friendship, belonging and self-expression. Barnardo’s makes a point that all adults need to hear: the online world has become a vital civic space for young people partly because real-world spaces have been eroded over decades, made worse by austerity. Think about the closures of libraries, youth centres and grassroots sports facilities, which this Government are seeking to address.
That is all true, but does it mean that we should allow these companies to provide their products on whatever terms they choose, especially when their products are made to be addictive, create so many dangers and cause so many harms that these companies are not addressing—all while raking in huge profits?
Here is the interesting thing: groups that have disagreed in public about a ban have all signed one joint statement. That includes Smartphone Free Childhood, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Molly Rose Foundation, People vs Big Tech and FlippGen, which is a Gen Z-led organisation. They all say that
“a binary debate between banning children from social media or not can oversimplify what is a complex issue.”
Their position is that companies’ access to children should be made
“conditional on their ability to demonstrate that they are safe.”
Chris Kane (Stirling and Strathallan) (Lab)
As the parent of a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old—sorry, that was a while ago. As the parent of a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old, I have been speaking about this for so long. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that we should give young people more credit for their ability to understand and articulate the challenges they face online? They are not simply passive users of social media, and their views deserve to be taken seriously in this debate. It is important that we get across to everyone listening that we want to do things together. We do not want to do things to young people; we want to do things with young people.
Tony Vaughan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is key that the young people affected by this have a seat at the table, so that their views are heard and taken into account by Ministers when the position on the ban and how companies might escape it is being finalised. I agree that it is fundamental that they feel included.
Claire Hazelgrove (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Lab)
I declare an interest as the proud patron of local youth charity, the Foundation for Active Community Engagement, which co-hosted my “Coffee with Claire” event, listening to young people and those of all ages across my community. I ran that event, along with an online survey, to listen to people, including young people, about their experiences and views.
Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that it is important that, when we look at these regulations, we make sure we avoid cliff edges—where young people might be completely cut off from social media and then exposed to it all on one day? There is a possibility, as we look at lowering the voting age, that some people’s first day of accessing social media could also be the day that they cast their first vote.
Tony Vaughan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We cannot have cliff edges. We have to build young people’s skills to be able to navigate this online world so that, when that point comes, there is not a cliff edge. And support should be available because, let us face it, young people rely on these technologies for all sorts of support.
Those organisations are clear that companies must earn the right to offer services to under-16s by meeting strict safety standards. That means fixing the design, not just taking down the odd post. It means removing contact by strangers, disappearing messages, live location sharing, endless scrolling, autoplay, harmful algorithmic feeds, streaks and notifications. There must be mechanisms to catch new features that put children at risk, and the consequences must be ones that companies cannot simply absorb as the cost of doing business.
At the Labour conference, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said that there will be a way for companies, if they want to innovate and change, to get themselves off the ban list, but that it is up to them. She also said it is a sign of failure that we have got to the point of taking children off social media altogether. I respectfully agree, so I ask the Minister whether the regulations to be laid later this year will create that route off the list? Will the ban come first and the route later?
Let us take questions that young people are actually asking me about a ban, because they are good ones. First: “Won’t we just get around a ban?” That is a fair question, and the Australian figures are sobering. The Australian e-safety regulator found that, between March and April this year, 12% of children used make-up to look older or used someone else’s ID to circumvent the ban.
Gideon Amos (Taunton and Wellington) (LD)
I thank the hon. and learned Gentleman for giving way, although I confess that I would rather see the social media companies give way and accept ways of cleaning up their act, rather than young people having to give way and lose their access. He mentioned the checks, and passports and driving licences will be required. Does that not disproportionately disadvantage poorer households, which are less likely to have those documents?
Tony Vaughan
The hon. Gentleman raises a very interesting point, and Ofcom has recognised various different methods of age-verification. We must not exclude people based on whether they have one or other particular document.
The Australian e-safety survey found that in 11% of cases a parent had helped a child to get around the ban. Those are sobering statistics that have to be taken into account, but most children in Australia who were still on restricted platforms did not actually need to get around anything. Around three in five said that the platform had simply taken no action on their existing accounts. The technology did not fail in their situation; the companies just did not use it.
We are in a different place. As I understand it, Australia asks the platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent access by children. The UK position is that we require highly effective age assurance, and last week Ofcom confirmed that four methods of age verification could be used to meet the test at 16. My question to the Government is whether they foresee using any or all of the methods set out in the Ofcom report as a mechanism to police a ban.
Sean Woodcock (Banbury) (Lab)
My hon. and learned Friend is giving a powerful exposition on the arguments. He mentioned Australia, which has prompted a number of colleagues, including me, to sign a letter to the Government saying that five essential things, including age-verification, are needed to avoid the mistakes and perils that Australia has experienced. We also need parental involvement, privacy by design, and companies to be accountable by default. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that any effective ban must include some of those steps?
Tony Vaughan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Those mechanisms—those tests—are all key in deciding whether a ban can be implemented and can work.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
My hon. and learned Friend is being very generous with his time. Does he share my concern that the Molly Rose Foundation’s research shows that 61% of Australian 12 to 15-year-olds are still accessing the platforms from which they are supposed to be banned? Does he agree that this potentially exposes some weaknesses in the concept of a platform-based ban and that a functionality-based ban should be considered instead?
Tony Vaughan
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have to make sure that we are dealing not just with lists, but with functionality. We are laying down the gauntlet to stop children’s access. The next question is: if these companies want to have access, how do we allow that safely? If that cannot be proved, they should not have access to children, as far as I am concerned.
I want to address the issue of virtual private networks. Some people say, “Look, children are just going to get around a ban”, but most children who get around age checks do it in simpler ways. In Australia, only one in 20 had used a VPN. Platforms already know a great deal about where their users are. There must be a duty on them to understand where their users are and to prevent children from gaining access. Barnardo’s goes further and wants VPNs to be age-gated. My understanding is that the Government have ruled that out for now, so what evidence would make them think again? It is an important point where the evidence is key.
The second question that young people often ask me is, “Won’t we just move somewhere worse if a ban comes into place?” Young people in Australia report using messaging apps and gaming platforms more following the ban. Australia’s e-safety regulator did a three-month evaluation of 803 children aged 10 to 15 before the ban came into force and again in March to April this year, and the share using messaging apps daily or more rose from 40.5% to 52%. The share playing video games online every day rose from 26% to 29%, which is also significant. That is why the rules must follow the features wherever they appear, including gaming, messaging, AI and app stores.
A third question is, “If something goes wrong, can I still tell somebody?” Research for the Molly Rose Foundation found that girls’ confidence to tell a teacher falls from 55% to 36% if they are still on a banned app. The message to that cohort must be that it is the platform that broke the rules in that situation, not them. These are not sanctions on individuals; they are duties on the companies.
A fourth question, which an hon. Member mentioned, is, “What about my support network?” For LGBT, neurodivergent and isolated young people especially, we need a transition plan so that they know how to retain access to confidential advice networks and safe online support before restrictions take effect, alongside investment in welcoming local youth services.
A fifth question is, “Where is the proof that a ban would work?” The long-term studies are not yet in, but last week Ofcom published its first report on content harmful to children. It concluded that there had been no significant change in the proportion of children encountering harmful content nine months after the children’s safety duties came into force, and that in a four-week period 14% of 11 to 17-year-olds saw suicide or self-harm content, 23% saw content promoting eating disorders and 61% saw bullying content, most often through their personalised feeds.
Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)
For a long time, big tech companies in silicon valley and China have dictated what it is like for children to grow up in the UK. On self-harm, chatbots are often integrated into social media, and some of them give unregulated medical advice. Sometimes, people with eating disorders learn about low-calorie diets or how to access weight-loss drugs. Does the hon. and learned Member agree that any regulation on social media companies must include chatbots, whether they are integrated into social media or stand-alone?
Tony Vaughan
I agree. There is a plethora of sources of harm on the internet, and such chatbots are one example. Another example that somebody was telling me about is suicide forums, which encourage all sorts of awful views and behaviours. It is perhaps not directly part of this debate, but the Government having the ability to stop that stuff, in addition to the social media debate, is absolutely key. As I understand it, more powers may be needed to go that far, but I agree that it is necessary.
Tragically, we cannot even rely on the companies’ own numbers. Ofcom stated in its report that its exposure data
“only account for content detected by service providers.”
In other words, the companies count what they catch and do not count what they miss. Content that Parliament regards as harmful might not even be prohibited under the companies’ own rules. Ofcom says that the data are
“indicative rather than direct measures.”
None of that proves that a safe platform is impossible, but it does show that complying with today’s rules is no certificate of safety.
Given the scale of harm we are seeing, it is clear that we should be applying the precautionary principle. It is right that the Government impose a circuit-breaker ban now, as they have promised to do. In the meantime, they are right to be working on a system for deciding how platforms can earn the right to serve under-16s by showing that they are safe, including by removing addictive and harmful features.
Some say that Ofcom does not have the capability to police whether sites are safe in practice. In February 2025, I led a debate in this Chamber in which I called for a social media ban, and I asked why we cannot simply reverse the burden, so that it is not for the regulator to prove that an app is harmful, but for the company to prove that it is safe. I think that is the right question to ask; I believe that the Government agree, but I would welcome the Minister’s confirmation that that is the way they are looking at it. An off-ramp can only ever be acceptable if the burden genuinely shifts. Then, if there is incomplete data or uncertainty about safety, that must mean that there is no exemption, and not another long investigation while children remain exposed.
Assuming that companies can demonstrate that they are safe, I have five questions for the Minister about this potential off-ramp. First, what exactly must a company show on harmful content—including what it misses—on contact from strangers, on addictive design and on risks to the most vulnerable children to demonstrate that its platform is safe? Secondly, who checks that evidence independently, with access to the real product rather than just the company’s own statistics? Thirdly, will the regulations expressly state that insufficient evidence means no exemption, rather than the regulator being required to prove everything, as it currently has to do, which is very difficult when it comes up against a well-resourced social media company?
Fourthly, will major changes to an app or algorithm trigger a reassessment? If new evidence of harm emerges, how quickly can an exemption be suspended or withdrawn? The Molly Rose Foundation says that exemptions must be hard-earned, with stretching demands in order to keep them, and requirements reviewed and updated annually. Finally, will Ofcom have the powers, expertise and resources to access the data needed to administer the system?
The young people who signed the petition are right to put freedom—the freedom to express themselves and to find their community—at the heart of this debate, but that must also mean freedom from harassment, from content that damages their wellbeing and from design that makes it harder for them to put their phone down and spend time on other things that they themselves value. Those freedoms matter as well. I recognise that restrictions will limit choices. That is why the aim must be not permanent exclusion, but requiring companies to offer something that is better and—most importantly—safe. Young people should not have to choose between connection and safety, and companies should earn the right to serve them by respecting both.
Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Ind)
Meur ras, Sir Roger. It is an honour to serve again under your chairship. I thank the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing the debate, and the 416 constituents in Camborne, Redruth and Hayle who signed the petition.
I want to start with a line from Ofcom’s report on children’s exposure to harmful content online, which was published just 11 days ago:
“Children’s…exposure to eating disorder content on user-to-user services did not change significantly over the first nine months after the children’s safety duties in the Act”—
the Online Safety Act—
“came into force in July 2025.”
That is damning. The status quo fails outright to protect children from harmful eating disorder content pushed by recommender algorithms.
I will focus on eating disorders, not because they are the be-all and end-all of the debate on banning social media, but because they are emblematic of where we have not been bold enough. Across the country, many children and their parents must grapple with the issue of eating disorders, and it is one of the key reasons why I became an MP. I do not wish the experience of my family on any other, which is why reading Ofcom’s comments compelled me to speak today.
Pro-eating disorder content can be found far and wide across social media. Terms such as “thinspo”, “looksmaxxing” and “ana”—short for anorexia—are used across social media to evade moderation. To all intents and purposes, algorithms shamelessly push them to vulnerable children’s feeds all the same.
A meta-review of 50 studies involving 10 to 24-year-olds found consistent links between social media usage and eating disorders. Among those with eating disorders, 97% said that social media hindered rather than supported their recovery. Although it is often girls whose algorithms push eating disorder content, it is increasingly true for boys too. A February report by the Children’s Commissioner for England found that through short-form social media content, children are routinely exposed not only to prescription weight loss drugs, as the hon. Member for Winchester (Dr Chambers) mentioned, but to steroids, through both organic content and influencer marketing.
Returning to my central point, the current approach fails to regulate the algorithms sufficiently to protect children from harmful eating disorder content. A social media ban for under-16s is blunt, and no age-verification system is perfect, but it is the proposal before us and it goes some way to matching the scale of the harm being done. When an industry’s business model depends on capturing children’s attention, we cannot keep asking children and parents to carry all the risk; the burden must fall on the platforms. We must act now to prevent our most vulnerable children from being exploited to their immense harm.
Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. The petition calls for the Government to rethink their ban on social media for under-16s. I want to set out why I agree with the aims of the petition and substantially with the 457 of my constituents who signed it.
I recognise that the Government’s policy was brought in with the best of intentions, but I have serious concerns that it will not be workable and that it will take away a lot of value. I am glad that Parliament has spent a lot of time recently debating the harms caused by poorly regulated social media. Urgent action is needed but, in looking at the current state of the online world, we have lost sight of what social media could and should be.
I will, and do, strongly criticise how tech companies have increasingly sought to make social media addictive, and have turned a blind eye to horrific exploitation and abuse online, as well as to deeply harmful content along the lines of what my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) just mentioned. We must force them to act in those areas, but their failure to do so to date must not lead us to conclude that social media itself is an unfixable problem, when it can bring positives to people’s lives.
Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)
When the Education Committee looked at online harms, we had every major social media corporation before us. They did not recognise our characterisation of their features as inherently addictive. Does my hon. Friend agree that, with that kind of denial going on, we have very few options available other than to ensure that corporations’ access to our children is restricted? That is how we should look at it, rather than as restricting children’s access to social media.
Sam Carling
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that social media companies having denied a lot of the problems and treated this as a non-serious issue is deeply wrong and alarming. I hope he will agree with some of my proposals for how we may look at that.
The petition emphasises the community and connection that social media currently offers young people. I have personal experience of that. I have spoken about this in debates before, but when I was about 13, I realised that my sexuality was not like that of those around me; I was not straight. But living in a rural area and growing up in quite a homophobic, close-knit religious community, I had few people to talk to about that. Social media was such a valuable tool for me to be able to connect with other LGBT people in similar situations. Had I not had it, I would have been far more alienated and alone, and lacking peer support. I fear that a blanket ban on social media could risk making that a reality for many and I cannot support that—not after the lifeline that online conversation gave me when I was growing up.
That does not just go for LGBT people. Growing up in a rural area more generally can create barriers for children, whose friends may live some distance away. If used properly, online spaces can help to widen social circles and maintain friendships made in the real world. I do not want young people to lose that because of the way tech companies are acting. Without a doubt, we need to seriously strengthen safeguards. Clearly, significant work needs to be done to keep children safe online. However, a blanket ban would be clumsy and risks being completely ineffective.
I worry in particular that the proposed named-platform approach would result in a constant game of whack-a-mole between children and Ofcom as the former migrate to new platforms as the old ones are made unavailable. Young people are far more digitally literate than older generations have sometimes grasped and they move faster than I believe any regulator could. Although well meaning, a blanket ban could drive children to fringe platforms that are even less well regulated, where extreme content could be even more prevalent. That is an outcome that I am sure nobody wants.
Earlier this year, the NSPCC, the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, the Molly Rose Foundation and a long list of other child safety experts signed a letter to the Government warning that a blanket ban was a “blunt response”. They are united in calling instead for more accountability from the big tech companies. The NSPCC, for example, has been clear that the Government need to stop companies designing their platforms in a way that is addictive to children, and use the full force of the law to make sure that social media platforms are safe for children to use.
I support a functionality-based approach: limiting certain features without creating a situation in which children—who will find a way to use social media regardless —are led on to more extreme platforms. We are seeing some of the risk with this right now in Australia, which has had a social media ban in place. According to research from the Molly Rose Foundation, 61% of Australian 12 to 15-year-olds are still accessing platforms that they are meant to be banned from. That is clear evidence, in my mind, of why platform-based bans are not the answer and why we must change course. A functionality-based approach would benefit users of all ages, frankly, by limiting the addictive and AI-generated content that has increasingly plagued the major sites in recent years. I say that because addictive content affects adults, too, and not just children.
Targeting functionalities could also stop the race to the bottom when it comes to short-form content. The popularity of short-form videos exploded with TikTok a few years ago, and now pretty much every platform has a shorts feature. Even LinkedIn has experimented with one. It seems that many platforms have felt the need to introduce a shorts feature in order to remain competitive, even when it does not quite seem to fit—take YouTube, which was always designed for long-form content, or Instagram, which has increasingly promoted its Reels function over the more traditional posts feed that it was known for.
I think that a lot of short-form content has exacerbated a lot of underlying problems, particularly in relation to algorithmically driven harmful content, which we need to bear in mind. However, I can certainly envisage a scenario in which several platforms would probably not really have an issue with getting rid of their shorts features —which have led to so many of the problems that we are talking about—if others did so too. That is where regulation could step in. Any regulation of social media companies needs to take into account the decisions that they are making and why they are being made, so that we can force them to do things better.
On the subject of YouTube, I would like briefly to highlight the fact that it is explicitly included in the ban. I think that is particularly difficult. There are of course problems with it as a platform—I have criticised it too—but it has a lot of educational content, for example. I would argue that there is an equality angle here, because although that is valuable for anyone, removing it could be a real blow for students who are trying to improve their school grades but do not have the funds to pay for private tutors. It is a real possibility that this type of ban could create significant inequalities in access to resources.
Chris Kane
I agree with an awful lot of what my hon. Friend is saying, but is one of the problems not that we need to recognise that young people are not a single homogeneous group, and that what is good for one is not good for another? That is what the Government are wrestling with, and I have huge sympathy for what they are trying to do. While we are hearing young people’s voices, one thing that is closer to a homogeneous group is parents, who want the best for their kids. We have to try to grapple with this issue and find a way through that works. Does he agree that that is what we are trying to do and hopefully we will get there together?
Sam Carling
Absolutely. I welcome my hon. Friend’s contribution, and I know that so many parents are grappling with and having a lot of trouble with this issue. We need to hear their voices and what would work for them, and support them, as well as the users that we are talking about.
The enforceability of a ban is also damaged by the fact that, particularly with YouTube, a lot of viewing is done on TVs. Do the Government have any thoughts about how parents might grapple with that in a home situation, and about the enforceability of a ban in that circumstance? Ultimately, my concerns are that a blanket ban lets the big companies off the hook and will likely prove ineffective at keeping children safe. Children will still get on to online platforms, and if they are on platforms that are not well regulated, or if social media companies can argue that children are not using them when frankly they still are, they will stop focusing on child safety at all.
I want to touch on online gaming, which is underdiscussed in these conversations, with many people not necessarily recognising the social features associated with those spaces. For example, Roblox is a massive online game aimed at children. It is such a hotbed for predators that vigilantes have taken to conducting paedophile sting operations in-game, as the company’s response to online abuse has been so atrocious. One such vigilante, known online as Schlep, managed to get six child predators arrested. Roblox responded by banning him and threatening legal action. So it takes no action to stop predators, but it takes strong enforcement against people who are trying to stop them. We cannot encourage vigilantism, but the priorities there are clearly so wrong.
That is not the only example of abuse in online gaming. I have met the Breck Foundation, which was formed in 2014 after the tragic death of Breck Bednar—a 14-year-old boy groomed and murdered by someone he met while playing “Battlefield 3”. The groomer lied and manipulated Breck to gain his trust and lure him to his flat. The foundation goes into schools to improve the digital resilience of children across the country. It provides invaluable resources to help keep children safe, but crucially, it is not in favour of a blanket ban. In Breck’s case, removing his access to technology only drove the abuse underground, with a secret device provided by the abuser.
I agree with the foundation that a ban risks narrowing a complex conversation. Indeed, online gaming is a fun hobby for many children and adults, and it can be very pro-social and support the development of creative skills. The current proposals do not ban online gaming for children, which is right; any attempt to do so would be devastating for people who enjoy it and they would inevitably end up in less regulated spaces, if mainstream platforms and games were clumsily cut off to them. But the proposals also do not really tackle the issues in the online gaming space, and I would like to see more recognition of what we need to do in that area.
The Breck Foundation, like other safeguarding organisations, has called for greater accountability from big tech companies. That is where we need to be. A blanket ban will not work; it would allow predators to ruin it for everyone else and essentially let them win. We need to protect the benefits that social media and online gaming can offer young people while ensuring that the companies behind them take safety and security far more seriously.
As the youngest MP, I know more than most how interwoven the online world is with growing up. We need to regulate those spaces, not hope they will magically go away—they will not.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I would like to declare an interest: a family member of mine is employed by Smartphone Free Childhood.
I speak today not just as a politician, but as a parent. My children are not yet old enough to be on social media, but my wake-up call came when my then seven-year-old daughter put a smartphone at the top of her Christmas list. I am fearful about what is to come for my kids, and I want the Government to be fully on my side as my family navigates the teenage years. I support the Government’s decision to ban social media for under-16s, and I urge them to move quickly to clarify the details and implement the ban, starting by bringing forward the regulations.
The reality is that for years we have been allowing social media companies to access and influence our children unchecked. If we were talking about anything other than social media companies, whether that is toy manufacturers or pharmaceuticals, we would have put the precautions and protections in place already. We have not, and while the causality can be hard to prove, it cannot be pure coincidence that this period of growing screen and social media use has coincided with the rapid decline in young people’s mental health and wellbeing, poor sleeping patterns, poor school attendance, increasing rates of self-harm and eating disorders, as other hon. Members have mentioned. We have been putting children into an online environment that overwhelms their still-developing brain functions—as Jonathan Haidt has set out very powerfully—and the harms are clear.
I fully respect the views of those petitioners who say that there are benefits to young people being able to access social media, including the 430 people in my constituency who have signed this petition. However, I think that the view of these petitioners does not contradict a ban of the kind that the Government are taking forward. It is a ban on platforms built to encourage addiction, such as through infinite scrolling or streaks. It is also a ban on strangers being able to access our children and cause harm. It is not the end of children being able to communicate with family and friends or seek out community or help if they need it. It is the start of them being able to do that safely.
Why is this the right way forward? I will briefly share three thoughts. First, I think this sets a new norm, and that is so important. Parents feel trapped in a no-win situation, where they either allow social media and risk harming their child, or refuse it and risk their child feeling socially excluded. Many young people reach early adulthood and wish that they had never had the excess or pressure of social media, but by then it is too late. Young people will say that to me, and they say, “Please do not stop us communicating with our friends, but please help me manage this addiction that I have to live with.” The age limit of 16 removes those pressures and creates a new shared norm that childhood does not need to be lived on and through social media.
Secondly, a ban is inclusive and equalising, because the reality is that not all parents have the knowledge, time or capacity to manage all the parental controls. I notice a pattern whereby it is often the parents with a bit more time, income or freedom who make active decisions to keep their children off social media. But that is tough for parents, and a ban for under-16s removes that burden from individual families—from the parents and the young people. It ensures that all children have the same protections, regardless of their background or family situation.
Thirdly, this ban is so important because it gives us the clarity to start thinking about alternatives. We have been stuck in this debate for a long time. If children are simply not allowed social media and that is decided, what might their childhoods look like? The science shows that executive brain function develops through practice in the real world—through play, face-to-face interaction, sustained attention and unstructured time. What policy interventions will encourage children to spend more time outside? How do we create environments where they can play without structure and without the performance that social media requires? What do the best practice online learning tools look like if some of those addictive design features are removed? There are so many vital policy questions that we are freed up to address, once the rules on social media access for our children are clear.
I will make a final point on one aspect of the ban that is particularly important to me. Last year, I had a serious and harrowing case in my constituency where a 12-year-old boy was groomed by an AI chatbot. It encouraged him to leave school, turn against his parents, run away from home, engage in a highly sexualised dialogue, and even suggested that the boy and the chatbot might meet in the afterlife. This should never, ever have happened, and no other 12-year-old should be exposed to harm in this way.
I pushed hard on this at the time, and I was very grateful to the then Secretary of State for taking note and for including AI romantic companion bots in the ban. However, I continue to urge ambition and clarity as that aspect of the ban is taken forward. We may find that just regulating romantic companion bots is not enough, as others have said, including my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan).
The social media ban is not about some sort of rose-tinted return to childhoods of the past; it is about giving children the right protections in our digital age. It is about allowing them to benefit from the very best of the online world, educating them about it for adulthood but doing so in an age-appropriate way, and setting them up to be safe, happy and successful, both online and offline.
Josh Dean (Hertford and Stortford) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve with you in the chair this afternoon, Sir Roger. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for his opening speech and the petitioners for bringing this important issue forward.
There are a range of views on this debate, and it is so important that we listen to the young people who want us to look in detail at what the impact might be on them. It is absolutely right that we look at the concerns raised by all the young people, adults, teachers, parents and families on the impact of social media on children’s wellbeing, mental health and development. It is important that we recognise that they are genuine concerns shared by many.
I was rather looking forward to saying that I am the youngest Member in the room, but that claim has been stolen by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling). However, I am one of the few MPs who grew up with social media. Like many of my friends, I accessed social media before the age of 13. I have seen at first hand how rapidly evolving platforms have given rise to harmful content, misinformation and addiction, affecting adults as well as young people. The vast majority of colleagues in this place can remember a time before social media. Today’s generation of young people have not had that benefit. They have grown up with it, with their lives intertwined with the digital world.
Parents, teachers and young people have every right to be angry. When children are exposed to harmful content, online bullying, unrealistic expectations, addictive platform design and material that damages their mental health, it is no wonder that people feel we have not acted quickly enough in this place. I remember being a young person at school desperate for the Government to do more, and they did not. Parents are right to demand action. Parliament has a responsibility to respond. The question is not about whether we should act—of course we should. It is about what will be most effective, and it is so important that we get this right.
Earlier this year, I held a series of roundtables with secondary school pupils across Hertford and Stortford to hear directly from them about their experiences online. Many described social media as a source of anxiety. Others spoke about exposure to graphic content and misinformation—online pressures that previous generations simply did not have to navigate. The conversations I had with young people also highlighted that social media is not simply a straightforward source of risk. It can be a vital source of information, connection and support. Indeed, I first became politically engaged through the online world because, after the referendum in 2016, I was encouraged to join a protest to lower the voting age to 16, and I stood outside here with other young people calling for the voting age to be lowered. I would not have been there, and I would not be here had I not come across that through the online world.
Many of the young people I spoke to shared similar experiences and stressed that, too often, this debate overlooks the positive role that social media can play. When safe and well regulated, it can help to combat isolation and foster meaningful connections, particularly for those in semi-rural communities like mine. It can provide a lifeline for young people who are LGBTQ+, neurodiverse, or living with a mental health condition, helping them to understand their identity and access peer support networks. Many of those young people will be on long waiting lists for traditional services. Those online communities provide an essential source of support in the interim, and I worry that a blanket ban could risk pulling the rug out from under those young people and removing the safety net altogether.
One of the strongest messages I heard from young people was that they actually want us to do something to tackle online harms. Those young people were not white-knuckled, clinging on to their phones. They were telling us about their experience and that they want us to act. That should mean looking seriously at stronger age assurance, tougher regulation of harmful content, greater transparency around algorithms, meaningful parental controls and restrictions on deliberately addictive features. What it should mean is that we take the fight to the social media companies. I am, as of recently, 27 years old, and I have been waiting for this for a long time; young people today should not have to wait as long as I have.
I am cautious about the idea of a blanket ban. It is important that, whatever we do, we get it right. We must ask ourselves what happens next. If mainstream platforms become unavailable, how confident are we that young people will simply stop using online services altogether? Do we risk pushing them towards smaller, less-regulated platforms, where safeguards are weaker and oversight is more difficult? We should recognise the role that those platforms now play in civic and democratic engagement. For many young people, social media is a gateway to current affairs, public debate and political participation. This is about not just learning about politics from the online world, but engaging with it from the online world and holding politicians like us to account. While protecting children from harm, which I absolutely agree must be the priority, we need to be careful not to close off legitimate opportunities for engagement.
Sam Carling
Does my hon. Friend agree that the current proposals to have a hard cliff edge at 16 create a problem in terms of people suddenly being exposed to all of that world, having not really had the opportunity to develop the skills to be able to deal with it?
Josh Dean
I quite agree. Another colleague touched on the cliff edge: the idea that the day someone turns 16, they might get access to social media for the first time and then head off to the polling station to vote. It is right that we have more education on media literacy in schools but hands-on, practical experience in a safe and regulated online space is important as well. We have to consider how restricting young people’s access to this source of information might affect their long-term democratic participation.
If we are serious about encouraging the next generation to take part in our democracy, we have to bring young people with us on this journey, not exclude them from it. I commend the Government on their engagement with young people, parents, teachers and families across the country. Young people I spoke to were very pleased that their MP came to speak to them and hear their views, but the feedback from young people since the announcement has been less positive. It is so important that we bring them with us as we do this.
During the pandemic, we pushed more of young people’s lives online. They had no say. Education, social interaction, public services and democratic engagement increasingly moved into digital spaces. Many young people developed the habits of accessing news, discussing current affairs and engaging with campaigns through the very platforms we are now debating. We cannot rip them back out without giving them a proper say again. Protecting children from harm must be our priority, but I worry that if the answer is simply to ban access, we risk alienating the generation we seek to protect. They will not forgive us if we get this wrong, nor will their parents. If we shut them out of conversations, information and opportunities for participation that increasingly shape modern civic life, we should not be surprised if they choose not to engage going forward.
The challenge before us is not simply to restrict access to a list of platforms, but to create an online environment in which young people can participate safely, responsibly and confidently as future citizens. Yes, we should act. Parents are right to expect action. Young people themselves are asking for action. But let us focus on the features, the business models and the failures of regulation that are causing harm rather than assuming that a blanket ban is the only solution available and putting the pressure of companies’ failures on the shoulders of young people.
Will the Minister update the House on how the Department is assessing evidence from countries, such as Australia, that have pursued a social media ban for young people? Will he confirm that restrictions will be regularly reviewed and remain adaptable, given the current pace of technological change?
Sir Roger Gale (in the Chair)
Ms Darlington has indicated to me that she needs to speak and then leave. The Front Benchers may wish to know that, exceptionally, I have given her leave to do so.
Emily Darlington (Milton Keynes Central) (Lab)
I appreciate your helping me not to be in trouble with my Whips, Sir Roger. I want to start by saying that everyone in this room and in this place wants to protect children. We have different ways of getting there—some of us support the ban, some of us do not—but never be in any doubt that we recognise that there are problems and are debating the best solution.
Do bans work? Well, let us follow the evidence. Hon. Members will not be surprised that, as a member of the Science and Technology Committee, I will look at the evidence for what has already worked and what is happening at the cutting edge of science right the way through. Bans do not work everywhere that they have been tried; in fact, the bad activity just moves. But the bans are designed by people who, like the majority of people here, other than my younger hon. Friends the Members for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean) and for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling), are Gen X or baby boomers—I am not trying to be rude
Our experience and understanding of social media is very different from our children’s. They do not see Facebook as social media because they do not care about Facebook. We could ban it all we want and they would be like, “I’ve never been on it in my life, nor do I ever intend to.” They understand that there is no difference between social media and other platforms because everything is now social media: every gaming platform, every chatroom and everything that we now see.
Let us look at what actually matters and what is actually happening. I do not think it is part of the conversation: we hear a lot about TikTok, Instagram and Facebook because we know about those platforms, not because that is necessarily where children are getting harmed the most. I did a survey of more than 500 young people in Milton Keynes and, given that the number of signatories from Milton Keynes Central is 503, I think they all signed the petition and found three more signatories. They were clear about where they are spending time, where they have problems, where they see material that is not all right, and where they are approached by strangers. That is happening on the platforms that we do not talk about. YouTube has amazing educational content, but it is also one of the places of most harm. Roblox is a lot of fun for gaming but that platform, although it is advertised to children, is actually one of the worst. I do not know if any hon. Members know about “the Com” and “764”, which are groups on Roblox and Discord that recruit primarily vulnerable people. They get those people to video themselves while they are self-harming and have watch parties as they self-harm each other. If we do not include Roblox, Discord and 764, we are not protecting children.
In the UK, child sexual abuse images are overwhelmingly shared and distributed via WhatsApp. The radicalisation and co-ordination for things such as the riots that we sometimes see on our streets is overwhelmingly happening on Telegram and Signal. We are not talking about those places. In fact, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire said, it is a whack-a-mole approach if we write a list and then have to add platform names to it. In Australia, they would have to add LinkedIn to it because that is where people under 16 will now participate in the same kind of activity as they were before.
We have taken important action. We have banned the taking of child sexual abuse pictures and videos at device level. That is really important. Let us look at what else could work and what the evidence tells us. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) used the example of toys. She is right that we do not want toys or products that harm, but we do not ban the toy, we ban the thing that is wrong with it. Train sets used lead paint: we did not ban all train sets, we banned those with lead paint on them. We need to make it safe. That is why exemptions are so important: we need a route back because that will create behaviour change. We need safe places for children to learn, to play and to explore, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury said.
Quite famously, I have published a nine-point plan, which I have shared quite extensively and spoken to industry about. Although it is not the be all and end all, it shows how we can create a path back if platforms meet its nine requirements. First, there should be no stranger contact: it should not be possible to contact a young person and take them on to another platform. That is not to say there are not important areas for which we could have mediated places that are safe for young people to explore sexuality and other things, but strangers should not be able to deliberately target young people on platforms.
There should be no algorithm feed for under-12s. They should be using their executive function to choose what they want to watch next, not seeing what the algorithm thinks they should see. There should be only a limited algorithm feed for those aged 12 to 18. That is already happening on some platforms. In fact, some young people said to me, “I just turned 18 and I want to go back to my limited algorithm feed; I don’t like the feed I am on now.”
There should be time limits by age. The inquiry of the Science and Technology Committee into digital childhoods found that time limits and age-related curfews would be the most important changes we could make. The biggest impact on mental health from social media comes from children having it in their bedrooms: they are not sleeping the hours that they should be sleeping. Curfews at device-level could save children from fear of missing out—or FOMO, as they like to call it—and let them get to sleep.
The second biggest impact on young people’s mental health is from age-inappropriate material. My hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) spoke about horrific stuff with eating disorders. We must be clearer that that has real consequences. We have yet to see Ofcom use all its powers in that area. I would like to empower parents and young people by having British Board of Film Classification ratings on material so that parents are clear whether it is appropriate for their child.
In addition, we have not even talked about the online advertising guidelines. Are the adverts popping up in YouTube Kids videos appropriate for children? Nobody is looking at that. The adverts that pop up in their little apps or games—“Melo’s cat cafe”, or whatever they are playing—again, are not being properly regulated, although we have rules that tell us what is age-appropriate advertising.
We should also have device-level age checks. Age checks are always difficult, but doing them at device level, and being clear that, when a parent passes their device down, they should clear it and set it with the proper age, is more secure than any of the things that we have talked about when it comes to children using fake identities to get on to sites. I do not want to talk about other people’s childhoods, but I may have used a fake ID in the past to buy a beer—[Interruption.] I know—shocking! The same thing is happening online.
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury brought up a really important point about AI companion chatbots. This is not all right. If people do not have to pay for these homework chatbots, companion chatbots or romantic chatbots—if they do not have to pay for the product—they are the product. We have very strict rules from the Information Commissioner’s Office on data protection for children, but I have yet to see the ICO take proper action on this. Our children’s data is being fed in. The grooming and sexual behaviour is not an end in and of itself; the aim is to keep the children online to mine their data. That should be stopped right away.
I thank everybody for coming to the debate, and the 503 people in Milton Keynes who signed the petition. By working together, and working with young people and parents, we can get to a solution that provides the benefits of an online childhood without all the problems that we see today.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
Sir Roger, you will not be surprised to hear that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship today. I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for the way in which he introduced the debate.
I want to start with a couple of anecdotes. Over the weekend, a mum messaged me to say that her daughter was getting bullied at school. She lives in Currie in my constituency. I do not know the details yet—I asked her to email me them—but I can almost guarantee that social media will be involved in some shape or form, because so far, every bullying case that we have dealt with in my office has had a link to social media in some way.
A couple of Sundays ago, I was at St Mungo’s church in Balerno, and a mum was talking to me about her kids and their use of phones. It was a time to reflect, because we have come a long way since the 2024 election. Kids starting any state school in Edinburgh next year will not have access to their mobile phones in school—hopefully, by that time, they will not have social media on their phones anyway. However, we have to accept that it has been a bumpy ride getting this far; there have been a few steps forward and an occasional step backwards. None the less, all progress is progress.
In the time since I was elected, I have spoken to many, many people in my constituency. The vast majority of them were parents, but those parents included GPs, teachers and, in one case, a paediatrician. They all agreed that they were concerned about the harm caused both by smartphones in school and the use of social media. We have had around 600 emails from people, the vast majority supporting some sort of ban. I have also spoken to young people in schools, at Scout meetings and so on, about a ban. All that led me to support a ban in full—the fullest possible ban, actually.
However, I then met the NSPCC, the Lucy Faithfull Foundation and the Molly Rose Foundation, and they were very clear about some of the cliff-edge aspects, which other hon. Members have spoken about. I must say that on the day the announcement was made that we were proceeding with a ban, I felt uncertain because of those conversations with the NSPCC and others about what a ban would mean. It was only once I saw that they were supporting it, at least tentatively, that I felt able to support it that day. I welcome the Brianna Ghey Legacy Project also supporting a ban, and I thank Brianna’s fantastic mum, Esther, for all the work she is doing.
I acknowledge the many good points made by my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) on some of the impacts that a ban could have, but there are also more trivial impacts, such as those in Scotland. For example, the Scottish Government understand what young people are thinking by collecting data online via an organisation called Young Scot—everybody in Scotland knows about that organisation—but it will now be much harder to do so without having access to people on social media for that perfectly legitimate reason.
I want to recognise that any ban must only be part of a much broader effort to ensure that young people are as safe as possible online. We know that bans are already in place overseas, but they are not perfect. No matter what restrictions the Government put in place, some children will continue to use restricted platforms, while some services will inevitably fall outside the scope of any ban. Of course, exactly the same arguments were made when the Government put an age limit on accessing pornography and other harmful content online, but we all agreed that putting friction between young people and pornographic websites was entirely legitimate. While I have reservations about this ban and whether it should be complete, I accept that any friction between young people and harmful social media content is a good thing.
Ms Julie Minns (Carlisle) (Lab)
My hon. Friend makes a legitimate point about the issues that were raised with restrictions on pornography. However, does he accept that the difference there was that we were trying to age-verify someone who was over 18 so that they could access pornography, and there was ID available? I grappled with the challenges of age verification some 20 years ago in the mobile sector. Does he agree that we need to have confidence in this? I do not think we are quite there yet when it comes to age-verifying 16-year-olds, who do not have ID.
Dr Arthur
Like so many problems in the world, the solution can be found in Scotland. Young people in Scotland can use a Young Scot card to verify that they are 16, but I understand my hon. Friend’s point.
It is critical that, alongside robust age-assurance measures, online platforms be required to be as safe as possible for all users, both young people and adults. A ban cannot be used as an excuse by companies not to comply with their responsibilities, and important questions remain about the scope of the ban and the regulation of high-risk features. In July, I welcomed the Government’s further commitment to require infinite scrolling features to be switched off by default. However, there is more work to be done on location-sharing features for under-16s, as well as further regulation of AI chatbots.
I accept and understand the point that for some people, such as those who are struggling with mental health problems, health problems or perhaps their sexuality, going to social media may be a source of really good information. However, I am also concerned that young people who go to social media for advice on those really sensitive issues might end up interacting with people whose motivations are not good, and I think we have to be very mindful of that.
Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that if we think about the online world in the same way as the real world, it is a ludicrous idea that we would deliberately send children to go and interact with strangers—probably adults—in an unsupervised and unregulated environment where we would have no idea what kind of conversations were happening, and that no parent or politician would ever endorse that?
Dr Arthur
I absolutely agree. Of course, the vast majority of people who go online to seek help in that way do find it, but there is a small minority of often very vulnerable young people who we should all be concerned about, and we have a duty to protect them.
Both the Mental Health Foundation and the NSPCC identified AI chatbots as a clear ongoing risk to child safety. I am a member of the eating disorders all-party parliamentary group, and I pay tribute to the important work that it carries out. I was therefore deeply concerned by the recent report from the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, which found that ChatGPT will provide vulnerable people with restrictive diet plans or advice on how to hide eating disorders from their families within 20 minutes of a conversation starting. Tests found that simple prompts such as, “This is for a presentation,” or, “It’s help for a friend,” allowed users to circumvent the very weak barriers in place inside ChatGPT. Clearly, the Government should act on this issue.
Even more concerning was the finding that little progress has been made in addressing eating disorder-related content on AI interfaces since a similar study was conducted in 2023—almost three years ago. Alongside numerous other examples, this demonstrates that online services cannot be trusted to regulate themselves. We have to ensure we can trust Ofcom to regulate in this area—we are not quite there yet.
This cannot be acceptable. Advice on sustaining eating disorders, as well as advice on suicide, self-harm or other substance abuse should not be readily available to young people. To create a safer environment, the Government must continue to take action to push online and AI services into effective regulation. Self-regulation will not work.
Time and again platforms have demonstrated that they will not place our children’s safety before their profit. While I welcome the proposed plan, I hope that it is not an end point but a starting point for a conversation about how best to ensure that the online world is as safe as possible for everyone who wishes to use it.
I want to go back to the cliff-edge point that was made earlier. I am really concerned that when this ban goes live people will suddenly lose access to services they have relied on. It would be good to hear how the Government will manage the transition so that it is not a cliff edge but a soft entry into what will hopefully be a safer world.
Fred Thomas (Plymouth Moor View) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. Let us be honest: for far too long, tech companies have profited obscenely from addictive algorithms and harmful content aimed at children here in Britain. These are not British companies, but they have become absurdly powerful—probably more powerful than any Government. Generations of young people are paying the price, and we have a mental health crisis. We can all see that.
This is not random; it is happening for a reason. Social media has become almost unavoidable for people growing up. They are not making a choice. As one of my colleagues said, there is no choice—they have to be on it. Young people in the UK spend an average of more than four hours a day on social media. That means that most of their free time is spent staring at a screen. We also have a mental health crisis—I think they are linked. This is fundamentally changing what life looks like, and how young people see themselves, build friendships and form opinions and world views.
The consequences are apparent all around us. The incredible rise in diagnosed and undiagnosed anxiety is just startling. I had no experience of it until becoming an MP and visiting schools, where I was absolutely blown away by conversations with teachers and parents. The scale is off the charts. It is much more common among girls and people with a disability. Young people regularly describe feeling like they have no control over what they see online. Again, there is no choice here. They are being sent these things for hours and hours every day and deep into the night.
In the Government’s consultation this summer, nine in 10 parents backed a social media ban for under-16s. Two thirds of young people agreed that under-16s should not be allowed to use at least some social media platforms. That is not surprising at all, given what I have seen in schools in the last couple of years. Every time I visit schools in Plymouth, teachers tell me about the impact it is having, describing levels of mental health distress unlike anything ever seen before.
Students themselves tell me they want help getting off these platforms. I always ask for a show of hands: “If no one else was on this platform, would you miss it?” For most people, the answer is no—they are only on it because everyone else is on it. They do not want to be on it. I acknowledge that some would disagree with that, including around 400 of my constituents who signed this petition, but they are in the minority.
We know from whistleblowers inside these social media companies that they have known for years and years that these harms were coming. It is not as though they did nothing about it; they have done something about it—they have deliberately hidden it, over and over again. Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen told our colleagues in the US Congress that the company’s leadership knew how to make platforms safer but refused to act,
“because they have put their astronomical profits before people.”
There is no reason to think that any of these companies will do anything different ever again. They are companies—they are trying to make money.
We cannot put the wellbeing of our nation at the mercy of profit-making organisations, especially ones that reward addiction and exploitation. I am delighted that this year the Government announced decisive action to protect children from social media. I am extremely grateful for the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) and the Minister for Artificial Intelligence, my right hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Kanishka Narayan), for getting that over the line.
I am also extremely grateful to Labour colleagues who signed a letter I organised to the then Prime Minister urging him to take action. A week after that, he did indeed launch the consultation, which has now led to this decision from Government, so I thank everyone who signed that letter. Government now have to implement, and the question is how they do it.
There is a duty to protect children, and I am so pleased that we are finally going to do that. There is also a duty to allow children access to the benefits of the internet and the online world. Many of my colleagues have spoken very eloquently about that today. How do we do that? A 15-year-old who wants to go on YouTube to learn French or learn the guitar should be able to do that, so there is a challenge for Government on how they do a ban. Am I suggesting that they should just trust the tech companies? No. But surely there is a world in which we are nuanced enough for Government to get a legally binding, written assurance from platforms to provide services that are not included in the ban. Surely there is a world where we are agile enough to be able to react and say, “You said you were going to do this. You have not done what you said you were going to do. You are now included in the ban,” without having to do primary legislation.
I am super conscious that I grew up benefiting from YouTube. I learned the guitar on YouTube. I do not know how I would have learned it otherwise. I would have had to pay for many lessons. I do not think it is fair to tell the next generation that they cannot have those opportunities, so there is a challenge for Government. It is not as simple as just enacting this ban. It is about working out how we carry on giving access to those platforms. Those are tough conversations with big companies.
On age verification, there are countless ways to verify someone’s age without handing over sensitive personal information. I know that some parts of the political agenda argue that any online regulatory action from the Government creates a privacy problem. The burden should not be on Government to do that. The burden should be on the tech companies themselves to find and implement solutions. They know all our information anyway. Those tech companies 100% know our ages. They have some of the brightest engineers in the world. Parliament and Government should set the rules, and they should comply with them.
Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)
Does the hon. Member have any examples of how the age of a child could be proved if that child had never been on social media? How would a tech company that, theoretically, would not know their information, be able to verify the child’s age without effectively using some form of digital ID by the back door?
Fred Thomas
I take the hon. Member’s point. The scale of what those companies know about us—whether we want to acknowledge that or not—really does not correspond to whether we have put our age into an online form or not. We can live in a world where we pretend they do not know that about us and our children, or we can live in the real world where they do know it, and we should just acknowledge that. It is not an invasion of privacy to acknowledge that because it has already happened. To get away from that would be a much bigger debate—not about restricting some aspects of social media for under-16s, but a much bigger conversation around the internet. I am not saying that I endorse it, but frankly that ship has sailed.
I know people have concerns about the experience in Australia. Clearly, many young people are still using social media. I accept that no system is going to be perfect. Young people will find a way around restrictions. That happens with alcohol. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), who is not in her place just now, alluded to the fact that young people still drink alcohol illegally. They smoke cigarettes, do other activities like not wear a seatbelt, and they probably break the law or get around restrictions in some way. That does not mean that we should just throw bans out the window.
Sam Carling
My hon. Friend and I clearly have different solutions in mind, but what unites the Chamber is our clear demand that these tech companies sort out what they are doing. Does he agree that their atrocious behaviour is the root cause? Until that changes, and until the Government bring in methods to make it change, we will not get any further.
Fred Thomas
I certainly agree with my hon. Friend; I guess we are just debating what those methods are. I fully agree that the cause of these issues is the technologies now being basically monopolised into four or five massive companies. This debate is about what we do to tackle that.
I will address the cliff edge argument, where some folks suggest that if we stop young people having access to certain social media until they are 16, and then they suddenly have access, they will be super-vulnerable or in some way unprepared for the social media world. I do not think that makes sense, because it implies that exposure is the same thing as preparation—it is not. The brain in someone under 16 is developing and needs protecting. It is in a better place to deal with the harms once the person is 16 than when they are 14. I do not find any credibility in that argument.
Josh Dean
We agree on the cause; it is the methods that we have different views on. I recognise my hon. Friend’s point about the development of the brain, but should the onus not be on social media companies to clean up their act across the piece, so that every 16-year-old accessing social media, and indeed everyone over 16, is free from the harms currently found there? Should the aim not be to make sure that the harms are gone, not that the under-16s are gone?
Fred Thomas
Yes, that should be the aim. It brings me on to the final point I was hoping to make. For me, this whole agenda is not purely about people under 16 years old. This is about recognising that social media is really bad for us. It is bad for me as a 34-year-old, it is bad for a 14-year-old, and it is bad for a 64-year-old. I see my parents doomscrolling and think, “That’s probably not good for you.” How do we recognise, as a society, that something is bad for us?
Let us go back to the example of alcohol or cigarettes. We know they are bad for us. We let adults use them, but we do not let children. If someone is under 18, we say, “Woah, you really shouldn’t be doing that.” Once they are 18, if they decide to do something they know is bad for them, they can do it. For me, it is the same with social media, or particularly the elements of it we are looking to get after through heavily restricting use for under-16s. I think that will lead to a really important moment. Some would call it a seatbelt moment, or a cultural shift.
My parents grew up in a generation where smoking was pretty accepted. At school, we were taught over and over again, “Smoking is bad for you. You shouldn’t smoke.” I went home, saw my parents smoking and said, “Mum, Dad—you shouldn’t be doing that. That’s bad for you.” It was probably quite annoying to have a 12-year-old tell them that, but the culture changes. I hope that happens with social media. For my colleagues who have spoken about their children, I hope that in a few years’ time they might find that, in the kitchen, their 12-year-old says, “You shouldn’t be scrolling. It’s bad for you. I’m not allowed to do it, because it’s bad for you, so you shouldn’t be doing it.”
It could be that the culture shifts, and that is how we get after the profits of these companies and they learn that they might have to change a bit. Who knows what comes next for technology? We do not know, but for me, this is very important to get after. I am grateful to those who signed the petition, ensuring that this debate could happen. It gives the Government another chance to set out how they will help to protect our children and cause a culture shift.
Cat Eccles (Stourbridge) (Lab)
Thank you, Sir Roger, for being so lenient in allowing me to speak this evening; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship.
I have supported calls for a ban on under-16s accessing social media—the volume of harmful content online makes unrestricted access a really serious concern—but I have become increasingly unconvinced that a full ban is the right answer. That is because when I speak to young people in my constituency, they do not tell me that they want to be excluded from online spaces; they want those spaces to be safer for them, with the harmful content removed, the bullying tackled, and stronger protections against exploitation and manipulation. In short, they want the platforms to be responsible.
Calls for a ban are a response to the failure of social media companies to act. Had they consistently prioritised safety and wellbeing over engagement, we would not be having this debate today. However, the burden to act should not fall solely on children and parents; it should fall on the companies that build and profit from these platforms.
Ofcom is working hard to tackle online harms, but it faces an uphill struggle, and I wonder whether it has the tools to manage the task. Although age-assurance measures have a role to play, they are not foolproof and young people can often circumvent restrictions through VPNs and other workarounds. The Australian experience perfectly illustrates that; despite restrictions on access there, many Australian teenagers have continued to use social media. That suggests that a ban alone is not a complete solution, and that we must also focus on having platforms that are safer by design, and on holding the companies behind them accountable.
There is also an inconsistency in our wider approach. Social media and digital platforms are increasingly used in educational settings to communicate with students, share learning resources and develop digital skills. If we recognise that these technologies have benefits in education and civic life, we should be cautious about treating them as inherently harmful in every context. For the same reason, I am not convinced that blanket age verification requirements are the answer. Measures that apply to every user can create privacy concerns and barriers to access, without addressing the underlying cause of harm.
We also know that platforms frequently fail to respond when problems are identified, as other hon. Members have said. Earlier this year, a constituent contacted me after repeatedly receiving content in his Facebook feed linking to pornographic websites. My office contacted Meta on his behalf several times, but we received no response. I am sure other Members have had similar experiences—it is simply not good enough.
The UK has taken important steps through the Online Safety Act 2023. However, this debate highlights the limits to any one country acting alone. These issues are not specific to the UK; social media platforms operate across borders and harmful content does not respect jurisdictions. That is why international co-operation is essential.
The 2024 UK-US agreement on children’s online safety was a welcome step, but it remains too focused on changing children’s behaviour, rather than on changing the platforms themselves. In contrast, the proposed EU KIDS Act places greater emphasis on platform accountability and on requiring the companies to remove addictive features, strengthen privacy protections and demonstrate that their services are safe for young people to use.
I have two questions for the Minister. First, have the Government considered whether elements of the EU KIDS Act’s “safety by design” approach could inform future UK policy? Secondly, what discussions have the Government had with international partners about establishing common standards on platform design, algorithmic transparency and child safety?
As a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I was struck by the recent comments from the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, who argued that efforts to restrict children’s access to social media should not distract us from the need to ensure that platforms meet clear legal duties and are properly held to account. I believe that is the right approach; rather than placing the responsibility on children and their families to avoid harm, we should require tech companies to create products that are safe by default.
We can continue to debate an under-16 social media ban, but children will not truly be safe until the platforms themselves are held responsible for the harms they create. I believe that the answer lies in international co-operation, platform accountability and safety by design, and not simply in asking young people to stay away.
Anna Sabine (Frome and East Somerset) (LD)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. I thank all hon. Members in this Chamber; I found myself nodding along extensively during other Members’ contributions.
I absolutely support banning children from accessing harmful social media. The Liberal Democrats have long called for decisive action in this space. The Government joined us in those calls earlier this year, announcing proposals for a social media ban, but it has been many months since the initial announcement, and we are still not entirely sure what to expect. That uncertainty over what a possible ban will look like may be driving many of the concerns of those who signed this petition. What we know so far is that the Government have plans for an Australian-style ban; not only is that vague, but the Liberal Democrats have concerns that an Australian-style ban will ultimately fail in its role to reduce the harms faced by children online.
As we have heard from other hon. Members, after a few months of the Australian ban, early data suggests that it has had a limited impact on prohibiting young people from accessing social media. On top of that, the Molly Rose Foundation found that among children aged 12 to 15 who had social media accounts before the ban came in, more than half said that the ban had made no difference to their online safety. I would add that, while my children are too old to be affected by the ban, I was often a very busy and tired single mother while they were being raised and using social media, and I totally understand the points being made about the possible unfairness and social justice issues with a blanket ban.
This is important because, as we know, the message of this petition is not that children should keep access to harmful content; it is that a ban could cut young people off from safe spaces. For vulnerable children, online communities can often be a lifeline. A blanket ban risks cutting children off from that support. If the Australian evidence is anything to go by, the Government’s proposals could take away those positives without making the online world any safer.
A few weeks ago, I met pupils from a local primary school, Peasedown St John, here in Parliament, and they shared similar concerns. In the Q&A session with a class of six and seven-year-olds, the first question was: “Are you going to ban social media?” When I asked what they thought, they told me, in six and seven-year-old terms, that they wanted inappropriate content restricted, but that they still wanted to use educational platforms. Even at that age, they recognise that different platforms carry different levels of harm, and I must admit that I agree with them.
This is exactly the nuanced approach the Liberal Democrats have been calling for. Unlike an Australia-style ban, the Liberal Democrats would assess and regulate platforms based on the harms they cause, with film-style age ratings reflecting that harm. Platforms that cause the most harm would be closed to children—but, if a tech company did the work to redesign the platform, removing addictive algorithms and harmful content, that form of social media could possibly be accessible. Unlike a fixed ban, that would give tech companies a reason to change. It would preserve safe spaces for young people to talk online and make safety part of the design of these platforms rather than an afterthought.
While we are considering safe spaces, I appreciated the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) that there has been a deterioration in alternative spaces—practical, real-life spaces—for young people to go to over the past 10 or 20 years. I notice that the excellent campaign group Make Space for Girls has been making the point that specifically for young women and girls—particularly as the nights draw in—it is unclear where they will be going to spend their time. The hon. Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) also made the point that rural communities particularly face this challenge. As someone who represents a semi-rural community, I know that many young people simply do not have anywhere to go if they are not going to be on their phones. I am not saying that that makes it right that they are on their phones, but it poses a challenge when that phone use is suddenly cut off.
The Liberal Democrats are also clear that protecting children online should not come at the expense of privacy. Several constituents have asked me to attend this debate; again, they are not in favour of children accessing harmful content, but their concern is that a ban may effectively require a form of digital ID to be enforceable. The Liberal Democrats have always criticised plans for mandatory digital ID, and we will properly scrutinise any regulation of social media to make sure both that it is effective and that it safeguards personal privacy.
I am wholeheartedly in support of a ban on harmful social media, but I think that this debate has allowed us to raise important questions about what a ban should look like. I will therefore finish with a few questions for the Minister. Do the Government believe that the best way forward is still a harms-based approach to banning social media? Can we still expect to see a ban by spring 2027? If so, could the Minister lay out exactly what we can expect to see, and confirm that any regulation will always prioritise privacy and that the House will have the opportunity to scrutinise any proposals?
Anna Sabine
The hon. Member is absolutely right—that was poorly worded. I should have said, “Alongside the safety of children, we should be prioritising privacy.” I thank him for allowing me to make that clarification.
Finally, on 8 September, the Government also announced legislation to enforce device and app-level restrictions to stop children taking and sharing nude photos of themselves. Could the Minister tell us when we will see that come into force?
The Liberal Democrats want to protect young people from online harm. We believe that the only way to do that successfully is through a harms-based ban on social media. I hope that the Government will today agree.
James Wild (North West Norfolk) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this important debate, and I congratulate the hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on the way he introduced it and spoke up for those who signed the petition.
I have some sympathy for the position that Leo and the other signatories set out opposing restrictions on social media for under-16s. When the debate on this issue began, I was initially sceptical that increasing the age limit was the appropriate response; there are many good uses of tech for young people that they should be free to explore. However, the wider debate has been running for some considerable time. Nearly 20 years have passed since I was working for T-Mobile on the Byron review, which looked at online child safety. The focus then was on platforms taking responsibility for protecting young people. Sadly, they have failed to do that. On balance, therefore, I agree that the evidence and experience demonstrate that increasing the age limit is necessary to protect children from harm. We know that social media platforms and the algorithms driving them are designed to be addictive. They can expose children to pornography, violence, bullying, sexual abuse and other extreme content, with damaging and, very sadly, tragic consequences.
The Conservatives believe that parents have ultimate responsibility for their children, but we also acknowledge the challenge they face in keeping their children safe online. The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) set out this point clearly: an activity that would not be tolerated in the real world has been normalised, monetised and amplified online. That is why the shadow Education Secretary, as well as my noble Friend Lord Nash and many hon. Members from across the House campaigned to secure restrictions on platforms, working with parents and bereaved families. I welcome the announcement the Government made in June to bring forward restrictions on platforms that will protect children and help parents.
However, a theme throughout the debate has been that the success of the policy will depend on its implementation. In that context, I was concerned by Ofcom’s recent report on the Online Safety Act, which found no statistically significant reduction in the proportion of children encountering harmful online content during the first nine months after the new child safety duties took effect. That is clearly disappointing and worrying. Laws need to be implemented effectively.
The Government have said they intend to publish the first set of regulations for the age limit before the end of this year, to take effect in the spring. Can the Minister confirm that that timetable remains the same? If it is, when will the regulations be published, given we are now in November? We should, as others have said, learn from Australia’s restrictions and where they have been bypassed. Last week, Ofcom published its review of age-verification tools and recommended four methods: photo ID, digital ID, face-age estimation technology, and banking-based checks. Supporting child protection does not mean endorsing any age-checking system or the unnecessary collection of personal data, so that review raises a number of questions that I want to put to the Minister.
First, does the Minister agree that, as far as possible, information held by platforms should be used in the first instance for adults? How will they keep to a minimum the requirement to provide photo ID and use face-scanning technology as much as possible? Clearly, there are privacy issues at hand here, so what protections should be in place for users’ data? For the avoidance of doubt, will he rule out mandatory digital ID as a requirement for accessing social media? In that report, Ofcom estimates that around 150,000 16 and 17-year-olds across the UK hold neither a passport nor a provisional driving licence. How will the Government inform those young people of options such as a citizen card, which they can get for free? Is the Minister looking at age verification at app store level as a means not only of more reliable protection of children, but of reducing friction for adults accessing social media?
Of course, we have to accept that no system is foolproof, but that does not mean that we should take no action. Having effective controls and penalties, which the chief executive of Ofcom spoke about in media interviews last week, will reduce the likelihood of under-16s being exposed to damaging content, which is our objective.
Finally, in September, the Secretary of State made a statement regarding nude images and said that due to the lack of progress on voluntary measures, legislation would be introduced to “strengthen device-level protections” to prevent
“children from taking, sharing or viewing nude images on phones and tablets.”—[Official Report, 8 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 917.]
What progress has there been in the last two months to prepare that legislation, or indeed secure commitments from major tech companies to develop and implement such protections to stop children being abused and groomed?
Our role as legislators is to ensure that the laws we pass are necessary, effective and proportionate. Protecting children from harm is a duty that all Members take incredibly seriously wherever they fall on this specific issue. The public consultation and the conversations that I have had show that there is support for action to introduce effective age-based access to social media as part of wider measures to protect children. Now the focus must be on getting the implementation right.
The Minister for Creative Industries, Media and Online Safety (Ian Murray)
It is a great pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Mrs Hobhouse. It has been a superb debate. I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) on introducing this e-petition debate. It has been a very thoughtful debate, and rightly so, because questions about children, social media and online safety go right to the heart of family life in this country.
I have two young girls aged six and one. Although they are not yet at the stage of social media and telephones, the daily fight to get them off screens at that age requires the diplomatic skills of the UN, because screens are everywhere. As parents we probably set the worst examples. Our whole lives are on our phones now, whether we are at work or trying to do family admin. We all live in a digital age where we are more connected than ever before. Being online can bring huge benefits, from making new connections to learning new skills. I pay great tribute to Leo and his colleagues for setting up this petition and getting the issues brought into the public domain, while we highlight the trade-offs that the Government have to make to keep children safe.
I want to be absolutely clear from the start that children are at risk of real harm online. Those risks have been present for some time, and successive Governments have failed to regulate to keep children safe online. As the Secretary of State has made clear, our ambition is not simply to make the online world safer, but to enable and empower children and young people to use it safely. That requires an active Government who are prepared to step in when children are being harmed, but also to step in to give children alternative uses for both the online and offline world. We are not starting from scratch. The Online Safety Act introduces one of the most robust systems globally for protecting children from harm online. It is important to state that the Act is not perfect, but everything that we do beyond this builds on the Act. It is one of the most robust pieces of legislation globally to try to protect children from harm.
I take on board the criticisms and points made by the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (James Wild) and other Members about the Ofcom analysis, which showed that over the first nine months it had not seen a major reduction in online harms among children. None the less, we can prove the counterfactual that there has not been a massive increase, so perhaps the Online Safety Act is working to the extent of not increasing the harms. However, we want to get the harms to the lowest possible level.
We have to be honest: we will never deal with 100% of harms. What we are trying to do with the Online Safety Act and all the regulations on top of that—the under-16 social media ban, features and functionalities bans, and AI chatbot restrictions—is layer on as much as we possibly can to increase the number of harms we can take out of the system. We will never get to 100%, though, and we have to be honest about that.
The Online Safety Act’s child safety duties came into effect in July 2025, requiring platforms to prevent children from encountering pornography, self-harm material and suicide and eating disorders content. Providers must also protect children from other types of harmful content such as violent content and bullying and abusive content. But we always knew we had to do much more. That is why earlier this year we launched the “Growing up in the online world” consultation to hear directly from parents, experts, stakeholders and, more important, young people themselves. The wider public also had to be involved in deciding how we can make the online world safer and more enriching for our young people.
The consultation received more than 116,000 responses. Nine in 10 parents who responded told us they support a ban on social media for their children. The analysis showed they were screaming out for help, to go to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith). Although what we heard from young people themselves was more nuanced, two thirds of children who responded to the consultation told us that they would support age restrictions for under-16s on at least some social media. Ofcom’s latest research found that almost three quarters of children aged 11 to 17 had seen or heard potentially harmful content online in a four-week period, including six in 10 who encountered bullying and five in 10 who encountered hate content directly.
We believe that social media services create unique risks for children, and while many of them have made welcome changes, they have not gone far or fast enough to keep our children safe. We think that the responsible thing to do is ban social media companies from offering services to children under 16, but it does not stop there. This is not about stopping children from going online altogether; it is about making sure that the services they use are safe and suitable. To make these changes work, companies will be required to use highly effective age assurance that is backed by Ofcom’s robust enforcement powers.
Sam Carling
I appreciate the Minister’s tone and the different considerations he is bringing in, but does he agree that it is very difficult to define social media? We have a definition in the traditional sense, but there are social platforms now that operate primarily on an anonymous basis instead of having identities behind them, and there are online gaming platforms and so on. How do the Government propose to deal with the fact that social media is a very loose term now?
Ian Murray
That goes to the heart of the problem, because social media is indeed a very loose term. Platforms that might have been out of scope are perhaps being brought into scope by having new functionalities that we might think are different from the social media platforms we are seeking to regulate. For example, Spotify has introduced stranger conversation functionality to its platform. Does that mean that it comes within scope? It depends how social media is defined and whether platforms are morphing into something different. For example, when Facebook was first introduced, it was a service for bringing university students together and letting them communicate with each other. It is now a worldwide content platform where anyone in the world—billions of people—can sign up for an account, interact with each other and upload their own content, which can be served through algorithms; of course, every bit of it is monetised. My hon. Friend is right that technology is moving very quickly, as is the definition of social media, and that is why the regulations have to be flexible enough to deal with some of those harms. I will return to the question of scope shortly.
To answer the question asked by the hon. Member for North West Norfolk, the first regulations will be laid before Parliament before the start of the Christmas recess, with restrictions coming into effect in spring next year. While social media services pose a unique risk, there are, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) said, other services that children can access that have many of the same harmful functions. That is why we are also preventing under-16s from accessing some of the riskier features. They will not be able to livestream themselves or communicate with strangers on a wide range of services, including gaming. We call this the Australia-plus model because we are bringing in gaming, which is not included in the restrictions there. 16 and 17-year-olds will have those protections applied by default. There will be no cliff edge on the adult social media experience: when they hit 16, restrictions will be applied by default when they enter an account until they are 18.
We will introduce default protections for 16 and 17-year-olds on persuasive features on social media such as autoplay and personalised feeds to support young people to manage their time online. We will also apply default overnight curfews, including muting push notifications. Many Members have mentioned the other features and functions on social media that are addictive but may not be as harmful as the really extreme harms, such as child sexual exploitation or some of the other stories we hear. There is a spectrum of harms, including the addictive nature of social media, the lack of sleep from using it and the neurological difficulties it is causing in the adolescent brain—that is why social media companies design them that way. In fact, there is a Science and Technology Committee hearing tomorrow morning on the neuroscience of childhood and how social media is affecting children. It is worth looking into these big issues, and that is why we are applying overnight curfews to try to combat the impact on sleep and attention as part of the social media defaults, including muting push notifications.
These protections will sit alongside a wider package of measures including stronger safeguards around AI chatbots and measures to promote a more positive and educational experience both online and offline. We want children to enjoy the benefits of the online world but give parents the confidence that they can do that safely. We know that regulation alone is not enough. We must also help children and young people to build media literacy and critical thinking skills to navigate the online world safely and prepare them for an increasingly digital future.
I have spent a lot of time in schools in my constituency talking to 11 to 15-year-olds about the social media ban. I think hon. Members are absolutely right to suggest that we do not give young people enough credit for their understanding of dangers online. They understand when there are things online that they should not be seeing. They are very much aware of bullying and of those addictive features, and we do not give them enough credit for being able to navigate this themselves.
We are therefore strengthening digital resilience and media literacy through changes in the curriculum and practical support for parents and carers, while helping children and families to access high-quality online content. This is about building on the protections that we already have and going further where children need us to. The Government cannot and will not look the other way. We must move more quickly and decisively to keep people safe online, and nowhere is that responsibility more important than in protecting children from harm.
Since I took on my online safety role in the reshuffle, I have spent a lot of time with grieving families. I encourage all Members of this House—Ministers, Cabinet members, Back Benchers and those who are just interested in this issue—to spend some time with the grieving families to hear directly from them how social media has impacted their family life. They have some incredibly difficult stories that are harrowing to hear, but I think all Members should hear them. The test for the Secretary of State and me is that if we get to the end of this process and find that all these regulations would not have saved their children from the harms that led to their deaths, we will have failed their children and failed to protect the children of the future from harm. That is a very high bar, but it is a bar we have to meet, because the social media companies have not. Over years, if not decades, they have consistently turned the other way, and they are starting to take action only because they realise that legislation is coming to restrict accounts for under-16s.
Our job as a Government is to build an online world that is safer and more responsible, where platforms take responsibility. If we ask more of the online world, we should also offer more in the real world: stronger communities, better youth provision and more trusted adults around young people. Safety is not just about what we block; it is also about what we build, and we are determined to do that.
I will run through some of the interesting and important questions that hon. Members have raised. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe, who introduced the debate with a tremendous speech, talked about age-gating and the Australian example. What Australia has not done—we have been learning this from Australia—is have highly effective age verification. That is the gateway to making sure that the ban works. Many hon. Members have rightly challenged me, as the Minister responsible, on what that will look like. We are looking at this at the moment. Should it be at the app store level, as the shadow Minister said? Should it be at the device level? Should it be at the level of each individual social media platform? We are working through those issues to see what the most effective option is, but the principle for us is to ask, “What is the most effective system of age verification to ensure that under-16s are protected from social media platforms?”
My hon. and learned Friend talked rightly about the risky parts of gaming. We are bringing gaming into our approach, through features and functions. We will pass the under-16s social media ban this side of the new year, and it will come into effect in the spring of next year; we will then bring forward a host of regulations on features and functions, including stranger communications, which is the biggest problem with Roblox and some of the other issues that hon. Members have raised. That will allow gamers to continue to have the functionality of stranger pairing, but without the ability to talk to strangers in a gaming context. That should resolve some of these issues. A lot of the harms are where vulnerable people are taken from the gaming environment to other platforms, in order for grooming and exploitation to continue. That is a commitment of the features and functions part of this, which overlays the social media ban.
I will talk a little about isolating young people, because that is always on my mind; I know the Secretary of State thinks about it a lot as well. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire, who is the baby of the House—I was hoping to be the baby of this debate, but I have been beaten by probably everybody else in the Chamber—for telling his personal story, which is a very brave thing to do. Isolation is a concern, particularly for vulnerable communities, but from the data and information that we have, we are seeing that the most vulnerable young people are the most susceptible to being involved in these harms.
The balance here is about whether we have these spaces where young, vulnerable people can seek that advice or the communities that they wish to be part of and where they can have that enrichment, or whether we protect them. On balance, protecting people is probably the best place to be, while enriching the offer that we can give young people so that they are confident that they can go to safe spaces with safe people they can talk to about their experiences. This is not an easy thing to resolve. If anyone said it was, they would not be telling the truth.
Let us talk a little about the way back. Essentially, it all comes down to the scope of the social media ban. What we want to do with the ban, which we announced in June, is capture user-to-user platforms whose purpose is to enable online interaction and which allow users to post material, alongside having an algorithm. The Australian regime includes platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. We will not be naming platforms directly in the regulations. Ofcom will subsequently apply the regulations to the social media companies and then determine whether it will produce a list of the companies that are in scope. I will explain what Ofcom will do in the regulations and what the thought processes are. Social media companies that think that they are in scope and that have more than a certain number of users will have to self-notify to Ofcom as being in scope of the legislation, and then conform to the regulations. We are working through the detail of how we translate the Australian scope into the UK context, and it is really important to get this right within that.
Several hon. Members talked about the regulations, about meeting the criteria and about what the off-ramp is. Essentially, the off-ramp or the way back is for platforms to prove, through their design, that they meet the regulations. It is just a case of reversing the situation. If stranger communication is banned and your online platform is subsequently not to be available to under-16s but you have that functionality, it is quite clear that you do not comply with the regulations, so the way back is to comply with the regulations and fall out of scope. That is an easy thing to say but not an easy thing to deliver, but that is the principle with which we will go forward on this.
If there are services like Lego Play or—YouTube has been mentioned—YouTube Kids, are there ways in which you can stop the harms being created by the algorithms, the recommender systems, the commenting systems or the conversations that can be had with strangers? If you have created a service that complies with all the regulations, is it then available to under-16s? I would say that currently the Government’s position is that, yes, there has to be an off-ramp, and the Canada model is something that we are looking at quite closely in terms of its regulations.
Tony Vaughan
Can I just clarify something? Is the off-ramp part of the features and functions piece, which is post spring, or will that be part of the ban in the regulations that will be put before Parliament before December?
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Order. Before the Minister replies, may I encourage everybody to speak through the Chair? I do not want to be too pompous about it, but the convention is that the debate goes this way, not that way. Before you start a conversation among yourselves, please remember that.
Ian Murray
Mine too, Mrs Hobhouse. It was such an engaging conversation that we were trying to have with each other, so I do apologise.
I suppose the simple answer to the question is, “We don’t quite know yet, but probably not.” And this is the answer to the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Frome and East Somerset (Anna Sabine), in terms of time. When we announced we were going forward with the ban, we had to have a legislative vehicle to put this through. The difficulty with that is this: we took the powers, in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026, to put the regulations through. That means that we can do it quickly, and that is why we can make the commitment to do it this side of the end of the year. That then means that we have to make a whole body of potential legislation, in statutory instruments, in one go in December, which is not an easy feat if we want to get this right. I think the discussion about what the way back looks like will have to be a future discussion, probably alongside the features and functions part of the debate later on, after spring next year, when this is being implemented. That is not entirely settled yet, but given what we have to try to achieve by December, it is probably the only way to be able to put that in place.
Dr Arthur
I am just trying to get the sequencing right in my head. The Government are going to put regulations before Parliament before the end of the year. We all welcome that. Will it include Ofcom’s thinking about individual platforms, or do we have to wait for that? If we have to wait, when will we hear from Ofcom on that point?
Ian Murray
Let me go through the timeline, because it is really important. The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act gives us the power to make the regulations. We will make the regulations in December this year. These will come into effect in late spring, and by the time they come into effect, Ofcom will have to have done the work in terms of implementing the regulations, bringing the platforms that are in scope into scope and then starting to enforce what needs to be done. But there will have to be an implementation period after Ofcom has developed the guidance and what must be done on enforcement, so the day from which under-16s will no longer be able to access social media will be in late spring. Between December and late spring, Ofcom will develop the guidance required to implement the regulations. Throughout that process, we will be working on the features and functions, which relate to things like the stranger communications that I have already laid out.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury spoke about her own daughter and about a phone being on her Christmas list. I think the 116,000 responses to the consultation were just parents crying out for the necessary tools. The Labour party conference had many panels on online safety, and the example that was always used was alcohol licensing. Many of us will have a bottle of alcohol in the house; we know that under-18s are not allowed to drink it, but that does not stop some of them doing so. The tools cannot be foolproof, but they give parents the ability to say, “That is harmful to your health. It is harmful to children, and there are laws in place to say you can access that only when you are over the age of 18.” That gives parents the ability to draw a line in the sand, and I think a lot of them are crying out for the tools to help make those decisions.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has put a lot of thought into what is happening on offline activities at the same time. We cannot have a situation in which the online world is restricted for under-16s but there is nothing for the offline world. We have put over £500 million into the Youth Matters fund to refurbish or build 250 new facilities, as well as a £22.5 million investment over three years to support up to 400 schools to provide youth-tailored enrichment schemes. We have made a major investment in the Youth Matters national youth strategy, a 10-year plan to ensure that every young person has somewhere to go, something to do and someone who cares. I think part of having someone who cares is about the ability to open up to someone who is not a parent, which allows a young person to have some of the difficult conversations that they may have sought to have online.
We heard about the nine-point plan of my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington), who is no longer in her place. She has been right at the forefront in trying to see what a way back looks like and what it needs to be effective. I encourage Members to look at that nine-point plan and see the neuroscience event tomorrow that my hon. Friend will be part of as a member of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.
My constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), demonstrated what is in his own inbox, which is probably a demonstration of what all our inboxes looked like around the country following the consultation. He highlighted a number of civil society organisations that have very strong views on this issue, one way or the other: they either support or do not support the ban, or they may reluctantly support a ban because something needs to be done. The challenge that the Government face in developing these regulations can be seen not only from this afternoon’s debate, but from what has been said by all the civil society organisations out there. I pay tribute to them all; many of them, such as the Molly Rose Foundation, have been set up on the back of tragedy and in horrendous circumstances. There is no one solution that they are proposing, and it is therefore the Government’s responsibility to find the best way forward that keeps children safe online and has the maximum benefit.
I will finish by mentioning a few more of my hon. Friends who raised some really good questions. We heard about international comparisons and the EU KIDS Act from my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Cat Eccles). We are basing all our evidence on international comparisons. Of course, we have the Australia model, which we talk about a lot, but the Canada model is currently being developed, and there is also the EU KIDS Act, which I was in Brussels talking about just last month. Those international comparisons will certainly affect what we think about, and the Council of Europe is right on this issue. I sat on the Council of Europe many years ago, and it will do a lot of great work in developing both the right of the child and the human right of access and protection from harm, including the protection of children from harm.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth Moor View (Fred Thomas), who is a fantastic resource on this issue, and I thank him for how he has been able to help us develop some of these regulations. Being online has huge benefits for young people, such as the ability to learn the guitar, like my hon. Friend—perhaps he should have given us a little song this afternoon to see whether his YouTube tutorials actually worked.
We often get questions like that—what will people do if they want to try to learn to play the guitar? Again, I emphasise that we are not banning people from being online, and we are not banning children from being online. Logged-out features can be used. If online platforms such as YouTube want to come forward with a new or redesigned platform that complies with the regulations, and wish to test whether they could be removed from scope, it is up to them to do so. In fact, we have been crying out for platforms to do that for many years. We have ended up in this position because they have not complied or had any intent to comply. They must comply with the regulations that are put in place.
I will finish with why we are doing this. I talked about the grieving families. I have a whole folder of their stories in front of me, and the harm is there for all to see. There are extreme cases of child sexual exploitation, children who have had to be taken into safeguarding because of their online experiences, or children who have died. Some of the stories are unpalatable, if we think about our own children; the Government have a responsibility to act.
As the Secretary of State said in the House on introducing the under-16 ban, social media companies have not done enough to keep children safe online. The Ofcom analysis shows that they are still not doing enough. The Government have to step in. We do not want to ban people from doing things. We do not want to ban under-16s from being on social media, but that is the only way in which we can protect children from its harms. We are determined to ensure that children have an enriched experience online, and that media literacy and the education system allow them that experience, but also that they have an enriched experience offline. I think the Secretary of State describes it as giving children their childhood back, which is a really good way of putting it.
Let the message today to Leo and all the petitioners be a really positive one: we hear their concerns, but we back parents, we believe in young people and we are determined to make the online world work better for them. That is the task we have to do between now and December, and it is the responsibility of not just the Government, but all Members. I re-emphasise what the Secretary of State has set as the benchmark: we have to be able to look those grieving families in the eye and say that we have done all we possibly can to make the online world a safer place, so that other people’s children do not end up like their children did. If we can achieve that, we will have achieved something not just for this generation, but for future generations as well.
Tony Vaughan
I thank Leo and all the 217,682 signatories to the petition, as well as all hon. Members who spoke today. Each speaker agreed that the Government need to be tougher on social media companies and to crack down on harmful and addictive features, which we all agree that children should not be subject to.
The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) spoke powerfully about the impact of eating disorder content. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) shared nine solutions, including on algorithmic feeds and other things that should be cut out. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth Moor View (Fred Thomas) quoted numerous statistics about social media companies crowding out young people’s time and having awful impacts on them.
We all agree that the status quo is not acceptable. The reality is that, today, under-16s across the country are subject to these platforms. The Ofcom report, which many Members referred to, acknowledges that children’s access to these platforms is not materially reducing. I support a ban, but with a possible off-ramp where, if social media companies can show that their products are safe, we should allow children to access them. I accept the premise of Leo’s petition, which is that young people should have access to social media if it is safe and can safely provide a place of connection, community and support. It is important that we as parliamentarians acknowledge that, and that young people do not feel that we are paternalistically telling them what they should be able to do.
The reality, however, is that with these platforms in their current form, we cannot wait. We cannot allow our children to continue to be subject to those harms while we work out how to force social media companies to clean up their act. In fact, the ban will drive innovation. If those companies ultimately want to allow children to access them, the ban will drive them to find products that are safe and suitable for children.
My hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling), and others, made the important point about regulating harms rather than platforms. I understood that the Minister ultimately agreed with that analysis.
Wera Hobhouse (in the Chair)
Order. May I remind the hon. and learned Member that a winding-up speech is not a new speech? It is two minutes. If he could come to an end, that would be great.
Tony Vaughan
I think we have a lot more consensus than we did at the start of the debate, and I again thank the petitioners and everyone who spoke. Let us hope that this Labour Government will deliver the change that we have all been waiting for on this issue.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 757233 relating to the proposed ban on social media for under 16s.
Written Correction
Ministerial Correction
Work and Pensions
(2 days ago)
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Andrew Western
… Last Monday, the professional and business services jobs plan set out an aspiration to deliver 100,000 jobs in the coming years, including 22,400 apprenticeships.
[Official Report, 26 October 2026; Vol. 792, c. 148.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for Employment, the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western):
Andrew Western
… Last Monday, the professional and business services jobs plan set out an aspiration to deliver 22,400 apprenticeships for under-25s each year for the next five years.
Written Statements
Employment Rights Act 2025: Implementation
(2 days ago)
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The Minister for the Future of Work (Kate Dearden)
Employment laws have not kept pace with modern working patterns. Too many workers lack the protections they need at work, while responsible businesses face unfair competition from those willing to exploit gaps in outdated employment laws. The plan to make work pay is modernising employment rights to respond to a changing labour market and create a fairer, more secure economy for workers and businesses. More than 18 million employees are expected to benefit from the new protections. We are delivering these reforms in partnership with businesses, trade unions, public sector employers and civil society through extensive engagement and consultation, helping to ensure that the changes work in practice for employers and workers.
Following my most recent update to Parliament, the UK Government are today announcing further progress in the implementation of the Employment Rights Act, as part of the plan to make work pay with the launch of a consultation on a new code of practice for fire and rehire alongside the publication of Government responses on enhanced protections for pregnant workers, and fire and rehire regulations.
Consultation and Government response 1: fire and rehire
The Employment Rights Act 2025 will make it automatically unfair to dismiss an employee in order to change certain core contract terms. These terms include reductions to pay or leave, changes to working hours or pension arrangements, or specified changes to shift patterns—restricted variations. To avoid unnecessary redundancies, the measures will not apply to employers who meet a narrow exemption for financial difficulties.
A consultation on “fire and rehire—changes to expenses, benefits and shift patterns” ran from 4 February to 1 April 2026. It sought views on which expenses and benefits should be excluded from the scope of the restricted variation of reductions to pay, and whether there are any types of shift pattern changes that should also be protected as a restricted variation.
The Government response confirms the final policy approach for drafting the regulations:
Expenses and benefits in kind will be excluded from the restricted variation of definition of sums payable to an employee in connection with the employment, aside from a defined list, to include, travel and accommodation expenses incurred in performance of your role and long-term accommodation as a benefit in kind.
Only extreme, as defined, shift pattern changes—day to night and vice versa, and weekday to weekend and vice versa—are in scope of the restricted variation of the timing or duration of a shift.
The Government response was published on 22 October 2026 and, subject to debates in Parliament, regulations will come into force in March 2027.
The Government are committed to ending the scourges of fire and rehire, and fire and replace. We will actively monitor how the fire and rehire provisions operate in practice on an ongoing basis, including the extent to which the new legislation shapes employer approaches and organisational behaviour. If fire and rehire practices continue, the Government will act urgently to put a stop to them. This includes, where needed, making use of powers in the Employment Rights Act to legislate, including by expanding the scope of restricted variations. Likewise, the Government would be prepared to put in place further legislative measures in order to meet our commitment to end fire and rehire, and fire and replace—including the introduction of interim injunctions and interim relief.
The Employment Rights Act 2025 aims to tackle unscrupulous fire and rehire, and fire and replace, practices. The Government are consulting on the draft of the code of practice on dismissal and re-engagement, which provides practical guidance on preventing, managing and resolving conflict and dispute when contract changes cannot be agreed and an employer is considering making unilateral changes to contract terms. The code outlines how the statutory protections against fire and rehire, and fire and replace, are expected to apply. It also sets expectations for reasonable conduct from all parties.
This consultation will be open for eight weeks, closing on 17 December 2026. The existing code of practice on fire and rehire will be revoked simultaneously to the regulations coming into force in March 2027. The new code will come into effect in summer 2027.
Government response 2: enhanced protections for pregnant workers
Despite existing legal protections related to pregnancy and maternity, many women continue to face a significant and unique risk to their job security during pregnancy, maternity leave, and in their return to work. In our plan to make work pay, we committed to strengthening protections for pregnant women by making it unlawful to dismiss a woman who is pregnant, on maternity leave or has recently returned to work, except in specific circumstances. The Employment Rights Act 2025 provides powers for the Government to make provision about dismissal during or after the protected period of pregnancy and we intend to use these powers to fulfil the make work pay commitment to strengthen dismissal protections for pregnant women and new mothers.
The Government consulted on proposals to strengthen dismissal protections from 23 October 2025 to 15 January 2026. The consultation sought views on how enhanced dismissal protections for pregnant women, new mothers and other new parents should operate in practice. This included in what circumstances dismissal should be allowed, when the protections should start and end, and how the framework should apply across different forms of family leave. It also invited views on implementation considerations, including on guidance, awareness and support for employers.
The Government response was published on 22 October and sets out the final policy decisions and its next steps for implementation. Measures set out in the response include:
Strengthening the legal framework governing dismissal during the protected period; andensuring comparable protections are available to employees taking other qualifying forms of leave.
When implemented, these reforms will help to ensure that dismissal during the protected period is proportionate and is considered only after employers have appropriately explored reasonable alternatives. The stricter legal standard will create stronger protections against dismissal for pregnant women, new mothers and other new parents, and will fairly balance employer and employee interests.
The detail of the enhanced dismissal protections will be delivered in secondary legislation, and the Government intend for the measures to come into force in October 2027.
Next steps for consultation
The Government have committed to delivering this change in partnership with businesses, trade unions, employers and civil society. That is why we are undertaking full and comprehensive consultation with these groups on key changes. By delivering this change together, we are backing businesses that do the right thing, and giving hard-working people the job security and opportunities they deserve. The Government will continue to keep Parliament updated on the implementation of the Employment Rights Act and the plan to make work pay.
[HCWS435]
UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly: Appointments
(2 days ago)
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The Minister for Intergovernmental Relations and European Relations (Mr Hamish Falconer)
My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Julia Buckley) has been appointed as a full representative of the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly in place of my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford and Bow (Uma Kumaran).
My hon. Friend the Member for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan) has been appointed as a full representative of the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly in place of my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Catherine Atkinson).
My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) has been appointed as a substitute representative of the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly in place of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham Northfield (Laurence Turner).
[HCWS436]
Office for Nuclear Regulation: Executive Powers Annual Report
(2 days ago)
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The Minister for Energy (Michael Shanks)
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has today published the annual report setting out the use of the Secretary of State’s powers exercised in respect of the Office for Nuclear Regulation during the year 2025-26. This is in accordance with section 108 of the Energy Act 2013.
[HCWS437]
NATO Parliamentary Assembly: Appointment
(2 days ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Uma Kumaran)
My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Europe, International Security & Growth (Lord Wood of Anfield) has today made the following statement:
The hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin MP) has been appointed as a member of the United Kingdom delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in place of the hon. Member for Widnes and Halewood (Derek Twigg MP).
[HCWS438]
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: Appointments
(2 days ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Uma Kumaran)
My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Europe, International Security & Growth (Lord Wood of Anfield) has today made the following statement:
The hon. Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Sharon Hodgson MP) has been appointed as a full member of the United Kingdom delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in place of the hon. Member for Sherwood Forest (Michelle Welsh MP).
The hon. Member for Wrexham (Andrew Ranger MP) has been appointed as a substitute member of the United Kingdom delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in place of the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Elaine Stewart MP).
[HCWS440]
Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE: Appointments
(2 days ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Uma Kumaran)
My noble Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Europe, International Security and Growth (Lord Wood of Anfield) has today made the following statement:
The hon. Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon MP) has been appointed as a full representative of the United Kingdom Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in place of the right hon. Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley MP).
The hon. Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon MP) has also been appointed as Leader of the United Kingdom Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
The hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter MP) has been appointed as a full representative of the United Kingdom Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in place of the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh MP).
The Lord Moraes OBE has been appointed as a full representative of the United Kingdom Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in place of the Lord Hannett of Everton OBE.
The Lord Watts has been appointed as a full representative of the United Kingdom Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in place of the right hon. Baroness Winterton of Doncaster DBE.
The Lord John of Southwark OBE has been appointed as a substitute member of the United Kingdom Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in place of the Baroness Ramsey of Wall Heath.
[HCWS439]
Transport Resilience Strategy
(2 days ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Keir Mather)
I want to inform the House that my Department has published the transport resilience strategy today.
Transport is vital to our way of life. It connects people to family and jobs, and goods to industry, and it supports connectivity, economic growth and health. A secure and resilient transport system is essential to thriving communities and to delivering economic growth across every part of the UK.
The resilience action plan, published in July 2025, set out this Government’s strategic approach to building resilience in an increasingly volatile and uncertain world. This transport resilience strategy puts that approach into practice for the transport sector, setting our direction for the next five to 10 years.
The threats and hazards facing our transport system are becoming increasingly complex and unpredictable. Its interconnectedness means that disruption in one place can quickly have consequences elsewhere, affirming the importance of building resilience across the system overall. Recent events show that resilience cannot be treated as an optional extra; it is vital to the operations of businesses and transport operators. But resilient infrastructure and robust plans are only part of the answer. While we will continue to embrace automation and advances in digital technology to improve safety and effectiveness, transport remains a people-dependent system. Therefore, it is vital that people within the transport system are equipped with the knowledge, capabilities and tools necessary to keep transport moving. By ensuring that everyone knows their role and how it impacts the continuing resilience of the transport system, and by ensuring that transport users are prepared and armed with the right information, we can reduce the likelihood of disruption and lessen its impact when it occurs.
To help achieve this, the strategy aims to better assess ongoing transport resilience to identify and target areas for improvement, enable the whole system—including transport users—to take action to improve resilience, and strengthen Government resilience capabilities. It makes 22 practical commitments to improve transport resilience, including on the delivery of a new training initiative, the transport resilience academy, and on the establishment of a sector-wide transport resilience network. Through these initiatives, we will strengthen collaboration, connections and systemwide understanding across the transport system, local partners and other sectors, enabling them to share evidence and best practice and address common risks together.
Transport resilience is a whole-Government, whole-sector, and whole-society endeavour. No single organisation can deliver it alone. As the Minister responsible for transport resilience, I am pleased to present a strategy that sets out how we will work together over the coming years to strengthen the resilience of our transport system, protect the connections on which people and businesses depend, and ultimately improve the everyday experience of those who use our networks.
The strategy has been developed with stakeholders from across Government and the transport system. I am grateful to everyone who contributed their experience and evidence. The transport resilience strategy has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses and is available on www.gov.uk.
[HCWS441]
Retirement of a Member: Lord Shipley
The Lord Speaker (Lord Forsyth of Drumlean)
My Lords, I should like to notify the House of the retirement, with effect from 31 October, of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, pursuant to Section 1 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. On behalf of the House, I thank the noble Lord for his much-valued service to the House.
Nationally Significant Cultural Institutions: Capital Maintenance Costs
(2 days ago)
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Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie
To ask His Majesty’s Government, in the light of the reported repair requirements of the Royal Opera House, what support they intend to provide to nationally significant cultural institutions facing substantial capital maintenance costs.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I draw the House’s attention to my relevant interests, particularly as a board member of Creative Scotland and a former board member and current sub-committee member of the British Library.
Baroness in Waiting/Government Whip (Baroness Dacres of Lewisham) (Lab)
This Government are committed to supporting our world-renowned cultural institutions. Fit-for-purpose infrastructure is vital to that success, which is why we are investing £1.5 billion to address the capital needs of cultural organisations across England. Through our creative foundations fund, the Royal Opera House has been awarded £5 million this year for urgent conservation work and structural repair, safeguarding that premier venue and supporting its progress towards net zero.
Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)
My Lords, the creative foundations fund, while welcome, will not address the stark capital crisis identified by the noble Baroness, Lady Hodge. Where is the longer-term strategic approach, and what can the Minister say in response to the sector, which has called last week’s Budget a missed opportunity, ignoring calls for theatre tax relief to cover the true cost of touring and excluding theatres from business rates reductions? Rather than giving institutions such as the Royal Opera House breathing space, are these short-term measures not more likely to suffocate ballet, opera and theatres?
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
This Government are deeply committed to supporting our world-renowned venues of culture and visual arts. It is important to mention that it has been over a decade since this sector has seen such investment in it—£1.5 billion of investment in arts and culture has definitely raised the bar and it is there to help all the different bodies within the sector. It is also important that there is £425 million in the creative foundations fund, which helps to support capital need, which is challenging for a great number of these industries.
Baroness Elliott of Whitburn Bay (Lab)
My Lords, I welcome the investment that this Government are making in Britain’s cultural infrastructure, not just at the Royal Opera House but at venues across the country. However, given the Prime Minister’s commitment to devolving powers to regional and local government, can my noble friend comment on whether we can expect further devolution of powers in arts and culture?
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
This Government are dedicated and committed to devolution of power, resources and decision-making to the heart of our communities. This is why mayors are empowered through the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act to have strategic control over regional cultural investments. As I said, that brings the decision-making closer to those able to see, witness and experience our arts and culture, which we are extremely proud of, and we welcome that.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)
My Lords, last week I saw “The Standard of Living”, about that great Liberal and founder of the Arts Council, Maynard Keynes. Forget the maintenance—he actually built a theatre for his wife. We can no longer build but we need to maintain, and we on these Benches believe he knew a thing or two about the need for intervention for economic renewal. The majority of venues on the theatres at risk register are regional, such as Cambridge. Will the Minister make the case to the Treasury for extending the pubs and live music venues business rates relief in England to theatres?
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
This Government are dedicated to supporting the arts, including the visual arts and the organisations that the noble Baroness mentioned. We had a Budget focused on giving that breathing space not only to individuals and families but to businesses, and that includes our arts, visual culture and music venues. That is something that our Government will continue to support, not only through the £1.5 billion of funding across this Parliament but through the £425 million from the creative foundations fund.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the best ways in which not just the Royal Opera House but other arts and cultural organisations could be supported would be to write off the Covid loans or turn them into non-repayable grants? That is how it was set up for Germany’s institutions, which have long left the Covid era behind them, whereas our organisations still have to pay massive amounts of interest, harmful to our arts, harmful to the organisations concerned and destructive to society, since this is our money which is being moved around in such a detrimental fashion.
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
I thank the noble Earl, because he raises an interesting point. I remind the House that this Government were resolute that such recovery funds were loans and should be cleared and repaid. Organisations facing severe financial difficulties can approach the Arts Council to explore adjusting repayment schedules, but this needs to be done under strict guidance and be a measure of last resort.
Lord Mendoza (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of Historic England. In 2024, DCMS put out the Purcell report, looking at the deficit of maintenance in our cultural infrastructure. It came up with a figure of some £7 billion. One of our biggest problems is that we need the skilled labour to do this work. At Historic England, we estimate that about 100,000 jobs could be created for young people. We need desperately to get these skills in there, because there are companies out there that cannot take on the jobs even if we could pay for them, and only 14% of companies in the heritage construction sector employ people under the age of 25. Does the Minister agree that it would be wonderful if we could incentivise the construction sector to take on apprentices, to take on young people to teach them the skills that we need in this country to produce economic growth in this incredibly important sector?
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
I agree 100% with what the noble Lord said, which is why this Government are putting all their effort into ensuring that we are getting that talent pipeline. We have specialist heritage apprenticeships and national arts education pipelines to ensure just that.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, more generally in relation to opera, will my noble friend remind the party opposite that it was under its watch that the Arts Council was pressurised into basically defunding much of English National Opera’s support? It reduced the amount of money for opera touring. If we are looking seriously at devolution, can we ask the Arts Council to re-examine its approach to traditional opera, and to touring opera in particular?
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
My noble friend raises an interesting point. The Arts Council is doing a lot of work when it comes to innovative funding. That was one of the main points of the Hodge review. Not only that but we are making sure that we are putting that investment in now, with £1.5 billion through our Arts Everywhere fund, ensuring that everyone, everywhere, regardless of their socioeconomic background, has access to the arts.
Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)
My Lords, among our nationally significant cultural institutions are our great cathedrals and churches, yet many are at risk of closing their doors due to the costs of maintenance and repairs, such as Southwell Minster, which unsuccessfully applied to the places of worship renewal fund. What is more, the fund is for England only. Does the Minister recognise the cultural contribution of our places of worship across the UK? If so, will she look to restore the previous listed places of worship grant scheme, which was UK wide?
Baroness Dacres of Lewisham (Lab)
As the noble Baroness will know, a lot of this funding is devolved to the nations and regions. Our capital grant scheme offers more targeted support for the faith sector than the VAT rebate scheme that was mentioned. Over £230 million is being invested in such heritage buildings, with £42 million invested into the heritage revival fund. We must make sure that when different organisations, faiths and places of worship apply for grants, it is dealt with in a fair and balanced way, at arm’s length from the Government and by the Arts Council, so that it is devoid of political interference.
Defence Spending and Resilience
(2 days ago)
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Lord John of Southwark
To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in their national conversation on defence spending and resilience; and what are the outcomes of that conversation to date.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Lord Coaker) (Lab)
My Lords, the national conversation on defence and resilience is now under way across government, helping build public understanding of the threats we face and a whole-of-society approach to resilience. Outcomes include a national resilience public awareness campaign, deeper engagement with industry and local partners and stronger preparedness across government, business and communities, alongside refreshed national defence planning.
Lord John of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, it is clear from reports of increased sales of tinned food, bottled water, radios and torches that the Government’s message about national preparedness is getting through. However, are the Government confident that the public understand the level and seriousness of threats to our national security which prompted the Defence Secretary’s warnings on 22 October?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I thank my noble friend for his important question. The remarks made by the Defence Secretary and others have started the conversation, which is leading to that increased awareness. Does that mean that everyone is aware of the threats that we face? I think there is still a job of work to do with respect to that.
In particular, I do not think we are going to see Russian paratroopers in Southwark, but, in respect of the threat to Southwark and across the United Kingdom in terms of cyber attack, disruption to trade, misinformation, threats that we all need to understand and be prepared for, there is a lot of work to be done.
Lord Stirrup (CB)
My Lords, the national conversation on defence, such an important issue, cannot be just a series of rambling and random chats or sporadically issued propositions. It requires a coherent plan, driven from the top, properly resourced and appropriately targeted to the relevant audiences, the most important of which are Generation Z, who have the most difficulty understanding the need. Where is the plan?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
My right honourable friend in the other place, the Security Minister, with the support of the Defence Secretary, has announced the Be Ready campaign, which is a national resilience public awareness campaign. It has been built up with the devolved Administrations and local resilience forums. More than 500 organisations have signed up to help with the distribution of the advice that will be given to people. The national conversation will be a part of that.
The noble and gallant Lord will be pleased to know that social media will play a crucial part, to make sure that we do not just use the media that many of us listen to but the media that Generation Z and others listen to. That will be an important part of the plan.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, the newspapers are carrying reports of how other nations, and maybe this one as well, are expanding their defence spending without resort to government accounts, by using an expansion of the old PFI model, which obviously would be a great relief for the bond markets and relief from further upward pressure on interest rates, which is otherwise inevitable. Can the Minister tell us how we are getting on in that respect in this country, because we certainly need that kind of remedy?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
The noble Lord, with many of his friends on both sides of the Houses, has made important statements about the need to look for other ways of financing defence spending, whether that be through a defence bank, whether that be through national finance initiatives, or whether it be through all sorts of different mechanisms such as those. He will have heard the Chancellor last week say in the Budget Statement, laid out in the Budget book, that he intends to launch a consultation and review on how more of that sort of finance could be attracted, to support the defence spending that this country needs. He is hoping that will report as soon as possible.
Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)
My Lords, when Paddy Ashdown published his Humanitarian Emergency Response Review, he concluded that the people who were best able to cope with disasters were those who had been through them before and learned from them. In my own area of north-east Scotland, we have got used to sustained power cuts, and one of the worst storms we had did not just cut off power but all communications—digital, telephones, data and everything else—for days. What are the Government doing to co-ordinate the knowledge that we gain, at home and abroad, and ensure that all the relevant bodies in the private and public sector have access to all that and can give their training on the basis of experience?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
It is a very important question, and I hope the noble Lord heard some of the answer that I gave to the noble and gallant Lord, which was about working with the devolved Administrations. With Scotland, there has been a lot of consultation with the Scottish Government, but also with local organisations. The British Red Cross, for example, has been involved. Many of the authorities that are responsible for water and those that are responsible for some of the emergency services have been utilised. Alongside that, the noble Lord is right to point out the need to use volunteers and to use those who have the knowledge and experience that he speaks about. As part of that, we are engaging with local communities to build on that, so that they can be part of the conversation as well.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to my interest as chair of the National Preparedness Commission. Until the last couple of weeks, the national conversation has been conducted in whispers, so I am pleased that the volume has been turned up slightly. However, does my noble friend accept that any campaign of this sort has to be sustained and repeated, must be specific to the threats being faced at the time, and also needs to prompt a dialogue in local communities, on local streets and in local faith communities and so on as to how this should be done? Can he also tell us what thought has been given to how schools can be engaged in this, because engaging children means that the next generation will be more resilient and that pester power will take it back to their homes.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I agree with all that. The campaign certainly needs to be sustained and it needs to take place over a significant period of time. We need to involve all the community, and schools in particular. Discussions are under way with local forums, with local education bodies, with schools themselves and with teacher representatives, to try to understand what the best way is of doing that. The Government have been doing many of the things my noble friend has asked for for a considerable period of time. One of the things I am determined to do, as he will know from our conversations, is to try to speed it up a little bit. We will all have our individual examples. Many people here will perhaps know that I like to have my hair cut now and again. When I was having my hair cut, the local barbers engaged in a conversation with me about what they should do in terms of crisis, because they had heard about it on the radio. I thought that was a pretty good start, actually.
Baroness Goldie (Con)
My Lords, cadets and our reservists have a crucial role to play in this national conversation on defence and resilience, because they are, after all, the Armed Forces’ local presence throughout the entirety of the United Kingdom. In the light of that, and so that the reserve forces and cadets associations can continue their incredible work without distraction, will the Minister confirm that the Government will drop their policy of reorganisation of the RFCAs?
Lord Coaker (Lab)
No, I cannot confirm that. But I can confirm, as the noble Baroness knows and understands, that between Committee and Report I spent a significant amount of time talking to various bodies and Peers about the reorganisation that the Government are proposing and, alongside that, the protection of many of the things that the House raised, such as: regional representation on the national body; the role of lords-lieutenant and others being in the Bill; voting rights for the regional representatives on the new national body; making sure there are significant numbers of them on the national panel; and ensuring that three or so members from England will be on that body, and also from each of the devolved Administrations. I was asked time and again, “Could there be a representative from Scotland? Could there be a representative from Northern Ireland? Could there be a representative from Wales?” To each of those I voted yes. Although I cannot answer in the affirmative to the noble Baroness’s question, she will understand that I spent hours trying to get into in the Bill many of the things that she and others demanded to protect many things that noble Lords regard as important under the current structure.
Baroness Teather (LD)
My Lords, what practical steps do the Government intend to take to invest in supporting stronger local community bonds? Individualism and individual prepping will not really support local resilience. As we learned from Covid, those stronger community bonds will enable the most vulnerable people to be reached.
Lord Coaker (Lab)
I have been talking to the local resilience forums in England and to the devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland about the importance of involving local organisations. I also think—it is probably right to mention this now—that the involvement of the cadets, reserves and many other emergency and voluntary organisations in Remembrance Sunday is not only a perfect example of honouring those who have served and fallen in the past and who serve today but reminds us of the important bond that exists between the Armed Forces and the emergency services and local communities. It is crucial to our nation to ensure that that bond operates not just on Remembrance Sunday but throughout the year.
Personal Independence Payment and Universal Credit
(2 days ago)
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Baroness Spielman
To ask His Majesty’s Government what recent assessment they have made of trends in the level of people claiming Personal Independence Payment and Universal Credit.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Sherlock) (Lab)
My Lords, this Government are concerned about levels of economic inactivity in our society. It is crucial that our social security system supports and incentivises work. This Government will transform the system from one that writes people off to one that gives people the support and opportunities to live their fullest lives. That means supporting those who can work to do so while always protecting those with the most severe needs.
Baroness Spielman (Con)
My Lords, if the Minister agrees that work is the best route out of welfare dependency, why did the Budget contain no measures that the OBR judged would have a material effect on employment?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, the Question was about levels of PIP and universal credit, both of which were creations of the previous Conservative Government, under which levels of inactivity went through the roof. The Opposition want to look at what we have done; we have already taken steps to reform the system. We have rebalanced universal credit to reduce the gap between the standard rate and the health-related rate. We have invested in the right to try, given out employment support and launched the biggest crackdown on fraud and error in the social security system. This month, reports will come from the Timms and Milburn reviews and, after that, the Government will show how this system can be created into one that supports work and pushes forward. I urge the noble Baroness to watch this space.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, in last Thursday’s debate on PIP, I gave examples of websites that are helping people to game the system. While applicants are entitled to professional independent advice, at least two websites advise people to tell lies to pursue a fraudulent claim. What is the noble Baroness’s department doing about that?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
The noble Lord raises an important point. We are watching carefully and monitoring benefits-related content and emerging risks online, and we are working to ensure that people have access to appropriate support. In the coming weeks, we will also introduce a new code of practice that will clamp down on activity by claims management companies that are trying to get people to pay them to apply for benefits that they can get perfectly well for free. That simply is not there. If the noble Lord looks, he will see that our new “Don’t pay to claim” marketing campaign has already gone live. It will be out there between now and Christmas encouraging pensioners and those who support them not to pay anything for benefits that they can get for free. I am glad the noble Lord raised this: we are acting in this space and will keep monitoring it.
Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)
My Lords, the Question is about the trends in claims. I have not heard anything from the Minister about how the Government are looking at the trends and what they are doing to deal with those trends. It is just: “We are doing the same as we have done before”. There are trends, and I do not think they are being looked at carefully enough.
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
I apologise: clearly, I have not explained myself clearly enough. Let me try again, because we are absolutely not doing what used to happen. We are doing different things, and they are starting to have an effect. For example, when I say that we have rebalanced universal credit, what the previous Government did was to freeze the rates for universal credit but not for disability benefits. What then happened was that people were either driven into poverty or were diverted into sickness and disability benefits. What we have done is to rebalance universal credit. We have invested in right to try, so that people who are disabled can take a risk on work, knowing that if it does not work, they can still get support. Crucially, we are investing in employment support to help people to get out there and into work. If the noble Lord looks at the trends, the number of people who are economically inactive because of long-term sickness has been going up stratospherically; that rise has finally levelled off. That is the difference that we are beginning to make. We will not do this overnight. Nobody has ever fixed this overnight. Oppositions often pretend too; Governments do not. We are going to make a difference.
Baroness O’Grady of Upper Holloway (Lab)
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that Labour’s commitment to strengthen rights to flexible working will help to lower the barriers to employment that many people with disabilities and mental health problems have experienced? Does she agree that, rather than punishing people with health conditions, one of the best ways to get more money into the Exchequer is by improving dignity at work?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My noble friend raises a really important point. We know that many people would like to work but struggle to. We have to do a number of things. We have to invest in them—for example, our Connect to Work programme involves working with people who have disabilities or other barriers to try to find out what work they could do and what they would like to do, match them to a job and, crucially, support the employers to make that possible.
Charlie Mayfield, who did the brilliant Keep Britain Working review for us, produced recommendations for employers. Ten months on from that, we are now developing Britain’s first workplace health system, bringing together better workplaces, support and intelligence. Our job is to make sure that everyone who can work should be working. If they need help to do that, it is the Government’s job to give them that help and make sure that employers can encourage those people into the workplace and enable them to stay there.
The Lord Speaker (Lord Forsyth of Drumlean)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, is taking part remotely. I invite him to speak.
Lord Shinkwin (Con) [R]
My Lords, one of the greatest threats to PIP and, for example, Motability—I declare an interest as a beneficiary—is the growing resentment among the public at the seemingly inexorable extension of eligibility, over which, I should add, Motability has no say. What measures are the Government taking to reduce eligibility and thereby put PIP on a sustainable footing for those who need it most?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. I have already said what we are doing, but, just for example, the Milburn review is looking at the position of young people, because almost 1 million—one in eight—of our young people are not in employment, education or training, and a growing number of those are on the grounds of sickness, disability or the inability to work. We also have a growing number of people across the age range who are simply not able to work. We need to make sure that the system supports them and gets them into work. The Milburn review will look at young people. The Timms review, by my right honourable friend Stephen Timms, is reviewing whether PIP is fit for purpose—the interim report suggests that it is not. Both reports will be coming out this month, the Government will respond soon after that and we will be legislating in the new year.
Lord Scriven (LD)
My Lords, earlier this year, the Government told me that they do not expect to identify the impact of the evidence-led decision-making trial on people with a learning disability and have no specific available evaluation to do so. Will the Minister commit that the trial will not be expanded until the impact on people with a learning disability has been measured and published?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My Lords, I know the noble Lord has raised this before and that it is an issue about which he is deeply concerned. The Government look carefully in their decision-making at the impact of all the reforms on all those who use the service and who have a range of different needs. Whenever that happens, we have to look, for example, at an equality impact assessment, and we look at the impact of changes. We will continue to do that. All evaluation that is to be published will be done at the appropriate time.
Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister explain how, as we get people back into work, which the majority of people want to do, we will ensure that they do not have to work from home? I fully agree that for many it is a huge advantage, but the latest figures from the well-being survey at Bupa show how lonely young people are and how easy it is to lose employment if you have no social connection with the people you are working with. Can we ensure that the Government carefully consider how employers will be responsible for bringing people into work as well, so that it does not become cheaper to employ people who are disabled at home?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
The noble Baroness raises an important point. There are some people for whom working from home may be the only practical thing that they can do because of their condition, and I know that with her background she will understand that very well. But I also think she makes an important point. I know that in my very first job I was probably, frankly, utterly useless for the first few months—I was working in an office; yes, I know, insert joke of your choice here, I realise—and a lot of what I learned, I learned from listening to other people. I learned how people talked on the phone. I learned how you operated a system. I learned how you got on with colleagues and how to navigate a difficult environment—which has stood me in great stead, I must say, in recent years. When people are starting out on a career, in most cases it will be helpful for them to have experience. One of the things we are doing is looking at how we can invest in work experience early on, work experience in schools, so when you turn up on day one it is not the first time you have been into a workplace. I think that the noble Baroness makes an important point.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, is it not the case that blunt cuts in benefits do not work and the most effective way of reducing benefits and getting people back to work is to give them the support that they need?
Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
My noble friend raises an excellent point. Successive Governments have looked very hard at finding ways to do this. The reason that we asked Alan Milburn to look carefully at young people and the drivers behind inactivity is that we need to understand why people are not in work, not just tell them that they should be and cut money. We need to find a way to make sure that the social security bill is sustainable over time, but we also need to make sure it is doing its job of supporting people to get into work and, crucially, supporting them to stay there and to flourish when they do.
Sporting and Performing Arts Opportunities for Pupils in State Schools
(2 days ago)
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Lord Addington
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that pupils in state schools have access to sporting and performing arts opportunities through partnerships with voluntary and community organisations.
The Minister of State, Department for Education and Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Smith of Malvern) (Lab)
My Lords, we want all pupils to have access to sports and performing arts at school, supporting well-being, belonging, confidence and skills such as teamwork. Voluntary and community organisations are key in broadening access. Our enrichment framework encourages schools to work in partnership with them, and the enrichment expansion programme will support 400 schools in areas of greatest need to make links. PE and school sport partnerships and the National Centre for Arts Education will further support access.
Lord Addington (LD)
I thank the Minister for that reply. Will she expand upon this? What are we doing to make sure that schools have the necessary testing ground or experience ground to mean that they can link with these groups outside? If you come to a sport and you do not know the basics, you are much less likely to go to an environment outside to take part in it. The same is true of the arts. What are we doing for a coherent plan to allow you to have the necessary grounding to access these groups?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
PE remains part of the national curriculum from key stage 1 to key stage 4. There are many sports organisations at local level—clubs, often supported by their national governing bodies—which will provide young people with that start and a welcome. Through the PE and school sport partnerships, we want better to join schools with the local and national sporting organisations that will help young people get the experience the noble Lord outlines.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, although they are pro bono positions, I declare my interests as a board member of the London Marathon Foundation and the Daily Mile Foundation. At a time when government data shows that fewer than half of children achieve the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity, the daily mile helps around 2 million children in England build such activity into the school day. Simple, inclusive and free, it is accessible to all children. The Minister referred to the new PE and school sport partnerships network. As that is established, will she work to ensure that schools are supported to embed everyday physical activity programmes, such as the daily mile, alongside PE and competitive sport, to get every child active, regardless of their background or ability?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness makes a really important point about the whole range of ways that we can help children to be active. As she says, we do not yet have sufficient children meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s recommendation of 60 minutes of activity every day. The daily mile is an excellent example of how schools can, quite simply and straightforwardly, increase the activity children are engaged in. It is exactly the type of partnership we want to promote.
Baroness Caine of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, the aim of the Young Creatives Commission—I declare an interest as a member—is to promote and rebuild youth access to the arts and creativity, on a par with sport. It will publish its final report in January. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that its recommendations will be helpful, and will she agree to a meeting between the commission, DfE and DCMS to discuss progressing that agenda?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
Yes, while I have not seen the detail of that work, I am sure that it will be very helpful. I know that the work that DfE and DCMS have been doing together on this will be informed by the meeting the noble Baroness suggests. It is, of course, in order to promote arts education that we established this September the National Centre for Arts Education, but we are keen to hear further ideas about how we ensure that children can access a rich, high-quality arts education and other opportunities.
The Earl of Clancarty (CB)
My Lords, there is a community arts project aspect to this, as such projects should act in support of what happens in schools. Does the Minister agree that the local council and council-owned facilities—we had a question earlier on the relationship between local government and the arts—are hugely important at a time when too many council-owned assets, including buildings, are being sold off?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The most effective education in both arts and sports will need to use the broadest range of organisations and facilities, as the noble Earl says. We need to make sure we are building as many links as possible into schools, and I know that councils will be considering this when thinking about the use of their assets. Equally, of course, schools facilities should be used by others who can access them for sports and arts. Unless we work effectively together, we will not be using the resource that we have as well as possible to open up those opportunities to the most people, including both schoolchildren and those of us getting a bit older who also benefit from those activities.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, the holiday activities and food programme is a shining example of the approach described by the noble Lord, Lord Addington. It offers a proven way of linking up children from disadvantaged backgrounds with a wide range of enriching activities during the school holidays. However, the current eligibility criteria result in more than 500,000 children, mostly from poorer working families, being unable to access the programme. Will the Minister commit to rectifying this by aligning the programme’s eligibility criteria with those that are attached to term-time free school meals?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The right reverend Prelate is right that the HAF programme has provided both food and activities for very many children and young people. While we have provided 21 million days to children and young people in England, which have been delivered across 153 local authorities, notwithstanding the £600 million that has been committed to it, we need to look carefully at how we get that to as many children as possible. I cannot commit to changing the entitlement rules but I will take back the points that the right reverend Prelate has made on that programme.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
We will hear from the Lib Dem Benches next, and then the Conservative Benches.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, partnerships with independent schools have often led to sharing of sports facilities, as well as expertise in music, drama and dance. However, the imposition of VAT has been devastating for many small specialist schools which have contributed greatly to opportunities for state school pupils. A number have had to close or curtail their outreach offers. Will the Government review their VAT demands on small specialist independent schools to enable them to survive and continue their valuable work with the state schools?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
As we have discussed on several occasions in this House, the impact of VAT on schools has not led to a higher number of schools closing than the trajectory over recent years. I agree with the noble Baroness that, where strong partnerships are built between private and state schools, they open up opportunities. While there are some good examples of that, I am still not sure—given that I worked on this the first time I was in the Department for Education—that this is on the scale we would want to see.
Baroness Sater (Con)
My Lords, if we want more children to have access to sport and physical activity, we need to make better use of existing facilities. The Opening School Facilities programme helped open nearly 1,900 schools to their local communities but ended in March 2025. Given the demand from organisations which are keen to deliver activities, I ask the Minister to reconsider renewing the highly successful programme.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I will come back to the noble Baroness about the specifics of that programme. It is a key part of the Government’s new PE partnership network that we will be able to create those links between local clubs, sporting organisations and schools. I am sure that the partnership will want to look carefully at whatever the most effective way of doing that is.
Lord Isaac (Lab)
My Lords, the Government’s decision to scrap the EBacc is very welcome. However, the impact of the EBacc on arts provision in schools will not be reversed overnight. What specific steps are the Government proposing to take to ensure that schools place greater value and emphasis on arts subjects, including performing arts, within the curriculum? If we do not support the performing arts, where will future “Celebrity Traitors” come from?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
There might be some noble Lords who would quite like that—being in an environment where nobody can trust what anybody else is saying, and people getting booted out. Perhaps that is more down the other end of the Palace.
My noble friend makes a really important point about how we can promote arts education. That is the reason why we have established the National Centre for Arts Education. It will play a pivotal role in delivering the Government’s ambition to revitalise arts in schools, so that every child can access a rich, high-quality arts education. It will do that through providing strategic national leadership with a coalition of national, regional and local partners. It will support excellent teaching in our schools through a new online CPD offer and making sure there is full access to existing high-quality teacher development provision. It will promote arts education to school leaders, teachers, parents and young people, including how to progress in the arts and pursue interests and career aspirations.
Renewables Obligation and Electricity Capacity (Amendment) (British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme Excluded Electricity) Regulations 2026
(2 days ago)
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Lord Leong
That the draft Regulations laid before the House on 7 September be approved.
Relevant document: 13th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 28 October.
Licensing Act 2003 (Permitted Temporary Activities) (Amendment) Order 2026
(2 days ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury
That the draft Order laid before the House on 10 September be approved.
Relevant document: 13th Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee. Considered in Grand Committee on 28 October.
Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill
Monday 2nd November 2026
(2 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill 2024-26 View all Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 62–I Marshalled list for Third Reading - (30 Oct 2026)
Baroness Smith of Basildon
That the Bill be now read a third time.
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Smith of Basildon) (Lab)
My Lords, I have it in command from His Majesty the King to acquaint the House that his Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill, has consented to place his interests, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Baroness Lloyd of Effra
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would improve the drafting by aligning the language in this provision with the language used elsewhere in the Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade and Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Lloyd of Effra) (Lab)
The amendments in this group seek to tighten the drafting for consistency and clarity, first, by amending Clause 2 to refer to “data centre services” rather than “data centres”; and, secondly, by amending Clauses 24, 36 and 42 to refer to Clause 30(5) when defining “regulated person”.
Baroness Lloyd of Effra
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment and my amendments to Clauses 36 and 42 would add clarity by signposting Clause 30(5) which provides for persons to be treated as specified for the purposes of Clause 30(2). Such persons are included in the definition of “regulated person” in Chapters 3 and 4 of Part 3.
Baroness Lloyd of Effra
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement to my amendment to Clause 24.
Baroness Lloyd of Effra
Member’s explanatory statement
See the explanatory statement to my amendment to Clause 24.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, as we reach Third Reading and the Bill goes back to the Commons, we need to take account of where the Bill now stands and the choices before us. With the successful passage of Amendment 163 on Report, this House has insisted on a vital regime-wide effectiveness review to address critical gaps in our cyber defences. The decision now rests squarely with the Government whether to engage in parliamentary ping-pong or accept this amendment as a sensible and constructive way forward.
Throughout our scrutiny, we must acknowledge the positive steps that the Government have made, including introducing provisions on high-risk vendors and strengthening incident reporting thresholds. As the Government’s own announcements last month on AI loss of control demonstrate, Ministers are finally waking up to the risks we have highlighted, but threats are moving too fast for half measures or delayed reviews.
I gather that we cannot now indulge in thanking colleagues on these and other Benches and outside organisations. All I can say is that you know who you are and I am grateful. I urge the House to support the “do now pass” Motion.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, I will speak in support of what the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said to the House about the amendment that will now go to another place to be discussed during ping-pong. I simply ask the Minister—who, in the general context of the Bill, has been so helpful in so many respects—to look at the report published today by the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee of another place, under the chairmanship of her right honourable friend Liam Byrne MP. It points particularly to the role of hostile states in this country, notably the People’s Republic of China. It bears very much on the amendment that your Lordships passed only last week, and I hope the Minister will take the trouble to have a look at it before we get into further discussion on the amendment.
Baroness Neville-Jones (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for the good sense and clarity that she brought to the issue of the trigger for reportable incidents, which lies at the heart of this security and resilience Bill. We were not able to close the gap between us on the issue of factor lists for some operators, although we narrowed it, I think. I hope that, in the light of her acceptance of the relevance of some of the factors listed in my amendment, she will be able to make this an early issue for secondary legislation. The industry is extremely anxious to be well prepared, and it will be helpful if this issue, which is an important part of being prepared for the regulatory regime, can be dealt with at an early stage.
Viscount Camrose (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing forward today’s amendments, to which we had no objection as they are technical amendments. In this new spirit of brief “do now pass” debates, I will not raise any substantive points, except to join others in thanking the Minister for her collaborative, consultative, and very open and thorough approach throughout the passage of the Bill thus far. As and when it comes back to your Lordships’ House, we look forward to continuing the debate in the same spirit. Meanwhile, I thank the Minister and all noble Lords who participated so well in the Bill’s productive passage so far.
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
My Lords, I did not intend to make a substantive contribution, as the Government Front Bench intends to proceed in line with the Companion guidance, recently reinforced by this House through the first report from the Procedure Committee, that the “do now pass” Motion is usually moved formally. I have noted the points made by the noble Lords, Lord Alton and Lord Clement-Jones, the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, and the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, relating to the substance of the Bill, which I am sure we will return to. I am very grateful for the engagement on the Bill, which will increase the UK’s defences against cyber attacks, better protecting the services that the public rely on to go about their normal lives.
Representation of the People Bill
Monday 2nd November 2026
(2 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Representation of the People Bill 2024-26 View all Representation of the People Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 47–I(b) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (2 Nov 2026)
Lord Udny-Lister
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment would ensure that the minimum voting age of 18 is retained for all elections to the House of Commons, thus maintaining alignment with the minimum age for standing for election to the House of Commons under section 17 of the Electoral Administration Act 2006.
Lord Udny-Lister (Con)
My Lords, in moving Amendment 1, I shall also speak to Amendments 3, 4, 33, 301 and 302, all in my name.
On Amendment 1, I am firmly of the view that you should be able to vote in an election only when you are old enough to meet the age criteria to stand as a candidate for that election. Eighteen remains the legal age of adulthood and is currently the age at which a citizen may put themselves forward to be elected to the House of Commons. That connection is important, and it is in alignment with the age criteria to vote. If the Government are unable to support Amendment 1, I hope Ministers will be able to explain why they are so keen to separate the age of voting and candidacy in this way. This is not an argument regarding maturity, though much could be said on that topic; I am moving this amendment in defence of a long-established electoral principle.
It will come as no surprise to your Lordships that I do not support the franchise being lowered to enable 16 and 17 year-olds to vote. Through Amendment 1, it is my intention that the minimum voting age remains at 18, which would maintain alignment with the minimum age to stand for election in the Commons under Section 17 of the Electoral Administration Act 2006. Through Amendment 1, I seek to preserve the existing and long-standing alignment between the age of voting for and the age of standing as a candidate. The parliamentary franchise is one of the very foundations of our constitution, and in the passage of the Bill thus far I have failed to see any justification from the Government as to why such a long-standing national rule ought to change.
Further still, I put it to your Lordships that the Government have failed to address what the consequences of the Bill are and why those consequences are justified. Data from the Electoral Commission confirms that through this legislation, if left unamended, we would extend the franchise to 1.7 million additional people. Make no mistake: this represents a major constitutional change. The question is not whether young people should get the vote—it is whether the Government have established a principled case for changing the parliamentary franchise and whether the safeguards, preparation and democratic consent are commensurate with this change. As of yet, the burden of explanation that is required by the House to justify the constitutional significance of this change fails to meet what I consider to be the basic test of proportionality. Perhaps that is because the essence of the Bill is sadly more about gerrymandering the franchise than it is about strengthening the electoral system.
I am, however, sympathetic to this House supporting the greater involvement of young people in our democracy. That is a must. But we should not and must not mistake engagement for the single question of enfranchisement. If the Government are committed to strengthening democratic values and engagement among younger people, I hope that today the Minister will be able to commit to bringing forward a fully funded and credible programme of proper and unbiased civic education, whether or not the Bill succeeds. That will mark whether this Government are serious about the engagement of younger people in the process.
We need only look at the data from Scotland and Wales, where 16 and 17 year-olds are already permitted to vote in the devolved parliamentary elections as well as local elections. Electoral Commission figures from 2025 estimate that only 61% of 16 and 17 year-olds in Scotland and a shocking 39% in Wales are actually registered to vote, despite having the opportunity to do so. This demonstrates my earlier point that the widening of the franchise does not solve the problem of engagement and suggests that the Government should turn their focus to civic education prior to any national law change.
I come to Amendment 3. I am asking noble Lords to support retaining the existing age qualification of 18 for the signing of a recall petition under the Recall of MPs Act 2015. When the recall Act was passed, it was widely accepted that the power of recall was a distinct and profound constitutional act. Through this amendment, I seek to acknowledge the severity of the recall process by asking your Lordships to consider the recall franchise on its own merits and not to assume that every adjustment to voting age must automatically be copied. Amendment 3 would thus ensure that the age for signing recall petitions is equal to the established age of adulthood and the minimum age at which people could vote in the last parliamentary election. If the Government are unable to support this amendment, I ask Ministers to explain why changing the voting age should automatically alter the recall electorate and why they are of the view that this particular extension can be made without full and independent justification.
Given that the power of recall has the highly sensitive ability to remove representation, it is for the Government to now justify whether it is their intention to change the eligible population empowered to terminate the mandate of people elected to the current Parliament. If it is their intention to do this, it is problematic for a number of reasons. If this is left unamended, the House will, in effect, be making changes to a constitutionally sensitive accountability mechanism, simply as a side-effect of another clause. I put it to your Lordships that this is not a sensible way to deal with the complexity of constitutional matters. Therefore, I ask noble Lords to back Amendment 3 as a limited safeguard.
I recognise that the Government made a manifesto commitment to lowering the age of voting, but I caution your Lordships’ Committee that on such major constitutional matters we should still utilise the process of taking the question directly to the people through a referendum. If the question of how we elect our Members of Parliament was considered sufficiently fundamental to warrant the 2011 referendum on the alternative vote, I ask the Government to explain why the question of who should be entitled to elect them is considered any less deserving of the consent of the British people.
This is important. As I mentioned earlier, we are talking about increasing the franchise by an additional 1.7 million people. Through Amendment 4, I am asking for the Government to seek the reassurance of the electorate that this is wanted, as I sense that the national mood on this subject matter is very different from the direction that the Government are taking. My amendment is a democratic safeguard that would require a referendum on lowering the voting age to 16 within two years of Royal Assent.
Amendment 4 should be read alongside my Amendment 301, for the former would require a referendum while the latter would prevent regulations commencing voting at the age of 16 unless a majority had voted for it. The process of a referendum would create a serious and needed national conversation around civic responsibility, one that I hope everybody would be keen to welcome. If we are to make such monumental changes that would alter the integrity of the vote, it is only right that the decision to do so should be put to the British people.
Moving on to Amendment 33, I call on noble Lords and the Government to properly acknowledge the troublesome and dangerous times in which we live. Through Amendment 33, I am calling on the relevant Secretary of State to conduct an assessment of the susceptibility of 16 and 17 year-olds to foreign interference and electoral disinformation prior to lowering the franchise. In tabling this amendment, I am not in any way suggesting that young people are any more uniquely gullible to election-related disinformation and foreign interference than older people. I am asserting the point that the Government have a duty to assess whether any new cohort of electors may encounter particular vulnerabilities or exposures, and what the state must do to protect the integrity of the information environment for the safeguarding of our democracy.
The issue here is that our electoral environment has fundamentally changed, and I draw your Lordships’ attention to the recent research by the Electoral Commission after the 2024 election. It highlighted that 61% of respondents reported seeing misleading information about party policies and 52% misleading information about candidates, and 24% said they had seen or heard an election-related deepfake. These figures must concern us. I fear that 16 and 17 year-olds, through their greater use of chatbots, AI platforms and social media sites, would be even more greatly impacted than older peers.
We know that foreign interference in our electoral process is a real and significant threat. Hostile states, particularly Russia, have in recent years shown their willingness to utilise social media and the plethora of digital tools out there to interfere in the democratic processes of other countries. We would be foolish to think that we are immune to this. With the rapid deployment of AI, it is becoming increasingly hard to establish fact from fiction and the truth from disinformation, and we know there are a lot of rogue actors. Therefore, before increasing the franchise, it is the responsibility of the Government to at least understand the current risks and consider the adequacy of the safeguards.
Amendments 301 and 302 are in my name. Though Amendment 301, I seek to ensure that the Government hold a referendum and publish an assessment of susceptibility of 16 and 17 year-olds to election-related disinformation and foreign interference. These commencement conditions are highly important, as they would make the consent of the electorate in relation to Amendment 4, which would require a referendum, a condition rather than a courtesy and would give the overall exercise a defined constitutional purpose.
Further to a referendum result, through Amendment 301, I also seek to require the Government to discharge the duty to assess the susceptibility to election-related disinformation and foreign interference under Amendment 33. I hope noble Lords will agree that through these amendments, taken together, we would require two independent safeguards prior to commencement.
Finally, on Amendment 302, I seek a requirement for the approval of both Houses under the affirmative principle before the voting age is lowered to 16 for any future elections. In speaking to this amendment, I seek to protect Parliament’s role in scrutiny by reserving the final commencement decision for both Houses. It should be for Members to decide and test whether, through Amendments 4, 33 and 301, a referendum has been carried out and the disinformation assessments properly completed. Through Amendment 302, I provide an opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny as I do not believe it should be left for Ministers to be the judge as to whether the prerequisites for extending the franchise have been adequately met.
In speaking to these amendments, I conclude by reminding your Lordships’ Committee that although the Government may be confident in their policy—indeed, they have the numbers to force the Bill through—a parliamentary majority is no substitute for principle and for democratic consent. I tabled these amendments as the Bill is fundamentally flawed. Why should 16 year-olds be permitted to vote yet remain illegible to stand for election? Why should the franchise for recall petitions be altered without the Government laying before this Parliament a distinct and compelling justification of the fairness of this? What measures are Ministers putting in place to assess the risks of the susceptibility of young people to disinformation and foreign interference?
If the Government have confidence that the majority of the people in this country support increasing the franchise by 1.7 million then putting this to a confirmatory vote of the British people would surely uphold the integrity of our future elections. All these questions remain unanswered, and the integrity of our constitution should not be seen as a political experiment to be conducted at the whim of whichever Government happen to hold office.
I hope I have the support of your Lordships in asking, through these amendments, that the Government think again. The franchise is the bedrock of our democracy. It belongs not to the Government of the day but to the British people. It should not be altered without their consent. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall) (Lab)
I advise the Committee that if Amendment 1 is agreed, I cannot call Amendment 2 by reason of pre-emption.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord made a very interesting speech, most of which I disagreed with. I understand the issues, but to say that there is no mandate, constitutional basis or any political support for this measure is absolute nonsense. It was in the manifesto of the Labour Party. When people voted in Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England, they voted, among other things, to agree to voting at 16, so I see no conceivable argument against it constitutionally because it is a constitutional principle—the bedrock of our constitution—that a manifesto commitment is the same as a referendum.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 2, a probing amendment suggesting that the voting age perhaps be changed to 17 rather than 16. I did this for a number of reasons, to get a proper debate about this.
The noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, referred to the Welsh Senedd elections and the fact that it did not do any harm. I am sure it did not, but it is not exactly the same as voting for the national Government. Turnout did not even reach 52% across the whole of Wales in the Senedd elections earlier this year, so we are talking about quite a different scale of representation.
There is one sentence in the Labour manifesto on this:
“We will increase the engagement of young people in our vibrant democracy, by giving 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in all elections”.
We have not seen that outcome really happen in other parts of the United Kingdom that have already adopted voting at a younger age. I am not going to have a row, because I appreciate it was in the manifesto, but it is useful to point out that research the Electoral Commission shared with us from across several countries and states that have lowered their voting ages shows that, when enfranchised, 16 and 17 year-olds tend to vote in greater numbers than those enfranchised at 18. According to the Electoral Commission, you are more likely to vote when you are 16 and 17, but then not when you are 18.
There is something interesting going on here; there is a bit of a transition. One of the reasons why, traditionally, I have opposed changing the vote from the age of adulthood is that there is a significant change in what happens in the rest of your life when you turn 18. There are significant differences between what a 16 year-old and a 17 year-old can do. A 17 year-old can drive a car. They can fly a plane and get a private pilot’s licence. They can become a blood donor—you cannot do that when you are 16. They can join the Armed Forces—or rather, to be precise, they can join the Army as an officer at the age of 17 years and nine months; they cannot do that in any of the other Armed Forces. You cannot become a police constable until you are 18.
There are so many things on which we have changed the law, in the past five years or so, to stop people doing things until they turn the age of adulthood. So I am trying to get a sense of why the Government have chosen 16 in particular, recognising that this can be an age when a lot of young people will not even have taken their GCSEs, beyond the one line in the Labour manifesto. When you turn 18, you can do things such as serve on a jury and get a tattoo—I did not know you had to be 18 to get a tattoo until I looked it up. You cannot make a will until you are 18, which is quite surprising; perhaps we can change that in another Bill. You certainly cannot get a credit card or buy alcohol—well, not legally.
Another thing is that young people’s lives are very much on our minds, as we are talking about the statistical NEETs. The ONS reckons that there are 57,000 NEETs between the ages of 16 and 17. Back in 2008, I think the Labour Government made it a criminal offence for those young people; they had to take full responsibility if they were not in education or training or did not have a job. Before the last Friday in June when they were 16, it was their parents’ responsibility to keep them in school. I understand why the Government never chose to enact the enforcement or penalty sections of that Act, but they had done it to criminalise young people—and yet today, they want to do something quite different. They have no real focus on why those 57,000 young people are knowingly breaking the law, and it is their responsibility. By the way, councils are supposed to know what every young person is doing under their broader statutory duty on safeguarding children; they are supposed to know exactly what every child in their area is up to. Why do we not have more focus on giving young people the potential and the future that they desperately need, rather than choosing 16 as the age at which they can start voting?
I have some sympathy with my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister on the referendum; that is an interesting concept. By the way, to match this amendment, I have tabled a later amendment on reducing the age for candidates to 17. I wanted to go a little further in seeing what the Government say about the ages of 16 and 17. The Government say that they can work, pay tax—you can actually do both of those things below 16—and serve in the military. That is correct, but those things need parental consent; they need both parents to consent if the young people are in different houses or their residence is split between two houses. Then there is their contribution to society more broadly, which already happens with young people; we see that in wonderful examples such as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and many other schemes, and young people have won Points of Light awards in the past.
What is it about 16? I feel that the Government think there will be an electoral advantage to this—it is as simple as that. They should be careful what they wish for. Polling not that long ago showed that more people were going to vote Reform and Green than for the Labour Party. Do they really think this is the right thing to focus on at 16?
I am concerned about the level of education that would be deployed to achieve this. There is a lot going on, which I will come on to in later amendments to Schedule 1. Nevertheless, it comes back to why they have picked 16, and this is what I am trying to get from the Government. There are plenty of things we have barred them from doing. They cannot get married—they can in Scotland, but not in the rest of the United Kingdom. There are multiple things for which we have lifted the age gap. This really needs a better description than one sentence—three-quarters of which is about things that can be done by children under the age of 16—to make sure that we can continue to have a credible electorate. I am conscious that this will be in other amendments that are coming up. With that, I will carefully consider the contributions of other noble Lords.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 21 in my name. I think it would be useful for noble Lords to remember the vision that lies behind this Bill, which was published in the Government’s paper last July, Restoring Trust in Our Democracy. I just want to quote a couple of little bits from the beginning:
“Our democracy is central to who we are as a country. We can take pride in its evolution and how it has and continues to inspire. As a government, we have a responsibility to protect and strengthen it. The right to participate in our democracy is a defining aspect of our national identity and should not be taken for granted”.
Until recently, democracy moved in one direction, from no democracy to partial democracy to full democracy, but I believe that in the Bill there are elements which will see a major reversal of democracy, and it is happening here in the United Kingdom.
Until 31 December 2020, it did not matter where you lived in the UK. Every adult had the right either to elect representatives, who between them made all the laws to which we were subject, or to stand for election to do it themselves. However, that changed from 1 January 2021, when the United Kingdom was divided into two different classes of citizens. On the one hand there are UK citizens living in England, Wales and Scotland, who continue to enjoy the right either to elect representatives or to stand for election to do so themselves, and on the other hand, there are UK citizens living in Northern Ireland who are subject to a second-class citizenship through which they have the right to elect representatives to make only some of the laws to which they were and are subject, or to stand for election to do so.
Of course, as we all know, in 300 areas of law—not just individual laws—UK citizens living in Northern Ireland have been disenfranchised and are now subjected to a second-class, truncated citizenship. On 21 January 2021, no laws had been imposed on us, but since then we have seen increasing numbers of laws hedging us in, growing and growing, and providing a constantly increasing reminder of our disenfranchisement that will get worse. Your Lordships’ House is well aware that, because of this, every time a law is imposed that requires some form of Westminster implementation, we try to oppose the statutory instrument.
In this context, I have tabled Amendment 21 because the message that the Bill is sending 16 and 17 year-olds across the UK is that it can be celebrated as playing a role in restoring our democracy, when it does no such thing for the whole of the United Kingdom. At the moment, our laws treat 16 and 17 year-olds across the UK in exactly the same way. None of them has the right to elect a fellow citizen or to stand for election. However, if the Bill becomes law, it will create discrimination where none currently exists. It will create for the first time two classes of 16 and 17 year-olds in the UK. On the one hand, there will be 16 and 17 year-olds in England, Wales and Scotland, who will be given the right to participate in elections that contribute to making all the laws to which they are subject. On the other hand, there will be 16 and 17 year-olds in Northern Ireland, who will be given the right to participate in elections that contribute to making only some of the laws to which they are subject.
Noble Lords should understand that that violates the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. The very purpose of that agreement was to persuade terrorists to renounce violence and seek to pursue their political goals through the ballot box. The agreement contains a special protection for democracy that is additional to those applying to the UK as a whole. It commits to protecting the right of the people of Northern Ireland to
“pursue democratically national and political aspirations”
in relation to all the laws to which they were subject. This was upheld from 1998 until the end of 2020, when the Belfast agreement was violated by the protocol and the Windsor Framework. Now there are whole swathes of life, in 300 areas of law, in which the people of Northern Ireland can no longer pursue democratically national and political aspirations.
It is part of the broader change in the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. I know that some noble Lords do not like me saying this, but it has, in effect, made Northern Ireland a colony of the EU in these 300 areas. No one in Northern Ireland can have a say on these laws that are made by a foreign Parliament; we are, in effect, a vassal state of the EU. At a time when everyone is apologising, especially in our schools, for colonialism and slavery, it is quite bizarre that we should be acquiescing in its reintroduction, telling 16 and 17 year-olds that they are going to be different.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 6 in my name, which is a probing amendment that seeks to clarify the scope of Clause 2 by excluding secure children’s homes from the definition of “youth detention accommodation” for the purposes of the disfranchisement of 16 and 17 year-olds otherwise newly enfranchised. First, echoing my noble friend Lord Murphy, I emphasise that I very much support our manifesto commitment to votes for 16 and 17 year-olds in the name of recognising their value as citizens, as is the case in Scotland and Wales. I will return in a later group to citizenship education, which is so important.
The issue raised by this amendment was brought to my attention by Mark Alexander, a doctoral researcher at Cambridge, on behalf of the steering group for the Unlock the Vote campaign at the penal charity Unlock. Although I believe that some prisoners should have the vote, that is not what this amendment is about, and I do not intend to spark a more general debate on that. It is about exploring why children serving custodial sentences in secure children’s homes, SCHs, should be denied the new right to vote, when the Government accept that residence in such a home is not of itself a basis for disfranchisement.
I realise that young people in SCHs who are not convicted prisoners will not be disfranchised. The Minister for Democracy has made that clear, both in the Commons and in a letter to Unlock, and the Explanatory Notes recognise that children may also be residents in such homes for welfare purposes, so SCHs will accommodate both children who have the vote under Clause 2 and children who do not. The question raised by Unlock is whether it meets the Bill’s wider objectives that a conviction of a child should disfranchise them when they are accommodated in a welfare-oriented rather than a penal institution.
The Bill is intended to increase young people’s engagement with democracy. The Government have described their objective as enabling young people
“to find their voice and exercise their right to vote”,
thereby, it is hoped, building long-lasting engagement with our democracy. These are objectives that I very much share. However, arguably, they sit uneasily with the exclusion of vulnerable children whom the state is seeking to rehabilitate and reintegrate into our society. Surely such rehabilitative education should include an appreciation of the importance of active citizenship and public duty.
The issue is especially significant because the Government recognise that eligible children in SCHs will require tailored support to exercise their democratic rights. Arrangements are already being developed with the Department for Education to highlight the value of civic engagement and democratic participation in SCHs for some children but not others. There is a risk that a child being told that they cannot participate in democracy alongside their peers in the same home will feel a sense of alienation and disaffection that could undermine their rehabilitative journey. Rather than building their identity as active citizens, it could have the very opposite effect.
I ask my noble friend the Minister, first, why a child serving a sentence in an SCH should be disenfranchised—thereby being treated them differently from other children in the same institution. Secondly, why should the distinctive welfare and rehabilitative character of SCHs not justify treating them differently from those in penal institutions? Thirdly, have the Government assessed the likely impact of this disenfranchisement on the rehabilitation and future democratic engagement of convicted children in SCHs?
Unlock has raised a valid question on whether the justification given by the Government for the disenfranchisement of those children is sufficiently sensitive to the distinctive nature of secure children’s homes. I look forward to my noble friend’s response.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and to speak to my Clause 2 stand part notice, which goes further than the noble Baroness’s amendment but is headed in the same direction.
It is no secret that Green Party policy is that all those held in detention in prisons should be given the vote unless that is excluded by reason of electoral fraud or similar—or if a judge has decided that they should not be able to exercise their vote. However, that is not what we are addressing here. We are talking about a small, important and particularly vulnerable group of young people. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, I have been informed in what I am about to say by the penal reform charity Unlock. This addresses how Clause 2 risks further alienating and marginalising an already excluded group of young people from politics and society in a way that is not just morally wrong but likely to be counterproductive.
I have seen a letter from the Minister in the other place saying that the Government’s view is that those convicted of a crime and serving a sentence in custody should be unable to vote. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, this is creating a real mess in secure children’s homes. More than this, my argument is that we are talking about children whom we want to include, and we want them to see themselves as part of society, as having a stake in society.
We are not talking about an issue that is going to have any significant impact on the outcome of elections. Up to March 2025, 610 children in England and Wales were covered by this clause. There are equalities issues here, because minoritised communities are significantly overrepresented among those children, as are care-experienced children. Hundreds of young people are being told that one more way that they cannot participate in society while their peers can is in respect of voting.
This will affect the way they feel about their society—whether they feel valued or listened to, rather than being abandoned and judged. I note that what I have just said is based on the testimony of lived experience from people who have been through youth detention. I am very strongly of the view that we need a world where everyone makes politics about what they do, not have done to them, and these are young people who have had lots of politics done to them. These are young people who have been victims of political decisions, such as austerity, where others have put them in a situation where, in many cases, they have fallen through the cracks in our society.
Having spoken to my clause 2 stand part notice, I will restrain myself from engaging at length with the other amendments in this group, but I will just very briefly note that it is interesting that, in the Representation of the People Act 1969, the extension of votes to 18—the first in the world—was generally uncontroversial and had broad cross-party support. Interestingly, it was thought at the time that it might actually slightly advantage the Conservative Party; how the world has changed.
None the less, I want to pick up a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, who said that 16 and 17 year-olds are more likely to vote than 18 and 19 year-olds, and that is the evidence that we have from other places. But we also have evidence that people who vote in their first election are more likely to keep voting, so we are actually engaging people at a point when they are more ready to be engaged, and that is something that will bear impacts decades into the future.
I also want to point to the Scottish Youth Parliament, which has been a leader in calling for equality of votes at 16 and 17, which, of course, they have enjoyed in Scotland for some time. I have to share a little story from the 2014 referendum. I remember hearing a BBC Radio 4 presenter on the streets of Edinburgh saying, “I am standing with 16 and 17 year-olds, and they are really informed and engaged”. The surprised tone in his voice said a lot more about the reporter than it said about the 16 and 17 year-olds.
Finally, I am afraid I do not really follow the arguments of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, regarding Amendment 33, which proposes an
“Assessment of susceptibility of 16 and 17 years old to election-related disinformation and foreign interference”.
The noble Lord said he did not actually think that 16 and 17 year-olds were more vulnerable, so I do not really understand the argument for that amendment. But beyond that, I have absolutely no doubt that, if one did such a study, we would find there are an awful lot of people around the average age of your Lordships’ House who are terribly vulnerable and definitely need some education to reduce their susceptibility.
Lord Bailey of Paddington (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendment 1. Just to pick up on the last statement that was made, the reason that young people are more susceptible to malicious actors is that they spend significantly more time online. It is a much bigger source of their news, and they pay far more attention to it than people who are older who normally have a broader reading palette and tend to read more from official sources, such as newspapers and the like. Having been a youth worker for over 35 years, I know that the young people I work with exclusively read about the world online. If you want to hide something from them, I suggest you put it in the Times, because they will never find it.
I support Amendment 1 because I do not think we should be using the ballot box as an engagement scheme for young people. This policy relies largely on an education piece, and it looks like the Government have put the cart before the horse. Surely, you should do the education piece before you give the added power—the new choice that young people would have.
This is not about whether I believe young people can have an opinion. I have been a youth worker for well over 35 years, and I have been at the wrong end of young people’s opinions and at the right end. I certainly know they can have that opinion but look what we are doing—the Government’s risk assessment is almost non-existent. They are about to turn school, the place that is safest for minors, into a political battleground. School is the safest place, particularly if you come from a poor community and particularly if your family is suffering. You go to school to be safe. Peer pressure in school is a very real thing. If you are going to expose our 16 and 17 year-olds to political peer pressure, you had better see what the effects of that are before, not after, you do that.
Lord Young of Acton (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 20 in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. I declare my interest as the director of the Free Speech Union.
I draw your Lordships’ attention to a disconnect between this Bill and the Online Safety Act. At present, some content on social media platforms is age-gated, because of a child safety duty in the Online Safety Act that kicked in, in July 2025. That means that, to access content that the social media platforms deem to be suitable for adults only, the user has to prove that they are an adult, aged 18 or over.
However, quite a lot of political content has been age-gated as a consequence of this child safety duty coming into force. I could give numerous examples, but I know we are short for time, so I will give just one: a speech by Katie Lam in the House of Commons about the grooming gangs was age-gated by all the large social media platforms, which thought that it was unsuitable content for anyone under the age of 18. However, if 16 and 17 year-olds cannot access speeches being made in the House of Commons because of the age-gating in which social media platforms engage, how can they be expected to make informed decisions at the ballot box?
I am sure that noble Lords and Baronesses who have rightly emphasised the necessity of improving civic education if we are to lower the voting age to 16—I am thinking of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and the noble Lord, Lord Murphy—will agree with me that, if we are to improve civic education for teenagers, it is important that they can access political content, including speeches given in the House of Commons.
My noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington rightly pointed out that, for most teenage children, social media platforms are the single largest source of news. That was corroborated by some research carried out by Ofcom; it showed that social media platforms such as TikTok are the primary source of news for 12 to 15 year-olds. So this is a potential problem. The Online Safety Act requires large social media platforms to age-gate some political content, so that it cannot be accessed unless the user can prove that they are aged 18 or over. At the same time, the Government are proposing to lower the voting age to 16, expecting 16 and 17 year-olds to make informed decisions without being able to access political content on their primary source of news.
Fortunately, there is a solution at hand. Sections 17, 18 and 19 of the Online Safety Act are keep-up duties. They require social media platforms to keep up content of democratic importance, news publisher content and journalistic content. However, it may not surprise your Lordships to learn that, while all the take-down duties in the Online Safety Act have been activated, not all the keep-up duties have, including Sections 17, 18 and 19, and that that they are not due to be activated until mid-2027.
There is nothing in those sections that means that they apply only to adults, so it is perfectly possible that, once those duties are activated, social media platforms will recognise that they have a duty to keep up content of democratic importance, news publisher content and journalistic content, to make it accessible to children as well as adults. That could be underwritten by the regulations I believe the Government intend to make at the beginning of next year, restricting access to social media for under-16s as well as 16 and 17 year-olds. The regulations could stipulate that those restrictions should not apply to content of democratic importance, news publisher content and journalistic content. That would be a way of ensuring that 16 and 17 year-olds, and younger teenagers who are beginning to think about how they will vote when they reach the age of 16, can access vital content such as speeches made in the House of Commons.
If the Government think that it would be a step too far to stipulate in those regulations that the restrictions should not apply to teenagers in general, they should at the very least stipulate that they should not apply to 16 and 17 year-olds, given that 16 and 17 year-olds are going to have the vote. My amendment simply asks the Government to carry out a review within 12 months of the Bill being passed to ensure that content that children will need to be able to access on social media to make informed decisions at the ballot box is not restricted, in particular for 16 and 17 year-olds.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, it is more than 50 years since we legislated to extend the franchise to allow 18 year-olds to vote in general elections. A great deal has changed in society since 1970 when those 18 year-olds cast their first votes, and it is right that we look again properly at the issue of the franchise.
The debates since 1970, including this afternoon, focus largely on the issue of at what age it is appropriate to do whatever people want to do. But the argument from the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, that few people who are 16 or 17 in Scotland and Wales are registered to vote is not an indication that they should not be able to vote; it is an indication simply of how difficult it can be to be on the electoral register when you are a young person. That issue is addressed elsewhere in the Bill, but was sadly neglected over the last four Parliaments.
I accept that there are things we should not let people do as soon as they are 16. For example, smoking is self-harming, alcohol carries great dangers, gambling can be deeply addictive and purchasing fireworks, knives, crossbows and airguns should not be permitted to anyone under 18. But going down to a polling station or filling in a postal vote should not be seen as a harmful activity, any more than it is for older generations.
A 16 year-old in this country can consent to medical treatment, leave school for another form of education or training and consent to sex. With parental consent, that young person can join the Armed Forces, apply for a passport and get married or enter a civil partnership. Yet, under present laws, someone whose 18th birthday falls just before a general election may not get to cast a vote in one until they are 21 or 22. If politics is not for them when they are young, it may never be for them.
In 2003, in a debate on a Bill that would have reduced the franchise from 18, I argued that maturity and political understanding do not suddenly materialise on your 18th birthday. My view remains that it is wrong to suggest that everyone over 18 generally possesses sufficiently political wisdom to make choices, while no one aged 16 or 17 can properly decide whether to vote or who to vote for. My own experience with political research often involved me interviewing the interviewers who sought to discuss political issues with voters. The people they interviewed, who were entitled to vote because they were 18, frequently knew so little about the issues facing a democracy that the interviewers even said to me that they sometimes doubted the wisdom of the universal franchise.
Wisdom, political experience and judgment do not always come with being older. Younger people, in my experience, are sometimes ahead of older generations in considering long-term challenges such as climate change, alongside immediate priorities such as education, transport and housing. Amendments today seek to maintain the voting age at 18, or to reduce the number of young people who will be added to the voting registers. The suggestion is even made—I think it is preposterous—of having a national referendum before extending the franchise. Another referendum, and on this issue? We can only imagine what Brenda from Bristol would have to say about that.
Retaining the vote at 18 or pausing at an arbitrary halfway point of 17 ignores vital lessons from when the franchise has been extended in Scotland and Wales. Studies across both nations demonstrate that 16 and 17 year-olds living at home and attending school are embedded in a supportive social structure that actively fosters democratic engagement: a structure that 18 to 20 year-olds currently entitled to vote who are living independently often lack. In Scotland and Wales, and in other countries such as Austria, which led the way by lowering the voting age to 16 across all electoral levels in 2007, there was no meltdown of democracy. In fact, in local elections in Vienna, turnout among 16 and 17 year-olds reached 64%, compared with only 56% among 18 to 20 year-olds.
We on these Benches accept that the issue of enfranchisement cannot stand alone. We should look to research from Jersey, which lowered the voting age in 2008. It was demonstrated there that extending the franchise in isolation, without structured democratic education, failed to deliver sustained engagement, leaving young voters facing persistent confusion over candidates’ policy platforms and how democracy works. So, in a later group of amendments, we will argue that extending the franchise and strengthening citizenship education must be treated as twin pillars of a single coherent strategy, aimed at improving political engagement and the health of our democracy.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I have added my name to a couple of amendments, including Amendment 2 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, because I think it is valid to ask, “Why 16, not 17?” We could as easily ask, “Why 16, not 15?” This is overall an important group of amendments, not necessarily because anyone here is interested in overturning a manifesto pledge or getting stuck in a row about the maturity or otherwise of teenagers, but in order to probe how far the Government have considered the impact of these changes, what they mean for the adult franchise and the problem of inconsistency in relation to age when it comes to the way we view the age of majority.
My fear is that we are in danger of getting in a muddle about what adulthood means. The age of majority, according to law, is 18. Successive Governments have created fairly hard lines about what under-18s cannot do, as we have heard, including buying alcohol, nicotine products or vapes or gambling: all the sins, the harmful things. Under 18 year-olds are also deemed incapable of exerting full contractual capacity when it comes to loans or mortgages or doing jury service. I think that jury service is good and I hope that, by the time they grow up, there will still be juries left for them to be recruited to—but I put that to one side.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
My Lords, it is always a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, and her very considered remarks. I welcome the debate on this group, which explores the most unwelcome decision to bring children into the voting net. In particular, I welcome the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, specifically Amendment 301.
The wording of the government amendments, which no one has spoken of yet, requiring officers to investigate whether 14 or 15 year-olds live in a household, sends shivers down my spine—as does the concept of allowing this for children, whose rights in so many other areas of life are correctly postponed until they are responsible enough to use them wisely. We had this debate during Brexit, when the idea of 16 year-olds voting was mooted and discussed and then, quite rightly, dismissed. The point was made then— it is obviously true now—that there is substantial scientific evidence that a person’s capacity for reasoning, logical judgment and decision-making continues to develop up to the age of 18, and many would say thereafter. Although it is true that some basic cognitive capacity and logical reasoning can be reached at around 16, there are other areas where they are not.
In particular, studies highlight that resistance to peer pressure develops well beyond the age of 16. This is absolutely key, as my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington, who has unparalleled expertise and experience in this area, pointed out. Peer pressure is not just from others of a young person’s age, and it is not meant to imply Peers such as me who go canvassing. It is teachers and other influencers, particularly these days, as most young people have access to influencers whom they regard as incredibly important and relevant to matters that matter to them, such as fashion and sport. Maybe these influencers are skilled in fashion, sport and related areas, but it would be worrying if they persuaded people how to vote based on extremely limited understanding of the policies themselves.
Scientific research has found that someone under 18 might be just as capable as an adult of understanding an argument, processing information and reaching a logical conclusion, and I do not doubt that. But they are most certainly less capable of resisting peer pressure or emotional impulses. Can the Minister advise us whether the Government have undertaken any specific research in this field to be sure of the competencies of 16-year-olds? In particular, can the Minister explain whether such 16 year-olds will now be eligible for jury service? If not, why not—not forgetting, of course, that jury members are selected from the electoral roll? How will that work? Perhaps she can explain why, in July 2025, the Labour national executive committee decided to change the rules so that officers of local Labour parties have to be over 18.
Let us look at some other glaring inconsistencies. Sixteen year-olds need parental consent to join the Army or marry. Young people cannot order a drink in a pub unless they are 18, so if their side does win the election—possibly due to their vote—they cannot join in the celebrations in the pub or, like the Chancellor, exhibit their joy by inverting a pint glass over their heads. Not unreasonably, Labour refused to lower the drinking age to 16. Why? In Labour’s words, to protect children from harm. Labour says that under-18s are not capable of making that decision for themselves. Labour raised the age for buying cigarettes to 18 “to protect children”, according to the Labour Minister. Why? Because Labour decided that children were not to be trusted with this important decision. Likewise, under-18s are dealt with in different courts and cannot watch the same films as 18 year-olds, because the British Board of Film Classification requires a person to be 18 before being classified as an adult.
As we have heard, the same applies to buying fireworks, using sunbeds and even buying knives. Labour legislated that children had to stay in school or comparable education until 18. Why? Because they were not capable of taking the decision to stay or leave themselves—this has nothing to do with protection. Welsh Labour banned under-18s from tongue piercing, arguing that
“young people may be less likely to have the experience or knowledge”
to take that decision.
Labour does not trust children under 18 to have Botox or buy corrosive substances, and it does not trust children to place bets or even enter a gambling shop. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, then deputy leader, said:
“Those who gamble should be adults”.—[Official Report, Commons, 16/7/19; col. 721.]
So he confirms Labour’s view that under-18s are children. When Labour reduced VAT on children’s meals—another Brexit win—HMRC confirmed that under-18s are children.
What will these children use for voter ID in the polling booth? Few will have appropriate ID. For these reasons and many others, some 95% of the world’s democratic countries do not allow voting at 16; people have to wait until they are 18. Maybe it works in Nicaragua, Cuba or Ecuador, but it does not work here. We will be outliers, propelled by a Government rightly accused of attempting gerrymandering and, as I just demonstrated, abandoning all their past precedents and good practice on the altar of electoral greed—which may well backfire if those voters do not turn out to vote for Labour, as is now predicted.
In conclusion, will the Minister please tell us what research the Government have undertaken on my concerns, particularly about peer pressure on children, and whether she shares my concerns on some of the other issues I have raised? If the Government have undertaken that research, perhaps she could share it with us. If not, these amendments, which largely go to postpone the proposals, must make sense. A referendum would allow those who are closer to 16 and 17 year-olds to make this decision.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I will make a couple of points. I wonder whether the noble Lord thinks that older people are not subject to peer pressure. I believe they are.
Lord Leigh of Hurley (Con)
Scientific research has shown that younger people are more subject to peer pressure than people over the age of 18.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
What scientific evidence? We can come back to that some other time; I do not wish to waste time this afternoon.
On gerrymandering, I entirely refute that case. Recent polling suggests that young people are not more likely to vote for my party. We are doing this not to secure votes but because we believe that empowering young people is the right thing to do. I have some sympathy with the viewpoint put by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, and I look forward to the response from my noble friend the Minister. I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said. Civic education and votes at 16 must go together, but we do not understand the depth of understanding of democracy among some young people. A couple of months ago, I went to a primary school in West Yorkshire where children between years 1 and 6 were elected to the school council. They all had to put forward a manifesto, and they patently understood democracy, voting and what everything meant. On civic education—to which we will return—this is not about influencing young people but about informing them so that they are aware of the rights they will be able to exercise.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity to support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister. I have a significant concern about the Government’s proposal, notwithstanding that it was in the manifesto—a manifesto, incidentally, supported by about 20% of the electorate, with the lowest turnout since 2001 and Labour polling at 33.7%, so one line in one manifesto needs to be taken within a broader context.
My concern is that a really robust case has not been made with real-world evidence. We are looking back to the halcyon days of the past. If young people—16 and 17 year-olds—were so concerned about being part of the franchise, then their close approximation, 18 to 24 year-olds, would have voted in significant numbers at the 2024 election. In fact, the turnout in that age group dropped from 47% to just 37%, so it was not actually a great vote-getter.
If you listened to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, for whom I have a great deal of respect, you would believe that Wales was a hotbed of psephological excitement and exuberance. But in fact that is not the case: this May, barely 51% voted for the national Parliament of the proud Principality of Wales, and as little as 42% voted in 2011. So there has not been a significant change in the number of people taking part in the ballot.
The comments of my noble friend Lord Bailey of Paddington were interesting. In 1950, 84% of people turned out to vote. But it was a different world then. People were encouraged, principally by their families and their social background—it was often a battle between capital and labour—as well as by public meetings, newspapers and the radio, although obviously not television. My noble friend made the vital point that young people are sometimes deeply influenced by a monoculture of social media. We can have many debates about that, but it would be wrong and completely irresponsible to ignore the context in which 15, 16 and 17 year-olds are making important decisions about how they vote.
In the past, the number one determinant for how a woman would vote was how her father voted. I am not saying I support that, but that was a societal psephological fact in those days. We are in a different world now, one where people do not read national newspapers or watch terrestrial television news programmes. They are very much interested in what other similarly aged people are saying on social media, and that will be a factor.
The main point is consistency, as my noble friend Lady Coffey brought up. Lowering the age while other adult thresholds stay at 18 is incoherent; it does not make sense. My noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley made some very important points, and I would be interested in the Minister’s comments about how what is good for the constituency Labour parties and the Labour NEC should be good for the franchise for young people as well. My noble friend Lord Udny-Lister made an important point. It seems incongruous and odd that you can vote in an election but not for someone who is the same age as you. That seems very strange. If you are given the franchise—the responsibility of choosing someone to represent you in Parliament—surely you should be able to vote for someone who is your age.
As for international comparisons, we have already heard that, in mature liberal democracies such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, they all set the voting age at 18. This reflects a widely accepted understanding of what adulthood is.
There is weak evidence on benefits. I have already talked about turnout, which has traditionally been very low, for many years, among 18 to 24 year-olds. That is a function of a wider democratic malaise about the faith and trust that young people have in politics and government. I fear that, in the absence of a coherent argument from the Government for why they are bringing this forward—other than out of psephological and electoral self-interest, in that they believe that thousands of young people will turn out and vote Labour—I cannot understand the evidential basis for this policy.
Public opinion does not support it either. The House of Commons Library notes that polling suggests that the public are unsupportive of lowering the voting age to 16. It is not just old or very old people—given where I am speaking, I will not define “old” or “very old” here in your Lordships’ Chamber—but all manner of people from 18 onwards who are, at the very best, lukewarm and in some cases hostile to these proposals.
We have talked about undue influence and interference, and my noble friend talked about foreign interference via the internet. I do not think it is wrong to focus on the issue of maturity. I know that there is not accepted definitive science about the development of the human brain among young people. Obviously, colloquially and anecdotally, one is told that people are fully formed—physically, mentally, emotionally and socially—at the age of 25, but I understand and concede that that will happen to different young people at different ages. I joined a political party at the age of 16, which made me rather an old weirdo, frankly—the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, would probably say that nothing much has changed. The fact is that I was atypical. Most people are not politically engaged and they get their information on political policies second hand, through hearsay and through close family and friendship groups.
I make one final point about Scotland and Wales, which are, of course, an integral and important part of our country. The fact that they have decided to go their own way, in increasing the franchise to 16 year-olds, does not mean that England should back into that. This is the sovereign Parliament of our unitary state—our one country—the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is for us in this Parliament to make the decision. I do not believe that our Front Bench will oppose the principle of this, but it is beholden on the Government, and disappointing that they have not done so, to bring forward a much more comprehensive, convincing and coherent argument for these proposals.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, posed a question: do we want another referendum? Of course we do not, because, in 2011, there was a referendum where we asked the people whether they wanted to fiddle the franchise and mess around with the voting system, and the people said no by a very large majority. All noble Lords need to recognise that that is not the way we want to go.
I certainly agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, when he proposed his amendment about social media—something I will return to later, in group 9. I will not go under the bonnet now, save to say that I think he omitted, in thinking about 16 year-olds, to consider the attainers who will need to prepare to vote on their 16th birthday but may not be 16 yet.
I associate myself with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, and my noble friend Lord Jackson, who has just spoken, about the muddle that we are in within our United Kingdom relating to the vote and to the franchise. The Bill ought to be the opportunity to bring an end to the hotchpotch of different arrangements in different parts of our United Kingdom. At Second Reading I spoke about the different systems. Clearly, there is first past the post, where the person who gets the most votes wins—easily explainable in the pub, although obviously there are no 16 year-olds there. There is the alternative vote, which now is just used for the Scottish Crofting Commission elections. There is the supplementary vote, with open and closed lists. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, who is not in his place, entertained us at Second Reading when he explained to us how he got elected to Holyrood without standing in that election. Then there are thirds and all-outs. The franchise is also different: in Scotland, any resident, of whatever nationality, can vote, but you must be English, from the Commonwealth or from the EU for local elections here. And of course Peers cannot vote at all.
I was taken by the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, who said that such arrangements risk the peace in our nation that flows from the Belfast agreement and the Windsor Framework. I am concerned that this is a slippery slope. The Prime Minister has already declared that he wants to review still further the voting system to consider proportional representation. We all need to be careful what we wish for, because PR will lead to more sectarianism, more minority voting and more campaigning in Urdu, where single-issue activists seek to hold the rest of us over a barrel, reducing trust in democracy and elections, and the institutions they serve.
I will consider Amendment 279, in the name of my noble friends on the Front Bench and the noble Lord, Lord Brady. Some months ago, I attended a Learn with the Lords session at the education service in Victoria Tower Gardens. I was surprised to be paired—I do not know why—with a load of gobby kids, each of them egging each other on, promoting and lionising the Tate brothers and, in my presence, voicing all sorts of unacceptable, misogynistic opinions about immigrants and women. It turned out that it was not Learn with the Lords but “learn from the kids”. I was really concerned.
This plays to the point of Amendment 279 and that which the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, has mentioned about where the boundary between childhood and adulthood is. I do not propose to go through another laundry list of the things you can do aged 16, although you can sell scrap metal to a dealer and you can get there on a moped—that would not be a big deal—or, in Scotland, get married without parental permission. I say to my noble friend Lady Coffey, who is in her place, that you may not be able to get a tattoo but you can certainly get a piercing. These are trivial examples, but it goes to the muddle we are in. When you are 18, you can fight on the front line, get a credit card, take out a loan, buy a pint and sit on a jury, as other noble Lords have said. You can make a will, buy land and property, hold a tenancy and rent an adult video—not that anyone rents videos of any sort nowadays. It illustrates the point that we must have the review contemplated by Amendment 279, to be fair not just to the adults in the room but—
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, it is true that one can join the forces at 16, but one does not fight on the front line, as the noble Lord put it, until one is 18.
Lord Fuller (Con)
That is exactly the point I was making, and I gave a list of the things you can do at 18. Let us move on.
We need to have this review not just because we must be fair to children and adults but because we need to be clear where the boundary sits. It is not at all clear now; it is drip, drip, drip, which leads to confusion and insecurity.
My final point is that, when we consider votes at 16, we have to prepare people—the attainers—who are either 14 or 15, in a further blurring of the line between childhood and adulthood. As another noble friend said, I do not suppose that the Front Bench will oppose votes at 16, as it is a manifesto commitment, but we need to know what we are getting into before we get there.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I think the most interesting thing in this debate is the things that were not said. When the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, went directly to the point that everyone else had been tiptoeing around and, slightly indelicately but deliberately, said this was a partisan Bill that was psephological in its content and was actually about advantaging one party over another, I watched very carefully the expressions opposite. The Minister did not swoon theatrically; there was no clamour of outrage, with people demanding that either of the noble Lords should withdraw. In fact, with the honourable exception of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, who at least tried to reject it—she said she refuted it, but I am not sure she did—the reaction everywhere else was some studied looking at screens. The reason was that the noble Lords were not saying anything remarkable.
Lest that noble Lords think I am being partisan about this, this has been the case with every change in the franchise. In our entire long history, I cannot think of one Representation of the People Act that has not been manipulated for partisan advantage by every party at the time. It happened in 1832 and 1867, it happened in the 1884 and 1885 Reform Acts, it happened in 1918, and it happened when the voting age was last changed in 1969 by Harold Wilson. It happened when the Triennial Act was introduced in 1694, when the Septennial Act was introduced in 1716, and when the quinquennial Act was introduced in 1911. On every occasion, people have—perfectly understandably, because politics is politics—tried to game who would benefit.
As King Solomon said,
“there is nothing new under the sun”.
I will of course with great pleasure give way.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
The noble Lord might recall that I was a history tutor, and I am going to disagree with him. In Wales, the first time—I think it was the first—that 16 year-olds voted, the Labour Party, which had been in power in Wales for over 100 years, was reduced to nine out of 96 seats.
Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Non-Afl)
I am always very grateful to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen. There is a reminder in what he said that you should be careful what you wish for and that it may just be worth considering what has changed in the opinion polls between when this measure was put in the manifesto and now. Of course, however, we do not need to worry about that sort of thing in our elevated position here.
What makes this one a little bit different from all those others is not the fact of the electoral calculation and manipulation, but the flagrancy. What I mean by that is the list we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Leigh of Hurley. It is not just that parties on all sides have agreed on 18 as the standard age for maturity: the age at which you can make a contract, use a credit card, get a mortgage, serve on a jury and stand as a candidate. It is that, in many cases, the age has been raised from 16 to 18 as the age of consent by the same people who are now saying we should lower the voting age.
One of the first debates I took part in as a newish Member of your Lordships’ House was on raising the age from 16 to 18 to get Botox treatment. It was supported on every side. People said, “Well, this is just closing a loophole. This, after all, is the age we already use to get a tattoo and buy a knife, a bottle of wine, a scratchcard or some fireworks”. Absolutely true. As we heard, the last Labour Government raised the age of consent for a lot of these things, and certainly voted for it when other parties did.
The difference is not that it is happening; it is the sheer brazenness and flagrancy of it. That serves to undermine confidence in the system. It makes people cynical, because it confirms all the negatives that people have about politicians. If we have decided, as a country, that people below the age of 18 are legally children, are we really going to say that they are not responsible enough to buy or knife, scratchcard, firework or pint of beer, but that they should have the right to decide whether anyone else can do those things? Is that a reasonable proposition?
Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)
My Lords, I listened carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, said. He seemed to suggest that one of the burdens of this legislation was to increase the engagement and participation of people in the democratic process, and certainly that is important. But surely one of the basic, central principles in a democracy is the restoring of trust within the population. The noble Lord mentioned how, over the years, things have changed. I was elected to the other place for Mid Ulster for 14 and a half years. The participation rate of the electorate who came out to vote over those years, in all those elections, was between 70% and 83%. There was no lack of interest or engagement as far as the population was concerned, certainly in those elections.
I know things may have changed. For Northern Ireland, we have had a change. The central principle in a democracy is surely that everyone’s vote is equal. I heard a lot of talk about England, Scotland and Wales. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, mentioned Northern Ireland in the context of different methods of election. For example, for the Assembly and the councils we have proportional representation. Every person’s vote in that electoral system was certainly equal. Across the United Kingdom, there were varied manners of electing people, yet when it came to Westminster, everyone’s vote was the same. In all those years—my participation in the other House was 25 years in total—everyone’s vote was certainly equal.
That changed in 2021. We now find that, when England, Scotland and Wales go to elect a Member of Parliament, they vote for a person who will legislate on the matters relating to their constituents. But, when it comes to Northern Ireland, that has changed. They can only legislate for some issues in their constituency. They can participate in all the other votes in the other House, for England, Scotland and Wales, but, when it comes to Northern Ireland, there is a plethora of laws that are now forced on the people of Northern Ireland that the United Kingdom Parliament cannot vote upon. Therefore, those who elected a person in Northern Ireland are going to endure legislation and laws forced on them that their elected representatives have never voted on. That is completely different from any other Member of Parliament. Therefore, the vote of a person in Northern Ireland is not the same.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, mentioned the equality issue; surely, there is an equality issue here. Therefore, I hope that, when she comes to the concluding wind-up, the Minister will tell us how the Government intend to explain to a 16 or 17 year-old in Northern Ireland, if they give them the vote, that their vote will mean less than the vote of someone else in the rest of the United Kingdom. Without that answer, we can change the age, but there is still a major problem. Therefore, when it comes to restoring trust in democracy, we should surely have Members of Parliament elected to be able to vote on the issues which their constituents are supposed to accept as the law of the land.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, we on these Benches strongly support the idea of votes at 16, for two broad reasons. First, we want this to be a citizen democracy: not one in which passive subjects wait for the Government to deliver things to them and are supposed to be thankful, but one in which people feel they share in government, local and national, and have a voice. We believe that bringing the voting age down to 16 will help to engage people in their democracy before they leave home.
We have heard a lot—as we did during today’s second Oral Question—about the need for a national conversation. In the strategic defence review last year, we heard about the need for a whole-society response to the threats we now face by engaging local communities, volunteers and the like. That requires people to feel that they are part of our political community and, therefore, that they share the need to decide what goes on with government.
The second reason is because we—as well as France, Germany and others—increasingly have a problem of demographic balance in our politics. Some 30 years ago, when I was in charge of writing the manifesto for my party for the 1997 election, I spoke to people writing the Labour and Conservative manifestos. Among the things I was told was that we were really writing for people over the age of 45. Those under 45 did not vote so often and did not care so much about the details, so our package needed to be oriented towards benefits for the older generation. That is a problem. It is a huge problem in France, for example, where old people resist any increase in the age of retirement. I spent some time last spring visiting secondary schools to see how 16 and 17 year-olds would respond to votes at 16. I have been very impressed by how serious the 16 and 17 year-olds I met were about politics, how much more they want to know and how keen they are to be engaged. It will take a shift in the way we approach education and provide information but it is worth doing.
We have been discussing extension of the franchise for 200 years, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannan, rightly pointed out. I am sure he will agree that there have been only two occasions on which the Conservatives have not opposed any extension of the franchise. The first, as he mentioned, was Disraeli in 1867, when he decided to take a gamble and discover what he called the angels in marble. The second was in 2022, following the Elections Act, when the Conservatives pushed through an expansion of the right to vote for overseas voters for their lifetimes. The noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, may note that that increased the number of voters by somewhere between 2 million and 4 million; we are not entirely clear on how many overseas citizens are entitled to vote. That was done without a referendum, without consultation with the other parties, and without thinking through what it meant for changing the way in which you delivered your vote and get postal votes out. Cynics even thought that it was more to do with making it easier for wealthy expats to give money than to increase the franchise—but never mind, it was done, and without a referendum.
There has been talk about capacity and focus. The young people I spoke to—I have no doubt the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, will say the same—are often very concerned about education and training, for obvious reasons, as well as climate change and sustainability, which tend not to concern our generation quite so much. If we are talking about capacity and interest in relation to the young, we might perhaps also think about the old. When I first went into politics, the local Conservative agent had an extremely good relationship with the matrons of the local care homes. I discovered that he would go round, talk to the matron and butter her up, and she would help the inmates to fill in their postal votes. It had nothing much to do with privacy but it was the way one did things at a local level. That was a long time ago, and I am sure that no Conservative agent would think of doing such a thing nowadays, but if we are to start measuring capacity then it is not just the under-18s whom we have to worry about.
On fiddling the franchise, I add that the 2022 Act changed the way in which we elect mayors, which meant that when the Mayor of the West of England was elected he got 26% of the vote—a good democratic thing. Fiddling with the franchise has been done on a regular basis by both major parties, so let us not pretend that we are doing that here as well.
Lord Hayward (Con)
My Lords, before I touch on one or two other things, I just say to my noble friend—I do refer to him as my noble friend—Lord Wallace that I think he meant “residents” rather than “inmates” when he was referring to care homes.
I do not intend to cover ground which has been covered by a large number of other people, but my noble friend Lord Wallace also touched on the question of changing the franchise. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, is not in her place at the moment, but my noble friend was absolutely clear about the historical analogies. I was one of the people who fell within that range of the 1969-70 Act in terms of implementation, and there was no question about it: it was not broadly supported by the Conservative Party because it thought it would benefit from it, and I have a very clear recollection because I fell within that age group.
One or two important issues have been touched on, one of which is Northern Ireland. I have every sympathy with noble colleagues from different Benches who have referred to the implications of what is not an equality of power of vote, and that needs to be carefully considered. However, I was also impressed by the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, about a category of people that is very small but which needs to be looked at incredibly carefully. A very close friend of mine is deeply involved in that community, and we have to remember that 40% of all the adult inmates in prison in this country come from care homes. It is a difficult task to deal with, and we therefore need to address the sorts of issues that the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, raised.
I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, made, that this was in the manifesto. However, the trouble with the Bill is that very little else was in the manifesto. I have said to both the current Minister and to the noble Lord, Lord Lemos, that the Bill would be far better if the Government stuck to those parts of the legislation which appeared in the manifesto, rather than spending their time adding amendment after amendment and curtailing debate both in this House and the other House. If the Government came back with a Bill that dealt solely with manifesto matters, this House would have a far more coherent debate, and it would be logical and appropriate if it were considered on all sides on that basis.
I do not favour 16 and 17-year-olds having the vote. I could have cited many other examples of contradictions in our legislation, but they have been made over and over again, with the summary message being that what we are doing in the vast majority of cases is raising the age at which people should act in a certain way, whatever that action may happen to be.
In conclusion, I just make the observation that I am a former chief executive of the British Beer & Pub Association, and I will be quite happy to explain to my colleagues, who seem to think that 17 year-olds are not allowed to drink in pubs, that they are. However, that is for another date.
Lord Gascoigne (Con)
My Lords, cheers to that.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said moments ago that we have been debating franchise extensions for 200 years. As one of the last speakers in a two-hour debate, I begin to know what that feels like.
I support a number of amendments in this group, but mainly Amendment 2 in the name of my noble friend Lady Coffey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox. Perhaps I come at this from a different point of view, and perhaps I am a lone voice on this side, in that I support the Government in lowering the voting age, and I congratulate them genuinely on doing this. However, like many others, both noble Baronesses have highlighted many inconsistencies, and I think the phrase “It’s a bit of a muddle” seems to be correct.
I wish to refer to an inconsistency that I think has not been mentioned, and which I have raised before in Home Office Questions: criminal sentencing and our differentiating between adult and juvenile at 18. I know that this is incredibly complex, as is always the case in the legalities involved in international agreements, but a recent horrific case—which I questioned the Minister about at the time—highlighted, at least to me, why we should look at whether the balance will now be right. Personally, I think it needs to change.
I say that because, if we ought to lower the voting age—and I think we should—with that right has to come a sense of responsibility; and with that right, I would argue, your role in society changes. We should properly and carefully go through these issues. It is not just a right-wing thing to say that; in fact, it is not a right-wing thing to say that. President John F Kennedy best communicated it when he said:
“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country”.
I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Carter of Haslemere, who was in his place earlier, for his Private Member’s Bill, which referred to citizenship lessons for younger people.
I do not want to stray too much into what I think is covered in group six, but I want to refer to an issue that is dealt with in some amendments in this group, and which has been touched on already. My fear is that in lowering the voting age, we are implying that we have simply achieved our aims overnight without debating what it means: how to build national unity and to allow for some political discourse, and what being a citizen in modern Britain means. What are your rights and your responsibilities, and how can you play your part in our country?
The points made by the noble Lord, Lord Young, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, on Amendment 20 are valid too. Looking at the issues associated with social media should not be scorned by anyone. I am the proud father of two very young daughters, and, trust me, when I put them to bed every night, there is a growing list of things in my head that they will face as they grow up in Britain, and which fills me with fear. However, we should consider what it means for young people to be engaged and receive this information, and how it happens.
I repeat that I support the Government, and my concern is not with the principle but with the insinuation that we are treating votes at 16 as an end in itself. As a few people have said, the Bill will pass and we will feel able to congratulate ourselves and say, “Job’s a good ’un. Mission accomplished. Let’s move on”, saying nothing about some of the things that many people really want fixed and want the Government to get on and support. If we genuinely want to strengthen democratic participation, lowering the voting age should be accompanied by an understanding of what citizenship is and what playing a part in our free, liberal, democratic society means and entails. There should be greater clarity to help make the system work—a system which engenders active, proud and patriotic citizenship. Otherwise, my fear is that we risk making a constitutional change without addressing the reasons for making it, and, arguably, undermining it.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I thought it might be worth saying, for accuracy, that in the Welsh Senedd elections in 2021, 16 year-olds were allowed to vote, despite what the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, said.
Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)
I thank all noble Lords who have tabled amendments in this group concerning lowering the voting age to 16 years. I also thank everyone who has contributed to the debate, and I apologise in advance for anyone I am not going to name-check. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Hayward for clarifying the terminology used by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. I certainly do not think anyone on these Benches would refer to elderly people—
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My apologies; I absolutely misspoke. Having spent some time with my mother and my godmother in care homes, I have spent much time visiting residents in them, and I apologise for misspeaking.
Baroness O’Neill of Bexley (Con)
I did think that was particularly distasteful.
As I said at Second Reading, this is a constitutionally significant Bill, and therefore deserves thorough scrutiny from your Lordships’ House. It may well be a manifesto commitment and therefore we will not oppose it, but we encourage the Government to seriously consider all the impacts of implementation, as my noble friend Lord Gasgoigne mentioned.
It is in that spirit that I address the amendments of my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister. Amendment 302 would require regulations to lower the voting age to go through the affirmative procedure, and Amendment 33 would require an assessment of 16 and 17 year-olds’ vulnerability to electoral disinformation and foreign interference. My noble friend is absolutely right that such changes need to be properly thought through and prepared before they take effect.
His Amendments 4 and 283 would require a referendum on lowering the voting age to 16. Referendums are of course not a requirement, nor are they legally binding, but they are used to decide major constitutional issues. They have been held three times nationally in the UK: once in 1975 on our membership of the EEC, in 2011 on changing the voting system and, of course, in 2016 on our membership of the EU. Lowering the voting age is significant, so it is reasonable to ask whether a referendum should be held. While we will not oppose a manifesto commitment, as my noble friend Lady Coffey said, it was one line in the Labour manifesto. I hope the Minister will clarify in exactly what circumstances this Government believe that referendums should be held. This is especially relevant after a senior Labour MP in the other place suggested that Brexit should be reversed without a referendum. Labour Ministers have refused to rule out rejoining the EU without a referendum, which was the will of the people. It begs the question: if this Government care so much about the democratic representation of the people, why would they ignore the way they voted in 2016?
Amendments 1 and 3, also in the name of my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister, would retain the voting age at 18 for elections to the House of Commons, on the grounds that this is in line with the age at which you can stand for election yourself, as well as for signing a recall petition under the Recall of MPs Act 2015. He raises an important point about consistency. If this Government genuinely believe that this policy is right, why not apply the same logic elsewhere? Indeed, this is why Amendments 22, 279 and 285 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Jamieson would prevent Part 1 of the Act coming into force until the Secretary of State had undertaken a review of the consistency of age laws.
For example, the Family Law Reform Act 1969 sets the age of majority at 18. Full citizens’ rights and responsibilities are given at 18. Sixteen and 17 year-olds need parental consent before they can join the Army. They cannot drink, buy vapes, knives or fireworks or do many other things, as outlined by my noble friends Lord Fuller and Lord Hannan. As to the evidence that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, requested from my noble friend Lord Leigh of Hurley, it came from the respected journal Developmental Psychology, published in an article by Professors Gardner and Steinberg. It showed that resistance to peer-pressure influence increases significantly from 14 to 18.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)
My Lords, the Representation of the People Bill opens up participation and strengthens the integrity of our democracy, ensuring that all eligible citizens can exercise their right to vote. It introduces one of the biggest changes to the franchise in half a century, with the enfranchisement of 16 and 17 year-olds, and moves us towards more automated voter registration. It reinforces trust by closing down opportunities for those who would seek to undermine our democracy, with stronger political finance rules and better protections against harassment and intimidation.
It has been a great pleasure to listen to the debate this afternoon. It has been the House at its best: 19 or 20 speakers—I am not sure I wrote them all down—debating the first part of the Bill, and we have heard differing views from across the House and some very detailed scrutiny of some of the provisions in the Bill, which I welcome. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, that I know the Bill has had some additions during its passage, but it was always the intention that we would take account of the Rycroft review and introduce some of its recommendations as the Bill progressed. Philip Rycroft did an outstanding job on reviewing some of the key issues, particularly around political finance.
Lord Hayward (Con)
I thank the Minister for that clarification, but how does she make those observations stack up with the observation made by the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, at the end of Second Reading and the comparison with the amount of time given in Committee for this Bill compared with the Elections Bill in 2022?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My noble friend Lord Rooker is raising the issue of scrutiny on every Bill. It is interesting that he put that process in place but has changed his mind. Scrutiny on all Bills is welcome. This is my sixth piece of legislation. I have welcomed the scrutiny that this House has brought to all those Bills. With this Bill, we knew there would be further additions during its passage. That is the point I was trying to make.
I turn first to Amendments 1 and 3 in the name of the noble Lord, Udny-Lister, and Amendment 2 in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Coffey and Lady Fox of Buckley. Our intended extension of the franchise will create consistency across the United Kingdom and ensure that young people have a voice at a local and a national level. But consistency is not the only or the most important reason for extending the vote to 16 and 17 year-olds. As I said at Second Reading—it has been repeated during this debate—the important question is not what else you can or cannot do at 16 but whether 16 is the right age to be able to vote. This Government are clear that the answer to that question is yes. We were elected on a commitment to make precisely this change.
We have heard many examples of things that you cannot do at 16—tongue piercing, gambling, purchasing knives, having tattoos or credit cards—and some points about criminal sentencing, which I hear with interest.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)
Can the Minister answer the question asked by my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister? Why is it right for a 16 year-old to be a voter in an election but not a parliamentary candidate or a Member of Parliament?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am coming on to that point, if the noble Lord will bear with me. I want to pick up some other points first.
The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, spoke about votes at 18. We were the first in the world to do that. It would be unthinkable to go back on that. The first election that I voted in, in 1975, was the vote to go into the European Union. I have not changed my mind about that. I have changed it about some other things, but certainly not about that. When we talk about purchasing knives at 18, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, mentioned things that might intimidate. I was not intimidated by the little stubby bit of pencil that I was given to cast that vote.
We believe that 16 is the right age to be able to exercise your democratic right. Extending the right to vote to 16 and 17 year-olds will allow them to have a say in the Government who shape their future and will set them up, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, for a lifelong engagement in democracy. I absolutely agree about the points on education and will come on to those in a moment.
I want to address the important points made in the debate on how we ended up at 16. We have looked extensively at how voting works around the world. We have looked at a number of places, including Austria and Malta, which have successfully lowered the voting age to 16. The step has been taken already in Scotland and Wales for devolved elections and more widely in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. Evidence from these places shows that those who vote at a younger age are more likely to continue voting as they get older.
By the age of 16, young people have already made important decisions about their own lives—whether to continue with their education, undertake training, pursue an apprenticeship or seek employment or volunteering opportunities. Even by the age of 14, they have decided what subjects they want to continue to study. Why is it the case that they should be considered old enough to make those decisions that affect the rest of their lives but cannot vote? We should not fear expanding the franchise to younger people. In 1969, the UK was the first country in the world to lower the voting age to 18. Extending the right to vote to 16 and 17 year-olds now is the next natural step in the evolution of our democracy. Young people are the future of our country. It is only right that they have a say over it.
I very much supported the points made about a serious programme of education. We will come to that in future groups, but I want to make some points now about education and what steps are being taken to support young people’s education. We want to break down barriers and drive participation. We know that engagement and education are a crucial part of implementing that policy. It is vital that young people understand and value the democratic process and feel that it is relevant to them. We are committed to ensuring that democracy education reinforces the importance and value of participating in our democracy and inspires greater democratic engagement. We want engagement to start at 16 and continue into adulthood by equipping and empowering pupils with the knowledge and understanding that they need. We will continue to work with the Electoral Commission, the devolved Governments and civil society on what additional measures can support schools, colleges and youth groups to roll out practical voter and civic education. It is vital that we also start that process with our youngest students. This is all aligned with the Government’s youth strategy of engagement of young people.
On the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, about candidates standing in elections, there are very specific reasons why we have taken the decision not to include candidates at 16 and 17. The Government believe that the ages of 16 and 17 are a particularly important time to continue personal development and education. That is why rules in England require that those who choose to leave school at 16 must pursue an apprenticeship or work no more than 20 hours a week while in part-time education or training until the age of 18. The requirements of local government officeholders are a significant commitment. Having different age requirements for local and national office would be unnecessarily complicated. As such, the Government will not be changing the minimum candidacy age for any elected offices. I heard the points about the Labour Party NEC and constituency offices. I am sure that was a recognition of this, but there is definitely a very active engagement of young people in my party, as I am sure there is across all political parties.
The noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, has also tabled Amendments 4, 283 and 301, which seek to require a referendum on lowering the voting age to 16, with a majority vote in favour before the change can be implemented. However, as my noble friend Lord Murphy set out with his characteristic clarity, the Government were elected on a clear mandate that included a commitment to extend the right to vote to 16 and 17 year-olds in all UK elections. That is an important point about not having a referendum on this: we already have a mandate to introduce it.
As the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Leigh, that we do not carry out cognitive tests on any citizens before they exercise their franchise, no matter what their age. This point about cognitive ability is a difficult one for him to make. The Government have been very clear on this matter. We genuinely believe that young people are the future of our country, and it is only right that they have a say in the decisions that shape their lives.
As for partisan advantage, I have heard from the other side both that we are doing this as a gerrymandering exercise and that it will let in votes from smaller parties such as Reform and the Green Party. They cannot have it both ways. We are either gerrymandering or we are opening out the franchise to a wider group of parties. We are doing it because it is the right thing to do to introduce votes at 16 and 17, so a referendum is not necessary. It would be unusual to require a referendum before implementing a clear manifesto commitment on which the Government were elected and for which they have a mandate.
I will say to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, whom I think was talking about some comments that a Labour Member had made about a Brexit referendum, that if every statement in the other place by a Labour Member became government policy, we would have an awful lot more work to do than we have already.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
I am grateful to my noble friend for clarifying the position, but I do not think she has really addressed the question of two groups of children living side by side, where one of the children will have the vote and the other will not. If she cannot address that now, perhaps she could write to me and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, afterwards, because there is concern about the impact that will have on the children who cannot vote.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I understand the point my noble friend makes, and I will be very happy to write to her or meet her to discuss that further. On the government amendments—
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
I know the Minister has a lot to answer tonight, but will she say anything about Amendment 21, which was mentioned by a number of Peers?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I am not doing the government amendments because they are the last bit; I am doing them because this is where they come in the order of things. I will come on to other amendments.
Following the extension of the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds, newly eligible young people will need to register to vote. Government Amendment 12 and consequential Amendments 275, 295 and 296, tabled in my name, will enable electoral registration officers to obtain information about 14 and 15 year-olds during the 2027 canvas. Registration officers will be able to use that information to invite those young people to register to vote, either as attainers or as electors, once the new franchise is brought into effect. This will help to get young people on the register and reduce the risk for our hard-pressed EROs of a large spike in registrations immediately before the first poll is conducted under the expanded franchise.
I turn now to Amendment 20, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Acton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. The Government agree that extending the franchise must go hand in hand with ensuring that young people have access to reliable information and the knowledge they need to participate confidently in elections. However, we do not consider that this amendment is necessary. The Government’s proposed social media ban will apply to children under the age of 16, although they will still be able to access the online world for purposes including news and learning. Meanwhile, 16 and 17 year-olds will continue to be able to access social media, although additional default protections will apply to help ensure they can do so safely. The Online Safety Act already includes safeguards for content of democratic importance, recognised news publisher content and journalistic content on the largest user-to-user services. Ofcom is now implementing that regime and there is a strong case for allowing it to run its course before introducing a further statutory review requirement through the Bill.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
Can I just finish this section and then I will give way? However, regulation is only one part of the answer. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is working with the Department for Education to strengthen media literacy in the new school curriculum, from primary up to age 16, from September 2028, including how pupils identify misinformation and disinformation. This is complemented by wider government activity, including the cross-government media literacy action plan, the You Won’t Know Until You Ask campaign and the Kids Online Safety hub, which help families build resilience to misinformation and disinformation and access trusted online safety information.
Lord Young of Acton (Con)
I thank the Minister for giving way. That sounded very positive, but can I just clarify whether the Minister was giving the Committee an assurance that, when those protections are in place, children under the age of 16 will be able to access content of democratic importance, news publisher content and journalistic content and that the content will not be restricted by the forthcoming regulations restricting social media access for under 16 year-olds?
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
Yes, I think that is certainly the case.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hoey, has tabled Amendments 21, 278, 284 and 286. These amendments seek to require an equality impact assessment comparing the effects of the franchise change in Northern Ireland with Great Britain and to delay the commencement of Part 1 of the Bill until a formal report on the Government’s response to that assessment is laid before both Houses. The Government are committed to extending the franchise to 16 and 17 year-olds across the entire United Kingdom on an equal basis. The Bill ensures that people across the United Kingdom are empowered to participate in our democracy. Imposing additional statutory requirements on extending the franchise would create an unnecessary delay to delivering this commitment for young people across the UK.
The noble Baroness mentioned the Windsor Framework in relation to this amendment. The Windsor Framework was overwhelmingly approved by Parliament. It respects Northern Ireland’s place in the union and gives democratically elected Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly the ability to scrutinise—
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
Can I just finish? Then, if the noble Baroness still wants to come in, I will happily give way. It gives Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly the ability to scrutinise the rules that apply and the Government are committed to it. The Government are committed to equality across the country and lowering the voting age to 16 applies identically across all reserved elections, without distinction. The assessment comparing electors in Northern Ireland with those in Great Britain is unnecessary and would delay implementation of the measure.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
I thank the Minister for the detail with which she has responded, although obviously I do not agree with her. Can I just correct something that has been said by many noble Lords? The Windsor Framework was never voted on as the Windsor Framework either in the House of Commons or in the House of Lords. The only way that we have had votes has been on statutory instruments. The very first one was some months after 2021, when the protocol was brought in, and then the Windsor Framework. There has been no vote ever in this place or the other place on the Windsor Framework and the principle of it.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
I will leave that comment where the noble Baroness left it.
Amendments 22, 279 and 285, in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, and the noble Lords, Lord Jamieson and Lord Brady of Altrincham, would require a report explaining why the voting age should differ from the age of majority set out in the Family Law Reform Act 1969, which is 18. A similar amendment to this was tabled in the other place, and I can only reiterate today what my ministerial colleague said in those debates. The Government are working to build and maintain a democracy fit for 2026 and beyond. The central question before us is not whether the voting age aligns with every other age threshold contained in statute. Rather, it is whether 16 and 17 year-olds should have a voice in the democratic decisions that affect their lives and their future. The Government’s view is clear: young people have a direct stake in the future of this country and extending the franchise will enable them to participate in shaping policies and institutions that will have a lasting impact on their lives and can help establish the habits of democratic engagement that will build the foundations for lifelong participation in our democratic system. I hope that reassures noble Lords that the Government have carefully considered this matter, and we remain committed to delivering this important reform.
Lord Udny-Lister (Con)
I thank the Minister for her comments, but I plea that she takes on board the education point that a number of people in the Committee have raised. However, I accept that this is a manifesto commitment, and therefore I withdraw the amendment.
Lord Frost
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, and others in the name of Lord Frost, seeks to make the Representation of the People Act 1983 franchise, as amended by this Act, the franchise for all statutory elections, referendums and polls in the United Kingdom, except City of London ward elections. It would abolish the Scotland-only and Wales-only franchise variants and make the franchise a wholly reserved matter.
Lord Frost (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I shall move Amendment 5 and speak to Amendments 7, 30 and 31 on the Marshalled List.
In considering the Bill, we are going to be considering some major changes to how we conduct our elections in this country. We will spend a lot of time considering the “what” of these changes and their justifiability, but we are not going to spend much time considering the “who”: who has the right to make, or not make, the changes that are being brought forward? I want to discuss that question and particularly the consequences of the devolution of the electoral franchise for all but national elections, and to suggest, as my amendments suggest, that these arrangements need to be looked at again.
I emphasise the franchise; I am not looking at the electoral system, for there has always been variation on that within the country. I am not looking at the merits of voting at 16, Commonwealth voting or anything like that. We will be coming to some of those issues where we have not discussed them already. This is about the wider consequences of allowing the devolved Governments to change the electoral franchise and the knock-on effects that that has for the wider system and the rest of the country. That is why I thought it right to table these amendments; they are probing amendments designed to get the matter discussed. Their effect would be to make the electoral franchise a reserved matter and the same in every part of the UK. In other words, they would restore the constitutional system on that point as it existed before 2013.
I will speak briefly on how these amendments would work. Amendment 30 would establish two common franchise categories: it would establish the parliamentary franchise, described as for Westminster elections and UK-wide or nationwide referendums or similar; and it would establish the local government franchise, which would apply for almost everything else. The amendment would therefore replace Scotland’s and Wales’s wider nationality qualifications. It would remove Scotland’s short-sentence prisoner exception, and it would make inconsistent legislative provisions ineffective.
Amendment 31 would go on to prevent the devolved institutions from subsequently recreating different franchises once again. It would expressly reserve for Westminster the voting entitlement in Scottish Parliament, Senedd and local elections and referendums, and polls in Scotland and Wales.
Amendments 5 and 7 seek to make the necessary consequential changes concerning detained young offenders. Amendment 5 would remove the England-only restriction on their disqualification from local government voting, and Amendment 7 seeks to delete the Northern Ireland modification that is rendered unnecessary by the earlier change. So that is how they would work.
I will say a word about the history and how we got to this point. As I noted, the devolution of franchise setting is hardly something from the dim and distant past; it is not a long-established and well-accepted part of our constitution. It goes back all of 13 years. That is why I want to examine this history in more detail.
I take Scotland first. The original devolution settlement left the franchise reserved in 1998, and the then Labour Government defended that explicitly. Lord Sewel explicitly said that the Scottish Executive
“cannot mess around with the franchise; that remains reserved”—[Official Report, 23/7/1998; col. 1077.]
That statement was not regarded as controversial, at that point. The genie was let out of the bottle only with the SNP’s determination to give itself the best chance of winning the 2014 independence referendum, and the Government consented to votes at 16 for that referendum under a special arrangement, and then agreed to it permanently in 2015.
After the referendum, the Scotland Act removed the general reservation on all but UK Parliament elections in 2017. Controversially, your Lordships’ Constitution Committee said at the time that devolving constitutional powers, including the franchise,
“risked introducing variation where there should be none”.
It identified possible differences in the enfranchisement of non-British residents and British citizens abroad—not merely the question of the voting age. It also warned that changes in Scotland could, in the end, pressure Westminster into matching them, rather than having a prior, wider, UK-wide debate on how the system should work. Those warnings were correct, but they were ignored. In 2020, the Scottish Government extended the franchise further not just to short-sentence prisoners but to all foreign residents in Scotland for everything other than national parliamentary elections.
Lord Murphy of Torfaen (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Frost, will not be surprised to learn that I do not agree with him on these issues. I understand the difference between franchise and the whole business of elections and the institutions to which we elect people, but we have to be extremely careful that we do not undermine a devolution settlement that was set up not just by Act of Parliament but by referenda in Northern Ireland and Scotland, and, in Wales, by two referenda. To do that would be seriously damaging to the devolution settlement.
In Northern Ireland’s case, I had the privilege of chairing the Good Friday agreement talks that dealt with elections. There was an agreement among all the parties in Northern Ireland involved in those talks, and the two Governments of course, to ensure that the final Good Friday agreement would command consensus right across the board. If we start interfering with that, we are in deep trouble. The 1998 settlement was agreed in Ireland by a referendum in the north and south. I am not saying that we cannot change it, but those changes need to be made with the devolved Assembly itself.
In terms of Scotland and Wales, one of my predecessors as Welsh Secretary once said that devolution is a process. I did not agree with him at the time, but he was probably right. It is a process, and over the last 30 years that process has meant that the relationship between the United Kingdom Government and Parliament and the devolved Governments and Parliament has developed to a very sophisticated degree. If you interfere with that, you can seriously interfere with the devolution settlement. Although in some ways there is some merit in thinking that the franchise should perhaps be universal, the only way you could agree that is by having consensus with the devolved Administrations, and they would have to agree with it.
I am not a great lover of proportional representation; I have always been a first past the post person. I really believe in a link between the elected Member and his or her constituents. I do not particularly agree with the settlement we have in Wales with the 96 Members on a closed-list system—I am not sure that anybody really understands it all that much—but I agree with the right of the Senedd to be able to establish that system. Therefore, we ought to be very careful indeed about how we deal with these amendments.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased to support my noble friend Lord Frost. I put my name to his Amendments 30 and 31, and the two consequential amendments.
I listened very carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen. I thought I was the only person who was not keen on the d’Hondt system of voting. He put his finger on a very important point—that system does not allow the voters to hold a particular person or even party accountable. We have seen from recent evidence in the Welsh Senedd that someone can change their political affiliation and refuse to give way, even though they have de facto been elected as a party member rather than as an individual, as a candidate in a set constituency.
I support the amendments because their practical effect will be to create administrative consistency across the franchise rules of all elections, referenda and polls in the UK. In an era of fractiousness and bitter division in politics, which is growing stronger, having multiple election systems—which reduces the ability of the average voter, who is not engaged, to engage in the political system and to see that their vote has a consequence and that the person they voted for is likely to be elected—only adds to an undermining of the sense of common purpose and social solidarity and continues to make different parts of our country more fractious and divided.
It is perfectly possible to support these amendments and, broadly speaking, to agree with the concept of devolution. A country such as Scotland had a separate legal system and education system and a proud history, not least in building the British Empire many years ago. It is different from England, and I respectfully say to the noble Lord, Lord Murphy, that the people of England never had a vote on whether they wanted to set up the Welsh Assembly, as it then was, or the Scottish Parliament. Therefore, their ability to make key decisions was undermined—albeit he would probably say that the Blair Government had a mandate and were re-elected after the establishment of those two devolved Administrations.
My noble friend made some important points, which I will not belabour. A single nation state should have a common framework for democratic membership. The United States is many times bigger than the United Kingdom and has many more people, yet it has the same voting system. We will see whether it works tomorrow in delivering the votes that people want in the mid-term elections.
Lord Hayward (Con)
This is not intended to undermine the coherence of my noble friend’s overall argument, but, as a pedant alert, my noble friend said that the 50 states of the United States operate on the same electoral system. They do not. There are differences between a host of different states, in one form or another.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
I bow to my noble friend’s greater knowledge. I was referring to national ballots. I understand that for rat-catcher, county sheriff and other roles there will be local differences, but, for the election of, for instance, a governor or members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, they are generally the same.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, I apologise that I was not able to attend Second Reading, but my noble friend Lady Smith of Llanfaes contributed on behalf of Plaid Cymru, and I hope she will continue doing so as effectively.
I oppose the thrust of this group of amendments—which is hardly a surprise to anybody. I do not believe that we are a single nation state. We are not. We are a multi-nation state. While I acknowledge that there is a valid argument that an election to any chamber of government should be on a uniform, consistent franchise basis throughout the area covered by that chamber, there surely can be no valid reason for Westminster to tell Wales or Scotland that we cannot, in our devolved Parliaments, allow our young people to vote at 16 because it does not happen to suit Westminster. Devolution exists to allow us to do things differently in the nations of Wales and Scotland. Indeed, if Westminster acts to take the vote from young people in Wales and Scotland, I cannot imagine a stronger lever to drive those two countries towards independence. I invite the Committee to think very carefully before doing so.
Our experience in this regard in Wales in last May’s election was wholly positive. The degree of interest amongst young people was impressive. I saw it for myself in canvassing during the election, in talking to young people in my home community and to friends of my grandchildren in other parts of Wales, and while acting as a booth agent for Plaid Cymru on voting day in my home village. The turnout in May’s election in Wales was the highest in any devolved election in Wales. Yes, it was a bit over 50%, and we are going to ask why it was not higher in previous elections, but it was a step in the right direction in getting young people involved. It involved not only young people but, very often, their parents, who got to understand what was going on and perhaps participated, whereas in the past they had not done so. There also exists in Wales the Welsh Youth Parliament, a highly respected body which helps the development of young people’s political thinking on an all-Wales level.
Further, the PR system in Wales ensured multi-party voices in our Senedd, which must be a good thing for democracy. I point out that, if we had suffered a simple first past the post system in our present Senedd, and voting patterns were the same as they were in May, the 96 seats would today have given Plaid 66 and Remain 30. I suggest that, in Wales, we have a sensible system that respects multi-party democracy.
The logic of these amendments is based on the assumption that we live in a nation state. We do not. That is why we have developed into the system that we have today, and we should respect the principles on which devolution was founded.
Lord Deben (Con)
My Lords, I am very much opposed to a system other than first past the post, but it seems peculiar that we have a devolved system and then we are to say that people in the devolved Administrations cannot decide how they choose their Government. I find that a very odd argument. The fact of the matter is that Wales has an odd system of election. It is not one that I would campaign for, but the Welsh have decided that it is the one they want. I find it out of all proportion with the world we live in today. We are a country made up of a number of countries. Yes, of course, we are the United Kingdom, but the Welsh—and I speak as someone who had a Welsh-speaking father—are different from much of the rest.
However, where one party tends dominate election after election, there cannot be anything but the suspicion, at least, that that party will use its dominant power—to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, in another context—to fiddle the constitution.
Finally, this is important not just for transparency but consistency. The Government, in their Explanatory Notes, refer to the importance of consistency as one of the reasons for this Bill. If we are to be consistent, we should ensure that the franchise is consistent across the country.
Lord Pack (LD)
My Lords, this group provides us with a choice between devolution or top-down centralised uniformity. I acknowledge that the noble Lords, Lord Frost and Lord Jackson, are perhaps surprising voices for enforcing centralised uniformity on a range of nations, regardless of the views of those nations, but that is in effect what these amendments would do. However, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Bennett and Lady Smith, pointed out, this is not quite the case, because a special privileged position is given to the City of London. It is a position that may be justified for some of the reasons we heard earlier, but which these amendments would not grant to the people of Wales or Scotland. As a Londoner for nearly all my life, and who is very proud to often argue the corner for London, I think giving the City of London a special place above and beyond Scotland and Wales might be going just a bit too far.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
On the important issue of the City of London, if you give it its name as the City of London Corporation, and you treat it as essentially a trading estate which happens to have 14,000 people living on it, then maybe the electoral arrangements it adopts are indeed a matter for that trading estate rather than for the rest of us.
Lord Pack (LD)
It is an interesting point but, as the noble Lord said, there are several assumptions leading up to its inclusion, all of which I would share.
We have also heard the argument that the ability of Scotland and Wales to make their own choices might result in pressure on us here in Westminster. In a way, that is quite an advantage. After all, if Scotland or Wales decide to do something and it works, that is a good bit of pressure that we should welcome. Of course, if it fails, it achieves the exact opposite. Seeing how variation plays out is not a bad thing to be scared of.
Indeed, there is much more variation than perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, is aware of. He made reference to the United States. I point out that the voting system for Congress varies between states, and two of them use preferential voting. I very much hope that all sides of this Committee will pay more attention and maybe learn from the States in that respect.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
The noble Lord pre-empts my response to my noble friend. For clarity, I checked, and he is quite right. I stand partially corrected, in that the states of Maine and Alaska have ranked choice elections, one for governor and senator and the other, I think, just for senator. I am touched that he is interested in those issues. My general point is that the vast bulk of elections are based on the same kind of electoral system across the United States.
Lord Pack (LD)
Indeed, but variation is present. There are many other examples of variation. The argument was made that there are some administrative burdens in allowing variation. I would simply observe that with devolution we have the ability to vary things such as speed limits and tax rates. If one is going to take seriously the argument that there are problems with variation, one should be up front and say, “That is an argument against devolution full stop”. It is not possible with powerful logic and consistency to argue that variation for the franchise is somehow a problem while variation for, say, tax rates, is acceptable. That goes to the argument about constitutional logic. The constitutional logic argument works exactly the other way: the very constitutional logic of devolution is that different people end up being able to make different decisions. That is the inescapable logic of devolution.
Finally, on the point about gerrymandering, some slightly more politic phrases were used earlier. I always think it very unwise to attempt to set rules for elections on the basis of partisan self-interest—partly, obviously, for the reason of principle, but also because it so often backfires. Returning to the United States, we may see some Republicans rueing what they thought was very clever drawing of boundaries when the election results come in tomorrow. Of course, all of us will have to be here bright and early on Wednesday morning, so we will not be able to stay up quite as late as we may have wished to watch those results coming in.
Fundamentally, this is a question about devolution: about whether we believe that it is right for different places which have powers devolved to them to make different decisions. I join with those who have argued in this debate that, yes, that variation is right. Therefore, on this occasion, I very much hope we will not be hearing warm words from the Minister in due course, but that she too will defend the rights of different parts of the United Kingdom to make their own decisions under devolved settlements.
Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Frost for his probing amendments, including those supported by my noble friend Lord Jackson of Peterborough. This has been a much quicker debate, but worthy no less, and I thank all those who have contributed to it.
These amendments seek to standardise voting eligibility across the UK, with the exception of the City of London ward elections, as has already been said. The SNP in Scotland and Labour in Wales have already given the right to vote in devolved and local elections to all foreign residents. Those decisions were not minor technical differences between the UK’s constituent parts, and they are deserving of debate at national level.
This issue also relates to automatic voter registration. While Wales has conducted four automatic registration pilots, it did not have to verify the nationality of an elector as a result of the changes at a devolved level. I am sure we will debate the security of automatic voter registration in greater detail in due course.
In addition, we are concerned about the consequences for UK political donation rules as a result of the changes made by the two devolved Administrations giving voting rights to every foreign resident. This has given foreign citizens the right to make unlimited donations to politicians and political parties across the UK, opening the door to foreign finance as well as direct electoral influence. For example, a foreign student resident in a Scottish university can legally make political donations to any political entity.
At Second Reading, the Minister, said that this Bill will
“reduce the risk of foreign money entering our politics … The threat to our democracy from foreign influence and hidden sources of political funding is an ever-growing danger—one that we cannot afford to delay tackling”.—[Official Report, 14/9/26; col. 971-72.]
Will the Minister therefore commit to closing this loophole without delay? If not, why is there an inconsistency when it comes to foreign interference?
This debate has touched on fundamental questions. The balance of devolution matters, but so does citizenship. It is not meaningless, as so many of those residents who have proudly chosen to become citizens can attest. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)
My Lords, the amendments proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Frost, would also apply the electoral franchise currently used for local elections in England and Northern Ireland to all elections in Scotland and Wales. In practice, this would mean that some foreign citizens would no longer be able to vote in local elections in Scotland and Wales, or elections to the Scottish Parliament or Senedd Cymru. For completeness, I also note that the noble Lord has tabled multiple amendments, some of which would remove Commonwealth citizens’ voting rights as well, although these would not.
The idea that because people move around the United Kingdom they will, somehow or other, be fogged by the fact that there are differences in its different countries seems very odd. I happen to think that the history of electoral arrangements in Northern Ireland—and in Ireland in general—have not been very happy, but the fact of the matter is that it is for Northern Ireland to decide how it is to be governed, as far as its own devolved position goes.
That is also true for Scotland. I dislike the Scottish nationalists; I think they are the worst Government in the United Kingdom. They have done terrible damage to Scottish education and to Scotland generally, but in the end it is the Scots who have to decide how their own Government are elected. The idea that we should take back to the United Kingdom Government the decision about how we do that seems to undermine the whole concept of devolution. I believe in devolution because the closer that people are to the decision-makers, the more they are likely to feel engaged and that they are their Government.
I hope very much that this House will not go backwards by suggesting that we should force other people to choose their Governments in the way that we like. It is right that everybody shall vote the same way for the central United Kingdom Government, but it seems, frankly, very old-fashioned and out of date to suggest that we should go back on what we do now.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow and almost entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Deben, although I do not accept his label of the current Welsh system as odd. I am otherwise in 100% agreement. It is also a great pleasure to admire the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley.
The noble Lord, Lord Jackson, said that this group of amendments would be a check on devolved power. It would be a check on the representatives chosen by the people in their own nations. I say to those who wish to defend and maintain the union that they should realise that denying and removing rights is no way to maintain it. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Frost, would accept that devolution is about difference: different choices in different nations. We have different languages that are protected and relied on in those nations. We have different rules about the management and treatment of land—we will park the Crown Estate in Wales on the side for the moment. We have different kinds of politics and those nations have made very different political choices. I do not think there is any evidence that a change in franchise has made a significant impact on the political choices that those nations have made.
However, I will mostly address a particular element of this group that the noble Lord, Lord Frost, did not address in his introduction, but perhaps he might in the wrap-up. There is an exception. We are talking about every election being under the same franchise, except for the City of London’s ward elections. I point noble Lords to my Amendment 269, which we will undoubtedly get to much later. It would abolish the business vote for the City of London Corporation elections. My amendment would end the nation’s last rotten borough. It would finally introduce the principle of one person, one vote in 2026.
Lord Deben (Con)
The noble Baroness kindly said that she liked following my speech. May I say to her that what she said is nonsense, and there is no reason at all to change what happens in the City of London?
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
I am delighted to allow the noble Lord to say just that. I am sure there are many people in your Lordships’ Chamber who would agree with him. In fact, I will point Members to a book that I was at the launch of last week. It is called The Assetocracy and is about the composition of the House of Lords. Noble Lords might find it of interest with relevance to the relationship between this House and the City of London.
Coming back to where I was, I am not going to cover fully the points that I will raise on Amendment 269. However, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Frost, to justify saying, in this context, that everything else has to be the same except the City of London. If you are going to impose uniformity, why have this odd little black hole in the centre of the City without democratic control? Why is that being excluded?
Baroness Smith of Llanfaes (PC)
My Lords, I will speak briefly, as my noble friend Lord Wigley has covered some of the most important points. It is also a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett. It is interesting that there is the exception in these amendments for the City of London but not for whole nations, so it would be interesting to hear more about that in closing.
The only points I wanted to raise was that the Welsh Parliament, Senedd Cymru, is the people of Wales’s Parliament. Therefore, it is only right that the people of Wales decide how it is run. The same goes for Scotland and the Scottish Parliament. These amendments are, essentially, an unnecessary power grab. Why is it the business of this Parliament how the people of Wales and Scotland decide to be represented in their Parliaments there?
On the point in relation to different electoral arrangements and whether people understand those when you vote at 16, I want to share the story that during a lot of engagements with younger people across Wales, a lot of them raise how they understand the different systems, particularly because of what happened during the Covid pandemic. During that pandemic, Wales and England made different decisions on whether schools were open. They also made different healthcare arrangements. The younger people of today have experience and knowledge of that; they understand the systems and what the different Parliaments make decisions on. It is really important to share that and rebut what was said in earlier speeches; because of those experiences, they know those differences of opinions.
We take a different approach on matters, and that is devolution. I end by saying that this is a matter, in my opinion, for the Welsh Parliament and the Scottish Parliament only.
Baroness Lawlor (Con)
My Lords, I support these amendments in the names of my noble friends Lord Frost and Lord Jackson. I do so because it is important for this country and its constitutional arrangements that we have these changes. This country has always been a unitary power. It is one of the oldest unitary powers; it is also one of the most stable political democracies. That second characteristic matters as much as the first, and its nature, both being old and unitary and being a stable democracy, means they are linked to each other.
Constitutional change is for the whole country. First, it has historically involved the whole country through broadsheets and with long debates and public discussion. For all these Parliament has been, as Churchill once said, the forum for the nation. It was Samuel Johnson, I think, who made Parliament popular for the public by being the first person to report systematically its proceedings—he was long the precursor of Hansard.
Secondly, it is important to avoid sectional politics in constitutional decisions. One cannot help escaping the feeling that in some decisions taken by other assemblies in Wales and Scotland, there is the hint of political considerations in determining these grave constitutional matters. It is much harder to break the mould of one party’s popularity and, for that reason, it is not a particularly bad thing that we have constant changes of political parties in this country. It is very good for democracy and stability that the other people have a chance.
The Government will not support these amendments. The Government are committed to maintaining and defending the devolution settlements. Allowing the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments to set the electoral franchise for their own elections, as well as for local offices, is a fundamental part of those settlements. The Government see no clear benefit to changing that position, one that has held for many years. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson—who I think answered his own question—that there was indeed a mandate for the devolution settlements through the 1997 general election.
Lord Frost (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I thank the Minister. I am disappointed, but not entirely surprised, to hear that she will not support the amendments. I thank those who have supported them. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for raising the problem of the City of London. Actually, I slightly sympathise with what the noble Baroness said, but I did not want to increase the complexity of these particular amendments by getting into that slightly niche problem. I do not want to dwell too much on what has been said. I felt that we drifted slightly into a discussion of age limits and electoral systems, which I am sure we will come on to later.
This has been an interesting discussion because it revealed fundamental differences of view about what the United Kingdom is as a country. Is it, as some seem to be saying, a collection of nations—a sort of mini-EU—or is it what it legally is: a unitary state which has devolved powers to devolved nations? Because the United Kingdom is the latter, and because it has devolved powers to devolved nations, there must be a power for the Westminster Parliament to consider whether that settlement is correct in every detail. Of course there can be variation, but it must be the role of the centre to ensure that the variation is in the interests of the whole of the country, not just a sectoral interest in one of the devolved nations. I contend that that has been the risk of devolving the franchise, and the variation in that.
My worry is that “devolve and forget” will one day become “dissolve and forget”. I do not want that to happen, which is why this Parliament must remember the United Kingdom is a devolved country; it is not an aggregate of nations that have voluntarily come together. I am sure that we will come back to all those issues, but for now I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Fuller
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment provides for registration at age 15, rather than 14, as registration at 15 gives sufficient notice for young people to register to participate in elections.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to lead this debate; I have the first two amendments in this group. Turning first to my Amendment 8, I think that registering to vote a year before the possibility of voting would give election officials sufficient time to draw up the register at the annual canvass. It is not as if many will be able to vote on their 16th birthday. By arithmetic, that excitement will be restricted to just 1,917 youngsters, who can then celebrate by going down to the scrapyard on a moped to sell some metal—two of the rites of passage that are permitted at that age, alongside piercing and opening a bank account without telling your mum. I do not agree with votes at 16. I will not repeat the reasoning here, but, if that is the proposal on the table, then registration at 15 seems to be quite sufficient. After all, we have an annual canvass for a reason.
If there is a theme to the Bill as it relates to young voters, it is that the Government have failed to integrate these attainers aged 14 and above into the existing registration system. The propensity for these attainers to move around is much greater than for the older population: they churn schools, colleges, jobs and apprenticeships, while some leave home for the first time. My Amendment 8 does not seek to fetter democracy or deny anybody access to the vote; it is aimed simply at reducing the administrative burden of collating the register, and it works along with the existing pattern of electoral registration and administration in this country.
That leads me to my Amendment 9, which looks at the mechanics of how a person under 16 can unambiguously be identified and authenticated by the electoral registration officer before they come on to the register as attainers. These youngsters may not have a passport, and they certainly will not have a credit card. Inevitably, they will not pay an electric or council tax bill, or any tax for that matter, to identify themselves—as you or I might. In the world as it is today, you register to vote by providing your national insurance number. Whether you use the centralised online form on GOV.UK or download a paper copy or form issued by the local council, you need to provide your national insurance number; if you do not, they want to know why. That is because there is a secure automatic authentication system that uniquely matches a person to a national insurance number across the HMRC, the DWP and other databases. It protects the register’s integrity and, in theory, helps identify duplicate entries.
Even in Scotland you need to give your national insurance number—although, helpfully, if you do not have one, the ERO invites applicants to provide a utility bill. Call me old-fashioned, but I do not know how many 14 year-olds pay the electricity bill, which is normally paid by their parents, but we will put that to one side.
If you cannot supply an NI number, it triggers a complex and intrusive manual validation system. Local officers are working hard enough as it is without more handwork burdens being thrust upon them. Today, I spoke to one electoral registration officer, who is a returning officer. As it is today, when somebody cannot provide a national insurance number, two hours over several weeks per person—which may lead to an attestation in court—is needed to finally authenticate them and validate their application to come on the register. Put simply, the 14 or 15 year-olds who do not have this NI will not be easily identifiable through the usual channels because these youngsters do not have the normal sets of identifiers.
Google, summarising the ONS census statistics, tells me that there are 1.4 million 14 and 15 year-olds in the UK who will be admitted to attain on their 16th birthday. They do not have NI numbers, so these youngsters are in a bind. How will they prove their identity? The electoral registration officer will not be any the wiser after; there is no standard administrative method. These young people will not have a driver’s licence—only certain 16 year-olds will have a moped—and they may not have a passport or gas bill, so how do they prove their identity without reinventing the entire wheel of administrative process that goes on in getting them on to the register?
Consider the child from a broken home. Perhaps he lives with mum on Acacia Avenue during the week and with his dad in a city apartment at the weekend. I am trying to prevent the introduction of duplicates into the system. It is possible that the mum and dad live in different electoral areas. The parents would think it was their duty to register their child and are not necessarily forced to tell the other. We have the prospect of automatic registration, perhaps by reference to the school roll. The child might want to register himself—after all, if he is trusted to choose a Government, he ought to be capable of filling in the form.
In this example, there are two EROs, two addresses and possibly two different names, because some children will assume double-barrelled names. Perhaps some of them are relatives of my noble friend Lady O’Neill—is that with or without an apostrophe? Multiple registrations of youngsters is not a possibility but a certainty, with all these people looking after the interests of the little boy, falling over themselves to duplicate him on the register—and the ERO will not have a clue about how to weed out the duplicates. I ask the Minister: who will be responsible for cases of double registration and, still worse, double voting by the child who did not realise that others were usurping him? Without my amendment to change the rules to issue national insurance numbers at 14, this is a ready excuse for ballot stuffing and family voting.
The impact assessment covers none of this, and it should. Although streamlining voter registration using other government services might be possible for those over 18, it is fraught with difficulty with those under 16. Why did the assessment not calculate, as I have done, that just registering 14 and 15 year-olds will take 2,000 extra local government staff for this provision alone?
We have an identifier already: the national insurance number. My amendment proposes a review so that the Government consider reducing the age of issuance of NI numbers to 14 under Regulation 9(3) of the Social Security (Crediting and Treatment of Contributions, and National Insurance Numbers) Regulations 2001—SI No. 769 of that year. This is an integral part of the voter system. No IT systems need to be changed and no new interfaces need to be created. It is the same system that the ERO can use to dedupe the surplus records. Critically, it will maintain the integrity of the register. I call for a review because it is the integral part that will reduce duplicates and ensure confidence in the register.
As I will explain on group 9, issuing national insurance numbers will significantly simplify the muddle that Ofcom has got into in trying to identify youngsters for social media. Its proposals include four different methods that put regulators and parents in an impossible position. Let us sort it out. Let us issue national insurance numbers at 14 and if it helps the children themselves think more closely and carefully about the world of work then that cannot do any harm either. I have said enough. I beg to move.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, in looking at this group of amendments, we all have a duty to try to discern which of them might be considered to be motivated by partisan considerations. My view is that Amendment 8 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, is simply about reducing the number of people legally entitled to vote who are registered and therefore able to vote. I cannot see how it can be anything other than partisan to reduce the number of people legally entitled to vote who are able to do so.
Amendment 48 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bexley, again seems to be a deliberate barrier to registering people who are legally entitled to vote but would not be able to do so because they would not be registered. Is that not a partisan consideration? Other amendments seek to block, delay or make the registration process weaker and less effective. I therefore consider those amendments partisan. The amendments in my name—
Lord Fuller (Con)
I cannot see how any of my proposals would be discriminatory in any way, shape or form because they provide that everybody would be given—not have to apply for but be given—a national insurance number, not at 16 but at 14, which is the age at which the Government propose these attainers would come on to the register. There is nothing discriminatory; it is actually enabling because it would get the state organised and individuals waiting to get that number so that they can get on to the register. I am sorry, but the noble Lord has misdirected himself as to the effect of my proposals.
Lord Rennard (LD)
The noble Lord’s proposal is actually what I proposed in previous Parliaments, and his Government resisted tooth and nail any suggestion about registering people at the point that they got their national insurance numbers. My understanding of the noble Lord’s Amendment 8 is that, rather than beginning the registering process with 14 and 15 year-olds, you would start only at 15. Surely that would mean fewer people being registered, but if I have misunderstood, I apologise.
I am concerned with the approach in general and how I think Amendments 49, 50 and 52 are all about improving the health of our democracy, because democratic elections cannot fully take place without people being registered to vote. Many groups of people who are legally entitled to vote are often not registered to vote under our current arrangements.
When individual electoral registration was introduced, many of us warned that, without extra measures, millions of young people, students and people who move home frequently would fall off the electoral rolls. Perhaps that was the intention of the proposal among some people. I believe that it was. I know that it was a great preoccupation of the now noble Lord, Lord Cameron, when he used to meet his deputy to discuss constitutional issues. He was determined to drive this process through. Had it been implemented as he intended, registration levels would have fallen from the level of the mid-1980s to about 60%, according to the Electoral Commission.
The Electoral Commission briefing for this debate shows that as many as 8 million people who are legally entitled to vote are not correctly registered and therefore would be unlikely to be able to take part in the democratic process. The commission says that it strongly supports the principles of what is commonly known as automatic voter registration and is described in this Bill as “registration without an application”. The problem that it seeks to address involves young people especially. The commission’s previous research indicated that, although 95% of those aged over 65 are registered to vote, only about 65% of under-25s are included on the voter lists. There are similar problems with people who rent privately, or who come from diverse backgrounds, missing from the registers.
My biggest concerns about the processes in the Bill are how the plans for registering without application will take too long and the Government are proceeding too cautiously. It will be too late to have many more people who are legally entitled to vote registered for the next election and too late for the next review of parliamentary consistency boundaries, which will draw on data from 1 December 2028—hence my support for Amendment 67, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, my noble friend Lord Pack and others.
The first and most obvious way in which we can address the underrepresentation of young people is by registering them when they are notified of their national insurance numbers. The House of Lords Select Committee that reviewed the impact of individual electoral registration unanimously recommended that this be done, and I am delighted that the principle had the support of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, whose expertise is very widely regarded in this House.
When debating the idea during consideration of the Elections Bill on 23 March 2022, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, then speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, said that
“people are already written to ahead of their 16th birthday with their national insurance number. If we can do that, why can we not at the same time have an automatic registration to vote? We have the means to do it, so why do we not just get on with it?”—[Official Report, 23/3/22; col. 1058.]
That is the question that I ask today.
A little later I won a partial victory on the issue when the noble Lord, Lord True, eventually accepted from the Government Benches that a reference to registering to vote could be made with a notification of national insurance numbers. But it was a very unpressing reference, and the process should not now require specific application if the qualifications for registration are satisfied. That is the aim of my Amendment 50.
A second crucial point at which we can get many more young people registered is when many of them enter higher or further education. From the Labour Front Bench, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall of Blaisdon, championed the cause of registering students, with her usual great skill and determination, during the passage of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017. The noble Baroness demonstrated how easy and simple it was to have data-sharing agreements between higher education and further education providers and local registration offices. This would enable students to be enfranchised and help to make their legal entitlement to vote a reality. We are trying again to have that principle adopted by Amendment 52.
Finally, I will speak to my Amendment 61. The issues of electoral registration and constituency boundaries are inextricably linked, although the tight drafting of the Bill means that we are not properly allowed to consider that link. I draw the attention of the Government and others to this connection. There should be consideration of how the measures in the Bill will change the data from which the electoral registers are drawn. The data will change as a result of measures in the Bill, and it will affect the process of revising the constituency boundaries, which will begin in two years. The electoral registration data forms the building blocks from which the Boundary Commissions must create constituencies; they are obliged under the rules to create constituencies with a very narrow and inflexible margin of difference in the size of the electorates for each of those constituencies. A slight change to a single constituency’s boundaries is likely to cause widespread disruption to many other constituencies, breaking them up into pieces.
The failure in the last series of Parliaments to address issues of the missing millions from electoral registers has distorted the map of constituencies. Millions of young people, private sector tenants and people from diverse communities were left out from the registers. We are now trying to address that. Whether it happened inadvertently or deliberately, the effect of the last boundary review was that many more constituencies were created that would be likely to vote Conservative, and fewer were created that would be less likely to vote Conservative. Registering many more of these groups will address that unfairness. The Government must now consider whether we need to allow the next boundary review to take more time so that it is able to work with the most accurate and complete electoral registers. Every year, according to the Government’s impact assessment, registration levels will rise by around 1.7%, so I hope there will be time for the changes in the Bill to feed through to the next boundary review.
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to speak to my Amendment 51. I find myself almost wholly in agreement with Amendment 61 from the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, although I am bound to ask rhetorically: if the last boundary change was engineered to gerrymander a stonking Conservative victory, how did that go? But seriously, I think there is a meeting of minds between him and my noble friend Lord Fuller on national insurance numbers and the registration of younger people. I think there might be a consensus on that. My noble friend made a powerful and compelling argument for that age group.
To go back to Amendment 61, Clauses 17 to 19 give rise to long-term changes in electorate sizes. The current obligations of the boundary commissioners do not really take into account what sizeable changes will happen as a result of automatic voter registration or registration without application. The noble Lord is right to pinpoint that issue. That goes to the heart of my Amendment 51, which is to ensure that we proceed in an incremental way if we are to have automatic voter registration and not put a huge obligation on electoral registration officers. Clause 17 is quite wide ranging anyway in giving proactive powers to electoral registration officers to register people as they see fit.
The reason I am seeking to remove Commonwealth and Irish citizens is not because they do not value their right to vote or to have the franchise but because we should focus on the endemic problem that has been identified for many years under all parties and Governments: poor registration of younger people. That happened under the coalition Government, and it has happened under the Labour Government and under Conservative Administrations. That seems to me the kernel of the issue that we need to look at here.
I am quite straightforward in saying that, as other countries do with their own citizens, I do not think we should be ashamed to prioritise British citizens in this clause. If we have limited resources, we should do so. I can debate the situation with the Republic of Ireland and its voters, but it seems an odd situation that you would not wish to prioritise your own citizens, who have constitutional, social and economic links that are stronger than some others—indeed, the citizens of a foreign country, albeit a very long-standing neighbour and friend of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland. That is what my amendment seeks to do.
Under current electoral law, qualifying Commonwealth citizens and citizens of the Republic of Ireland can vote in parliamentary elections. Qualifying means meeting normal age, residence and registration requirements, and they will have permission to enter or remain in the United Kingdom. Specifically for your Lordships’ House, this amendment would not change who is legally entitled to vote. However, it would restrict who is automatically registered without an application to those with the strongest constitutional links to the UK. This would reduce the risk of eligibility verification errors, which would automatically register individuals who are not legally eligible to vote. It might be the case, for instance, that those on technically non-qualifying visiting visas may very well be swept up in the system of automatic voter registration. Perhaps the Minister might reassure the Committee on what specific efforts the Government are making to ensure that the correct people are registered under automatic voter registration. Additionally, the introduction of automatic verification is a novel and untested feature of the Bill. This amendment seeks to ensure that it is introduced cautiously to prevent accidental scope creep and ensure that its first implementation is thorough and effective in registering only those with the genuine legal right to vote in UK parliamentary elections.
For those reasons—time is of the essence—I am delighted to propose Amendment 51. I also support the amendments in the name of my noble friends.
Immigration: Earned Settlement
(2 days ago)
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The Deputy Leader of the House of Lords (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)
My Lords, I will repeat a Statement on the Government’s policy of earned settlement.
“A little over a month ago, at Labour Party conference, the Home Secretary promised we would adopt a policy on this issue that is guided, above all, by fairness—fairness towards those who come here legally and play their part, and fairness towards British citizens, already here, who should not be asked to bear a greater burden.
It is the responsibility of the Home Secretary to ensure that our migration system lives up to that ideal. Doing so depends on a contract between those who come and those already here. This country welcomes those who seek a new and better life within it. But I also know that there is an expectation of those who do that they will play their part, contribute to their community and become part of our national life. If we are to ask our fellow citizens to buy into a system of shared taxation and universal public services, they must know that everyone is playing their part. Solidarity is the precondition for social justice.
Creating a fair immigration system demands reform to settlement—the ability to live in this country for ever. Settlement confers some of the most valuable rights that this country can offer. At settlement, a migrant receives the right to free education, our NHS and, should they fall upon it, the welfare state. Until now, settlement rights have come at five years, almost exclusively as a result of time spent in this country. It has therefore been a right accrued with little expectation of responsibility. I do not believe this represents true fairness. Instead, I believe these considerable rights should come after responsibilities have been met and a contribution has been made. Settlement should not be automatic; it should be earned.
Today the Government publish a policy called ’earned settlement’. It ensures that the period someone must live in this country before they settle is determined by the contribution they have made. That starts by setting out clearly what we consider to be disqualifying criteria: first, a criminal record; secondly, a failure to speak English to a high standard; thirdly, any unpaid debt to the British taxpayer; and, finally, a failure to have made three years of national insurance contributions. This is the foundation of settlement: the non-negotiable expectations that we make of anyone who seeks to live here permanently.
For those who clear these bars, settlement then varies based on the contribution made rather than simply time served. This contribution is judged, crucially, not just financially but in terms of public service. A five-year path will remain open to all higher earners on salaries over £50,000 and those who have contributed in healthcare and education, in professions such as doctors, nurses and teachers. For those who make an exceptional contribution, even faster routes will be available. The highest rate taxpayers earning over £125,000 will, over the course of their lifetime, contribute £1.5 million. This funds the critical services that many, including the poorest in this country, rely on. Under these reforms, they will be able to apply for settlement after three years, as will those who arrive on our highest talent schemes. Everyone else will be placed on a 10-year path, including those earning less than £50,000. Settlement will still be available to them; they will simply have to show a sustained contribution to this country, and they will be able to renew their existing temporary visas until that point.
Conditionality runs both ways. Those who commit an immigration breach will see settlement pushed back to 20 years, while those who have claimed benefits must have had five continuous years without falling on the state before they make their application. A number of groups will see their path to settlement remain as today. These include Hong Kong British nationals overseas, members of our Armed Forces, those with a British connection and those on legacy routes, such as Windrush.
Before we finalised this policy, we took it to the country through a consultation. Over 200,000 people responded, and I thank them for doing so. Many of the responses were focused on one particular group: social care workers. Between 2022 and 2025, 250,000 people and their dependents arrived on or switched into the social care route. They came at a time when the sector was under considerable pressure following the Covid-19 pandemic and the unique challenge of that moment.
It is also the case, however, that this route was abused. The last Conservative Government may have talked of restoring control to our borders, but in truth they lost control entirely. Never was this more obvious than when the shadow Home Secretary was an Immigration Minister in the Home Office. Delegations were sent across the country to encourage ever more businesses to sponsor foreign workers, with little apparent interest in their suitability to do so. As a result, there was significant abuse of the care route, sometimes because of fraudulent and exploitative companies, and sometimes because individuals themselves came here knowing there was no job they could fill.
A fair solution must address both sides of this, recognising the service of those who cared for our sick and elderly at a time of immense national need and addressing the abuse that was present on this route. The Government’s solution does so in two ways—first, by providing a five-year path to settlement for care workers who lived up to the promise they made on coming to this country, worked hard and answered our call when we needed them. Those who earned £25,000 a year working in the social care sector, which was a condition of their visa, will therefore be able to settle on their existing five-year path.
The second group, who have not fulfilled the conditions of their visa, represent about a quarter of those who came between 2022 and 2025 or switched into that route. We will offer them a second chance to make the contribution they came to this country to make. They will be able to apply for another five-year care visa, and they will not be tied to their old employer, allowing those with rogue sponsors to break away from them. The Government have already stripped around 1,800 exploitative employers of their licences, and we are lifting standards in care with our fair pay agreement across the sector. The Government will now help workers to find a new position with a legitimate provider, and we will give them a longer period of time to do so before their existing visa is curtailed.
There remain tens of thousands of legitimate vacancies in the care sector today, so those who seek a new job in care and have the requisite skills should be able to find one. At the completion of their new five-year visa, these workers will be able to apply for settlement once more. Everyone will have a fair shot at making their contribution, and no one will be punished for the sins of their employer. But we will also preserve the critical element of this reform: that settlement must be linked to contribution. The same transitional arrangements will be applied to public sector workers in roles identified by the Migration Advisory Committee in healthcare and education, such as auxiliary nurses. This country has been highly dependent on them, and their contribution will be recognised.
These transitional arrangements apply to those who joined before this Government published the immigration White Paper in May 2025. After that point, as our consultation shows, the Government’s position of a 10-year path to settlement was widely understood. These are exceptional exclusions for exceptional circumstances, and it remains the case that the rules around settlement are determined when a settlement decision is made, not at the point when someone arrives. This position is long established in this country and has been tested conclusively in our courts.
The responses to our consultation focused also on settlement rights for refugees. I know that the people of this country wish to continue welcoming genuine refugees; however, I also know that there is nothing fair in allowing unsafe and illegal entry to this country. It is not fair that our borders are run by people smugglers. It is not fair that women and children are dying in the channel. It is not fair that, after historic levels of illegal arrivals, British citizens are paying £4 billion a year to fund asylum support. As we open new safe and legal routes for genuine refugees, we must also discourage dangerous, unsafe and illegal crossings, and settlement plays a part in this.
We will place those who come to this country on one of our new safe and legal routes on a five-year path to settlement. This is as fast a path as for higher earners entering Britain today. At the same time, we will discourage the use of unsafe and illegal routes; the standard qualifying period for all refugees who have not come by a safe and legal route will become 20 years. A further 10 years will be added for those who entered the country by an illegal method, such as by small boat.
We want to promote integration into this country for all those who are here. For that reason, those who enter work or study will be able to earn settlement 10 years earlier. This means a refugee who did not arrive by small boat and who is working or studying could qualify for settlement after 10 years. Let us not forget that, regardless of the question of settlement, for as long as a genuine refugee requires protection in this country, we will provide it. The British people’s sense of fair play means that they welcome refugees and those who seek to contribute to our society once they are here, but, at the same time, there is nothing fair about incentivising unsafe and illegal routes into this country, and I will not do that.
These reforms are the right thing to do, both morally and financially. A full impact assessment will be completed and published as we implement the reforms. Our changes ensure that those who are net contributors are encouraged to come to this country and stay here. Meanwhile, the cohort who are most likely to impose a cost at settlement must instead seek work and meet the conditions of their visa before they can apply. As a result, the Department for Work and Pensions estimates that our reforms will reduce the benefits bill by billions of pounds. This solution is fair for those who come here legally and play their part, and it is fair to British citizens already here, who should not be asked to bear a greater burden.
Earned settlement institutes a new paradigm in our migration system that is long overdue: one of the greatest rights that we can offer now depends on a contribution made and responsibilities met. The right to live in this country for ever must now be earned; it will no longer be automatic. It is a fair settlement for all, so I commend this Statement to the House”.
Lord Davies of Gower (Con)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing the Statement to your Lordships’ House this evening and for the opportunity to ask questions on the Statement.
It has been over a year since the Government announced their plans to establish a “fairer pathway to settlement”. The Home Secretary is to be commended for having the courage to stand up to the open borders advocates in her own party and proposing the original earned settlement plans. I applauded those plans when they were announced last year. Although nowhere near strong enough, they were at least a serious recognition of the scale of the problem and what needs to be done to solve it.
When the original policy was released, there were no exemptions to the earned settlement route. Yet today we have heard that the Home Secretary has caved in to pressure from those same open borders left wingers on her Back Benches and in the unions. The result of this climbdown is that now over 250,000 low-wage care workers, and their dependents, will get to stay for a minimum of 10 years, with many getting settlement in five, and almost 75% getting to stay in the country for ever.
The costs of this reversal are significant. The Home Office’s document released last year revealed that the median salaries for care workers on the health and care visa were between £23,000 and £26,000 in the financial year 2023-24, which is significantly below the median full-time salary of £37,000. The OBR estimated that, as a result, they are likely to have a net negative fiscal and economic impact. This is because the amount of tax they will pay will never cover the amount they will take out of the system in NHS costs, education costs if they have children, and welfare claims. It is the British taxpayer who will pay for this policy reversal. That is in no way fair.
We have heard the arguments that this large cohort of migrants has “contributed” to our country, and, as such, they seem to have automatically earned the right to stay. But, of course, many of them have not contributed, at least not fiscally or economically. The Home Office itself has estimated the total cost of exempting care workers to be approximately £10 billion. If these workers intend to keep working in the sector, I would have thought there should be no issue with having to wait 10 to 15 years, like everyone else. It becomes an issue only if they are using that sector as a stepping stone to settlement, and ultimately citizenship, and are frustrated at being made to wait to leave their care job. They responded to economic incentives: they were given the chance to come to the United Kingdom to work and they took it. They are exactly the same as all other people who have come to our country on work visas. If the Government believe it is only fair to require settlement to be earned, it should be earned by everyone. Exempting this subset of people creates a double standard.
This is particularly true given that only 18% of those who responded to the Government’s consultation were British citizens; 73% of respondents were current visa holders. Yet the Government seem to have taken their opinions to be representative of the entire country. Well, of course people who are not British citizens would have negative views of the Government’s original policy, because they are the beneficiaries of the current regime. Unfortunately, we are now in a situation where our country’s immigration policy is being decided based on the views of those who are not even British citizens.
Bizarrely, the Home Secretary even said:
“I know that the people of this country wish to continue welcoming genuine refugees”.
We have a long history of generosity as a nation, whether that be towards Jewish refugees in the 1930s and 1940s or to families fleeing Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine, but I suggest that most people, given the ongoing rate of illegal migration, do not support additional routes through which more refugees will come to Britain. We must get overall migration down before we even consider any loosening of our policy.
It seems to me that there are those in the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties who would have us believe that ever having had a visa ought to give a person the permanent and irrevocable right to stay in the country. This is not how the system works, nor how it ought to work. Being granted a work visa, whether that be a skilled worker or a health and care visa, is a privilege, not a right. Similarly, being granted indefinite leave to remain is a privilege, not a right. Just because a person has been allowed to come to the country, that does not mean they have the automatic right to stay here indefinitely. So I wholeheartedly agreed with the Home Secretary when she said in her Statement:
“Settlement … has therefore been a right accrued with little expectation of responsibility. I do not believe that this represents true fairness”.
The problem, of course, that she has broken her own test with this climbdown, because now the Home Secretary’s test of fairness applies to everyone but care workers, which is not fairness at all.
It says in the A Fairer Pathway to Settlement document that this is not about assimilation. I disagree. Assimilation into British culture should be the minimum prerequisite for any settlement. As my right honourable friend the leader of the Opposition has said, completely correctly, we may be a multiracial country but we should not be a multicultural country. The so-called diversity of cultures is a recipe for disaster.
A healthy society is built on trust. A shared culture is the underlying source of mutual understanding between groups of people who have no other way of relating to one another. It is, in that way, a source of trust. Without a single, common national culture, and without the trust that flourishes from it, we risk undermining our future as a peaceful, harmonious and functioning society.
That is why the debate matters so much. It is not just the fiscal cost of the Government’s surrender on immigration, although that is significant. It is the long-term social and cultural impacts that matter too. On both these tests, the Government have demonstrably failed.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD)
My Lords, I too thank the Minister for bringing the Statement to the House. He will know only too well how difficult and complicated issues around migration are, and I certainly saw that during deliberations on a report on immigration being put together by the Justice and Home Affairs Select Committee, which I have the honour to chair. Certainly, not all members agreed with all our final recommendations, but we were of course unanimous, as we are on these Benches, on wanting more action to tackle small boat crossings and the criminal gangs behind them, so we welcome the plans for more safe and legal routes.
On these Benches, and among many members of the committee, one of the greatest concerns about the original proposals from the Government was around plans to retrospectively change the rules for those already in the country. So we welcome some of the announcements about retrospection in the Statement, which row back from earlier plans. Whether they were brought about by our committee’s report or by rebellions on the Back Benches of the Labour Party or within the Cabinet, I suppose we will never know.
It is welcome that some social care workers—those earning £25,000 a year—BNO visa holders, members of the Armed Forces, the Windrush cohort and others will now have no change to the time taken to get to ILR. Other parts of the Statement are welcome: taking family income in the round into account rather than individual incomes, as the committee proposed; taking maternity leave into account so that a dropped income during that period does not lengthen the time to ILR; and allowing children to claim ILR with no rule changes. But there is nevertheless much to be concerned about.
Can the Minister confirm that around half a million people will get settled later than planned—later than they were originally told and promised? Does the Minister accept that many migrants have made significant long-term decisions—about housing, jobs, children’s education and so on—with the expectation of acquiring ILR after five years? Is extending their time retrospectively not a huge broken promise, and one that will make it much harder for people to settle and integrate if their certainty has been removed?
The Select Committee pointed out that the planned income thresholds, which earn a reduction in qualifying time to ILR, are not linked to migrants’ net fiscal impact but instead set at the higher and upper income tax rate thresholds. As a result, some migrants who are net contributors to public finances would still be required to wait 10 years to acquire ILR. We argue that proposals should focus less on income and more on making a positive contribution, and that the income levels that lead to a reduction in ILR pathways should be set not according to income tax thresholds but on the advice of the Migration Advisory Committee. Can the Minister explain why the Select Committee’s advice was ignored? Does he not recognise that sticking with tax thresholds means that somebody in London and somebody in Gateshead can be doing exactly the same job, but one can be on a five-year route and one on a 10-year route? Does the Minister really think that is fair?
There are other concerns about increasing the length to achieve ILR. First, would somebody facing a much longer ILR wait, not least those facing 30 years, do anything other than drop out into the shadow economy and simply stay out of touch with the Home Office? Secondly, what incentives are there to make efforts to integrate into our society? The Statement is absolutely silent about crucial issues around integration. Requiring a higher standard of English is all well and good, and we support it, but what are the Government doing to boost provision of English language tuition, which is in very short supply at the current time? What are they doing about changing the frankly appalling Life in the UK Test of people’s understanding about our country, when its questions in the past have included things such as: what is the height of the London Eye?
Finally, people now have a no-debt requirement, including repaying the cost of their asylum accommodation, which will be capped at £10,000. We know that of those who were employed eight years after the grant, 37% were in full-time work, with a median earning of £23,000, with internal analysis of the published Refugee Integration Outcomes database showing that 40% earned at least the minimum wage. If somebody had a £23,000 income, they could perhaps just about pay £100 a month back to the Government. I doubt that is realistic, but let us assume they could. If they could, it would take them eight years and four months to pay back the £10,000 debt—so their ILR time would be not five years but eight years and four months, and it is very easy to see how much longer it is likely to be. What is the Minister’s answer to those 60% who are not earning even at the minimum wage?
These issues are simply not fair. On these Benches we hope very much that the Government will go away and think again before the final details are published next month.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I thank noble Lords for their questions and contributions. I have pointed out before that here we are addressing a mess created by the previous Government. I do not want to be too partisan about it, but that is the simple fact. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, speaks about migration, but the simple fact is that we have already cut net migration by 82%. Now we are setting out a fair solution to the so-called Boriswave: fair to those who have come here and played their part, and fair to the British citizens who are already here. I want to make that point before I address some of the other questions.
Today, the Home Secretary set out a total transformation of settlement, which is no longer automatic and based on time served; instead, it is now earned, based on contribution to this country. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, reminded us, we conducted a genuine consultation and we have set out a response that is fair to those people who came here and played their part and to the British citizens already here. The previous Government lost control of the migration system. Settlement for those who came in those years will now be based on contribution, not just on time served. As the noble Lord, Lord Foster, pointed out, as a result of these reforms, we expect that over 500,000 will settle later. That has been an important consideration. As I said, in the Home Secretary’s Statement, a determination was made that this will come into effect when people apply; that has always been the case, so there is no retrospection.
What we have understood, and what the consultation has acknowledged, is that the people who have come here made a very necessary contribution while this country faced a pandemic. Recognition of that is important. We have designed a settlement system that rewards those who contribute and that is better and less costly than the system we inherited. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, referred to the £10 billion figure as if all social care visas will be waived through—but this is not happening. We are setting a test that means that those most likely to claim will not get settlement at five years. As a result of our reforms, over 500,000 people will need to contribute more and wait longer before settlement.
These transitional arrangements will see care workers who are in work being able to reach settlement at five years. Those who are not in work will have to apply for another five-year visa and make the contribution they came here to make before they can apply again. Until that point, they remain with no access to social housing or any other benefit. The DWP estimates savings in the billions to the welfare bill as a result of this policy. We have taken a fair approach to care workers. Those who answered the previous Government’s call during Covid, worked in the sector and played their full part will be able to settle after five years. Those who did not will be able to apply for a new five-year visa, to make that contribution themselves before they can apply again.
The noble Lord, Lord Foster, made a point about education. The Home Secretary in the other place made it clear that we are consulting with all government departments, particularly the Education Secretary, to ensure that English language education support is available. We are committed to do that. On the implementation of this programme, our response will be to work on a cross-Whitehall basis to ensure that we have a joined-up approach; we will ensure that that applies.
We have made it so that settlement will be based on contribution, not just on time served, as it was under the previous Government. We have cut net migration by 82% from its peak under them, but we will not leave young British people behind. That is why—again, following a point addressed by the noble Lord, Lord Foster—we are investing an additional £2.5 billion to support almost 1 million young people into education, employment and training. This is about getting a system that is fair and that ensures that we can have the confidence of the British people—something that, I am afraid, we did not see under the 14 years of the previous Government.
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Foster, while I welcome the compromises in the Statement, I fear it will not reassure most of the migrant workers who have emailed me expressing anxiety, anguish and bitter disappointment at the retrospective measures they consider unfair, having come to this country in good faith only for the goalposts to be moved. Nor will it reassure refugees seeking asylum and sanctuary in this country. Organisations such as the Refugee Council and Coram have expressed real concern about the implications for refugees and their children. Can my noble friend the Minister say why the promised impact assessments will not be published until actual implementation? That will be too late to be of use. Can he tell me what assessment has been made of the measures’ impact on the Government’s strategies to reduce child poverty and homelessness and to strengthen integration— a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Foster?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
The Home Secretary in the other place addressed the latter points that my noble friend made. We are committed to work with the DWP. As the noble Lord, Lord Davies, pointed out, many of those who responded to the consultation we conducted were visa holders. They were quite happy with the proposals on earned settlement; they recognised that as part of their commitment in coming to work in this country.
We will continue to protect refugees as long as protection is needed. Those who come on the UK resettlement scheme or by sponsored safe and legal routes will qualify after five years. It is right that we seek to disincentivise illegal entry into this country, such as by small boats. The first stage of implementing the changs to the Immigration Rules will begin in December and take effect in January 2027. Further immigration rule changes will come in in 2027 and 2028. Further technical detail and a full impact assessment will be published before implementation, informed by continued engagement with affected groups and stakeholders.
The Lord Bishop of Leicester
My Lords, by the Government’s own admission, some 500,000 people will take longer to get indefinite leave to remain. Those are 500,000 people who will be living with uncertainty, in many cases for a very long period: up to 30 years. Can the Minister reassure us that the impact assessment will take account of that uncertainty and, in particular, its effect on social cohesion and integration into this country?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
There are two parts to that question. I believe that, as the Home Secretary made clear, settlement gives people rights. When people come here for a visa, they work and they comply with the visa’s conditions. If they wish to have settled status, what we are now saying is that it is not just simply a time-served arrangement; they have to meet those commitments. I say to the right reverend Prelate that we are committed—I spoke about this in debates last week—to seeing how we can establish safe and legal routes. We are talking today about settled status, but we have a broader policy that will address net migration into this country. We need a very clear policy about what people are expected to do when they wish to stay here permanently. I do not think that is unreasonable; I think the consultation reflected that and most people on visas understood it.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, my question relates specifically to the refugees arriving through irregular routes, who now face a 30-year settlement time. Some of them will be women fleeing the Taliban. Some of them will be those whom I shared a room with last week as we commemorated the first anniversary of the awful massacre in El Fasher—Sudanese who share ties of history, language and family with us. When they were forced to flee, they came here, and no routes were available to them except irregular routes.
The Law Society has said that, in its judgment, this 30-year rule contravenes the 1951 refugee convention, to which we have long been signatories. Under that, the UK promised to help those coming to our country to seek protection to integrate and build a new life. If you are lucky, 30 years will be half of your adult life. How can the Government possibly justify this under the refugee convention?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I can and I will, and the Home Secretary has made it clear in the other place. Settlement for refugees will encourage safe and legal routes and promote integration, while discouraging the use of unsafe and illegal routes. The Home Secretary was right to point out that it is absolutely appalling that people, including women and children, have suffered death as a consequence of trying those illegal routes on boats. We are absolutely looking at policies that discourage that. Refugees on safe and legal routes will qualify after five years. That is the incentive side of this policy. All other refugees will qualify after 20 years, although there will be a 10-year discount for entering work or study. Again, it is about people making a contribution. Those who came by small boat will receive a 10-year additional wait, to discourage those dangerous and illegal crossings. It is not simply about saying that there will be a 30-year wait for refugees; we are adopting a policy that will secure refugees’ future properly.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
Can the Minister look at that question slightly differently? Is the message to migrants arriving illegally on small boats that, if they come to the UK then they can stay here for 30 years, and not work or study, and at the end of that 30 years be given leave to remain—and in the meantime they will have been living off the generosity of the British taxpayers and the welfare system, and so on? Can the Minister clarify why that is a disincentive? Further, last year, when the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood launched her reforms—I am one of her fans—she said that migration was “unaffordable” and that it was “immoral” to carry on, and she was very clear and very firm about those reforms. She has backed down on those reforms now. Why? Is that not saying that we are now going to have to be able to afford what we cannot afford, and that somehow she has been forced to accommodate on her morality of last year?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
The Home Secretary has not compromised one bit. What she announced today is a settled status that includes a range of contributions. She made it clear at the introduction of her policy that there were disqualifications to being able to earn settled status. However, the noble Baroness is conflating issues. There are people who have genuine asylum claims, which are properly assessed, and those people will have their status understood through the conventions that we are signed up to. That is the country we are; we value those things. When I had a debate last week, we were talking about Ukrainian refugees who have come here. Most of them want to return to their own country. There are many other refugees who have come here and who we have given protection to who also want to return to their country. I do not accept the idea that everyone is a freeloader. That is why the system that we are putting in place recognises their contribution, whether it be work or study.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, since there is time, I have another question referring to the other end of the scale. I was talking about refugees waiting 30 years. It is three years to settlement for the highest-rate taxpayers, who earn over £125,000 per year. I note that, before the Budget, Bloomberg reported what was a very clear trial balloon being floated, suggesting that the Government might bring back golden visas—that thoroughly discredited scheme by which money launderers, corrupt people and criminals came into the UK, as is widely acknowledged. Of course, very rich people can easily arrange to pay themselves a large sum of money over three years, and then they will have got a very fast route into the UK. What will the Government do to make sure that this is not another open door for the kind of people who we allowed into our country and who helped to give us the label of the “London Laundromat”?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
Fortunately, my noble friend who is sitting next to me is the Minister for Fraud, and he has just spent a week ensuring that we collaborate internationally on addressing the issue of fraud. We talked about higher tax payers and the tax brackets. That is not the only contribution, but they make a net contribution over a period, so they earn that right for settlement. It is not about wealthy people buying visas. They come here to do very important work, whether in our sciences or in other research areas. We are not talking about oligarchs; we are talking about people who make a contribution to the United Kingdom’s economy, and that contribution, through their earnings, will be recognised in the ability to seek and earn settled status. It is not about buying it.
Representation of the People Bill
Monday 2nd November 2026
(2 days ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Representation of the People Bill 2024-26 View all Representation of the People Bill 2024-26 Debates Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 47–I(b) Amendments for Committee (Supplementary to the Marshalled List) - (2 Nov 2026)
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 59 and 67 in my name. Amendment 67 requires publication of a plan for the implementation of registration without application, and Amendment 59 requires two government databases to be in use for such registration ahead of a 2029 general election.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pack, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for their support, and now to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. I very much welcome the Government’s commitment to improving voter registration, which chimes with public opinion as, according to the Electoral Reform Society, a YouGov poll found that four-fifths of the electorate support automatic registration, almost half strongly so.
As the Explanatory Notes to the Bill note, in 2023, the Electoral Commission reported that an estimated 7 million to 8 million eligible citizens were either incorrectly registered or not registered at all. The IPPR has pointed out that young people, renters, working-class and minority ethnic citizens are more likely to be unregistered and that electoral turnout is shrinking, particularly among younger, lower income and renter populations. Registration is thus crucial to achieving greater political equality, a point emphasised also by Generation Rent.
We compare badly with other countries as, in most liberal democracies, forms of automatic or assisted voter registration are the norm. Research in 159 countries by the Electoral Integrity Project at the University of East Anglia shows that it has led to more accurate and complete electoral registration. The project also found that at the 2024 general election, four-fifths of poll workers turned away citizens because they were not registered. Although it was usually only a handful of people, a few workers reported turning away over 100.
The UEA academics, together with Generation Rent and Unlock Democracy, criticized the absence of any timetable for the introduction of automatic registration. This is what Amendment 67, with the assistance of Unlock Democracy, would supply through the introduction of a clear implementation plan, while Amendment 59 helps to inject an element of urgency. The amendments would help to meet the aspiration of the Electoral Commission, which, in emphasising the importance of complete and accurate registers to democratic participation, has urged
“the Government to work quickly to introduce automated systems to enable voters to be added to UK parliamentary electoral registers … in time for the next general election.”
Amendment 59 takes up its suggestion that this could be built on existing services, such as applying for a passport, updating a driving licence or receiving a national insurance number at the age of 16, which has been referred to earlier.
The Government’s election strategy, published in July 2025, made it clear that they were planning to deliver significant voter registration improvements, including registration without application, in this Parliament, yet the briefing on this year’s King’s Speech suggested that implementation during this Parliament is now unlikely. Where is the sense of urgency, when as many as 7 million to 8 million of our fellow citizens could remain excluded from full democratic engagement without automatic registration? These amendments would help to inject it by ensuring a suitably ambitious implementation plan.
I quite understand the need to pilot arrangements, but we can learn from others, such as Wales, which, with more limited resources, will have its system of automated registration ready for May 2027, despite it becoming law less than two years ago. There will be no compromise when it comes to security and accuracy, as no voter will be registered without the standard checks carried out by the electoral registration officers, as now. The EROs would have much better and more reliable data to work with. According to Unlock Democracy, the Electoral Commission, leading academics and international experts all believe that automated registration using some government databases, as proposed by Amendment 59, is deliverable within two years.
Florence Eshalomi MP was sponsoring a timeline amendment to the Bill before her promotion to ministerial office. A commitment to a timeline or plan of some kind would represent an important statement of intent on the part of the Government. If automated registration is not in place by the time of the next election, it could be as long as 2034 before it took effect for a general election. How many of our fellow citizens would be effectively disfranchised in the meantime?
These amendments are designed to support the Government’s goals. I hope, therefore, that even if my noble friend cannot accept them, she will give a commitment to bring forward a timetable herself, preferably before Report, so that noble Lords can consider it.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, I agree with the point my noble friend makes about urgency, but I rise very briefly to support Amendment 52, to which I have added my name. It is virtually the same as an amendment I moved to the Higher Education and Research Bill, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said, in 2017. At the time, my amendment was adopted at Report. I then had negotiations with the Government and I agreed to a compromise, which was rather weaker than my original amendment. The compromise was to introduce guidance to ensure that electoral officers were encouraged to share data with universities, so that students could easily be registered, thus maximising the number of young people voting and ensuring that students could vote when an election took place during term time.
At some universities, students are semi-automatically registered when they register at university, but it is certainly not happening at every university. It should be mandatory at every university, hence my support for this amendment. I have one question for my noble friend the Minister. When automatic registration comes in, will a student automatically be registered both at their home and at their university? They have the option to vote in either and it is important that they are registered in both places as soon as possible.
Lord Udny-Lister (Con)
My Lords, my Amendment 47 seeks safeguards that would require the verification of nationality and immigration status before an individual is automatically added to the electoral register.
I fully recognise and uphold the importance of ensuring that every person who is legally entitled to vote should have the uninterrupted opportunity to register and to participate fully in our democratic process. That is a fundamental right and has long distinguished us internationally. There is an equally important principle, however, which I fear risks being overlooked in this Bill—that only those who are legally entitled to vote should be entered on to the electoral register in the first place.
I fear that, left unamended, this part of the Bill will weaken the integrity of elections. Clause 17 introduces a significant change to our electoral arrangements. It would place a duty on electoral registration officers to register individuals automatically where certain conditions are met without those individuals having to make an application to register themselves. I recognise that there could be a potential administrative benefit in this, but it is for your Lordships to ask whether the safeguards accompanying this fundamental change are robust enough, especially on establishing nationality and immigration status.
In presenting Clause 17, the Government are attempting to allow for the modernisation of the system. I welcome that, but I caution that modernisation must never come at the expense of electoral integrity and that operational convenience must never take precedence over establishing voter eligibility. Therefore, through this amendment, I am seeking to introduce an additional safeguard that will require an electoral registration officer to positively verify that the person satisfies the relevant nationality requirements and, where applicable, the necessary immigration status before being registered.
The parliamentary franchise rightly extends to Irish citizens and qualifying Commonwealth citizens. Different nationality and residency requirements apply to other elections. An individual’s immigration status may determine whether they qualify for that registration. For example, a person may be lawfully resident in the United Kingdom in employment, paying taxes and accessing public services, without necessarily being entitled to vote in a particular election. That is not a criticism of the individual but simply a recognition that lawful residence and electoral entitlement are not the same thing. It is precisely why we must make sure that this Bill distinguishes between verifying someone’s identity and their electoral eligibility. A government database may confirm somebody’s name, address and date of birth. A national insurance number may assist in establishing identity. However, neither by itself necessarily establishes nationality or entitlement.
I have tabled this amendment as I am concerned that, as the Government move towards an automated system, we risk treating the existence of an administrative record as sufficient evidence of electoral eligibility. The Electoral Commission has emphasised that the success of registration will depend entirely on the accuracy and reliability of the underlying data, so that only eligible individuals are registered. Having been around the upper echelons of government and local government through much of my adult life, I must confess that an unquestioning faith in the accuracy of government-held data is something that I have not been able to acquire. This is not a question of the dedication of the many officials who maintain the system, but my experience over the years has taught me that our systems are far from infallible.
I also appreciate the responsibilities already placed upon the electoral registration officers. They have a mammoth task in maintaining the accuracy and completeness of the registers, often against a background of considerable administrative and financial pressure caused by a lack of local government funding. My amendment does not intend to place further obstacles in their path—quite the opposite. It would establish a statutory requirement, supported by prescribed evidence or information lawfully obtained from public authorities.
I would therefore be grateful if the Minister could address three questions. First, what arrangements would exist to distinguish between a person’s identity and their legal entitlement to vote when records are obtained from government departments and other public bodies? Secondly, will electoral registration officers have timely access to the information necessary to verify immigration status where it is relevant, and who will bear the administrative cost? Thirdly, what safeguards will prevent an individual being entered on to a register for an election in which they are not legally entitled to participate?
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the motivation of the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, is very important; it relates also to the earlier comments by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, on Amendment 51 about ensuring that eligibility is strictly adhered to. There can be nothing more destructive of democratic trust than believing that anyone is playing fast and loose with who is allowed to vote in an election. We have just sat through an incredibly complicated Statement about the various degrees of the new immigration status. That will have to be taken into account in terms of eligibility and we have to be confident that the system can cope with it.
In that spirit, I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, did us a real a favour earlier when he talked specifically about the nuts and bolts of how we deal with the fact that children will now be voting and they will not necessarily have at their fingertips the usual adult forms of ID, as he illustrated rather wittily and very well. I was rather disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, was so cynical that he saw these comments as somehow partisan. In fact, I thought that cynicism was itself rather partisan rather than anything else. It is really important, if you are going to extend the franchise in the way that we have been discussing, that you ensure that the franchise is strictly and absolutely foolproof and safe. One of the things that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said was that surely we want as many people to vote as possible. In that sense, you could just carry on expanding the franchise ever younger, or you could also say that anybody who happens to be wandering in can have—
Lord Rennard (LD)
I was absolutely crystal-clear that I meant all those people legally entitled to vote; “legally entitled” is very important and a part of the principle of everything I have argued for.
Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)
Clarification understood. Therefore, I ask the noble Lord to consider that the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, was trying to ensure that people who were entitled to vote were checked up on. The accusation was that he was somehow trying to limit the franchise and I was defending him in relation to that point.
I want to ask the Minister about something that was in a government amendment in an earlier group—we kind of run out of time but it relates to this—which is that registration officers will now have to obtain information, or will be given the right to obtain information, about 14 and 15 year-olds throughout the land and to retain that information for use when inviting them to then register to vote. I thought the point about any Government’s history—I am not making a sectarian point—of looking after data and keeping it safe was a point worth noting, especially if children’s data has been gathered up.
On registration officers collecting data, could the Minister say whether there will be any consideration of the suggestion from the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, about using national insurance numbers? I thought that was a really good suggestion, but I am really asking the Government whether they are open to detailed discussions on the nuts and bolts of how we are going to make this work in relation to both immigration status and the expanded franchise for 16 year-olds. Will there be an opportunity or are there plans to ensure that this is watertight?
To reiterate, if people believe that elections are happening that are not safe, with people being able to vote who have not been strictly checked on or are not registered, then it will undermine democracy. I know that that is the very opposite of what the Government aim.
Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)
My Lords, I will be very brief. I have signed three amendments in this group—Amendments 52, 59 and 67—that all address the issue of the “missing millions”. This phrase has been used multiple times in this debate; it is a real scar on our polity and a reflection of inequality in our society and in access to participation in the democratic process.
Very briefly on Amendment 52, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for her previous work in this area. It is really time to see this finally nailed on, as this amendment would.
I will focus particularly on the two amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. We suffer a great deal of distrust in our politics that comes from us having seen a great number of successive Governments’ Ministers saying, “Look, I’ve pulled a lever”, but everyone knew that that lever was not attached to anything. Promises were made and not delivered. Just two cases that particularly come to my mind are sustainable urban drainage systems, which were promised in planning but have still not been delivered; and the promise to exclude at least illegal deforestation from the supply chain has, again, still not been delivered.
We need to see the Government not just making promises but setting out a reasonable timeframe for delivery. As the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, said, Wales is showing that this can be done. That was an interesting cross-reference to our earlier debate on the ways in which the devolved nations can be a real model from which England can learn. It can save itself a great deal of work and effort by seeing what works and just copying it.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I have tabled a clause stand part notice on Clause 17 to try to understand the pros and cons of automatic voter enrolment. We had 48.2 million electors at the last election. About 3 million people registered in the month before the election happened, which is about 7% or about 4,500 per constituency, on average, but I am sure it differed. Speaking candidly, that included the person who is now the MP for Suffolk Coastal, who defeated me. They managed to declare themselves as resident in that constituency before they were on the electoral roll. So there is a point here about the real authenticity of the people who are registering, which is where I come to the pros and cons.
There is a lot to be said for not having a huge rush of people registering at the last moment, but there is also something about getting it right. I am conscious that the pilots of the automatic process in Wales saw an increase of between 2% and 8%. Admittedly, only a handful of parts of Wales were covered but, basically, 14,500 people were added through the automatic process and there was a lot of manual checking. I do not know the cost of that, and the Electoral Commission said that it would need to be evaluated based on that cost, but it is worth while trying to get a sense of what happens in a regular process around the country where people have second homes. A lot of second home owners get turned down if they apply in the normal way but not based on their principal residences. I will discuss students and children at boarding school in a different set of amendments, so will not get into the detail on this right now.
On the broader scale, in the review after the last election, an estimate of between 7 million and 8 million people had not registered. There is a law in this country that people are supposed to register, and the council can, if it so wishes, pursue them with a fine of £1,000 per person for not registering. I am not suggesting that councils are going to start trying to generate lots of money, although it feels like a lot of money could be generated if that were the case, but rather that we think about how we do this in a sensible way. That is why there is a sense of ambition—it is not overambition—but how accurate will it be?
Other amendments propose the DWP issuing information to electoral registration officers. I think that the amendment that refers to those issued in the last year being sent on is fine. Actually, HRMC is responsible for the national insurance database and is the overall guardian of that; what happens with the DWP is linked to what happens in HMRC. For example, for people who have not claimed child benefit, it does not happen and they end up going through a manual process to get a national insurance number. But the broader point here comes back to accuracy.
That leads on to the question of what is going to happen about who is entitled to vote in that place if we suddenly have a huge expansion of the electorate. Research has shown that it often becomes an issue if people have moved during the year and end up being registered in more than one place. How does that get resolved? When it comes to parliamentary voting, what is supposed to happen is that the only place where you are allowed to be registered is the principal place in which you live. There is very strict guidance from the Government and the Electoral Commission that this is the case for local registration officers. My concern is that what often happens in the rush at the end is that none of that is gone through, so we end up having a lot of people registering in places where, if they had registered in normal time, their registration might have been turned down because it was not their principal place of residence. There is a risk of overinflating the electorate.
What does that mean for the consideration of constituency boundaries—for example, in the Cities of London and Westminster constituency and in Leeds Central and Headingley? Of course, they often match up to university towns and places of transience where people might move. Things might change under the Renters’ Rights Act, but this is something that the Government need to think through.
I would be grateful to hear from the Minister what lessons the Government have learned from the Welsh Government pilots and how they intend to ensure accuracy. I think there is a case here of rushing to an outcome that, instead of improving democracy, could significantly undermine it. So, as I said, I would be grateful to hear what the Government are doing to manage the risks as well as big-up the benefits.
What guarantees will prevent personal information that is supplied to, for example, HMRC, the DWP or the DVLA from being disclosed to the electoral register? Who bears legal responsibility if somebody is incorrectly registered, omitted or, indeed, registered at an address where they are not entitled to vote? Will automatically created registrations at secondary addresses be excluded from constituency election calculations where appropriate? Most importantly of all, what level of erroneous registration would the Government consider acceptable? How will they measure that, and how will they address it?
This is why, on the surface, it might seem very convenient to have automatic voter registration, but when we are talking about integrity and, ultimately, who forms a parliamentary constituency and who forms a Government, a lot more detail needs to be had than what we have in the Bill.
Lord Hayward (Con)
My Lords, I shall follow on from my noble friend’s comments and pick up the question that the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, referred to earlier about double, if not treble, registration. The noble Baroness said that she hoped that all universities and academic centres will ensure that they have maximum registration of people resident in that town or city as voters. However, those people will have a home residence as well. Therefore, one is inflating the electoral roll in university cities to the disadvantage of those communities in other parts of the country that do not have university cities nearby.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, referred to boundary reviews and political advantage. I must admit that I enormously admire his comments about parliamentary boundaries in these circumstances. The places with high levels of student registration that will benefit under automatic registration are the big cities—the Londons, the Manchesters, the Birminghams. As he explained to his Lib Dem colleagues, come the next boundary review, there will be fewer constituencies in Somerset, Wiltshire, Dorset and other similar counties, such as Gloucestershire, a fair number of which, much to my chagrin, currently have rather large numbers of Liberal Democrat MPs.
I make the point quite seriously that, if one is going to include all those people who register for a second residence, one will be expanding the electoral rolls dramatically in London, Manchester and Birmingham to the disadvantage of the shire counties. I do not think that is an appropriate route to go down. There may be solutions where people register at their first home and their second residence is not included for, for example, parliamentary boundary revision, but we cannot have a position whereby large numbers of people are registered to the disadvantage of resident communities in neighbouring shire counties.
I make these comments on the basis that I have heard from a number of people, particularly the Liberal Democrats, that they want free and fair elections. Free elections are that people should be allowed to register to vote themselves—encouraged, yes, but they should have the freedom not to do so. The Bill goes through at inordinate length, saying, “Oh well, we’ll register everybody, and if you don’t want to be on the electoral roll you can deregister”. However, the process involved is pretty tortuous, and large numbers of people genuinely want to hide where they are for a whole series of reasons; I take, for example, abused women as a case in point. They are going to be on the electoral roll, and it will not be a case of, “We will take you off immediately”, because people will not know that they are on until they are notified that they are on.
That takes me to another point, which is that we have to register all these people so that we can improve turnout. Might it not be a good idea if politicians—and I include in that category noble Lords and those in the other Chamber—improved their reputation with the public at large so that those people want to turn out to vote?
Talking of which, the Government have a very good website where you can register to vote. I could walk out of this Chamber now and register immediately. People might wonder why I had nothing better to do, but on Saturday evening I actually went on that site. What astonished me was that 54 people had registered in the preceding few minutes. I challenge noble Lords to go on it on Christmas Day; they will be astonished by how many people register to vote on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. It is not that difficult.
My noble friend Lady Coffey referred just now to the fact that, in an election period, 2.8 million people registered to vote—it was just between 2.8 million and 2.9 million. The problem there was that some 40% of those people were already registered. One thing we have not done today is given enough credit to both the Public Bill Office here in the House of Lords, for the speed with which it has drafted and ordered our amendments, and the day-to-day work of returning officers around the country. I shall return to this subject at a later point, but those officers do a phenomenal job. If you have 2.8 million extra people registering to vote during an election, as I say, that seems to show it is not that difficult to do it—and, by the way, if all those students who are moving off to university are unable to go on to a website, I have a serious doubt about whether some of them should be at university in the first place.
The 40% of people who registered at the last election who were double-registered imposed an enormous burden on the returning officers. I have said over and over again that we should move to a read-only access process. In other words, if Robert Hayward wants to check whether he is on the electoral roll, he just goes on the website with his password and can check that he is there. Instead of that, because Governments of all persuasions have refused to introduce a read-only system, we impose a burden on returning officers which is unacceptable at the time of an election, when they are trying to administer all sorts of other things.
It is not difficult. We have been told by government and officials over and over again that it is an expensive and difficult process. Is it? Local authorities—
Lord Fuller (Con)
My noble friend has correctly highlighted how the process actually works if you go on the Government’s website, and so many of the district councils or other local councils which are registration authorities have their own skin in that same machine. When you type in your name, date of birth and national insurance number, the system goes automatically to HMRC and the DWP to validate you before you have even pressed the button; they will validate you almost immediately. I think the point my noble friend is making, which is absolutely correct, is that having this unique identifier—the national insurance number or some other method that might be defined by regulations—gives an absolutely unambiguous way of determining whether you have a duplication.
Lord Hayward (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his intervention, which was slightly longer than I had hoped for, since I want to keep to my time. As I say, there is a system; we were told it is impossible, but what have the Northern Irish done? They introduced a read-only system and have done that themselves. It operates effectively in Northern Ireland without any problem.
These massive changes are, I believe, unnecessary—although, yes, they were advertised—and without great benefit. I will quote now from the impact assessment, to which I may return on another occasion. On page 113 it says that
“we assume that the completeness of registers will increase by 3 percentage points (from 85.9% to 88.9%) by the end of the 10-year … period”.
Are we going through all these changes for that?
In conclusion, I must pick up the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, on his comments about my support for automatic registration. I believed that I had made it absolutely clear that I support it for attainers, whatever age they may happen to be, because I want to introduce them to the democratic system. Thereafter, I do not support automatic registration for that very small gain.
Lord Pack (LD)
My Lords, we have heard two interesting contrasting themes in this group. Some of us are very keen on automatic voter registration and want to see it introduced sooner and better. Others are nervous about the potential implications of automatic voter registration. I think it is worth starting with a recap of the reasons why something like automatic voter registration is required, particularly as the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, eloquently put the case against.
In part, it is because making good use of data is, when done well, an effective way of improving services and reducing administrative burdens. It is worth contrasting how a registration process would start under AVR with the current system. Several noble Lords have expressed concerns about how a database might result in registrations flowing from that data. However, under the current system anyone can request and be sent a paper form that they can fill in, without having to provide a national insurance number. That, under our existing system, is enough to start the process rolling for registration. If we are relying on the right, good-quality datasets, that is a much more secure starting point than anyone being able to request a paper form that anyone could fill in. It is also worth bearing in mind that the current system was very well described by one of the international experts in elections we are lucky to have in this country: Professor Toby James. He called it a
“Victorian system in need of repair”.
I think this Bill’s efforts to repair it are very welcome.
A good example of that is the surge in registration applications we typically have in the run-up to a general election. The Electoral Commission’s latest research estimated that between 7 million and 8 million people are either missing from the electoral register or registered at the wrong address. There is a substantial problem that needs addressing. We have heard that in the run-up to a general election there is a surge in applications; for example, last time, there was a surge of nearly 3 million. As was rightly pointed out, many of those were duplicate applications. When you strip those out from the numbers and compare that with the 7 million or 8 million missing and wrong addresses on the register, even the general election surge is not getting us that far towards fixing the problem.
Action is needed. Of course, we should not therefore think that any action is wise. But I hope, therefore, we will hear positive noises from the Government, particularly on Amendments 49, 50 and 52 from my noble friends Lord Rennard, Lord Wallace and Lady Thornhill, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Bennett, all of which in different ways would improve the supply of data into the system.
My Amendment 58 would provide ward-level data, which I think is important, particularly with local government reorganisation increasing the size of many councils. Council-level data will not tell us how well or how badly registration systems are working in future; we need that data at ward level. We need it to understand how the system is working. We need it for researchers and experts to figure out whether the promises are being delivered. We need it for the campaigners, of all parties and none, who are trying to improve involvement and engagement with democracy, to be able to see where their efforts are most needed. We need it for media, and indeed for us politicians, to be able to understand how systems are working.
I turn to some of the other amendments in this group. On Amendment 8 from the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, I must admit I am not convinced by the case that the noble Lord made. Under the current system, with a voting age of 18, we register attainers with some aged 16 and most aged 17. The current system is that some people who are two years below the age for voting get registered as attainers. That is because of the use of the 1 December cut-off date and the following one-year window, which means that some people may be more than one year away and need to be in the records.
If we are changing 18 to 16, it seems absolutely sensible that 17 and 16 should, in turn, also get reduced by two years to 15 and 14. Therefore, with respect, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, would achieve the opposite of what he argued for. We have an existing system that is well established, that people are used to using and that works; by reducing the years across the board, we are essentially transferring the existing system over to the new voting age, rather than creating a new system that would not work with the 1 December window and following 12-month period.
Baroness O'Neill of Bexley (Con)
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 48 and 63 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Jamieson, and address the wider concerns raised by amendments in this group. The fundamental question before us is not whether electoral registration should be accessible—of course it should be; it is, as a number of colleagues have referenced tonight, whether the Government’s proposals for automatic registration will maintain the accuracy and integrity of the electoral register.
Individual electoral registration was introduced to ensure that people were properly identified, and responsibility for registration rested with the individual. Some areas have been particularly successful in ensuring a good level of registration. The Government have now proposed to move away from that principle without having demonstrated that automatic registration will provide equivalent safeguards. Therefore, Amendment 48 would require a person’s existence to be verified against three separate datasets before they are automatically registered. My noble friend Lord Fuller earlier referenced my own surname and the variance you can get in different registers. Some databases do not acknowledge apostrophes, and they certainly cannot cope with two capital letters allied with one another. Therefore, for a fairly simple name, as I would think it, you get different variations coming out. It is important to recognise that not all databases are the same.
This is a modest safeguard against what is a substantial change. Government databases contain errors, and this is particularly prevalent in areas with high population turnover, including student accommodation and the private rented sector. This could lead to postal and proxy voter fraud. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, referenced students at university, and she is absolutely right, but you can go one step further: would it be the university building, the halls of residence or wherever their accommodation is? There are a number of variants that could cause issues.
An inaccurate register is not simply an administrative inconvenience; it creates an unnecessary risk for the integrity of the entire voting process. There is a possibility that certain parts of the electorate could vote twice in the same election by virtue of having two different registered addresses, or indeed even more. In short, this Bill creates unnecessary risks for the integrity of the polling process. Therefore, can the Minister tell us precisely which databases will be used for automatic registration? How will their accuracy be assessed? Why do the Government consider verification through fewer than three independent datasets sufficient?
We believe that the EROs should have access to database information, and I agree with my noble friend Lord Hayward that it is certainly a profession that should be called out, given EROs’ professionalism and the extent of their service. That is worth putting on record. Most importantly, will electoral registration officers retain the discretion to refuse automatic voter registration where necessary—for example, if information is incomplete or contradictory, as I have said?
Amendment 63 would make it clear that the proposed voter registration pilot powers cannot be used to alter the franchise for parliamentary or English local elections. There is an important distinction between determining how an eligible person is registered and determining who is entitled to vote. The latter should be decided through primary legislation and full parliamentary scrutiny, not merely through powers designed to test administrative arrangements. Will the Minister confirm that these pilots will not extend or alter voter eligibility?
If automatic registration is introduced in some areas and not in others, registration figures may cease to be comparable and may then be arbitrarily based on some parts of the population. Does this not seek to prioritise some parts of the population over others and test only their opinion rather than the whole electorate? This could distort the 2029 parliamentary boundary review and the 2028 mayoral elections. Can the Government guarantee that pilot locations and selection criteria will be published and their effects independently evaluated?
I welcome my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister’s amendment, which rightly seeks to address the verification of nationality and immigration status. That is essential. Possession of a national insurance number or inclusion in a government database does not in itself establish your entitlement to vote. The rules governing qualifying Commonwealth and EU citizens are not straightforward, and an automated system must be capable of applying them correctly. Can the Minister explain what steps the Government are taking to ensure that checks will be undertaken against Home Office records before an individual is registered? Who will be accountable when an ineligible person is added? Will it be the Secretary of State?
These questions were echoed by my noble friend Lord Jackson, who proposes that automatic registration should be restricted to British citizens. There are practical concerns. Does the Minister accept this, and will she consider these sensible amendments? Moreover, my noble friend Lord Fuller highlights that, if votes are introduced at 16, younger voters who are registered at 15 will not meet the national insurance criteria. Can the Minister tell us how their identity will be verified where national insurance information is unavailable? My noble friend referenced the manual intervention required and how many hours’ extra work that might need for validation.
The amendments concerning implementation tables, information sharing and independent assessment also deserve careful consideration. The Government’s own impact assessment anticipates only a limited improvement in register completeness over several years, while significant costs associated with the necessary computer system remain uncertain. Can the Minister provide an estimate of the full cost to the local authorities, including software, staff training, data checking and correcting erroneous entries? Who will bear those costs? I appreciate that the Minister may not have all the answers with her today, so I would accept a response in writing.
The objective should not simply be to produce a larger electoral register; a register containing more names with the risk of more errors does not represent progress. Administrative convenience should not take precedence over proper determination of electoral eligibility. Amendments 48 and 63 seek to establish two essential protections: reliable verification before automatic registration and a clear constitutional limit on the use of pilot powers. I hope that the Minister will address these concerns in detail, because public confidence in our elections depends not only on participation but on the integrity of the system through which the participation takes place.
Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Wilson of Sedgefield) (Lab)
My Lords, it has been a really useful debate, with a lot of technical questions. I will do my best to get through them all. I will start with Amendments 8 and 9, which would change the age at which individuals can register to vote to 15 and change the age at which national insurance numbers are issued.
We all agree that no young person should miss the opportunity to participate in an election for the first time because there was insufficient time to be correctly registered to vote. By extending the age of registration to 14, this two-year window of registration ahead of turning 16 allows for enhanced links between the classroom and active engagement in our democracy, beginning with the act of registering to vote. I recognise the noble Lord’s concern that 14 and 15 year-olds will not yet have their national insurance numbers—and I understand the issue of 15 years and nine months—but national insurance numbers are automatically allocated to most young people in the UK before the age of 16. This age is set in line with the age at which young people become liable to pay national insurance contributions and the creation of an adult taxpayer record. I assure the Committee that we will put in place an alternative mechanism using central government data in England to ensure that 14 and 15 year-olds are able to proceed effectively through the registration service. I hope, therefore, that the noble Lord will not press these amendments.
On Amendment 47, I share the determination that only those who are eligible should be registered. I assure the Committee that, as set out in the Bill, EROs must be satisfied that the person is entitled to be registered to vote before they are registered without an application. That includes assurances that they hold eligible nationality and, where relevant, immigration status.
What data will the Government use as part of the measures to improve voter registration? I think the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, mentioned this. As set out in the Government’s policy paper A Blueprint for Modern Digital Government, technology presents us with the opportunity to improve the way in which government delivers for the public. In line with this vision, our ambition is to transform our electoral registration system, enabling EROs to use data available to them to move towards an automated system so that voters can easily register to vote and keep their registration details updated. We are exploring whether government data could also help to identify people who may not be registered, and we are working closely with the Information Commissioner’s Office to ensure that appropriate safeguards will be in place.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
Can the Minister give way on that matter? I ask because the Electoral Commission, in its evaluation of the Welsh Government’s pilot, said that it should be a minimum of two databases. I am interested to hear why the Government have not at least taken notice of what the Electoral Commission has to say.
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
We are saying here that we do not want to legislate for a minimum number of datasets that should be used to determine someone’s existence. The level of assurance provided by a dataset will depend on its quality and the information it contains. In some cases, one or two robust datasets may provide sufficient evidence that individuals are entitled to be registered, but others may not. Requiring EROs to consult additional datasets in every case could therefore impose unnecessary administrative burdens without improving confidence in the outcome. I hope that this assurance shows the Committee that the Government are fully committed to maintaining the integrity of the electoral register and that the noble Lords will feel able not to press their amendments.
I welcome the intention behind Amendment 49. The Government are committed to working towards making better use of data across government for registration purposes, but we do not believe that creating a new obligation for the Department for Work and Pensions is necessary or that it would achieve the desired outcome. We intend to utilise the powers in the Bill to make regulations to facilitate the sharing of data between government bodies and to assist EROs in carrying out their functions on the basis of agreed data-sharing arrangements. As part of this, we are exploring the use of DWP data.
MHCLG already has a successful agreement in place with the DWP to check the identity of individuals applying to register to vote, and we are exploring the potential to make greater use of DWP data for registration purposes. However, we know that the DWP’s database, including national insurance data, does not hold all the data required to determine eligibility for registration. Therefore, we could not rely solely on the DWP data. For those reasons, the Government do not think this proposal is the right way forward.
Lord Jamieson (Con)
I just have some questions, which are to help purely with my understanding. We are talking about auto-enrolment and auto-registration, which effectively means that we have an electronic system which will review a series of databases and will then throw out that, for example, Fred Smith should be eligible to vote in this area. In order for it to do that, the Government are going to have to programme the system, and the guidelines will be within the system. It cannot be up to the electoral registration officer to have a whole load of data thrown at them which they have to manually trawl through.
The Minister does not necessarily have to answer me today, but it would be quite helpful to have a flowchart showing how the Government envisage the auto-enrolment working, with the data coming in and the information the system throws out that the electoral returning officer will then have to review. The Minister is making comments about the electoral returning officer not being certain, but he or she can only be certain based on the information fed into the database and the information received out of it. I appreciate all the statements the Minister has made, but I find that flow-through a little bit hard to understand. I think it would be very helpful for Members of the House if they had that guidance.
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
We are working on the guidance. At the same time, we are going to set off with a whole series of pilots to work out what works and what does not, and how we can improve it. If noble Lords look at other countries, such as Canada, they started the whole process of automatic enrolment in the 1990s and they are improving the system all the time. At the end of the day, if there is a problem, the EROs can make the final decisions if they think the information they are going to base decisions on is not accurate enough.
On Amendment 50, we have explored the possibility of using the occasion of issuing national insurance numbers to teenagers when they are approaching their 16th birthday as an opportunity to register them to vote. However, I understand that nationality is not routinely recorded against all entries in the DWP data. In addition, not all young people are on the DWP database—for example, due to having been in care or their parents not having applied for child benefit. In line with the powers proposed in the Bill, individuals will also need to be of voting age—which for reserved elections is currently 18 and soon to be 16—before they can be added to the register without submitting an application, once the relevant provisions are in effect. For these reasons, while sympathetic to the intention, the Government have serious concerns about the effectiveness of this approach.
Amendment 51 prevents non-British citizens who are eligible to register to vote from being registered without an application or their entry being altered without an application. Amendment 62 also seeks to extend this exclusion to any pilots of registration without application. The Government have no plans to change the eligibility criteria for who can register to vote in reserved elections. We also do not think it would be fair to establish an automated voter registration system in which some eligible citizens cannot be directly registered or their details directly updated.
Amendment 52 would require higher and further education providers in England to share data with electoral registration officers to enable young electors to be registered. This Government are committed to supporting more university and college students being registered to vote. Under the powers in the Bill, we plan to test registration without an application using locally available data in a number of areas around the UK. The Electoral Commission will then review the effectiveness of the new approaches tested.
As part of this, electoral registration officers will be able to enter into data-sharing agreements with higher and further education providers in their local area so as to identify eligible individuals who are unregistered or who have moved. Further detail will be set out in secondary legislation and in guidance. I hope that provides reassurance to noble Lords.
On Clause 17, I note the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, intend to oppose Clause 17 standing part of the Bill. Voter registration is core to our democratic system. It is right that changes to voter registration be carefully scrutinised and assessed. Direct registration, alongside other measures, will support the objective of improving the completeness and accuracy of electoral registers. Together with Clause 18—which will create a new duty for EROs to update people’s personal details in the electoral register when they are aware that these have changed—these changes have the potential to reduce the estimated 7 million to 8 million people who are unregistered or inaccurately registered, a figure that has been used more than once today.
Direct registration also has the long-term potential to reduce burdens on EROs, who should need to spend less time following up with individuals who have not responded to invitations to register to vote.
In using data for direct registration, EROs must be assured that the person is eligible to be registered to vote. Those who will be directly registered will be informed and have the right to opt out of the process during a response period. Particular categories of elector, such as anonymous electors, will also be exempt.
I hope noble Lords will be reassured that direct registration will at first be tested in pilots in a number of areas. This will be in different locations and settings, with different characteristics and challenges. We are working with the Electoral Commission to develop the assessment criteria and ensure a wide range of different areas can participate. I appreciate the interest of the noble Baroness and others in voter registration, and I recognise the importance of getting this right. The Bill—and secondary legislation—will lay the foundations for more automated voter registration in safe and responsible ways.
I recognise the intention behind Amendment 58, which seeks to promote transparency around the operation of the electoral registration system. It is in support of that objective that substantial information on voter registration is already made publicly available. Noble Lords may be aware that the public may easily access information on registration applications at the online register to vote performance dashboard. These arrangements already provide a significant degree of transparency regarding applications to register to vote, while recognising that applications are determined by registration officers who are statutorily responsible for maintaining the register for the area for which they are responsible. The amendment would also permit the publication of information at ward level. However, the Secretary of State does not hold registration data at that level of granularity and would therefore not be able to publish the information envisaged by the amendment.
I welcome the enthusiastic support of the noble Baronesses, Lady Lister of Burtersett and Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for the cause of automated voter registration through their Amendment 59. I reassure noble Lords that the Government are committed to moving to more automated registration, and we are putting the necessary foundations in place through the Bill. I assure the Committee that officials are working closely with counterparts at the Home Office, the Passport Office, DWP and HMRC to explore data sharing in support of more automated registration. However, these are extremely complex new approaches, and we will need to be certain we have the right arrangements in place and that we have tested those very robustly before they are rolled out widely. Setting a firm deadline in primary legislation, before we can be certain that we will be ready, would not, in my view, be the best way to secure the progress that we all wish to see.
On Amendment 61, our plans for voter registration without application are about making registration simpler and easier. These are significant reforms and we need to test them to ensure we get them right. We hope pilots will commence soon after the necessary legislation is in effect. The Electoral Commission will undertake an independent review to inform decisions about wider implementation, so there will be a significant degree of external evaluation of the new approach. The Boundary Commissions for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are independent of government. The timings of parliamentary boundary reviews are set by legislation, which the Government have no plans to change. Amendment 61’s commitment to ensuring all eligible voters can participate and are appropriately represented in our democratic process is one I share, but I do not believe a further independent review is needed.
On Amendment 63, if the concern is that these powers could be used to alter who is entitled to register and vote, I assure the Committee that this is not the case. Clause 20 of the Bill creates a new power for the Secretary of State to make regulations to pilot changes to the voter registration process. Those powers are carefully defined and are limited to what the Bill describes as “voter registration provision”.
The Bill goes on to make clear what falls within that definition at Clause 21. It is made clear that this is limited to provision about registering individuals who are entitled, under existing franchise eligibility criteria, to be registered. It also allows for existing register entries to be amended or removed. Crucially, it does not provide a mechanism to alter the eligibility criteria for registration.
Amendment 67 would require the Secretary of State to publish a plan for implementing Part 2 of the Bill within two months of this part of the Bill coming into force. I agree with and share the goal that we must move as fast as possible. I am sure that the House will welcome the news that more information about the direct registration pilots will be published shortly. This will include further information about how the pilots will work in practice and the prospective timetable.
Lord Hayward (Con)
The Minister just referred to pilots. I ask this question out of genuine ignorance; I am not trying to make a point. Can he provide us with details about the level of accuracy that the Northern Ireland register now has, given that its process of read-only access has been in operation for some two years?
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
That is not a figure that I have to hand, to be fair. We will look into that and get back to the noble Lord.
I am pleased to reassure noble Lords that our plan is for secondary legislation on the direct registration pilots to be introduced quickly after the Bill comes into force. Under the Bill, there is a statutory requirement for the Electoral Commission to evaluate the effectiveness of the pilots after they have finished.
With that, I thank noble Lords for the spirit and intention of their amendments; I hope that this information reassures them.
Lord Rennard (LD)
I am trying to get in my mind why it is that the things around automatic voter registration that the Minister and his colleagues supported in opposition are now considered not to be so practical. I note his point that the DWP data is not sufficient to include somebody on the electoral register. But, under the present arrangements, either online or by paper, you give your name, address and national insurance number—and hey presto, you are registered. I am not sure there is such a barrier now—but if there is, surely the only bit of data required is to confirm that you are a UK citizen. Since the Government must know who is a UK citizen, if you have their name, address and national insurance number and you know they are a UK citizen, you should simply put people on the electoral register.
To help the Minister answer the questions he has been asked about costs, I say that this will be a great cost-saving exercise compared with many forms being printed and sent out in the expensive post, and human beings having to go round door to door doing this. We could cut costs considerably if we sped this up.
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
What we want to do is to get this right and to keep the costs to a minimum. We have said that we are looking extensively at all the databases at the Passport Office, the DVLA, HMRC and the DWP, and we want to get this right. My assessment of this is that it is not straightforward—it can be difficult—but we want to make it as efficient as possible, because it will save money in the long run if we have an automated system that delivers what we want to see: a vibrant democracy.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
I would be grateful if the Minister could look at some of the questions that I asked, which I do not think he has had a chance to answer, and write to me.
Lord Fuller (Con)
My Lords, it is late, so I will be brief, especially as the new guidance in the Companion tells me to be so. I was confused by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard; he first stood up to excoriate me and then his Amendment 50 proposed something like the same. Nevertheless, there are no hard feelings, which is why I have moved towards him, because I sense that we are as one on the national insurance issue.
I am concerned by the Minister’s winding, because it has become clear for the first time that so much of the foundations of the democracy that our society depends on is to be left to secondary legislation: “Don’t worry, it’s going to be all right”. I heard no reassurance from the Dispatch Box on how we will deal with the 14 and 15 year-old attainers, although I listened carefully to what he said about everybody else. He is placing impossible burdens on the electoral registration officers.
I suggest that that the Minister needs to spend time not only with those officers but possibly with some of the participants in this debate. It is clear—I am in danger of sounding like the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—that no consideration was given to this in the other place, and this is the House of Lords at its best.
I am really concerned about all the unintended consequences here, whether it be with regard to identification, as my noble friend Lord Jackson said, or on immigration status. I am concerned about the number of duplicates and the different spellings of the name O’Neill, for example—and is that one L or two? What is the role of the Electoral Commission? We will deal with some of these issues. Ultimately, however, we need to be concerned about the integrity of the register.
I hope that the Minister will commit here and now to having follow-up meetings on a cross-party basis with those who have participated in this debate so that we can thrash this out. What we have had up until now is a recipe for disaster on Report unless more clarification is given. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Coffey
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, and another in the name of Baroness Coffey, removes exemptions for child voters regarding various duties of election and registration officials.
Baroness Coffey (Con)
My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 11, then I also have a more general debate on whether Schedule 1 should stand part.
That last debate was fascinating. I have already heard people ask why unelected Peers are interested about elections when we do not get elected to this place. Of course we care, because we care about democracy. I know that several Peers are also elected as councillors and to other legislatures. Indeed, we are concerned to try to make sure that we get this right.
Building on from the previous debate—I appreciate that the Minister said that he would look through it and then write to me on various matters—a response to a Question I asked basically said that the Government do not hold all these different things, so they cannot effectively know whether people are misregistering or voting in more than one place and the like. To some extent, they should. However, an important thing, as has just been articulated, is to make sure that the electoral register is correct and authentic. That is why I raised my concerns about this schedule, in particular, if people are looking, about paragraphs 4 to 6 on page 129 of the Bill and then paragraph 11 on the following page. Indeed, I will refer more broadly to Amendment 12 and its proposed new paragraph 21(3) on page 5, which we have already debated and are due to agree to.
Where I am going with this is that we need to make sure that the register is as authentic as possible, yet the Government have said that, for safeguarding reasons, lots of canvassing cannot be done if somebody is under the age of 16—they are blocking it out. I understand the broader issues about that, but it is the Government’s desire to introduce voting at the age of 16 in all the elections across the United Kingdom, and it is specially reserved. Therefore, we need to make sure that the people going on that electoral roll are genuine, and that is the whole point of canvass. Canvass is largely focused on households which do not return the registration—that is canvassers’ principal role. I do not mean canvassers as in party-political canvassers but people working on behalf of the electoral registration officer to try to get as complete a register as possible. However, it is also to check and validate people who are in that residence and who have registered to vote.
At the moment, it is not clear to me how soon we will be in a situation where the automatic registration will have happened, based on our current debate, but it feels like it will be possible for young people to register far more quickly—and who knows when the next election will be? Therefore, I do not understand why the Government are ruling out the opportunity for registration officers to make house-to-house inquiries regarding somebody who has put themselves forward to register on the electoral roll simply because they are under the age of 16.
I am conscious that there are plenty of vulnerable people on the electoral roll—people of no fixed abode, anonymous electors, a whole series of people who could be deemed “vulnerable”. I understand the broader point, but electoral registration officers and the people whom they employ should be trusted to deal with such sensitive matters or, if necessary, we could turn this into a regulated activity, which would mean that it became eligible for a DBS check. This comes back to the integrity of the electoral roll. That is why the canvass should be included.
I am not so focused on paragraph 5; I am more concerned with the paragraph 6, which states:
“A requirement under subsection (4) may not be imposed on a person under the age of 16 in relation to registration”.
I am also concerned that paragraph 11 provides that provision
“may not authorise or require a registration officer taking steps in relation to a register of parliamentary electors … to visit a particular address in order to speak to a person under the age of 16”.
I am particularly concerned about the proposed new paragraph 21(3), which would be inserted by government Amendment 12, which does not include the power to make inquiries. The question is: why not? Why is it that something that is as precious as having the opportunity to vote in a general election does not come with an opportunity for that to be validated?
How people get added to the electoral roll concerns me. The whole point of the electoral registration officer is that they must be satisfied—we heard that extensively in the last debate—and now, all of a sudden, we are expected to take somebody’s word for it that X, Y or Z can be added to the electoral roll without any validation whatever if they purport to be of that age. My question to the Government is: why?
Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)
My Lords, I have three amendments in this group. Amendments 124 and 128 are essentially probing amendments. The other is of much more significance and import in terms of protecting the integrity of our electoral system. I will elucidate on that a little later. I will be as quick as I can.
Amendment 124 concerns the commencement of counting at local elections. A bugbear for a number of us over the years has been an increasing tendency for returning officers to delay the commencement of counting, particularly in local government elections, until the following day. It is understandable when you have a very significant local election. For the Greater London Authority election of a directly elected mayor for a world city of 9 million people, it probably does take longer to put the arrangements in place. However, most recently at the May 2026 local elections, only 46 out of 136 local authorities were scheduled to count and declare results overnight.
We have talked about the size of the country. The UK is a relatively small country. We are not talking about an Australian-style parliamentary seat, which is the equivalent of the length or width of three countries; we are talking about relatively small geographical areas in which to collect ballot boxes from polling places.
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, Amendment 125 in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Thornhill would insert a new clause to confer on the Secretary of State statutory powers to establish pilot schemes for flexible voting options. We worry that low turnout in general elections, which was less than 60% in 2024, is caused, in part, because it is easy for people who are retired or not working to vote on a particular Thursday, but harder for other people to vote then. That is why we want to extend the ways in which people can cast their vote and, we hope, increase participation.
People who are busy working, or are working shifts, long hours or with long commutes, or those who have caring responsibilities or who are looking after children, do not find it so convenient to vote, and we believe they may be discriminated against. Our amendment would establish a few possibilities, on which we would like to see more controlled, evidence-based innovation. We are aware that the Electoral Commission is carrying out a number of pilots. In particular, we would like to see an extension of advanced voting in the days preceding the main polling day. We would like to see additional polling days, in particular weekend voting, which I do not think is being piloted anywhere. On weekends, people with families and those who still have Monday to Friday jobs may have much greater flexibility.
Community voting hubs situated in accessible, busy locations could help, as could different polling stations, allowing voters choice over where they can vote within their electoral district. Transportable or mobile polling stations could bring the ballot box directly to underserved rural communities or into care environments. Flexible voting is a modernising necessity, but it would require some other changes to the way in which we conduct elections, in particular by-elections and general elections, which can be called at short notice.
The Electoral Commission is seeing some pilots at the moment. We believe that they should go further in scope and at a faster speed. We would like to see these schemes evaluated, but we also need the commission to consider whether to extend the election timetable.
There is a problem with postal voting; perhaps 26% of the votes in the last general election were cast by post. If early voting is used—say, 10 days before the normal polling day—many votes would be cast at a halfway point in the election campaign. If we move to alternative methods of voting, we will need to consider again the election timetable, to ensure that electoral registration officers can conduct the process fairly, safely and securely, and that voters have sufficient time after the calling of a by-election or general election to consider the issues before they have to cast their votes.
Baroness Thornhill (LD)
My Lords, I will be brief in speaking to Amendment 125—I will chop out a large paragraph—in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Rennard, and then talk to Amendments 136 and 124, in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Walney and Lord Jackson of Peterborough, respectively.
Amendment 125 is a modest amendment and a sensible proposal. My reason for supporting it was to share with noble Lords my experiences during my time in local government in Watford, where we participated in a number of electoral pilots. We had a very go-ahead ERO, so we piloted voting in supermarkets and weekend voting, alongside other things.
Some of those approaches worked better than others, and not every innovation produced the increase in turnout that we had all hoped for. In fact, one pilot involved voting at the weekend, after the whole country had already cast its ballots. It felt distinctly odd that everyone seemed to be discussing the results before we had even voted. It did not work, but we did it and we learned from it and that is the important point that my noble friend made. That is why pilots matter—they allow us to test assumptions against reality. We should be more eager to try them, rather than finding lots of reasons to stick with the status quo.
On Amendment 124 from the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, I absolutely understand the attraction of overnight counts. Those of us who have stood for election know the adrenaline rush and, indeed, have felt the frustration of going to bed without knowing the result and probably not sleeping. I have certainly felt that myself. For us, the whole count experience is a buzz and an important occasion, which definitely feels diluted the next day. But we should be honest: the main beneficiaries of immediate counts are not the voters, who are all tucked up in bed; they are the campaigners, candidates and commentators. The people who have to make it happen are our election officers, council staff and many casual workers, many of whom have already worked a very long day, especially since the hours have been extended. We have had counts going on well into the night—more so when we have not had enough people, meaning fewer people have had to count more votes, which makes it quite challenging.
There was a period when we had this argument every single year, until we came to an understanding of what worked for us. That is what my argument is leading to. Different councils face different staffing, logistical and financial pressures. Even the geographical location of where they are counting can be an impediment to counting at 3 am. On what we need to do about this, our instincts are to trust EROs and local returning officers, who often discuss this with the party-political agents—as they should—to make the right decision for their own circumstances. That can vary from year to year and election to election.
There can be compromises. We have verified on the night and counted the next day. A good counting agent can tell a lot from the verification, even if it is done face down. In short, our view is that it is not an issue for central diktat.
I have sympathy with Amendments 129 and 136. I am disappointed that the noble Lord, Lord Walney, is not in his place—I am sure there is a good reason—because I would have liked to have heard his views, as he has worked on this. The concerns raised by the noble Lord, Lord Jackson, are not theoretical. I have seen occasions outside polling stations where behaviour has crossed the line from legitimate campaigning to outright intimidation and aggression. I have seen it very often against women. Sometimes it has required police involvement. That is wrong, whoever is responsible. What may appear to some as merely political disagreement can in reality be an attempt to influence voters through pressure and coercion.
As a liberal, what concerns me most of all is any assumption that people should vote in a particular way just because they belong to a particular family, faith, community or ethnic group. Democracy does not work like that. The ballot paper belongs to an individual voter, and the choice belongs to that individual voter. No faith, family, community leader or political party owns that vote. This is not about any one religion or community. Pressure can arise in many different settings. We have seen recent examples of this around the world—organised efforts by religious leaders to influence voting behaviour. The principle is the same wherever it occurs.
The concern underlying these amendments is a legitimate one. Every voter, regardless of background, belief or circumstance, should be able to enter that little polling station and go into that booth with the stubby pencil the Minister referred to and know that the decision they make is theirs alone. That is a principle worth defending.
Lord Wilson of Sedgefield (Lab)
This seems a convenient time to pause proceedings for the day. I therefore beg to move that the debate on this amendment be adjourned.